This Week's Focus Passage

This Week’s Focus Passage: Exodus 31:18 ‘The two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written w

This Week’s Focus Passage: Exodus 31:18

‘The two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.’

 

    What is an anthropomorphism? It is the attributing of human characteristics to gods, objects, etc. There are multiple examples of anthropomorphisms in the Word of God; the Holy Spirit determined to employ many of these, in order to help the readers of the Scriptures to understand that which was intended. It needs to be borne in mind, the truth of John 1:18, where John has informed the reader of his epistle, No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. No man has ever seen God, nor shall any man ever see Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke this reality to the woman of Samaria, when He encountered her at the well, as recorded for us, in John 4:24. Jesus spoke these words to her, saying, God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.  And we have read something of a corollary in Hebrews 11:1; Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.  Examples of such anthropomorphisms that help the faith of the believer to understand what is being taught, may be seen in many places of the Word. In Exodus 6:6, Jehovah, as He instructed Moses what he was to say to His people, said, Wherefore, say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. Moses is to tell the people that God will save them with His arm outstretched, and yet, He has no arm. The statement about the use of His arm to save them, is an anthropomorphism. He will save His people, as with an outstretched arm, He will gather them to Himself

    In our focus passage for this week, we are observing Moses before Jehovah as He wrote the ten commandments on tables of stone, and with His finger. This is precisely what we may read in Exodus 31:18. 

And he [Jehovah] gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

What does it mean for us, when we read those words, ‘written with the finger of God’? If our God has no body, no head, no feet, or any visible parts, how can it be said that these words on the tables of stone, were written with the finger of God? Do we find in our Bibles any other places where this finger has been spoken of? There is, at least, an inference of such found in the book of Jeremiah. We read in chapter 31, and in verse 33, Jehovah God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, saying, 

 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.  

It is readily admitted that we have, in these words, no mention whatever of any finger, much less the finger of God. And yet, we are in possession, in Ezekiel 36; what may fairly be considered a corollary, or a parallel, statement, when we read:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances and do them. 

Note, in particular, the references to the commandments of Jehovah given to Moses at Sinai, when their God has spoken of His people being caused to walk in His statutes, and to keep His ordinances. Also, this is obtained through the giving of a new heart and a new spirit, taking away the stony heart, and putting my Spirit within. May we not witness here, Jehovah preparing the heart of His elect by taking away the stony heart and giving to them a heart of flesh; putting His Spirit within them? There is an undeniable likeness of these things with Jehovah’s writing His law upon ‘tables of stone.’ By His sovereign power, He made the stones pliable to His writing upon them with His finger. In regeneration, He makes the hearts of His chosen to be ‘hearts of flesh,’ capable of receiving the writing, upon them, of His most holy law. This is then, as it seems, consummated by His putting His Spirit within them. May this not be parallel to His people being made willing to come to Him in the day of His Power? Are we not to understand this finger to be representative of God the Holy Spirit, and His activity in regenerating the chosen ones, making them willing in the day of His Power, to come unto the Father through the blood of the Son, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world?   

    There is yet another passage where a reference to the finger of God is made, and in this case, made by our Lord Jesus Christ. We shall be looking at the gospel of Luke, and chapter eleven. In this account of yet another clash between Christ and some unbelieving Jews, we may find this saving truth exposed. In Luke 11:20, in the heart of this account, where the multitude charged that Jesus has cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, otherwise known as Satan, our Savior responds in the words following, when He said, And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. But if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you. In the parallel passage in the gospel of Matthew, 12:28, Jesus’ response is as follows, But if I, by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you. That parallel sentence is remarkable, is it not? Geldenhuys, has a note in his commentary of Luke, which reads, as follows, “The corresponding passage in Matthew 12:28, has the synonymous phrase en pneumati Theo, which explains the metaphor “finger of God”. The expression “finger of God” in the Old Testament (Exod. Vii.19; Ps. viii.3) denotes His power. Jesus cast out demons by the power of God; in other words, by His Spirit. Matthew differs from Luke in that sentence, only in the distinction between by the finger of God, and, by the Spirit of God; strongly insinuating that ‘by the finger of God,’ and, ‘by the Spirit of God,’ are equivalent statements. In other words, when we conflate this with our week’s focus passage, then are we able to submit that it may be read in the following manner; The two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written by the Spirit of God. And, by necessity, this requires us to recognize, as well, that we should be enabled to read, in Jeremiah 31:33, But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it: and I will be their God and they shall be my people. When He has said ‘and in their heart will I write it,’ there is no good reason not to understand that as stating, ‘in their heart will I write it with my finger, namely ‘with my Spirit.’ If we are in Christ, it then follows, that God has written His law in our inward parts, with His fingerafter having, through regeneration grace, given us hearts, under the new birth, to be willing in the day of His power, to come to Him through His Son.

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church

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