Liberating the Will of Australia. Geoffrey Burn

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СКАЧАТЬ individuals in isolation from their contemporaries is not considered. This is because the question at issue is a different one, namely, ‘Why is this inevitably communal national crisis happening?’”52

      Joel Kaminsky rightly criticizes the way of thinking that sees Ezekiel on the trajectory from communal to individual conceptions of identity and responsibility, noting that this way of thinking reflects a modern bias towards privileging the individual over the communal, which has been adopted in biblical interpretation in the political project of wanting to construct a trajectory from what is construed as the messiness of the communal, law-based religion of Israel to the purity of the individual, grace-filled Christianity. Besides the problematic ideological position of such an argument, Kaminsky notes that the idea of communal responsibility is present in the books of the Old Testament that many scholars believe were written late, such as Daniel 6:25 and Esther 9:7–10, and so no such trajectory exists in the Old Testament.53

      The centrality of the corporate as well as the individual continues to be present in the New Testament and so it was not something that was superseded with the coming of Jesus. For example, God addresses the “angel” of each of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Here God is speaking to the spirit of each church as a corporate body, not to individuals. As a second example, Paul also writes to churches, as well as speaking to particular individuals. His image of being incorporated into Christ, being “in Christ,” is central to his way of thinking and he even talks of all having died in the death of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14–15), something Westerners find it hard to understand. A third example is that whole households were baptized (e.g., Acts 10:33, 48; 16:15; 16:33). As a final example, Matthew sees the work of Jesus as being about the renewal of the community of Israel. Stephen Barton writes that the central preoccupation of Matthew is “the revelation of the divine presence (kingdom of heaven) in the coming of Jesus as messiah, in fulfillment of scripture, to call Israel to repentance and through a renewed Israel to bring God’s blessings on the nations of the world.”54

      Thinking corporately is innate to many other cultures. For example: the identity of people as being part of a village is central to notions of justice in Bougainville;55 Vincent Donovan gives the example of a whole tribe of Masai converting to Christianity, because it was impossible for the tribe to be split;56 and there is an African saying, “I am because we are, and because we are therefore I am.”57 All of these point to the fact that it is possible to conceive of the world very differently. That is not to say that these worldviews are perfect, but they provide encouragement for reconsidering the nature of corporate entities.58 In fact, biblically, corporate entities are part of the created order.59

      Not only does the corporate remain important in the Bible, but so does corporate responsibility. For example: Jesus castigates the lawyers of his time as a group and holds them responsible for the sins of their forebears (Luke 11:45–54); Jesus laments over Jerusalem as a corporate entity (Matthew 23:37 || Luke 11:34); and Jesus says that Jerusalem will be destroyed because it “did not recognize the time of your visitation from God” (Luke 19:41–44). Furthermore, the Second Movement will show how the church in Corinth could not see how they had been shaped by the past and so they, as a community, had not truly understood the gospel of Jesus Christ.

      So, all through the Bible, we see the importance of thinking in terms of corporate entities, not just individuals, and understanding that such groups can be held responsible as a group for failures. Having seen this, we can return to the book of Ezekiel, confident that Ezekiel is indeed addressing communities of people and holding them corporately responsible for their sin, knowing that this is not some sort of ancient failure to understand the primacy of the individual, but part of the way that world is under God.

      Ezekiel gives one of the most robust responses in the Bible to the claim by a group of people that they are guiltless: they say that their present problems are the result of the sins of people in the past and not themselves. Ezekiel is addressing the generation of people who were alive at the time of the defeat of Judah by the Babylonians.60 Both Ezekiel and his readers regard the crisis as a punishment for sin. What is contested is who sinned.61 The people to whom Ezekiel is speaking quote the parable, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2). That is, they claim that their present predicament is the result of the sins of their forebears, not their own sin; they prefer to think of themselves as being unjustly punished rather than admitting their guilt (18:19), even to the point of claiming that it is God who is unjust rather than them (18:25, 29).62 Ezekiel claims that they are being punished for their own sins.

      In order to be able to understand how Ezekiel deals with the people’s complaint in chapter 18, it is important to see that Ezekiel is consistent throughout the whole book in listing the sins of the present generation, that the way that they are sinning is the same as their forebears, and that it is the whole nation that is being addressed, although the leaders are also singled out for their culpability for the state of the nation. Right at the beginning of Ezekiel, God makes it clear that it is the present generation of people that are sinning, that they are sinning in the same ways as their ancestors, and that it is the nation as a whole which is being addressed:

      He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” (2:3–4)

      They are described as a “rebellious house” (2:5, 6, 7, 8; cf. 3:7). At various places, Ezekiel lists catalogues of the sins of the present generation. For example, in 5:5–11, the people have rebelled against God’s ordinances and statutes and defiled the temple “with all your detestable things and with all your abominations” (5:8). Jerusalem and the temple area are filled with the worship of things which are not God (ch. 8). The land is “full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity” (9:9). People “devise iniquity” and give “wicked counsel” (11:2; cf. 13:1–9) and “have killed many in this city, and filled its streets with the slain” (11:6). In 16:1–34, the people are pictured as having taken the gifts of God and used them to create idolatrous images and shrines and to give offerings to other gods, places of idolatrous worship have proliferated, they have killed their children and offered them to other gods, and they have consorted with other nations. In 22:1–16, there is a catalogue of wrongs: fathers and mothers are being treated with contempt, aliens face extortion, and the orphan and widow are wronged in law (22:7–8); there are lewd religious practices and distorted sexual relationships (22:8–11); the economic system is broken with bribes and extortion (22:12); and there is violence and death (22:13). The leaders are castigated for their part in perpetuating this culture (22:23–30; cf. ch. 34). It is clear that it is the present generation that is being judged for their sin (e.g., 7:3–4, 8, 9, 19). They are a “rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house” (12:2–3). In chapter 20, Ezekiel argues that there has been a consistent pattern and history of rebellion in the people of Israel from the time it was brought out of Egypt, which is being continued by the people of the present day. He finishes by saying:

      Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your ancestors and go astray after their detestable things? When you offer your gifts and make your children pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. (20:30–31; cf. 22:2–4).

      In chapter 18, Ezekiel addresses the people’s claim that they are being punished for the sins of their ancestors. He asks:

      What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?” (18:2)

      Ezekiel claims that God is just because the proverb is not true: God only punishes the guilty party. Ezekiel makes his case by giving three examples (18:5–18), which seem to be reflecting on Deuteronomy 24:16.63 It is important to note that Ezekiel is arguing by analogy: СКАЧАТЬ