A strong statement of God's sovereignty and of free human agency comes to us in 1 Chr. 6:15: "YHWH sent Judah and Jerusalem into exile by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar." YHWH does the sending. Clearly. But Nebuchadnezzer's hand is involved. Clearly. So who is responsible for the exile? Answer: YHWH (as primary agent) and Nebuchadnezzar (as secondary agent). YHWH uses Nebuchadnezzar as a tool. But there's a difference between using a tool as a tool and using a person as a tool. And so this metaphor breaks down at certain points. All metaphors do. Nebuchadnezzer is a tool in YHWH's hands, but he's not exacly like a tool since he's personal. And persons make free choices. We see this everywhere in the Bible.
And maybe we shouldn't even use the tool metaphor (although Scripture itself does), since we're given a metaphor in the text that points up the point. It is "by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar" that YHWH sends his people into exile. Who has control of that hand? Well, all of us would say, the body and head to which the hand is attached. Right? Right. But. But God. God rules over that hand. So says the text.
So Nebuchadnezzar freely chose to oppress Judah; he felt no constraint whatsoever in doing this. However, ultimately God was behind it. How he was behind it, let no one pretend otherwise, is shrouded in mystery. And so we're left with tension. But we're not left doubting that God rules over men's decisions and actions. And we're also not left wondering why God would use a wicked king to take his people into a foreign land: for "Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their breach of faith" (1 Chr. 9:1).
No comments:
Post a Comment