- Theology and Identity
- Season 1
- Episode 5
- Airdate: 15 December 2023
- Please note this is a script, and not a transcript. There may be slight differences between this text and the actual broadcast.
- All Bible quotations taken from the English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016)
Audio Links:
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I’m David Clark. I lecture in Theology at the university of Roehampton in London. The title of the podcast is Theology and Identiy. In this current series, we’re utilising the hermeneutical framework of narrative theology, to explor the OT, seeking to better understand the interaction between Israel’s beliefs about God and the way they understood themselves.
In this current episode, we’re asking the question: What did it mean to be ‘saved’ in the OT?
We find ourselves in the book of 1 Samuel. We know that YHWH has called the people of Israel to live in covenant relationship with him, so that through them the nations can receive the blessing that was promised to Abraham.
The only problem that we’ve seen so far is that the people of Israel are having a really hard time keeping that covenant. In fact, they’re not even close. So the question has arisen: will a king be the answer? And now as we’re working our way through the text - the question is: Will Saul be the answer? Will he be the kind of leader that will unite the 12 tribes and bring about spiritual renewal in the land?
This is what we the readers are hoping to see. And I think we would all agree that if Saul is going to be that man who leads Israel back to covenant faithfulness, then he better be a godly man himself, right? He can’t lead others on the path of righteousness if he’s not also walking it out.
So this is where we get to a really interesting question about the Theology of the OT. What did it really mean to be ‘saved’ or ‘right with God’ in Old Testament thought?
Lets begin by what it didn’t mean.
First of all, it had nothing to do with the idea of going to heaven. In fact, at this moment in Israel’s history, they’re not really sure what happens after you die. They haven’t really articulated the idea of resurrection. There’s certainly no concept of eternal life in God’s presence or eternal suffering in hell. We’ll come back to this in a later podcast, but for now we’ll just note that in early Hebrew thought, being ‘saved’ – at this moment in their theological development - was not about the hope of going to heaven.
Second, if you were born into the twelve tribes of Israel, there was really no apparatus for personal conversion. Being a member of the chosen people of Israel wasn’t something that came by a personal decision or a commitment. You were just born into it. If you were a male, you of course would be circumcised as symbol of belonging to a covenant people. But this wasn’t considered a moment of salvation. Your membership in the nation of the ‘elect’ came automatically to you, by birth, as a descendent of Abraham.
So if it wasn’t about going to heaven and it wasn’t about following certain ‘steps’ to get saved – what did it mean to ‘saved’ among the people of Israel? Was the emphasis just on keeping the rules of the Torah, or was there a more subjective, personal element of having relationship with God?
The answer is that the idea of personal relationship with YHWH did exist. We’ve seen this, for example in the story of Moses – where the text says that he knew God face to face. But the question we want to pursue is: how exactly did someone obtain this level of personal relationship? And how did they lose it? What we’ll discover is that there are beautiful nuances and subtleties in Hebrew religious thought. And the story of Saul really provides some interesting insights.
So lets look at his life.
When the narrative of Saul begins, we the readers have a favourable impression of him. When the prophet Samuel told him he would be king, he protested that he was a nobody, and he didn’t deserve this honour.
In ch 10, As Samuel anointed him, he said : ‘Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies.[1]
Samuel then prophesied that Saul would receive a sign of the Lord’s favour upon him. He said that on his way home he would meet a group of prophets.
‘6 Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. 7 Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you.[2]
The narrative in ch 10 then concludes: When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart.[3]
So Saul gets off to a great start. As we read on we see that the spirit of God comes upon him in powerful ways. God speaks to him in times of need, and regularly demonstrates that Saul is his anointed, the one whom who he has appointed to lead the people of Israel.
He was very effective in unifying the 12 tribes of Israel and he led them in numerous victories over their enemies. Saul did something that no other leader in Israel had managed to do. He successfully established the 12 tribes of Israel as a kingdom, a force to be reckoned with in this region.
Saul led Israel for some 25 years. But as we read through the chapters that tell his story, we see that something about Saul has changed. It seems that his personal connection with YHWH has been broken. In 1 Sam 28:14 it says: ‘Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.’ Later in ch 28, we see that Saul tried desperately to restore his previous sense of connection with God. As he prepared for battle against the Philistines, he cried out for help. He prayed for dreams, he consulted the prophets, he tried the Urim and Thummim, which might have been some kind dice that the priests would roll to get an answer from God – but none of this worked. God was simply not speaking to him. So he decided to consult with a witch who lived in a place called Endor, asking her to consult the dead on his behalf.
So what exactly happened to Saul? How did he go from being a man with a transformed heart and power from God’s spirit – to the place where he’s kind of a wacko, tormented by an evil spirit, blocked off from communication with God, and now turning to necromancy?
There’s a simple, superficial answer to this question. And then there’s a more nuanced, complex answer.
Lets start with the simple, superficial answer: In this case, Saul was rejected by God because he had disobeyed Samuel’s instructions. The first account of this disobedience is found in 1 Sam 13. Samuel had given Saul some very specific instructions about a sacrifice that was to be made: He said to Saul, go down before me to Gilgal. And behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.” [4]
So Saul went to Gilgal, and here’s the narrative said.
He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. 9 So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. 10 As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. 11 Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.[5]
According to Samuel, Saul had sinned - and as a consequence God would not give him a lasting dynasty. He offered the sacrifice himself- - and thus, according to Samuel, he had disobeyed the commandment of God.
But at this point- it seems that God has altogether abandon Saul. In the next chapter - Saul calls upon YHWH, and he answers. So it doesn’t appear that Saul has lost his connection with God – yet.
The next incident of disobedience comes in chapter 15. Through Samuel, God gives Saul very specific instructions to wipe out the people of Amalek – ‘Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” This is presented as God’s act of vengeance against Amalek for the way they had opposed the 12 tribes when they came out of Egypt.
So Saul obeyed, but not completely. He destroyed some the city, but not all of it. He spared the king, the best animals, and ‘all that was good’.
So once again, It seems that Saul disobeyed. He did not specifically and thoroughly carry out the commands that God had given to him.
Samuel confronted him saying:
“Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
24 Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.” 26 And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”
So in the narrative, this was the straw that broke the camels back. It seems there’s no hope for Saul, and in the next chapter God sends Samuel to anoint the next king, a young man named David.
So how did Saul go from being chosen and anointed by God to being tormented by an unclean spirit? The simple, superficial answer is that God rejected Saul because he disobeyed the rules. He had been given a command to wait 7 days for Samuel at Gilgal, who would come to offer a sacrifice. But he didn’t wait – he offered the sacrifice himself. He broke the rules. And then God had told him to completely wipe out the Amalakites, but he again he disobeyed. He simply didn’t follow Gods commands, and as a result God punished him.
So this all fits very nicely with the traditional framing of the Old Testament God. He gives commands, and anyone who disobeys is punished. It very much puts YWHW into that place of being a rulemaker, who gives mandates that at sometimes seems random, arbitrary and in this case even inhumane. But it doesn’t matter what the people think about these commands. Its their job simply to obey and not ask questions. If you challenge God, if you question the command, and if you don’t follow it out to the letter – then you will be punished.
So in this scenario – Saul lost his ‘salvation’ because he disobeyed.
But if we look a bit more closely at the narrative, we discover that the real story is much more complex and nuanced. What I want to argue is that this picture of YHWH being the capricious, tyrancial rule maker who ruthlessly punishes disobedience to his commands is not entirely accurate.
Saul initially had a connection with God - and then he lost it. But why he lost it is about something much deeper than disobedience.
As we look at the character of YHWH in the narrative, we discover that he actually is quite tolerant of things not being done the right way. His commandments were clear – but there were plenty instances where good men didn’t strictly follow these rules, and YHWH didn’t punish them and cast them off. To see this dynamic, all we have to do is look at the life of Samuel, which parallels the story of Saul. There were elements in Samuels practices that were contrary to God’s commands, but for some reason he never lost his relationship with YHWH.
First of all - we’ve seen that Samuel scolded Saul for offering the sacrifice. But this leads to a deeper question. Why was Samuel offering sacrifices? The Torah is very clear that the offering of sacrifices is for the descendents of Levi, and 1 Samuel 1 is pretty clear that Samuel was from the tribe of Ephraim. So why is Samuel functioning as a priest, when technically he’s not supposed to be doing this?
But even more troubling is the place where Samuel offers sacrifices. He seems to be breaking one of the most important commands that YHWH given to the people of Israel in the Sinai desert.
In Deut 12 Moses had clearly spoken to the people about where they were supposed to offer sacrifices
2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. . . . You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. 5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go.
And then a bit further down:
and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord.
So its very clear in the narrative – there’s one and only one place where Israel can offer sacrifices. This was supposed to happen in the Tabernacle, which was to be located exactly where God would indicate.
The Canaanites worshipped at what the Bible calls ‘high places’ – and the Hebrew word for this is Bamah. In Numbers 33:52 - before they came into the land of Promise - God had commanded them to destroy these high places. The Israelites were not to offer sacrifices anywhere and everywhere. And they certainly were not to offer sacrifices on the high places. Their place for offering sacrifices was in the tabernacle.
When Samuel was born, the tabernacle was in Shiloh, and it was overseen by the Levite priest Eli. We presume that at this time, Shiloh was the place that YHWH had indicated for the location of the tabernacle. But just as Samuel was starting his prophetic ministry, the tabernacle in Shiloh was destroyed by the Philistines. Eli died and his sons were killed in battle, and Israel was left without a place to offer sacrifices and without priests to officiate.
What becomes clear in the narrative is that the prophet Samuel filled this gap. He started officiating the sacrifices, and he did this in a very unconventional location – on a bamah - a high place.
Its funny that the author of 1 Samuel seems rather embarrassed about this all. He won’t tell us where this high place is, other than that its located in the land of Zuph - wherever that is. Its linside a city, and an analysis of the text indicates that it was a formal structure. We learn in 1 Sam 9 that Samuel presided over the sacrifice on this high place, and how he even invited Saul to share with him in a post sacrifice meal.
So what exactly was this high place? The Anchor Bible dictionary notes that this ‘bamah was a sanctuary of some architectural sophistication, not too different from the sanctuary complex at Arad’ Now I’ve been to Arad – and I’ve been in the sanctuary there. It was a complex, well built but completely illicit place of worship.
So we see something really interesting here. Samuel, who was called to be a prophet – is breaking some really important rules from the Torah. He’s not a Levite, so he’s not supposed to be offering sacrifices. And if he does offer sacrifices – he’s certainly not supposed to be doing this in a bamah – a high place that was supposed to be torn down.
And one final note about Samuel – when Samuel got old, he appointed his sons to take over his role as the judge of Israel. But the text is clear that his sons were evil and corrupt. And apparently Samuel did nothing to correct them.
Wasn’t this the same sin as the priest Eli? Didn’t God punish Eli because he didn’t intervene to stop the wickedness of his children. Samuel was guilty in the same way, but the text makes no mention of any punishment for him.
So why doesn’t YHWH reject Samuel the same way he rejected Saul and Eli? Why does it seem that God has so much tolerance for the mistakes and irregularities in the life and practice of Samuel, but he doesn’t extend this same patience to others?
The answer is really very simple. Samuel had a personal relationship with YHWH. He was a friend of God. He understood God’s heart, he understood God’s mind. They talked, they commiserated, they shared each others burdens. And Samuel cared about the things that God cared about. Throughout his life, Samuel carried a burden for the well being of Israel. In his farewell address to the people he, ‘as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. Simply put, this was a man who had a heart for God.
And this was something that Saul never had. Not once in the narrative do we ever see Saul connecting emotionally to YHWH. All he ever seeks from YHWH is help to win battles. There’s no relationship, there’s no love, there’s no intimacy. Saul simply looks at YHWH as a god who will help him achieve his own leadership aims.
And this is really the crux of the conflict between Saul and YHWH. Saul’s way of ignoring God’s commands was at the root of his downfall. But this isn’t because YWHW is a tyrant who demands strict obedience and punishes any type of deviation from his rules.
The root problem of Saul was not disobedience. The root problem with Saul was that he had no relationship with YHWH. His disregard for God’s commands was ultimately his way of showing YHWH - I don’t know you, I don’t care about you, and I just need you to help me achieve my goals.
So what we’re finding again in the OT narrative is that what YHWH really wants from the people of Israel is love relationship. Is this is a surprise? Of course not. We already know that in Deut 8:5, the Shema – he had clearly made this known to them. Love me! With All your heart, With all your soul. With all your might.
So to get back to the original question – what did it mean to be saved in the Old Testament. The answer is this – to be saved meant to live in intimate love relationship with YHWH. Part of showing this to God meant following his commands. But there are several examples of people, like Samuel, who were a bit irregular in their adherence to the rules- - but because that relationship was in place – YHWH didn’t reject them.
So what we see is that if we ask what’s more important thing to YHWH - strict obedience to the rules, or love relationship - he’ll take the relationship every time.
And that’s our final thought for today. In our next episode, we’ll continue this exploration of ‘what YWHW is really looking for’ as we take a look at the life of King David.
I hope you’ll join me again.
In modern day Christan practice, our boundary markers are much more clear. In historical Christian practice, baptism is that initial indication of entry into the faith. In then in Evangelical practice, we would also point to a conversion experience. We talk about confessing our sins, inviting Jesus into our hearts, and giving our lives to him.
And this is why we have to be very careful about not superimposing our contemporary Christian or even our NT understanding of salvation onto the way people related to God in the OT. In the OT people just looked at things differently. The whole point of narrative theology is to put yourself into the shoes of the people in the story. We need to be aware of what they knew and what they didn’t know. To get the full impact of what’s going on the narrative, to the best of our ability we have to place ourselves in that moment.
In OT Biblical thought, there were definite indications that somebody wasn’t right with God. We’ve seen plenty of examples of examples of this this far in the narrative. Its pretty safe to say that if you make idols like Micah, if you sleep with prostitutes like Samson, if you participate in gang rape like the men of Gibeah, if desecrate the sacrifices like the sons of Eli-then you’re probably not in right standing with YHWH.
But at this particular moment in the OT, these kinds of boundary markers are harder to identify.
But this is not to say every found favour in the eyes of God. What’s interesting to me is how the narrative thus far has given us so many examples of people who had ‘close encounters’ with YHWH, and yet never quite understood what he really wanted from them.
In this episode we want to dig into the story of Saul, as I think the way his character is developed in the narrative gives us great insights into Hebrew religious thought.
In the text of 1 Samuel, in very blunt terms, Saul starts out good and then he ends up bad. How exactly did he cross this line? And we at the end of the story, we’re left with the question – was he ever really that good in the first place?
We’re looking at that period in the Biblical story where Israel has decided that they want a king.
In this episode we’re going to take a closer look at Saul, Israel’s first king.
For me, this opens up fascinating questions about the ways that the Biblical authors evaluated and categorised the spiritual experiences of their leaders. What did it take to be ‘in’ with God? And what were the behaviours and attitudes that led to a king being ‘out’ with God.
Think about all of the leaders we’ve looked at so far who had what we might describe as an asterisk after their name. This was a man chosen by God, but. . .
Gideon was chosen by God and a good ruler, but he made an illicit object of worship that was a snare to him and his family.
Jephtah was chosen by God and a good ruler, but he sacrificed his own daughter to fulfil a foolish vow.
Eli was a priest of the tabernacle chosen by God, but he didn’t restrain his sons from seducing women and desecrating the sacrifices.
And there are a lot of characters in the Old Testament who would have this asterisk after their name.
They started out good, but. . .
Now with all of this – I’m not trying to say that YHWH expected perfection. As we’ve noted before, the whole point of the sacrificial system was to offer the people of Israel forgiveness, and restoration after they made mistakes. So you don’t get an asterisk just because you sinned or made a mistake. Ti think most of these cases, something else was going on. The asterisk is really a way of questioning if this person every really ‘got it’ in the first place.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Sa 10:1.
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Sa 10:6–7.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Sa 10:9.
[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Sa 10:8.
[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Sa 13:8–14.