Philip Yancey on the Old Testament

I've been looking through some old files lately and came across a quote I saved from Phillip Yancey's book about the OT. (The Bible Jesus Read) Brother daniel on EU recommended the book during a discussion about the OT. I read it en route to the conference Keith and go to in the spring at the home church of Lynn Hiles, a traveling ministry we support. I read until the passing landscape flying past the window.... in my peripheral vision.... started to make me queasy. I never did finish the book but I read long enough to glean this great quote.

I detect in the OT a gradual but certain movement toward grace. The Hebrews lived in wild, barbaric times. Their laws, which may seem harsh to us, represent a great softening compared to their neighbor's laws. They established basic rules of warfare and enshrined in their laws respect for the poor and care for the environment. They set limits on revenge and guilt.. Cities of Refuge. We must remember as we look back on a time of blood vengeance, slavery, polygamy, and contract marriage with a brother's wife, that God had to work with people's moral condition at its given stage. In the writings from this period lay the seed, but only the seed, of God's grace. "These are the Scriptures that testify about me." Jesus told the Torah-readers of his day, then added pointedly, "yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

"As nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to "lisp" when speaking to us," said John Calvin. In the OT especially, God "lisped." Speaking in language that could be understood, God gradually edged his people toward a different way. He took the side of the oppressed and promised a Suffering Servant who would redeem not as the perpetrator but as the victim of violence. For a time he allowed behavior that he disapproved of, "because your hearts were hard." Meanwhile, albeit sometimes in zigzag fashion, the long vectors of history pointed steadily toward his Son, Jesus, the final revelation of God in human form. In Jesus, God no longer lisped; the Word spoke loud and clear.

I really like that quote and it fits well with some of what I've read and pondered and thought about over the past year or so. (along with all my wonderful friends and fellow seekers on Emerging Universalist) It also reminds me of a verse in Psalms that I stumbled upon a while back:

Psalm 18:35 - You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.

And thank goodness he is willing to condescend to where his children happen to be on their journey....