Figural Reading and the Violence of God
We live in a modern moment where, maybe more than ever before, we have unceasing access to violence. For decades, missile strikes and the explosions of war have been front and center on the evening news. Watching violent tragedies unfold in real time seems to have become a societal norm as social media has changed the way in which we interact with the sorrows of this fallen world. And this constant barrage of violence upon our minds and thoughts has not left modern methods of reading the Scriptures unaffected. As one begins a journey across the literary terrain of the Scriptures, the sorrows of living in a creation-now-cursed are evident from the very beginning. Cain murders his brother over a sacrifice. Jephthah burns his only daughter upon an altar after making a foolish vow. The nation of Israel goes to war with the tribe of Benjamin after the dismembered body parts of a sexually assaulted woman are sent throughout the land for all the see. While this manner of violence amongst sinful humanity might not surprise many of us, to see similar acts of violence attributed to God himself has left many profoundly uncomfortable. What are we to make of God sending a watery deluge upon the whole of creation? How are we to understand His command for Israel to put every single Canaanite, including women and children, under a sentence of death?
These questions, though particularly penetrating to the modern conscience, are nothing new. The reality of divine violence in the Scriptures has been wrestled with long into the night, with many an interpreter likely wishing for God to just end the struggle with a tap to the metaphorical hip. Many throughout history, such as the infamous Marcion, chose to simply jettison the elder testament in favor of the God of the New, appealing to contradictory presentations of God throughout the Scriptures. If one had to choose between the God of violence and the God of love, many have rushed towards the latter. While creeds, church councils, and ecclesial confessions have long set boundaries against such interpretive maneuvering, Marcion's long shadow still hides behind much of modern biblical reading, particularly as it relates to this question of divine violence. How then are we to read texts that portray God to be violent? If the Scriptures are wholly God-breathed and profitable, how might divine violence profit the modern theological mind? The answer lies, as many answers often do, with the way in which our Triune God has providentially ordered creation and His own acts within it.
A Figural Hermeneutic
Before tackling the question at hand, it is best that a suitable hermeneutic be put forward. If modern readers are tempted to come to violent texts with cynicism, then what manner of biblical reading and reasoning might best serve as a starting point for answering concerns surrounding the violence of God? What method might make the most of God's self-revelation throughout even those portions of the biblical canon that appear at first glance to be quite messy? Figural reading serves as such a foundation.
Whenever one uses the rhetoric of a providential ordering to God's acts in creation, the reality of biblical figuration rises inescapably into view. As Dr. Don Collett insightfully remarks, "the very possibility of figural meaning presupposes a providentially constructed background or context."¹ What then constitutes figuration? To put it succinctly, biblical figuration speaks to the nature of God's ordering of time and creation to reveal his identity, name, and the telos to which all things are leading in God's providence.² To quote the inimitable Christopher Seitz,
"Figural readings attend to the providential character of inspired writing and editing, in all phases of this work: both within the OT itself and then as the elected witness is filled to full by the work of Jesus Christ and then opened for the church's theological reflection across two testaments, into the present time, and as the church awaits the final consummation of promises and figures set in motion in the elected and enlarged witness of 'prophet' and 'apostle'."³
God has elected to figurally reveal himself in world and inscripturated Word for the sake of his Church's ongoing reflection until the wrapping up of all things in the second advent of the Son, the divine Word. Whereas something like biblical typology illustrates God's redemptive plan on a more horizontal or linear plane, biblical figuration aims to lift one's eyes vertically towards the nature of the God who providentially ordered those types and shadows to serve as testimonials to God's decree from eternity. Thus, as one moves across the biblical landscape, from narrative to prophecy to poetry, the reader is to see how God has ordered time, persons, events, and institutions to figurally convey his own nature and works in a manner that his human creatures can understand by help of his Spirit. And this figuration can be seen from the opening of Scripture itself.
In Genesis, God's act of creation is providentially revealed in a manner that makes sense of the liturgical ordering of the Israelite calendar given by Moses throughout the remainder of Torah.⁴ The seven days of creation are the figural bones upon which Levitical flesh and sinews are formed. This first narrative creates the theological and eschatological parameters from which Torah, as well as the rest of the canon, operates. To put it another way, the telos of creation is imbedded within the words of that original creation account. From the Spirit's hovering to the creation mandate, one can begin to see in part and parcel both the nature of the Creator and the ways in which he will bring a fallen creation from the ruin of exile into the glory-cloud of his everlasting presence.
The very words of Genesis, the verbum that the divine author has breathed out through human hearts and hands, were always, in the providence of that divine author, to figure and make much of the thing, or the res, being signified.⁵ Thus, as one reads of God's actions in the patriarchal world, one must consider how those actions, and the words used to reveal them, serve as theological signposts pointing in the direction of realities far larger than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have understood at the time. As a recent interpretive example, one could look at the work of Katherine Sonderreger, who argues that the Levitical sacrifices figurally testify to the eternal processions of the persons of the Trinity.⁶ The descending of fire and ascension of smoke figurally convey, though never in comprehensive fashion, the way in which the Father eternally begets the Son who together spirate the Spirit. While one does not have to agree with every interpretive conclusion that Sonderregger makes, her method strikes at the heart of what is being put forward here. As the human authors wrote of altars, judgments, and promises, their words carried meaning far deeper than even they could put to paper. In the providence of the divine author, the world of the Scriptures is the world that we presently walk in, and this reality is not to be forgotten as one begins considering the divine violence that often filled that biblical world.
A Figural Reading of Divine Violence
From the beginning of Scripture, readers are quickly brought face to face with the violence of God. As Adam and Eve fall into sin, God curses them in ways that might leave one with questions. Why these punishments? Do they actually fit the crime committed? Is God's curse upon all of their progeny fair? These questions are worth pondering, particularly in light of principles such as lex taliones. However, keeping one's reflections merely on the relationship between these curses and Exodus 21:24-25 misses the ways in which God's words take their figural shape from God's nature. This can be seen more clearly in the account of the Flood, where both divine and human violence takes center stage.
At the outset of this particular narrative, human sin and violence have grown across the earth to such an extent that God is said to have regretted creating mankind. God is grieved at the widespread injustice on the earth, a reality that will soon be juxtaposed to the widespread flood waters of divine justice. And it is out of this divine sorrow, this holy hatred of all that's opposed to His nature, that God declares that all creation will be swept away from the face of the earth. It's as if this earth is being returned, or uncreated, to that original state of being formless and void.⁷ As the flood waters rise, there is nothing to be seen for months. It's no accident that only a dove will fly out from the floating ark in order to gaze out upon the waters for signs of life. That which descends upon the baptized Son will hover over the deluge just as in the very beginning. Like the cloud of fire and smoke in the deep recesses of the wilderness, this white bird will guide God's covenant family towards new creation. A seemingly small detail of this historical narrative figurally testifies as a beautifully rich example of the nature and working of the Spirit of God in the life of the saints.
Though this story has ironically been painted upon many a church nursery, its details are quite haunting. God causes water to erupt from seemingly all directions, drowning every creature that has not found solace within the ark that Noah has made. Thus, as that boat rises with the flood waters, so do countless bodies. This scene was never intended to be plastered upon childhood walls. It was intended to figurally convey the very nature and work of the God who providentially sent those death-waters upon creation. In this horrifically violent scene, the biblically attuned reader can see the beginnings of a providentially cyclical pattern that will show itself across the canon again and again. In God's figural economy, his violent acts testify to his just and merciful character, with firmer flesh being providentially placed upon these theological bones as the Scriptures unfold.
How then might a figural reading of divine violence reveal the justice and mercy of God? One might even remark that an event like the flood seems to be conveying a very different portrait of God than the one being offered here. As previously noted, figuration speaks to God's providential revelation of his nature and works through persons, events, and institutions. Signs figure that which they point to. In regard to the flood narrative, those violent waters, the ark, and the dove all serve in diverse ways to testify to the simple and immutable nature of the God who formed them. To put this another way, God's violence was purposefully intended to figure the manner in which he will eschatologically judge and redeem, for every one of his acts is an expression of his character. And when one broadens his or her biblical horizons from the flood towards other acts of divine violence, this pattern repeatedly shows itself. Whether it be Yahweh's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or his judgment of Jerusalem, the just judgment of the wicked and the merciful redemption of the undeserving are always, either explicitly or implicitly, there for all with eyes to see.⁸
The way in which God judges those who refuse to call upon his name in the flood narrative gives figural form to the way in which he will pour out eternal justice upon the unrepentant. This revelatory reality is confirmed as latter biblical writers draw upon the imagery of the flood in order to speak to God's just judgment throughout history.⁹ The same can be said of the way in which God redeems a remnant by means of the ark. The Scriptures consistently use prior biblical language and imagery in order to theologically build upon those earlier foundations. And though one may not notice this figural reality on the surface of a phenomenon like the re-use of biblical language, such an act on the part of the authors testifies to the unchanging nature of our Triune God. While the Lord utilizes a number of means to judge the wicked and redeem the elect, his justice never ebbs and flows. Every act of God in history is wholly just. There is never a moment in which God's justice is lesser or greater. He always acts providentially throughout history in accordance with his character and with figural purpose. Water and ark are signs of such purposes.
Though one does not often consider mercy and redemption when meditating on divine violence, the figural presence of that wooden ark floating upon the death-waters speaks of God's simplicity. He simply is his acts and he cannot be separated from them. He cannot, by virtue of his nature, pour out justice without also being merciful. He simply is justice and mercy all of the time. His justice is merciful and his mercy is just. So, in regard to divine violence, God's just judgments necessarily result in mercy towards those whom God has freely chosen to show mercy to. Whether it be Noah, Lot, Israel, or the new covenant community, God acts in and through violence to bring about their redemption, be it merely temporal or eternally eschatological. The same justice that judges the wicked is that which frees the oppressed and enslaved. This is why the Scriptures remind us through perpetual refrain that, "Yahweh is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining that faithful love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers' iniquity upon their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation."¹⁰ These violent acts that permeate Scripture's story figure this declaration to all those who looked upon them and now read of them. These acts cry out as it were about the nature of the One sending water and plague upon the earth. They are an abrasive reminder that the unchanging God will always prove true to his word.¹¹ The unrepentant will certainly be judged and the remnant will certainly be ransomed.
A Final Word
Thus, gazing back upon the scene of the flood, one can truly catch a glimpse of both the immutable God and the way in which he will wrap up this old creation like a garment in order to bring down that new-creation city from above. God providentially uses something as prevalent as water and as odd as an extraordinarily large boat to figure his own nature to that covenant family within its walls and those experiencing his wrath outside of it. While God's violence might make us uncomfortable as we read of floods and fires, it is never without purpose. All that is in God is God including that which may grate against the modern conscience. God acts violently in the biblical world in order to use those acts to reveal something of himself and his decree to finite creatures. The flood was not a moment of God flying off the handle nor was it a repudiation of his own divinely given principles of justice. Rather, it was the right expression of his nature towards both the righteous and the wicked. God could have used any means to accomplish his just purposes, yet he chose such things as water and an ark. Why? Because the timeless God was communicating in a thoroughly biblical register. The One who knows the end from the beginning figurally used that which would be loaded with all manner of symbolism throughout biblical history in order to testify with cyclical clarity to his unchanging nature. The violent God of the flood will one day soon finally judge the wicked and redeem all those covenantally hidden with a much greater ark. Divine violence is a clarion call to creation to turn from all that is contrary to our Lord and find life in the blameless Son.
Notes:
Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament: Theology and Practice, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 46.
This definition is the result of reflection on much of Don Collett's work in Figural Reading in the Old Testament. In large part, my own thought has been formed by his careful intentionality regarding the providence of God in creation and the formation of the canon.
Christopher Seitz, "History, Figural History, and Providence in the Dual Witness of Prophet and Apostle," in Go Figure! Figuration in Biblical Interpretation, ed. by Stanley D. Walters, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2008), 4.
See Michael LeFebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019), 119-21.
Collett, Figural Reading, 17.
Katherine Sonderregger, Systematic Theology: Volume 2, The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: Processions and Persons (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2020), 406-81.
Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023), 70.
For a succinct explanation of this theme of salvation through judgment, see Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Wheaton: Crossway, 2023), 107-123. For a fuller treatment, see James Hamilton, God's Glory in Salvation Through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010).
Zephaniah 1:2-8 is an excellent example of this confirmation as the prophetic writers utilizes the flood-like language of "sweeping away" creation in order to speak of the day of Yahweh.
My own translation of Exodus 34:6-7.
For a very brief treatment on the certainty that divine immutability brings to the Christian, see James E. Dolezal, All That Is In God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 17-19.