“But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out o the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own inheritance, as today.” – Deuteronomy 4:20 (LSB)

What does it mean to created in God’s image? The work of Peter J. Gentry has been immensely helpful in this regard, as well as the work of Jeffrey J. Niehaus. Gentry has successfully argued that the “image of God” in Genesis 1:26 refers to God’s creation of man to be his representation to the world (see Kingdom Through Covenant by Gentry and Wellum). Thus, mankind is the image of God, and therefore ought to rightly represent God to the world. Niehaus has demonstrated that Ancient Near-Eastern religions commonly held to a belief that the God or gods of their nation would establish an image within the nation to represent that deity to the world (see Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology by Niehaus). The difference between the other ANE religions and that of the Israelites, however, was the image. The Israelites were to have no images in their temple to represent God to the nation and the world. Why is this? Because the Israelites themselves were God’s image to the world. Thus, they ought to have acted as Yahweh’s representation to the world.

What does all that have to do with Deuteronomy 4:20? Notice how that verse is nestled between, on the left bookend, verses 10-11, where the people are assembled before Yahweh at a mountain burning with fire up to the heavens, and between the right bookend of verse 24, where Yahweh is described as a consuming fire and a jealous God. A mountain on fire, an iron furnace, and a consuming fire. Think of these three images as the pillars upholding the theological building of Deuteronomy 4:10-24. The contents between the pillars illuminate the theology these pillars are upholding. Verse 12 tells us that the nation heard the Lord’s voice, but saw no form. Then, verses 13-14 reveal that the voice of the Lord declared the Ten Commandments, and the voice spoke to Moses to instruct the people on how to live in the land. Because the people saw no form but only heard a voice, the nation ought not to make any graven image in the form of any figure, whether it resemble land creatures, sky creatures, sea creatures, ground creatures, or the planetary bodies (vv. 15-19). These are given to the nations to make images for worship (v. 19b). Not so with Israel. Rather, verse 20,”Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own inheritance, as today.” Moses would not enter the promised land to shepherd the people there (vv. 21-22), so they must keep themselves from making a graven image in the form of anything (v. 23). Why? Because the Lord is a consuming fire (v. 24).

Notice how the pillars of this passage are descriptions of a consuming fire of one sort or another. Sandwiched between these fiery images are commands to not make any form, graven image, figure, or likeness. If the Israelites were going to disobey God and make any sort of image, how would they do it? We don’t need to speculate, for they committed this very crime. “And [Aaron] took [the gold] from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf” (Exodus 32:4). Aaron made a graven image in the likeness of a calf. How did he make the graven image? “And I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, et them tear it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Ex. 32:24). Graven images are made by melting gold in a fire and then molding that gold in the fire, and once the image is formed, you pull it out of the fire. So, out of Egypt, the iron furnace, God has brought forth His people, that is, His image. The people are commanded to not make any graven images from iron furnaces as representations of their God because God Himself has made them to be His image pulled out from the iron furnace of Egypt.

I believe all of Scripture points to Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Christians have been raised up with Christ Jesus (Col. 3:1), that we might be restored fully to that image which rightly represents God to the world (Col. 3:10-11). Now, in this day, under this New Covenant era inaugurated by Christ, God is forming His people into the restored image of God, by bringing them forth from Christ, not from Egypt, that Christ may be all in all.

Over the last two months I have been reading through the Bible using the Legacy Standard translation (LSB for short). This new translation builds upon the work of the NASB and aims to be an overly literal Bible translation. The purpose for this literalness is to allow the readers to see intertextual connections that are sometimes lost in translation.

On the joy and need for overly literal translations.

I am thankful for the LSB’s (mostly) consistent literal-ness. An overly literal translation will make some passages sound odd and confusing. Take for example Exodus 4:10-17. In that passage Moses complains that he has a “hard mouth and a hard tongue”, and thus should not be Yahweh’s spokesman. The phrase “hard mouth” sounds very odd to our ears. So, translations usually smooth the phrase out to say something like “I am slow of speech and of tongue” (ESV). But smoothing out the literal translation of “hard mouth and hard tongue” removes a layer of intertextual interpretation. Moses has a hard mouth, just as Pharaoh has a hard heart. God will accommodate Moses’s hard mouth and make him into a mighty prophet, and yet He will further harden Pharaoh’s heart and make him into an example of destruction. That interconnection has to show us something about the kindness and severity of God. So, Yahweh promises to be with Moses’ mouth, and in His condescending grace, Yahweh also grants Moses to have Aaron as a second mouth. “I will be with your mouth and with his mouth”.

I love the literalness. Here’s where I hope in the updates to the LSB they add even more consistency. In Deuteronomy 1:26, Moses recounts how the Israelites were unwilling to enter the promised land because of the report of the spies. Deuteronomy 1:26 reads, “Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God” (LSB). However, a more consistently literal translation would have been, “Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the mouth of Yahweh your God.” It was not merely the command of God that the people rebelled against; they rebelled against God’s mouth. What does it mean to rebel against God’s mouth? Again, we see an intertextual connection. In Exodus, God promised to be with Moses’ hard mouth and to make Moses and Aaron the spokesmen, i.e. Yahweh’s mouth, for the sons of Israel. In Deuteronomy we read that the sons of Israel rebelled against God’s mouth; that is, God’s chosen spokesmen – Moses and Aaron. Rebelling against the Lord’s commands is always linked to rebelling against the mouth of the Lord’s chosen messengers. His messengers are His mouthpieces. Think – the apostles and prophets. Christians who do not apply themselves to following the Scriptures, in which are recorded for us the word of God by God’s appointed messengers, His “mouth”, are likewise rebelling against Yahweh.

Thankfully, we have a God who has also spoken these words from His mouth, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Come, let us hear the word of the Lord!

What does it take to live as a Christian in a culture that increasingly embraces values and ideologies that are against Christianity? For one thing, it takes embracing the shame of the Cross. As Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23 ESV). Those words imply that anyone who does follow Jesus has denied themselves and takes up their cross daily. It does not matter if the culture praises or persecutes Christianity, every Christian has denied self to follow Christ. But I believe that if our Christianity is to have any sort of winsomeness then the way we carry our cross matters, too.

What does it mean to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus? For one thing, it means to feel no shame for being a Christian. And why should we feel ashamed at all? The one we are following is the King of Ages. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the Prince of Peace. He is the friend of sinners. He is the Savior of the world. He is the Light of the world and in him is no darkness at all. Since there is nothing shameful about him, there is no reason to be ashamed of him.

It is possible, however, to be unashamed and curmudgeonly. So if we are to follow Christ as we carry our cross then we must follow the way Christ carried his cross, too. “Therefore… let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV). He endured the cross and despised its shame by focusing on the joy that was set before him. He bore the cross and its shame with joy. A joyful disposition was upon him as he travelled to Golgotha. It was with joy that he carried the cross, not because Jesus was masochistic but because his eye was on the joy of what His suffering would secure: His enthronement with the Father (Hb. 12:2), the joy of Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the joy of innumerable angels in festal gathering, the joy of the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, the joy of the kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hb. 12:22, 23, 28).

It is with a view to that joy that we are called to deny ourselves, carry our cross, and despise its shame. I call this a theology of bearing shame with joy. I leave you with a call to picture in your mind what it would look like for you to carry your cross with a smile on your face. Jesus’ smile is on those who have taken heed of his call to follow him. He is not ashamed of his brothers. Let us bear the shame of the cross on our shoulders with the joy of Christ on our face.