Abstract
Biblical theology should be grounded in a broad perspective, an Überblick, on the character of God as the main actor in biblical history. Without such a perspective, we will lose sight of what kind of agent motivates the main story-line of the Bible. If our perspective is inadequate, we will fail to recognize how God works in history, including biblical history. Biblical interpreters typically have neglected a key feature of the biblical God: God as righteous agitator for redemptive good in human lives, individually and socially. In doing so, they have failed to give an adequate portrayal of what God is doing or trying to do in history. This article corrects that neglect by acknowledging the biblical God as agitating in history for righteousness among humans as a reflection of God’s unique moral character. It explains how such agitating distinguishes God from the gods of deism and determinism, while enabling the redemptive work of this God to be seen not only in biblical history but also in everyday human life. The article relates divine agitation to the crisis of Jesus in Gethsemane in relation to the kingdom of God and to the apostle Paul on dying-and-rising with Christ.
How we conceive of God matters. People tend to portray God in their preferred familiar ways, and they then assess God accordingly, for better or worse. For instance, philosophers often end up with a largely intellectual God (see Aristotle), if a God at all, and nature-oriented poets often leave us with a pantheistic God (see various Romantic poets). Our conceptions of God, in any case, influence our expectations for God and thereby our perspectives on available evidence of God’s reality. If our conception of God sets our expectations for God and they are unmet, we naturally will infer that the available evidence for God is inadequate. We then will be inclined not to acknowledge God’s existence, let alone God’s goodness. Given a different conception of God, however, we can consider the available evidence from another perspective and perhaps gain new, previously unnoticed evidence of God.
Much inquiry about God amounts to looking for God in the wrong places, resulting in missed opportunity. Suppose, however, that we think of God as worthy of worship (as unqualified commitment), and thus as perfectly morally good. We then should consider available evidence for God as a righteous agitator for moral goodness among people, including for encouraging a morally good society. In that case, we should consider that human access to God can be morally challenging and involve a well-intentioned kind of divine elusiveness at times. (On the general importance of acknowledging God as worthy of worship and elusive, see Moser 2017, 2020.)
Neglect of God as a righteous agitator can blind people from recognizing salient evidence of God. No one should expect, in any case, that our access to God is free of challenge from a moral point of view. We shall explain why this is so, and thus give a fair hearing to available evidence of a God agitating for righteousness as relational moral goodness for all concerned. (For an overview of righteousness in biblical theology, see Ziesler, and Hultgren: 12–46.) In doing so, we shall avoid two extremes about God: deism entailing that God takes a “hands-off” approach to humans, and theistic determinism entailing that God ultimately causes everything, or at least everything good.
I grew up near a church with large stained-glass windows. Viewed from outside the church, the windows were nothing special; they appeared dark and dull, showing no bright colors. From inside the church, however, the windows were strikingly different: they appeared bright and colorful, with bold images and sharp contrasts, and they portrayed the life of Jesus, memorably. People had to go inside the church to have access to the beauty and the message of the windows. This access was a result of the nature of the windows: their being bright on their frontside, viewed from inside, but dark on their backside, viewed from outside. People needed to choose whether to have the access from inside, and choosing that access included deciding to go inside the church. Remaining outside blocked access to the colorful significance of the windows. Access matters here, as elsewhere. We shall see how it matters with God.
God, of course, is more complex, and more elusive, than stained-glass windows, and more persistent too. Worthy of worship and thus morally above reproach, God seeks what is morally best for all concerned, and not just for a special subgroup. Human access to God conforms to that moral goal, courtesy of God’s perfect moral character. Omitting that view of access will picture God, at least in some contexts, as indifferent, negligent, or cruel. That would be, however, a serious mistake, a harmful misrepresentation of God. Many people make that mistake, even among those affirming God’s existence. God seeks to be known by people on God’s terms, but many people fail to recognize this or the relevant indicators of God’s activity. God’s terms include God intervening first in human lives and seeking a cooperative response in a relationship of trust and obedience toward God.
As righteous agitator, God is after more than belief or even knowledge that God exists. Such belief or knowledge need not be good for people. For instance, it can prompt intolerable pride and exclusiveness in humans. God as perfectly good seeks something truly good for people: a good, reconciled relationship with God (and thereby with others) that morally guides and enriches their lives. People have a crucial role to play in responding to the offer of this relationship; they can frustrate and even preclude it. So, they are not pawns controlled in a divine game. They are to be co-creators of a responsible relationship with God and thereby with others. God moves first, as suggested, but a cooperative human response is needed for the relationship to come to fruition. This relationship is thus akin to typical human relationships between parents and their children. (For a discussion of divine-human reconciliation in the thought of Jesus and Paul, see Martin, Stuhlmacher, and Moser 2021.)
Access through Agitation
From an overarching perspective, biblical history is largely a record of God’s agitating for righteousness as including the moral benefit of people, often against their own plans and purposes. We can capture a large part of that history with the idea that, in relation to the patriarchs, Israel, the church, and others, God was agitating to reconcile the world to God in righteousness. This idea is broader than that of God as a “warrior” (on which, see von Rad, Wright: 121–50, and Longman and Reid). Warfare is not the only means of divine agitation for righteousness. Access to God often comes with divine agitation, because God typically intends such access to be redemptive toward divine-human reconciliation in the face of human waywardness.
The Oxford English Dictionary characterizes an agitator as follows: “A person who instigates unrest; a person who carries out agitation. The arousing of concern in order to bring about action.” The apostle Paul has offered a summary of divine agitation: “The creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:20–21, NRSV here and in subsequent biblical translations). God, according to Paul, subjected the created world to decay, frustration, and failure in order to attract people to receive a good filial relationship with God, as God’s liberated children: “the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” We shall see that this is a divine trademark at the center of biblical theology.
Paul portrays the Spirit of God as giving humans the power of faithful obedience to kill evil deeds as a way to live: “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom 8:13). He has in mind evil deeds associated with the body, what he calls “deeds of the flesh.” God’s Spirit, in Paul’s perspective, seeks to kill such deeds in order to bring people to reconciled life with God. The divine killing of human evil, for the sake of goodness, is neglected in many presentations of divine action. As a result, God’s key role as righteous agitator for human good is likewise widely neglected. We shall correct that deficiency for the sake of an improved biblical theology.
Divine Agitation in History
We can get some understanding of God’s modus operandi for righteous agitation, both individual and social, from biblical history. A seminal case of divine agitation for human good occurs in the life of Abraham. Paul took this case to include the preaching of the gospel to Abraham: “The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you’” (Gal 3:8; cf. Rom 4:16–17).
The narrative in Genesis includes the following:
The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”… He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness [Gen 15:1, 5–6].
The divine promise to Abraham identifies the good news of God’s goal but not the means to that goal. The means included some disturbing surprises.
The good news did not come easy for Abraham, because it was accompanied by divine challenges of various sorts. God called him to social dislocation, for instance, including giving up his homeland, for the higher good promised to him:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” [Gen 12:1–3].
Abraham was left without an explanation of much of God’s plan for blessing “all the families of the earth.” Paul reports, however: “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Rom 4:20–21).
God tested Abraham for his trust in God. Indeed, the divine testing of Abraham with the commanded sacrifice of Isaac was divine agitation to the extreme, complete with the appearance of child abuse. It began as follows: “God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you’” (Gen 22:1–2). Abraham proceeded to obey.
A twofold question arises: Did God intend to have Abraham sacrifice Isaac, and did Abraham believe that God intended to have him sacrifice Isaac? Our evidence includes this verse: “Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you’” (Gen 22:5). This expectation of their returning fits with Abraham’s reply to a question from Isaac about the lamb to be offered: “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Gen 22:8). Our evidence also includes this last-minute report from the angel of the Lord: “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Gen 22:12). Our evidence thus indicates that God did not intend to have Abraham sacrifice Isaac, and that Abraham did not believe that God intended to have him do so.
God’s disturbing command sought to agitate Abraham to reveal and build Abraham’s trust and obedience toward God. Viewed from outside, God’s command to sacrifice Isaac is taken at face value, and the relevance of Abraham’s trust in God is neglected. His trust in God led him to expect God to find a way to spare Isaac, even though he did not know how God would do so. Perhaps Abraham knew that he was being tested by God, but he did not know the exact means the test would use in advance of God’s final intervention. God emerges as an agitator for trust in God, but God cannot be blamed for condoning child sacrifice or abuse. (For related discussion, see Fretheim 1995 and Levenson: 66–11.)
Divine agitation of Abraham has a successor in the nation of Israel during and after the Exodus:
Has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by terrifying displays of power, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? To you it was shown so that you would acknowledge that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you [Deut 4:32–36].
The divine desire to have Israel “acknowledge that the Lord is God” does not seek just intellectual affirmation of God’s existence. It seeks to have Israel trust and obey God. The talk of “discipline” of Israel suggests trustful obedience, learned under agitation from God. Such agitation for discipline may or may not include divine judgment, and that judgment need not include the termination of human life. (For relevant discussion, see Fretheim 2005: 157–98, and Travis 2008.)
The divine agitation can be severe, as indicated in the “Song of Moses”: “See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand” (Deut. 32:39). This is not the god of deism, given the divine role for corrective intervention in human lives, whether by killing, making alive, wounding, or healing. The divine action toward ancient Israel often agitated for the sake of improving their relationship with God in righteousness, including their improved trust and obedience toward God.
God did not give Moses and Aaron the privilege of entering the promised land, owing to their inadequate trust and obedience toward God: “Both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meri-bath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites. Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it—the land that I am giving to the Israelites” (Deut 32:51–52). There is judgment in this divine response, but divine judgment can include righteous agitation for moral good among humans.
The book of Isaiah gives a clear affirmation of God’s role in human woes as well as human goods: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make weal and create woe. I the Lord do all these things” (Isa 45:6–7). Similarly, the book of Lamentations affirms God’s active role in causing grief for humans: “The Lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone” (Lam 3:31–33). A divine motive for causing human grief or woe, according to the book of Jeremiah, is morally significant: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I will now refine and test them, for what else can I do with my sinful people?” (Jer 9:7). The divine “refining and testing” is for righteousness in relation to God, through a relationship of trust and obedience toward God. We shall see that faithful obedience is God’s approved way for humans to receive reconciliation with God in righteousness.
The claim of Lamentations that God does not “willingly afflict or grieve anyone” indicates that such agitation is not God’s first choice. God does afflict or grieve people intentionally, but only when needed to “refine and test them.” This is a matter of God’s agitating for human righteousness, and not God’s creating evil in human lives. The prophet Hosea endorses this approach to divine agitation: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1). The agitation is for the moral refining of God’s people toward a righteous relation with God, the personal standard of righteousness.
The prophet Malachi connects God’s coming to humans with divine refining of them as a means to righteousness: “[The Lord] is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness” (Mal 3:2–3; cf. Zech 13:8–9, Ps 66:10–12). So, divine agitation through refining aims at human righteousness in relation to God. We cannot adequately understand divine action toward humans apart from such agitation for righteousness. In neglecting that kind of agitation, we will neglect the moral demands at the heart of God’s righteous character.
God’s announcements of creating woe and grief for humans often come in the context of denouncing idolatry and affirming that God stands in sharp contrast to false gods. The false gods do not sustain the kind of righteous relationship sought by God. In particular, they do not agitate to “refine” people toward righteousness in their relationship with God and others. Instead, they are blind to the unrighteousness despised and challenged by God. From a moral point of view, God is agitating and disturbing in ways that false gods are not. Divine agitation with woe and grief, then, is not an end in itself. It aims for the realization and advancement of divine righteousness among humans, by means of a relationship of trust and obedience toward God.
Divine agitation for righteousness stems from God’s righteous character as worthy of worship, but human expectations for God often overlook this connection It seems more convenient for us to portray God as being accommodating toward us without agitation for righteousness. Opting for convenience, however, can lead to a false god, a god of our own preference for convenience. A dominant theme of the Biblical writings is that God opts for righteousness over convenience and pursues such righteousness above all else. A corollary of this theme is that God agitates for righteousness among humans, including by seeking for them as a shepherd searches for scattered sheep (Ezek 34:11–14; cf. Jer 23:3). This seeking aims to bring them into a needed good relationship with their shepherd.
Agitation for Reconciliation through Death
The righteousness sought, and agitated for, by God goes beyond mere human actions to a relational, interpersonal reality: reconciliation of humans to God through a relationship of trust and obedience toward God. A common human lament is that trust in God is misplaced, because some people have no access to God even if they want it. We should take this lament seriously. In the perspective of Paul, humans need a means of access to God, and God alone has the authority to determine what this means is. Humans lack the authority to decide the means of access to God, and that should be no surprise. We are not in a position, morally or cognitively, to advise God on the suitable means of access. God’s perfect moral character, in contrast, is an ideal basis to determine the manner of human access to God. As perfectly righteous, God would specify the manner for the good of all concerned.
The book of Isaiah connects righteousness with faith or trust in God: “Open the gates, so that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—in peace because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord God you have an everlasting rock” (Isa 26:2–4). The prophet Habakkuk draws the same kind of connection: “The righteous live by their faith” (Hab 2:4; cf. Rom 1:17). He contrasts this kind of trust in God with the inadequacy of idols: “What use is an idol once its maker has shaped it—a cast image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in what has been made, though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!” (Hab 2:18; cf. Isa 44:8–11). Trust in God, according to the books of Habakkuk and Isaiah, is a needed alternative to the failure of idols. Such trust, in contrast with relying on idols, is central to human redemptive access to reconciliation with the living God.
Paul specifies a unique role for Jesus in reconciliation and access to God. His summary of the good news from God is that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Cor 5:19). This reconciliation comes by grace and includes peace: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (Rom 5:1–2). The Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians sounds a similar note: “Through him [Christ], both of us [Jews and Gentiles] have access [προσαγωγὴν] in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). Jesus serves as this unique means of access to God, according to Paul, because he “became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). He could do so, because, as Paul says, he existed “in the form of God” (Phil 2:6). Similarly, in Paul’s perspective, he exists as the “image of God” (2 Cor 4:4; cf. Col 1:15), thus representing God without defect. In perfectly representing God, Jesus can bring the righteousness of God to wayward humans, and thereby lead them to God.
Jesus provides access to God and leads people to God, because, according to Paul, he “became a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). In that post-resurrection role, he represents and agitates for divine righteousness among humans, for the sake of divine–human reconciliation. The kind of righteousness in question is portrayed in his earthly ministry, calling people to turn from their own ways to receive God’s kingdom of righteousness (Matt. 6:33). Paul identifies this kingdom with “righteousness and joy and peace” in the Spirit of God (Rom 14:17), the same Spirit he identifies with “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9). This Spirit provides for an interpersonal relationship with God, beyond mere moral demands. As personal, this Spirit gives divine righteousness an inherently personal character, and that character is exemplified in Jesus Christ, including in his cross and resurrection. (For an overview, see Robinson and Dunn) As a result, Paul characterizes a life with God as dying-and-rising with Christ (Rom 6:1–14). (We shall return to that theme.)
The role of the Spirit of Christ in reconciliation precludes confusion with an amorphous or generic god, including the god of deism. There is nothing amorphous or generic about the character or mission of Jesus as represented in the New Testament Gospels. Luke’s Gospel notes that Jesus was alleged to be an agitator among the Jews for his mission (Luke 23:2; cf. Acts 24:5). For instance, his enacted judgment on certain established temple practices earned him a reputation as an agitator for a divine cause, if not divine judgment (Mark 11:15–19, Matt 21:12–13, Luke 19:45–48, John 2:13–17). He himself would have identified God’s righteousness as his standard in disturbing certain temple practices. (For relevant discussion, see Sanders: 252–62, and Joseph.)
Divine forgiveness of humans is central to divine righteousness and reconciliation, but it is not the full story. God’s righteousness is redemptive and therefore corrective, at least in intent. The divine love that motivates and agitates for the reception of divine forgiveness and reconciliation aims to convict people to turn to God, away from their anti-God tendencies that alienate them from God (Rom 2:4). Such conviction is not just thinking, talking, or anything simply intellectual. It brings a powerful motivational challenge in human experience that calls for a response, whether in rejection, cooperation, or indifference. This challenge includes a manifestation of divine goodness anchored in divine love toward a person. It may be difficult, corrective love, but it is love nonetheless, aimed at divine-human reconciliation. In addition, it is among our best evidence for God’s reality and presence.
Paul gives his readers a sense of conviction by God as follows: “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! If I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission” (1 Cor 9:16–17). Paul means “just of my own will,” because he has in mind co-willing, that is, willing by God and himself. He acknowledges a crucial role for his own will when he says “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” The threat of a “woe” suggests a responsible role for Paul’s will; such a threat would make no sense if God unilaterally coerced Paul to proclaim the gospel. So, a human can reject the relevant divine conviction, and divine judgment may result from the rejection.
Paul’s approach to divine conviction figures in his following remark about divine action in human lives: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12–13). God’s work in this regard does not coerce a human will but motivates it while allowing for human rejection of the motivation. As a result, humans are accountable for their response, and in this regard they differ from rocks, plants, and machines.
God’s inward work on a human will comes to fruition with the cooperation of that will with God’s will. Because such cooperation does not always come easy, it is often encouraged by a search-and-kill mission by God. Biblical theology often neglects this mission, but it merits special attention in our understanding of the biblical God. Paul thus speaks of “God who searches the heart” (Rom 8:27), echoing Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:23–24).
The divine searching of humans goes beyond the revealing of information to them. It includes in its goal the delivering of people to a difficult kind of death. Paul reports:
We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh [2 Cor 4:7–11].
The immediate question is: Given up to death by whom? Because this “being given up to death” is “for Jesus’s sake,” it is not just a result of enemy forces. Instead, we have the divine action here: God is giving up God’s children to death for Jesus’s sake. They are, in short, to die with Christ, in accordance with God’s will, for the sake of manifesting God’s righteous power, the same power manifested in the life and death of Jesus.
The plot for divine agitation thickens. It now includes God’s handing responsive people over to death for the sake of their manifesting life with God in Christ. God is set on manifesting such righteous life and power, for human benefit and for divine honor (Rom 1:17, 3:21–26; cf. 1 Cor 2:4–5). The model, according to Paul, is God’s handing over Jesus to death: “[God] did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us” (Rom 8:32; cf. Rom 3:25–26). That case is unique in divine redemption, given the unique filial status of Jesus in relation to God, but it serves as a practical model for his disciples, as Jesus himself taught (Mark 8:34–35, Matt 10:38–39, Luke 9:23–24, 14:27). They, too, are given up by God for death, courtesy of divine agitation for the redemption of God’s people in righteousness.
Paul finds a basis for divine agitation toward death in Psalm 44: “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered” (Rom 8:36; cf. Ps 44:22). Even so, the intended outcome, from God’s perspective, is life-giving through dying with Christ: “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:37–9). The divine aim, then, is not death in itself. Instead, it is righteous life with God through the divine agitation of dying with Christ.
The cross of Christ, in Paul’s perspective (following Jesus himself), is not a mere substitution for his disciples. It is, rather, a model for their participation, for their sharing in the same divine power that guided and sustained Jesus through death to lasting life with God. Robert C. Tannehill comments on Romans 8 in this connection:
The Spirit has an active killing function. Through the Spirit what took place decisively in the death of Christ continually takes place: the believer dies to the old life “according to the flesh.” … The believer is still a part of an untransformed world and through the body is subject to the attacks of the old powers. In the face of such attacks, the believer’s past death with Christ must be maintained and affirmed in the present. Thus, the believer’s existence continues to be characterized by dying with Christ [1966: 80; cf. Tannehill 2007].
Paul regards the “sufferings of Christ,” including the sufferings in his death, to be shared not just by apostles but by all disciples (2 Cor 1:4–7). So, God agitates toward suffering and death in order to agitate toward new life with God, after the model set by Jesus.
Instead of removing or ending the worldly powers of death and disobedience (or “sin”), God agitates for obedient human dying to them in order to bring people to cooperative life with God. In that dying of humans, God’s life-giving power over death and disobedience emerges and shines forth, as in the case of Jesus crucified and risen. The disciples of Jesus, then, are implicated in a power struggle with death and disobedience, under agitation by God for the sake of righteous life with God. Divine righteousness thus does not come easy for wayward humans, even though it comes as a gift of grace (Rom 3:24). According to Paul, divine grace “reigns through righteousness” as found in Jesus Christ (Rom 5:21). He thus exhorts disciples to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” in obedient imitation of him, to avoid the corrosive effects of disobedience and death (Rom 13:14; cf. Gal 5:24–25). (On being clothed with Christ, see Thompson.)
According to Paul, the redemptive core of Jesus’s death is not physical suffering. It is, instead, his humbly obeying God, come what may: “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8; cf. Rom 5:18–19). Following suit, Paul reports his desire that “I may know him [Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil 3:10; cf. 2 Cor 12:9-10, Rom 8:17). Jesus’s path of humble obedience to his death, in Paul’s perspective, is the path to righteous life with God. It is to be shared by all disciples as the way to receive divine redemptive power over disobedience and death.
The redemptive key, as Paul suggests, is in Gethse-mane, the place where Jesus humbly resolved to obey God in the divine call to his death, thereby putting God’s will first: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36, RSV). Such filial responsiveness to God is at the heart of trust in God. As the means to receiving divine redemptive power, it yields freedom from the corrosive effects of death and disobedience. God vindicates such responsiveness by overpowering those corrosive effects with empowered obedience and resurrection through death. This is God’s ratified way to empower righteous life with God, as shown by the resurrection of Jesus. So, Jesus is God’s approved model for a human response to divine agitation for righteousness. (On the filial responsiveness of Jesus as the motivating center of his mission, see Moser 2021.)
Dying-and-rising with Christ entails a human resolve to obey God humbly, and thus a resolve to prioritize God’s will over one’s inferior human will. In particular, it entails dying both to self-trust for the sake of trusting in God and to self-boasting for the sake of boasting in God (cf. 1 Cor 1:28–29, Gal 6:14, Rom 3:27). It puts God’s will first for the sake of honoring God as God and thereby avoiding the corrosive effects of idolatry (Rom 1:21–23). Such dying-and-rising with Christ gives new meaning to our talk of access to God and our metaphor of the stained-glass windows. This meaning stems from the character of God as a righteous agitator for human good.
We should understand our access to God and our metaphor in terms of God’s volitional agitation of Jesus in Gethsemane. Choosing to look at the windows only from their backside, without entering the church, is analogous to ignoring or dismissing the challenge of God’s will in a Gethsemane episode. It includes a decision to remain outside the redemptive will of God, blocking its coming to its intended fruition in cooperation after a brush with it. Such a decision is for lasting death, apart from God.
In contrast, choosing to look at the windows from their frontside, by entering the church, is akin to responding cooperatively to God’s will agitating in human experience. From a perspective “inside” God’s redemptive will, we can apprehend firsthand the life-giving power of divine righteousness as we enable it to come to fruition via our volitional cooperation. God intends it to come to such fruition, in order to change us by conforming us to Christ as God’s righteousness and redemption for us. Our positive response, including trust and obedience toward God, contributes to that desired goal and manifests our responsible agency before God. Gethsemane access to God, then, comes through divine volitional agitation combined with a cooperative human response, after the seminal example of Jesus in Gethsemane. Such access is a trustworthy window to God, conveying divine power through obedience and resurrection in the face of suffering and death. It thus relays the unique redemptive power of God’s righteous kingdom.
Thy Kingdom Come
Matthew’s Gospel, in its version of the Lord’s Prayer, connects the response of Jesus in Gethsemane with God’s aim to build a kingdom of righteousness: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10, RSV). We may read this verse as: “Thy kingdom come, that is, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The Gethsemane response of Jesus to divine agitation for righteousness focuses the way that God’s kingdom comes to earth. It signals how divine righteousness comes to receptive humans, for the sake of building God’s kingdom of righteousness.
The manifestation of the suffering and death of Jesus in his disciples, via divine agitation, aims to build God’s kingdom by morally attracting and refining its members as the liberated children of God. To that end, God’s kingdom will manifest the unique moral character of God, thereby portraying its distinctive moral power and benefit for all suitably inclined people. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s parable of the sower refers to the latter people as “the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance” (Luke 8:15; cf. Mark 4:21). A good heart is formed in response to the divine good offered to it, often through divine agitation.
As a cooperative response to the divine good on offer in experience, trust in God has a basis in God’s self-manifested character of perfect goodness. That basis underlies not just faith but also grounded hope in God. Paul thus states that “hope [in God] does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). Paul has in mind the cognitive basis of hope in God, and he finds that basis in God’s self-presentation of divine goodness in the moral center, the “heart,” of receptive humans. As a result, hope in God is not a disappointment or any kind of wishful thinking. Such hope, when grounded in divine goodness, can help to sustain a person in life’s hardships, including in divine agitation. It can enable one to receive life’s agitations and frustrations without despair, courtesy of the divine goodness at work toward redemption now begun but completed in the fullness of time. (On the “now, but not yet fully” feature of God’s kingdom, see Moser 2021; on community in biblical theology more generally, see Hanson.)
If we overlook the ongoing role of God as agitator for righteousness, we neglect a central feature of God’s redemptive effort, including the mission of Jesus. In addition, we then fail to understand God adequately for a suitably grounded commitment to God. We have seen that God’s role as righteous agitator permeates the biblical writings, in both testaments. Despite its being widely neglected, we do well to restore it to a central place in biblical theology. The result will be a more resilient and compelling approach to biblical theology and to faith in God. It will include seeing new evidence for God’s reality and presence in the agitations of human life toward righteousness. A well-grounded biblical theology thus can contribute to robust faith in God.
Footnotes
For helpful comments, I thank Aeva Munro and a referee for Biblical Theology Bulletin.