Whybray engaged in an extensive survey of parts of the Old Testament in an attempt to detect the Old Testament’s conception of “the good life.” As a result of this survey, he identified twelve features that appear to be prominent: security, a land to live in, power, food, long life, wealth, family, justice, laws, wisdom, pleasure, and trust in God.112 Notice in Whybray’s list that there is a mixture of tangible features such as food and wealth, and intangible features (though no less real) such as power, justice, wisdom, pleasure, and trust in God. This leads into the next section, which considers a related insight by scholars concerning a shift that took place in Israelite conceptions of life.
The Correlation between Life as “Knowing God” and Life as “Receiving God’s Gifts”
Jacob and Eichrodt discuss how the Old Testament develops a distinction between the singular blessing of being in fellowship with God as independent from the other blessings that God’s people may experience in this life. Jacob talks about the relationship between blessing and the experience of shalom. As the creator and giver of life, blessing originates with God. It is a gift. The result of blessing in the life of the Israelite believer is shalom, “which suggests the idea of abundance, prosperity and peace; this state will only be fully attained in the last times, but for the righteous it can be a present reality, so true is it that there is nothing hoped for which cannot be translated immediately into actual life.”113
Jacob goes on to comment, however, that there was a shift in Israelite attitudes. Over time they moved to a declining emphasis on earthly abundance and success as the central aspects of the blessed life to a stronger emphasis on relationship with God. This “led to a view of life as no more the possession of God’s gifts but of God himself.”114
Eichrodt observes that this trend was especially powerful in exilic and post-exilic periods. The Hebrew people had experienced horrendous loss during these times, so that their previous vision of what it meant to be blessed by God underwent significant change.115 They were no longer members of a prosperous nation that seemed to be enjoying God’s favor. Their world had been turned upside down. Thus, “in a situation where the individual was struggling for certainty about what the goal of his conduct should be, without having the life and prosperity of his nation to guarantee that his efforts were being successful, and where at the same time the external pressures which burdened the life of the community made a return to a naïve interrelation of blessing and assurance of God impossible, men [sic] readily accepted the prophetic proclamation of fellowship with God as the supreme good.”116 I suggest that this declining stress on “God’s gifts” (Jacob) or “natural goods” (Eichrodt), along with an increasing stress on “God himself” (Jacob) or “the religious good of salvation”117 (Eichrodt), has also found its way into current Christian understanding, and this is quite relevant to the ministry of evangelism.
A relationship with God through Jesus Christ is an essential (and probably the essential) dimension of what it means to be a Christ-follower. In this context, then, some Christians choose to downplay the daily blessings of God in life, and also, therefore, in evangelism. This can inadvertently lead to an understanding of the gospel that focuses primarily on an internal relationship with God and ignores the other dimensions of what full life in Christ should and could mean for Christ’s followers. God’s intentions would be better served, however, if both dynamics were included in gospel understandings and gospel invitations. Yes, first and foremost, we can and should be “in possession of God,” but we can also be in “possession of God’s gifts” (to use Jacob’s words). Why must we divorce the two? Is it really possible to divorce the two? Are not God’s gifts of peace, joy, provision, happiness, reconciliation, service, significance, worship, and more, included in a “package deal” when we are in relationship with God? Can we not invite persons to be in relationship with God and at the same time inform them that this relationship will include God’s blessings? Certainly, we must be careful how we communicate the interrelationship between personally relating with God and experiencing God’s “other” blessings. We do not want to convey a tit-for-tat invitation, such that persons only enter into relationship with God in order to receive God’s abundant blessings. The interface between being in relationship with God and receiving God’s blessings is more holistic and integrated than that.
Viewed from the other side of the coin, however, this is precisely the point. Just as we do not want persons to seek God’s gifts without seeking God himself, neither do we want them to seek God himself without also seeking God’s gifts. If the interface is holistic and integrated, it must be seen as such from each dimension.
Claus Westermann’s perspective is useful at this point. In Blessing in the Bible and the Life of the Church, he makes a careful distinction between God’s deliverance and God’s blessing. Deliverance describes the saving acts or events of God, while blessing describes the working of God in the processes of history to bring about fullness of life in daily experience.118
In a different work (What Does the Old Testament Say About God?), Westermann offers a keen observation concerning the relationship of humanity’s creation to this notion of God’s working within the processes of history. He suggests that the tendency in Christian theology is to conceive of a disconnect between human creation and the rest of creation, and that this conception is quite unfaithful to the biblical material concerning creation. Human existence is inextricably tied to “living-space (the garden), the provision of food (the trees of the garden), work (the commission to cultivate and preserve), and in particular the community (‘a helper fit for him’ Gen. 2:18),” so that people “are only human in these relations, not beyond them in an abstract existence.” In the context of this theological anthropology (or anthropological theology), we can more fully grasp the importance of understanding the role of blessing in Christian life and understanding. “It is the working of the blessing that allows all these necessary parts of human existence to persist: God’s blessing allows humanity’s food to grow and prosper, preserves human living-space, gives people success in their work, and grants peace (shalom) within the community.”119 Blessing for Westermann, therefore, is an ongoing experience.
In a discussion of what salvation means in the Old Testament, Baab notes the integral link between having a relationship with God and the experience of God’s blessings. “By tentatively defining salvation as the good which comes to men [sic] in their life with God, we are able to avoid the artificial separation between processes and their consequences, which underlies the general misunderstanding of the Old Testament as reflecting a religion primarily of concrete rewards for good conduct.”120 Eichrodt shares a related insightful viewpoint. He notes that though the exilic and post-exilic prophetic posture helped shape the theological conviction that fellowship with God was the supreme good, the priestly interpretation of the covenant relationship was “characterized by the organic synthesis of earthly blessing and the supreme gift of salvation.”121 He further contends that these two perspectives were “impossible to unite in fruitful tension,”122 resulting in either a strong focus on fellowship with God as the most valuable consequence of God’s salvation, or on natural goods as the most valuable consequence of it.
Despite the difficulty in maintaining a fruitful tension, I encourage us to put forth the effort to move toward an organic synthesis, both in theology and in evangelism. Let us not cast away God’s blessing(s) too quickly. God is the creator and giver of life. It was God’s original intention in creation for humanity and all of creation to experience fertile life, and this continues to be God’s intention. As John Oswalt says, “God gives life. Neither god, nor man, nor rite can do so. Nor does God have to be cajoled to give his blessing. He wishes to give it to all who will trust him (Gen. 12:3).”123 Let us not downplay God’s intentions for us. Let us include God’s blessings in our evangelistic vision, communication, and invitation.
Two Tensions or Continuums Are Clearly Present
Before shifting to chapter 4, which discusses insights from John’s Gospel, it would be helpful to note that two tensions or continuums clearly emerge from these Old Testament insights. The first is the tension or continuum between
