February 16, 2007

a home for God

When recent grads hear that Dr. Cook is teaching his Ezekiel class this semester, they tend to be jealous. "Man, I wanted to take that class," they inevitably say. It is a sweet, sweet class. The book of Ezekiel is one crazy prophetic text, and some of the themes of this exilic prophet are amazingly universal. The thing that hits me over and over again, however, is the prophets holiness theology.

A down and dirty synopsis of the holiness strand is that God, who is fully other, fully holy, dwells in the holy of holies. God's holiness is guarded by cherubim (angels) and human priests (Levites), but it radiates throughout the Promised Land and beyond. Evil in the land impacts God's holiness by making his dwelling unclean, and could, if bad enough, force God to move his presence somewhere else.

All this to say, that in the Deuteronomy lesson it is interesting to me that God has yet to choose his home in the land he will give the Israelites. More interesting, and key to understanding the Hebrew Bible and holiness theology is that God dwells among the people. As this imaginary person brings the first fruits of the land to the altar, he comes radically close to the holiness of God. This is a dangerous place to be.

The most prevalent image of holiness in the HB/OT is that of a fire (think Refiner's Fire). The holiness of God smelts the soul of humanity, removing all the impurities, and leaving only the pure gold of holiness behind. To approach God, even within the Temple, is to be ridiculously close to that fire which is all consuming. It is radical that God chose to dwell in and with his Creation. It is radical that he allowed his Creation to come so close to his otherness. This otherness, this holiness, the refining fire is an image that we have very much lost in our society, but one we should seek to reclaim.

3 comments:

rob said...

I've decided to read Ezekiel over Lent. I know I need a some commentary help with this project, but haven't found a book that doesn't seem too crazy or expensive. Any recomendations for a moderately well-read layperson?

spankey said...

robert,

thanks for reading. i've checked with my OT prof and he recommends the following resources.

Basic - check out this link (http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2005/02/commentary_reco.html)

Intermediate - http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2005/07/intermediate_le.html

Advanced - http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2005/07/commentary_revi_2.html

Also good are the resources recommended on pages 255-9 of Cook & Patton, eds, Ezekiel's Hierarchical World (Society of Biblical Literature,2004)

rob said...

Thanks for the quick response. There's lots of info in there and I think I found two that I'll look into further.

BTW, I found your blog looking for reactions to the Emergent Mainline event in Atlanta. Liked it so much I added you to my RSS reader. Thanks again.