August 23rd, 2020

Has there EVER been a simple answer? As I study the meaning of the word ‘answer’, I am inclined to answer that question negatively. To give what would seem to be a simple answer is still a very complicated thing, especially when you look at the meaning of that word in the scriptures and I believe its careful placement there.

This Sunday, the Old Testament text continues to be in Isaiah [51:1-6], and the text starts by addressing those who ‘pursue righteousness’ and ‘seek the LORD’. Then the text goes on to give a couple of commands to ‘look’ in certain places for, as it were, an answer. On the surface, it seems like a simple thing. Verse 2 may literally be translated in this way:

Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, she gave you birth; when he was one, I called him, and I blessed him, and I multiplied him.

I thought it would be a good thing, therefore, to look at Abraham and some of the special things that happened to him. He is only one person, two if you include Sarah; how difficult could that be?

There are certainly some significant stories in the Old Testament before the coming of Abraham. There is the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and there is also the tower of Babel that multiplied the languages. And those are certainly significant events. But, when it comes to the one person of Abraham, there are also some significant and not so simple things going on within those texts.

Right after the Fall into sin, when the LORD was asking Adam, ‘Where are you?’ the text does not say that Adam ‘answered’. The word used there simply means to speak or to say. So, technically, the first time the Hebrew word ‘answer’ is used in scripture is in Genesis 18:27, when the LORD is meeting with Abraham. And I should at least mention that the LORD’s presence in this text is significant and unusual. Now the LORD had just promised to Abraham regarding the city of Sodom that, if he found fifty righteous ones within it, he would spare the entire place for their sake.

The text then says this: ‘And Abraham answered, and he said….’ It seems that, at that place, the word should probably be translated as ‘he responded’ or something like that. And this sort of thing happens frequently, that the word ‘answer’ comes up, but a question was not asked. I recently learned that, about the year 150 A.D., someone thought that when these two verbs came together in the Old Testament, because of its unusual repetition, that was a signal that what was said was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. [See the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, volume 3, published by Eerdmans in 1965, page 945.]

It is also interesting that this same repetition of the same two verbs appears a few times also in the gospel accounts of the New Testament. And sometimes you have the text in this way: ‘And he answered, saying…,’ and sometimes you have the text in a slightly different way: ‘And answering, he said…’.

The Isaiah text reminds us to look to Abraham. And what does Abraham say when he ‘answers and says’ for the very first time? Here, again, is a literal translation: ‘Behold, now I was bold to speak to the Lord, and I am dust and ash.’ And the word for answer, interestingly enough, is basically the same word as ‘humble’; and I wonder about the extent of a connection between these two words. [See William Holladay’s work, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, also published by Eerdmans, 1971, pages 277-8.]

There is another feature within the translation of the Old Testament into the language of the New Testament that is close to this idea that an answer or a response is something significant. And this characteristic often appears in the New Testament, although it usually does not appear in translations or even in some discussions regarding the text. Sometimes a writer describes a past action as happening in the present tense. This is usually called the historical present.

Sometimes the text says, instead of that Jesus SAID this, it says, literally, that Jesus SAYS this. This is usually understood to be a way to express the vividness of the event. [See Daniel B. Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, published by Zondervan in 1996, page 528.] And that is usually the end of the discussion regarding its purpose.

But the appearance of the historical present often happens somewhere in the middle of some story, as a response to something. This Sunday, the Gospel text is from Matthew 16[:13-20], and after the disciples give back to Jesus their response of what others say about him, the text actually says that JESUS SAYS to them, ‘Who do you yourselves say that I am?’

The very first instance of an historical present in the Old Testament translation into the language of the New Testament also happens with Abraham, and it also happens when he receives the word of the LORD, and they start to discuss this issue of being childless. Abraham—using his original name, Abram—is the one who says the very first historical present. Here is a literal translation of that text (again, from the Greek and not the Hebrew):

And after these things, the word of the Lord came toward Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Stop fearing, Abram; I am shielding you; your reward will be very great.’ And Abram SAYS, ‘Master, Lord, what will you give to me? And I am leaving childless, and the son of Masek, my homeborn female slave, this Eliezer of Damascus (emphasis added, Genesis 15:1-2).’

In all of these Bible passages, one might have expected more of an emphasis on what the LORD says. Why not always have HIS words in the present tense? Why not have the LORD speaking AND saying? Why not have him start a conversation and make sure people are listening to him? That is certainly not the direction that these texts are going.

With the idea of a response being connected to both the historical present and the phrase, ‘he answered and said’, it is interesting to consider at least the slight possibility of those two things being connected.

It would take too long to study the extent of this connection in detail. But at the heart of the matter may be the type of kingdom that the LORD has set up in the scriptures. His kingdom of power is certainly not the primary focus; he certainly does not push his way into our lives as was described above; he certainly did not do that to Abraham. And his kingdom of glory has not yet come; he is saving that for the end of time.

His kingdom of grace is the kingdom that seems to predominate within these special writings. A kingdom of grace makes a difference, but in a not-too-obvious way; it does not draw attention to itself. But, eventually, something important and something quite wonderful gets wonderfully done.

That is, of course, what happened with Abraham. As was mentioned above, the Old Testament text for this Sunday says, ‘When he was one, I called him.’ And the LORD blessed him and multiplied him, but in a slow and not-so-obvious way. That is usually how the kingdom of grace works.

I have heard that, when comparing the four gospel accounts, the different numbers of historical presents within the accounts was connected to the amount of education of the writers; more historical presents meant more ‘colloquial, vivid speech.’ [See the above book by Wallace, page 528.] I think that a more important issue than the amount of education for the writer is the type of graceful kingship that each writer wanted to emphasize within each particular account. And I also think that the different verbs that they turn into the present tense point to one of the four different living creatures of the LORD’s throne. The throne tells the story behind the king’s authority.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, the living creature is a man, and by far the most common historical presents in that account have to do with speaking. In the Gospel according to Mark, most of those historical presents have to do with actions, and that living creature is a lion, and a lion certainly has some significant actions. In the Gospel according to Luke, the living creature is the ox, and this is normally understood to be a domesticated animal, one that can get along with people and other animals. And the historical presents within that account are connected to a wide variety of people as Jesus gets closer to Jerusalem and Palm Sunday.

The Gospel according to John is significantly different from the other accounts, and this is also seen in the uses of the two things mentioned above. And the living creature connected to that gospel account is the eagle, the only one that flies, and flying gives it a different perspective. First of all, the number of historical presents is significantly more in this gospel account than the other accounts. As the eagle sees farther than the other living creatures, that perspective of a graceful kingship frequently shows itself in the present tense, and even into our twenty-first-century lives.

The second thing to mention about this gospel account is that there is a greater emphasis on the answering aspect in the use of ‘he answered, and he said….’ (If you are interested in the details—and it may not seem like much—instead of the usual phrase that appears in the three similar gospel accounts, ‘and, answering, he said,’ there is the more frequent phrase in this gospel account, ‘and he answered, saying…’.)
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It is natural to think that, with this living creature, the perspective of this account is more far-reaching, even to the present day. The actions that are done within this account give an opportunity for a ‘response’, an ‘answer’, and this is made quite clear when, near the end of the account, the writer writes that these things have been written so that YOU may believe (John 20:31). The LORD’s grace-filled kingdom certainly has a significant size.