God's Initiative

As part of my Balthasar project I’ve recently started Volume 6 of “The Glory of the Lord” the topic of which is the Old Covenant. The following is from Chapter C.2.


“When Moses begged that he might see God’s glory, God hid him in the cleft of the rock and passed by him, crying out ‘Yahweh’ Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Ex 34.6) In this experience, Moses was permitted to see the glory of God ‘from the rear’ as it passed man by. The entire disclosure of God is grace …. When grace is bestowed on Israel, it receives thereby access to God, a place beside him and the right to dwell there. But the primary meaning of grace must be, not that God bestows on the creature, from the far distance of his heaven … but rather that he bends down to the earth and raises man up to himself, making space for him in God’s own realm …. Israel is familiar with a number of words that paraphrase this inexpressibly mysterious process; these all approach the same mystery from various sides ….”

I find the idea very moving that God humbles himself by coming down to the level of his creature so that the creature can be elevated to God’s realm. I know Christ did the same, but, the Israelites came to this revelation thousands of years before Christ. I remember playing with my kids. In order to get into their world I had to get down on the floor and zoom, zoom with the toy cars just like they did, drink the pretend tea and eat the pretend cookies and color the pictures pretending it was hard to stay inside the lines. God’s actions can be compared to this I suppose though the comparison falls short. Yet, the thought of God’s initiative never fails to provide me with a sense of being comfortable in my faith.

Von Balthasar goes on to describe the Hebrew words used in the OT to describe the God revealed to the Israelites:

Berith – Covenant

Chesed, chen, rachamim – kindness, favor, mercy

Sedek, sedaka – right conduct in faithfulness

Mishpat – right [action] which effects salvation

Emeth, emuna – proved excellence (confidence in the action of God)

Shalom – pacified realm of salvation