Nehemiah 6--Prelude to something big

At the end of Bible study on Nehemiah 6, the question was what will each of us take away from the discussion and the text.  As Nehemiah builds to the great climax in Chapter 9, my thoughts are drawn to the building drama for that climactic summit.  With so much discussion about leadership and the strengthening of our hand in this week's discussion, I find myself retreating back to the high altitude vantage point.

Nehemiah starts with a look to Sinai and he continues to look to Sinai.  In all of this, God remains silent.  Make no mistake, the Wall is built and God's hand is behind it.  But, when Nehemiah and his people make reference to the Temple and to Sinai, God remains silent.  As we plow through another section of the Jerusalem phone book next week, the parallels to Revelation continue to mount.  We will get chapter and verse on the people who were there.  We know how long it took to finish.  We know who worked on which section of the wall.  We know about obstacles and opponents.  We know details and more details.  God is rebuilding the Temple, but the question is whether he is rebuilding the Sinai covenant.  Give Revelation 21 a look once again, and focus at the end on verse 22: And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  Remember that this Temple, the second temple, and this Jerusalem, the earthly Jerusalem, are mere types and shadows of something much larger.  Something totally different is looming in the historical narrative.  Redemptive history is winding towards something much larger than the walls of man.

As we move into the key passages in Chapters 8 and 9, be watching for the covenant language.  Remember about the animal pieces and sprinkling of blood that accompanied the Sinai covenant and notably also the Abrahamic covenant.  The Old Testament is all about types and shadows.  But Jerusalem is becoming a type and shadow of the type and shadow.  Looking forward to the present, Judaism today is a farther degree still removed from Temple worship.  Nehemiah is where national Israel begins to wander farther from Abraham.  Keep an eye out for how this can happen.  Only 450 years or so will pass between Nehemiah and Jesus.  How can this God lead effort of Ezra and Nehemiah go so far astray in so little time?

My answer is that the foundation is not solid.  God may indeed want this effort to further demonstrate the futility of our works.  God may indeed want this effort to further demonstrate our need for His Grace.  Nehemiah and Ezra continue to look to Moses and Sinai, to the covenant that was broken by Israel.  All along, they still had the key and overlooked it.  All along, the covenant promise that mattered was with Abraham, and subsequently with David.  Follow the Royal Grants; notice the Suzerainty treaties, but do not place faith in the conditional covenants that require the works of man.

I took away a sense of building to a climax.  The summit is in sight.  From 20,000 feet, you can see the mountain looming just over the horizon.  The mountain is Zion, not Sinai.

--Troll--