The Old Testament

Despite being an engineer in real life, I understand the world best in terms of pictures. Not surprisingly, my best math subject was Geometry, and I enjoyed my geometric modeling course more than any other in the graphics curriculum in graduate school.

I find that this is often the case with my understanding of the Old Testament, also. We are often encouraged to read the Bible backwards, because doctrine is found in the NT, the NT is considered more interesting than Numbers or Deuteronomy, and the NT is more readily understandable to the casual reader.

But there's a lot to be found in the Old Testament, where a little digging can make a huge difference in how we understand the New. The pictures—the types—of Jesus Christ we find there really are significant.

Quickly, let me point out a couple I hope to return to as time permits:

• The passover
• Various other sacrifices
• Abraham and Isaac
• Hosea and the harlot

There are others, too. I'd also like to hit topics regarding the gospel in the Old Testament, and where we see the Lord in the Psalms—many of them are Messianic in nature, and they really provide some of the best insight into the Deity and Godhead that we have.

My Name

I know I have posted once already, but in writing a note to my grandmother, I related this story to her:

I was a bit early to church this morning. Sleep eluded me, and while I could have attended the early service, I would have missed some newly-minted friends who usually attend the middle one.

I arrived early to the second service on account of my sleeplessness and amused myself some at looking at the Bibles they have for the taking. They had a couple pocket-sized New Testaments, and I pulled one off the shelf.

It had a bookmark in it, an empty cross with the words to Job 19.25:

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.

This verse has a special significance to me, because it is related to my name.

The three children in my family—my brother, me, and my sister—all have names that start with the letter E. My father's love of classical music met his love for the Lord in Handel's master piece, The Messiah, known mostly for the Hallelujah Chorus.

The Chorus is written in the key of D, music's key of majesty. I suppose it is the usual key designed to give you goosebumps at the movies. After he finished the chorus, Handel started to write based on that same verse from Job that I found on a bookmarked tucked in a Bible.

We understand that Handel could not denigrate the Hallelujah Chorus; it was magnificent. He could not make it less majestic than it was, and he should not have. Yet the resurrection demanded something better, more regal, more triumphant. Handel chose to use the key of E to quote the book of Job. He upped the ante, if you will.

This is how Dad decided that we should all have names that started with E. He didn't stop there. He wanted our names to mean something, too. (I suspect part of the reason we were born further apart was because it took him awhile to plan this.)

My name means, "Who is steadfast like the Lord." I think it is a question, not a statement; but I like to hope he chose the name so that I would grow into it. Dad would often admonish me sternly, "Remember what your name means." It was an injunction he gave to all of us often, normally as we walked out the door to the bus.

This has been a safeguard for me amid so many of life's troubles. The past few weeks have not been pleasant ones, and as I lay awake very early this morning, unable to sleep and wrestling with sorrows, I found no comfort. As soon as I saw the bookmark, I was cast immediately upon the faithfulness—the steadfastness—of our Lord.

It is what I guarded myself with when I left home for a far-away job. And today, it guards me against those sorrows that "like sea-billows roll." He is faithful to us and keeps us always.

The One Who Is

I had opportunity yesterday to speak with a friend whose persuasions concerning the faith are rather independent. He is a sincere and good man, and I trust a brother in the Lord. As we drove to an appointment together, we spoke some of the faith, particularly concerning the deity of Christ. He is not strictly a trinitarian, but I am at somewhat of a loss to describe what he really believes.


Regardless, it reminded me of one of the great things about being able to look carefully at the Scriptures. Certain sects declare quite vehemently, and against orthodox doctrine, that Jesus Christ is not divine—that is, that he is not the same God revealed in the Old Testament. They invent all sorts of means to counter it, and succeed in persuading themselves that Jesus really did not claim to be God.

For a moment, though, let us consider the text of Exodus 3.13,14:

13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

This is the first time in all of history that God reveals his covenant name to his people.¹ It is variously rendered Jehovah or Yahweh, to mimic the four Hebrew letters that are used in its construction.

The Apostle's Bible, a translation of the Septuagint², renders 3.14 thus:

14 And God spoke to Moses, saying, I am THE BEING. And He said, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, THE BEING has sent me to you.

But the Greek here reads, "EGW EIMI hO WN"—I am the being one, or, as we see it rendered elsewhere, "I am the one who is."


Why is this important? Because this is precisely what Jesus says about himself in Revelation 1.18:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," saith the Lord, "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

The Greek here is identical to the language in Exodus 3.14, though there are a few words in between in Revelation. It must be understand that the one who is to come is Christ (Acts 1.11, among many others), and he therefore is also "the one who is." He is God who identifies himself in Exodus 3.14 as the I Am.

Redemption is built around the trinity. The death of Christ means nothing if he is only a man. He is my kinsman by birth—he is a man—and so he has claim on me to redeem me. But his life is worth nothing as just a man, exalted or otherwise. He cannot fulfill the law in all its aspects, both in keeping it and taking its punishment, if he is not also God.


[1] It's worth mentioning that God gets a new name in three significant spots in the Scripture. The first is here, when he reveals that he is the one who is. The focal point of history, the cross, reveals God as Jesus Christ (Jn 17.6). At the final bookend, we see that Jesus Christ is given a name that no one else knows (Rev 19.12). I do not think this should be overlooked.

[2] The Septuagint (LXX) is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The name stems from the number of translators, who according to tradition paired off in twos, translated the OT, and returned to quorum with exactly the same translation. It is used most famously by the Eastern Orthodox church. The NT writers more often quote from the LXX than any other OT source. Some others prefer it, believing that later texts have been corrupted to remove or alter Messianic references. (Interested students will hopefully realize that Wikipedia is not the most authoritative of sources, but it is a good place to start.)

Prayer and Suffering

Dan Phillips of Pyromaniacs fame had a fantastic post on prayer today.

It touches on the theme of suffering and God's sovereign purposes, and it's really a good read. It comes amid some of my own difficult times, and quotes a passage of Scripture in which I delight so much (Ps 103.1-5).

Give it a read.

Computer Science and the Problem of Universals

As with all posts, I must insert the caveat that I'm no philosopher and my opinions on matters like this amount to a hill of beans. Or maybe one bean. I'll let the counters decide. Just realize that you're reading something written by the uneducated. I'll try to generalize enough to get to the point.

The problem of universals, as I understand it, is one of articulation. There are a few different questions asked under this umbrella. One is whether or not words have an objective meaning, or if meaning is only in the mind of the speaker and listener. In other words, is there something inherently "green" about Kermit the Frog, certain types of apples, and grass, or is "green" a conventionally accepted word that could just as well be replaced with "black" or "spammy"?

When we talk about colors, the problem is almost trite; but when we talk of morals, it suddenly becomes quite sticky. The Christian appeals to a Universal moral standard when he convicts himself of breaking the rules. The atheist (and others, of course), appeal to what is societally advantageous: morality is a human construct designed to make society work, and what is "wrong" is not really wrong in a universal sense—it merely is wrong for setting back society. There is therefore no moral guilt associated with any particular crime.

The history of the problem may be found at Wikipedia; the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy also has an introduction.


My education is obviously not in theology or in philosophy; they are merely subjects with which I wish to be better acquainted.

However, Computer Science intersects with these disciplines often, since we often find ourselves trying to simulate intellect (through artificial intelligence) and create and design systems. CS is a modelling science, and should probably be considered a branch of applied mathematics.

We run up against the problem of universals as soon as we start to model objects in a system. In computer science parlance, a class is the definition of an object (an object is basically any noun you can think of). When I taught an introductory programming course, I would tell my students that they could think of a class as the definition we read in a dictionary.

However, that definition is not the object itself; no one points to "tree" in the dictionary and says, "How pretty those leaves are!" The same is true in computer science: we use the definition to produce an instance of the object we have defined. I would tell my students they could think of the instance as an example of the object they had previously defined.

This corresponds nicely with the problem of universals. The universal is the class, or definition, and the particular is the instance.

As it happens, most programming languages also incorporate a feature called polymorphism ("many-formed-ness"), which allows us to refer to objects as general classes (e.g., "tree") yet have varieties of instances (e.g., "oak tree") with different properties and characteristics—even though they all share the same root definition.¹


It is interesting to me that while many reject Universals by and large today, the very things we use to model the world and solve extremely complex problems depend on them to work.


[1] An amusing thought occurs here—does this mean that java.lang.Object is like God?

Suffering

(Evidently, sporadic writing is not caused much by subject matter. I think perhaps it has something to do with having essentially two jobs. I am a software engineer by day and a karate instructor by night. Though I ruminate in the car, it does not often translate into blog postings.)


It often happens to me that my view of Scripture is sharpened more in times of trial than happiness. This is not surprising in the least; while the problem of pain causes a lot of consternation among agnostics and Christians alike, parents and teachers know full well that children grow best with an application of the rod (or if they don't, they'll find out sooner than later). Discipline is the root of growth, and all discipline seems for the present to be grevious, as we read in Hebrews.

There is a fairly ridiculous belief among some Christians that suffering is not part of the plan. The obvious contradicting example is the Cross, but suffering is a theme of many passages. Jesus promises tribulation in John, Paul writes of it in his letters to the Romans and to the Philippians, and James and Peter also provide counsel regarding suffering.

The church I attend has recently been studying in first Peter, and the Bible study I (rarely) attend (due to schedule conflicts) has been following it in parallel. One of the main subjects of the book is our suffering in relationship to Christ's. He was our example, suffering for doing right, and we should rejoice when the same happens to us.

We might ask why. Why rejoice? There are many people who have answered this question better than I can or will in these brief words. But the most appealing answer to me is that the experience teaches us more about Christ. Suffering in general (not just from the perspective of suffering for doing well) seems calculated to this end. When we suffer, we better understand the cross and acquire a more eternal perspective.


This hit most home for me when I was reading for comfort. I cannot make any claims of being a particularly good Christian, and I have wrestled my own guilt more than once.¹ In reading through Romans 7 and 8 one day, I connected the notion of suffering in 8.17 with the deliverance of 7.24 ("Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?").

In that moment, I thought that part of our suffering with Christ is sin. Sin disrupts our fellowship with God, and it is a grim experience. But he suffered that same separation, and he bridges the gap in fellowship to pull us from our sin. We are not, in fact, cut off as he was cut off. We are not alienated, we are not alone. At once, we are given a small part of the dread he must have suffered as the fellowship of the Godhead was sundered, and the confidence he had in its restoration.


There is something to rejoice about there, and that is the confidence that he will never leave us nor forsake us. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

[1] While not particularly pertinent to the essay, I have found that brushes with grace are not often pleasant in one sense, viz. the realization that we actually need grace. It is one thing to preach God's grace, and entirely another to come to grips with one's need for it. It has been a long road for me to translate the fact of the matter into the practice.