Windows Into Worldviews – Page 2

Toby Sumpter On Superficial Divisions

“The multicultural globalist want to blend all culture into a bland humanism, but the blood-and-soil types end up insisting on superficial divisions. Covenant is the key to earthy and biblical unity and diversity, of what we might call a Protestant feudalism and Christendom.”

Toby “No Legs Yet Walking” Sumpter

I.) Nothing At All About Blood?

1.) “The Promise is to you and to your children….” Acts 2:39

2.) Gen. 12: 2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

3.) God is known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (note the patrilineal descent) and not the God of Abraham, Hiram, and Malik.

4.) Gen. 24:²One day Abraham said to his oldest servant, the man in charge of his household, “Take an oath by putting your hand under my thigh. ³Swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not allow my son to marry one of these local Canaanite women. ⁴Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son Isaac.”

Keep in mind that the wife that was later married by Jacob from these same relatives of Abraham was beset with the same pagan mindset as was true of the local Canaanite women as seen in her running off with Laban’s household gods. We note that so that we see that it wasn’t as if the people of Abraham were God-fearers unlike the local Canaanites and their women-folk.

5.) Do keep in mind also that there is a reason for all those genealogies in Scripture that demonstrate that Jesus the Christ was the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1) In point of fact Jesus remains the Lion of the tribe of Judah at this very moment with DNA typable blood at the right hand of the Father.

6.) Ezra and Nehemiah and their decrying of mixed marriages and children anybody?

7.) “I was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel.” Jesus the Christ

Now before I am accused of suggesting that blood is the only consideration allow me to disavow that. I am only saying there that the covenant is not a Gnostic covenant. Grace, because of God’s ordination, typically runs in generational familial lines. Blood is not everything but neither is it nothing. Jesus enemies during his earthly ministry made descent an idol. Today the enemies of Biblical Christianity make descent to mean nothing as if grace does not, because of God’s free assignment, run in generational lines.

II.) Nothing At All About Soil?

So much for all those promises about “the promised land.” And what about our one day “inheriting the whole earth?”

So, it is not at all about blood and soil and yet Christ had to come from the tribe of Judah. It’s not at all about blood and soil yet Paul can say in Romans;

“the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”

And Jesus will say to the Samaritan woman in John 4;

22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

What is hilarious is that these same people like Old Toby will deny all categories of blood and soil while still insisting that those reputed to be blood Jews still have a glorious future ahead of them misinterpreting Romans 11. Still others want to say that the blood Jews are going to rebuild the temple on the glorious soil of Jerusalem.

Old Toby’s “thinking” (we’re feeling generous in calling it “thinking) gives us not only propositional nationhood but also propositional covenant theology. This is Gnostic covenantalism. The fact that it comes from putative Presbyterians demonstrates how far many of the Presbyterians have gone in grace destroying nature.

Again, my point in all this is to say “Old Toby is wrong.” Covenant has to do with blood and soil. My point is that while blood and soil are not everything neither are they nothing. For Pete’s sake that is proven by the 5th commandment. That is proven by the fact that the Holy Spirit can say;

“if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

I Timothy 5:8

Finally, note this clergy member said that family ties are nothing but superficial divisions. Good gravy, if that isn’t the theme song of the Globalists among us I don’t know what is. I find it shocking that a Presbyterian — the folks who historically believed that the best method of Church growth was by having large families — is telling me that family ties are superficial divisions. It is shocking as hearing P-Diddy saying “sex should be saved for marriage.”

Family is not everything. We must give up family if necessary to follow Christ but family is so important that God uses the idea of “family” to define how the church members should inter-relate.

And yet for Old Toby it is a “superficial division” — kind of like being a Michigan or Michigan State fan.

Redemption Aimed At In “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?”

An article by Marvin Olaskey got me thinking about this and pushed me to come up with my own slightly different take.

_________

In the film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” film-maker John Ford demonstrates in the villain’s name and character (played by Lee Marvin) that Liberty expressed as malevolence (Hence the name Valance?) is the worst kind of license.

The character played by Jimmy Stewart is named “Ransom Stoddard.” In the film Ransom is willing to surrender his life (as a ransom) in an attempt to rid the town of the malevolence of the license brought by “Liberty Valance.” And that is what everybody thinks happened as Ranse is universally thought of as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

The town Sheriff is aptly named “Sheriff Appleyard” (played by Andy Devine). Appleyard is a bumbling but lovable fool with no real authority in the town. Devine was Barney Fife before Barney Fife was Barney Fife. The Sheriff’s last name is interesting though if only because man showed himself a fallen fool as happening in a “Appleyard.” No real help against the license of Liberty Valance is going to come from the fallen Sheriff Appleyard.

In the climax of the film, everyone has abandoned Ranse as he faces down Liberty Valance in a gun fight wherein Ranse is clearly overmatched. It is dark out. Here we see themes of Jesus being abandoned by all while all is still dark. Ranse is rescued by Tom Doniphon’s (played by John Wayne) surreptitious gunslinging thus providing a ransom for Ransom.

Because of Doniphon’s heroics he loses the girl (played by Vera Miles) to Ranse Stoddard. Could it be that the name Hallie in the film is short for Hallelujah?

“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” is indeed a tale about Liberty and how liberty can easily turn into license. It’s also a tale about how true liberty has to put down false liberty in order for all people to enjoy true liberty, but it’s also a tale about how a town is ransomed so that everyone can say “Hallelujah.” Finally, it might be taken as a tale that teaches that the true hero who provides the real ransom sometimes is not recognized by those whom he provided the ransom.

Helping Out Darryl Gnostic Hart

DGH wrote,

After a visit to my father at his local hospital, I had a worldview moment. What should have alerted me from the outset was the name of the place – St. Mary’s. But then I noticed that the spiritual services wing of the hospital had dropped off for him a brochure about their activities which was included with information about television channels and daily menus – talk about trivializing the eschaton. But the kicker was the crucifix in my dad’s ICU room. Shazzam!!! That’s a whole lot of idolatry for a man who is on a heart monitor.

Bret responds,

First we are sorry that Darryl’s Father is ill. It’s always difficult when our parents get to this age where we are watching them deteriorate in health. We trust Mr. Hart (Darryl’s Dad) will rally.

2.) It is true that the crucifix is idolatry and I’m fairly confident that the hospital staff wouldn’t object to your removing it in favor of a non-crucifix cross, or even a blank space on the wall.

Oh … and it would be a whole lot of idolatry even if Darryl’s Dad was not on a heart monitor.

DGH writes,

But is Roman Catholic medicine really any different from Reformed medicine or even – dare I say – secular medicine. If worldviews go all the way down to the very tips of our toes, and if we can’t escape the claims of Christ in any parts of our lives, can I really look the other way in good conscience when entering a hospital room that displays an image of Christ on a cross?

Bret responds,

1.) The old proverb that “even a blind old sow, finds and acorn once in-a-while” applies here. No Biblical Christian (worldview Christian) believes that false worldviews get it perfectly wrong always, all of the time. We merely believe that they have in their worldviews significant contradictions. As Bahnsen offered, “I don’t doubt that you can count. What I want to know is if you can account for your counting given your worldview.” So, Roman Catholics have medicines that work? No one ever doubted it. Even brothel workers can wear lovely evening gowns, but underneath it all they remain brothel workers.

2.) Worldview types often speak of the fact that the unbeliever is often involved in felicitous inconsistency. This accounts for Rome or other theological dispositions stumbling and getting some medicine matters correct. Medicinal Rome has snuck in some stolen capital from Biblical Christianity to get their Christ denying worldview off the ground. See Van Til’s, “Mr. Black, Mr. Gray, and Mr. White here.” So, Rome’s medicine works in spite of their world and life view and not because of it.

3.) Hart uses that word “secular” above, when he mentions “secular medicine.” If by secular he means a medicine birthed without theological a-prioris and faith commitments then of course his idea of “secular” is a myth. Does he doubt that? Perhaps, in the future, should he have heart problems like his father, Dr. Hart would consider consulting a animist Shaman, or a third world witch Doctor for all his medicine needs, or, he could consult a Western Medical doctor who also believes that boys can be born in women’s bodies. Worldview doesn’t affect how medicine operates? Methinks that the inability for many professionals in our health fields to authoritatively be able to answer “What is a woman,” kind of pulls the plug on Hart’s theory that “Worldviews don’t effect medicine.”

Maybe Hart, upon contracting a fever, would like to have a Doctor pull out leeches in order to bleed him so that he may be cured?

4.) Then there is the issue of Math. Math is, in and of itself, subjective right? If anything proves that worldviews don’t matter it is Mathematics right? Well, until you start attending Harvard and realize that there is a chap there who is teaching that 2+2 can sometimes = 5.

Kareem Carr Explains Why 2+2=5

Then of course there is Hinduism and math. If, as Hinduism states, all is one, then how does mathematics get off the ground? (And let’s not even talk about how believing “all is maya,” affects mathematics if Hindu math was consistent with their worldview affirmations.)

DGH writes,

And then there is the concern for quality of health care. If Abraham Kuyper was right that Roman Catholicism “represents an older and lower stage of development in the history of mankind” and if Protestantism occupies a “higher standpoint,” shouldn’t my dad try to find treatment at a Protestant hospital? Kuyper, by the way, wasn’t real complimentary of Roman Catholicism on science either.

Bret responds,

It certainly is the case that if presented with two hospitals having the same type of quality of care, I would definitely recommend Mr. Hart Sr. to go to the Protestant hospital.

I can speak to this point with some experience. This past year, as some of you know, I underwent open heart surgery for a valve replacement. The Doctor I was assigned was top shelf, in terms of reputation, but I knew little of his faith or theology. I had a whale of a time trusting myself to this process because of this. However, in God’s incredible providence a Christian cardiologist who has 20 plus years of experience contacted me. I took nearly everything Dr. A, who was doing my surgery, immediately to Dr. B (the Christian) to confirm every step of the way? Why? Because I trusted implicitly the knowledge of Dr. B, as existing in His Christian world and life view vis-a-vis not being sure of Dr. A’s world and life view. These things matter.

DGH writes,

It could be that I have once again misunderstood the claims of neo-Calvinism and that some algorithm exists for taking the gold of scientific advances from the dross of defective worldviews. But it could also be that the language of worldviews and the difference they make for every aspect of human existence is overdone, simply a rallying cry for inspiring the faithful, but not anything that would prevent my father from receiving treatment from unbelieving nurses employed by Roman Catholic administrators. Then again, the power of modernity is stunning, making all of those religious claims about connections between spiritual and physical reality look fairly foolish – as if a creed actually produces better medicine.

1.) I think it much more likely that Dr. Hart misconstrued as opposed to “misunderstood.” Because this is God’s world it is impossible for the Christ hater to get it perfectly wrong all the time, and so, as said above, they do import Christian worldview capital into their Christ-hating worldview in order to get their Christ hating world and life view off the ground. Some in Science do try to be consistent in their Christ hating worldview. Consider Lysenkoism for example. However, more often than not the Christ-haters are not as consistent as Lysenko was and they do import gold into their dross.

This isn’t that difficult for a Ph.D. like Hart.

DGH writes,

I mean no disrespect to the neo- Calvinists and their epistemological purity. But if they could help me out on this one, I’d be grateful. Does a Reformed worldview really make a difference for modern medicine and the ordinary decisions a sick believer must make in seeking a physician or hospital – under the oversight, of course, not of the elders but the insurance company?

Bret responds,

And as we have seen, the answer is resoundingly “yes, a Reformed worldview really does make a difference for modern, pre-modern, and post-modern medicine and the ordinary decisions a sick believer must make in seeking a physician or hospital.” For example, if Dr. Hart has any little ones in his life that he loves, I trust that if the little tyke complains of a belly ache they don’t take him to a modern Doctor who will tell him, “This clearly is a sign that the child is having unresolved gender issues.”

So here I finish, being happy to once again, to help Dr. Hart out on this one. I trust the good Dr. realizes that I also intend no disrespect to the neo-Gnostic Calvinists in our midst.

Bahnsen on Ethics Arrived At Apart from God

With painful irony we note the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Man has learned to cope with all questions of importance without recourse to God. . . . [God] is teaching us that we must live as men who can get along very well without him.” The pathos of these words is that they were penned in Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, penned after Hitler’s Gestapo, learning to get along very well without God, had imprisoned Bonhoeffer, thereby preventing the completion of his book on Ethics and resulting in his hanging in 1945. When the questions of ethics are answered without recourse to God, the following views of the state become inevitable:

The State incarnates the Divine Idea upon earth (Hegel).

The State is the supreme power, ultimate and beyond repeal, absolutely independent (Fichte).

Everything for the State; nothing outside the State; nothing

against the State (Mussolini).

The State dominates the nation because it alone represents it (Hitler).

The State embraces everything, and nothing has value outside the State. The State creates right (Franklin Delano Roosevelt).

Thus Bonhoeffer’s assertion represented the very outlook which condoned his immoral execution. The source of moral authority and law within a society will either be theistic or political; when the former is repudiated, the latter allows of no logical barrier from tyranny.

Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics

God Goes to War — Plague #1; Nile & Blood

Ex. 7:14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’”

19 The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs—and they will turn to blood.’ Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in vessels[a] of wood and stone.”

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.

22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river.

We enter now into a series on the plagues of Egypt and we do so, in part,

In order to see how God is a God who delivers His people
In order to see how God deals with the wicked who oppress His people
In order to see how God is true to His promises
In order to see how the pseudo gods are no gods at all

These and other realities will be brought to light as we consider these ten plagues against Egypt.

In order to provide the background to these plagues we are reminded that Israel went down into Egypt in order to escape a famine. God had set this all up via the life of the patriarch Joseph which begins this drama w/ being sold into slavery. We could well say that Israel’s occupation in Egypt begins with Joseph in slavery and ends in Joseph’s people being delivered from slavery.

Israel, as a separate people, are given the best of the land in Egypt so that Israel would not get genetically lost in Egypt. However eventually there arose a Pharoah over Egypt, who did not know Joseph (Ex. 1:8) and because of the threat that Pharoah viewed Israel that Pharaoh made Israel slaves in Egypt.

With the passage of time Israel’s bondage became so onerous that they cried out and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

At this point God rolls into motion what He had determined from eternity past. He rolls into motion the deliverance of His people from the great and mighty Egyptian empire. God unseen enters into the cosmic ring to absolutely enervate and disembowel the gods of Egypt.

That is was a battle between God and the gods of Egypt is testified to over and over again in Scripture. Here are some examples;

Ex. 12:12 For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and fatally strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the human firstborn to animals; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord.

Later, Jethro speaking to Moses

Ex. 18:11 “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly.”

Numbers 33:4 for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods.

Now as moderns we don’t think in these terms any longer. We moderns think we are too sophisticated to have gods and so all of this kind of language is just the stuff of myths or legends.

This is proven by the fact that many liberal commentaries do backflips in order to prove that all of these plagues, including this first plague, was a natural occurrence.

Remember, what you have been taught on this score. The liberal give naturalist interpretations because they begin their inquiry by presupposing that the supernatural cannot be true and since the supernatural cannot be true other explanations have to be found. For these anti-Christs the explanation of this supernatural reality are

1.) Astronomy view — Accounts for the Exodus events as the result of comets hitting the earth.

2.) Geological view — Accounts for the Exodus events as the result of volcanic eruptions or tidal waves

3) Seasonal view — The Nile hit a supercharged high tide water mark whereupon a chain reaction of plague events occurred.

In this 1st plague we are looking at we get the explanation that the Nile turned red because of minute fungi or perhaps because of tiny reddish insects that had overbred.

Anything to avoid a conclusion that all this happened by the hand of God (Ex. 7:5).

As your Pastor allow me to encourage you in the years to come to never make a home in a Church where any of the Leadership takes up this view of the supernatural.

So, as we said we have before us in the plagues an example of God going to war against His Egyptian competition.

We see that first in this text with the mention of Pharoah. In the Egyptian Pantheon Pharoah was a god. Ancient Egyptian texts characteristically describe Pharoah’s power in terms of “Pharoah’s strong hand,” “Pharoah being the possessor of a strong arm” and “Pharoah as the one who destroys the enemies with his arm.” These are the descriptors of a god and we know that because the Exodus account will speak the same way about Yahweh who is opposing Pharoah.

… for by [b]a powerful hand the Lord brought you out from this place. Ex. 13:3

Ex. 6:6 Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the labors of the Egyptians, and I will rescue you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.

That Pharoah was an Egyptian god whom Yahweh is taking to the woodshed is also testified to by the fact that Pharoah was understood as the one who in the Egyptian mindset was responsible to maintain cosmic order. Through the plagues Yahweh is overturning the Egyptian cosmic order. With each plague Yahweh is casually whittling away at the perceived godlike power of Pharoah to maintain the cosmic order. With each plague the God of the Bible is mocking Pharoah as god.

Now there is another wrinkle here that is going on between God and Pharoah and that is that one of the symbols of power that Pharoah wore on his crown. When Moses confronts Pharoah there stands Pharoah as the seed of the serpent adorned with serpent power. The Egyptian Pharaohs wore a headdress with a serpent in the form of a cobra, and it was embroidered on the robes of princes.

So, not only do we find Pharoah taken as a God but we find him as the embodiment of the seed of the serpent rising up to strike Israel as the seed of the woman. This is Genesis 3:15 in living action.

God speaks to the serpent;

“And I will put warfare
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”

So, in this warfare between the gods of Egypt and Yahweh there is also redemptive history that is in bold relief. Yahweh has raised up a deliverer (Moses) to deliver His people from the clutches of the seed of the Serpent with the purpose of making His name known to Pharoah who had said that he had not heard of the God of the Hebrews (Ex. 5:2).

By this you will know that I am the Lord: (Ex. 7:17)

There is another Egyptian God to deal with in this text besides Pharoah and that is the river Nile. The Nile was the lifeline of Egypt. Without it Egypt would have been one with the deserts surrounding it. The Nile was the center of many of its religious ideas and many temple to various gods were built on the shores of the Nile. Many of the gods of Egypt were associated with the Nile;

The god Khnum was considered to be the guardian of the Nile sources
The god was the ‘spirit of the Nile’ and its dynamic essence

The oldest Egyptian text to mention Hapi was “Texts of Unas” where Hapi is mentioned as “Hep.” Hapi was believed to be the god of the Nile River which played the most important role in constructing the Egyptian civilization. It was believed that ‘Hapi’ actually was the name of Nile River during the pre-dynastic period in Egypt. Generally, he was considered as the god of water and fertility.

One of the greatest gods in the Egyptian pantheon was Osiris and the Egyptians believed that the river Nile was his bloodstream. When Yahweh turns the Nile to blood there is then a certain mocking factor to this. It is as if Yahweh is saying, “You think the Nile is Osiris’s blood. Fine! Let it be turned to blood.”

Of course this action reverses the effect of the Nile from being a blessing to the Egyptians to being a curse. They could not drink the water. It gave off a foul odor. The fish could not died.

The Egyptians had sang hymns to the Nile

“O sacred Nile
The bringer of food
Rich in provisions
Creator of all good
Lord and Majesty
Sweet of fragrance”

Yahweh had given a solid kick in the teeth to more than a few Egyptian gods.

And what of these gods of Egypt. Let us note something here about them;

What we see here is that all the gods of Egypt are, are a projection of Egypt collectively speaking.

One thing I hope to tease out in this series is the fact that all peoples and cultures are only a reflection of the Gods that they project reality onto. We will see that that was true of Egypt. Egypt by means of collective projection created their own gods. What the Egyptians did is that they supernaturalized the natural — they invested the natural with the supernatural — and in doing so made gods out of the natural realm.

The fundamental sin of Egypt was to see the world in naturalistic terms. Whatever gods there were to the Egyptians, were merely the projections of the Egyptians upon the natural world.

This is a point to camp on for a moment because this is the reality of all false gods that people serve, whether ancient or modern. People project their own desires and wishes and by that action give life and reality to that which has no life or reality on its own. The false gods people and peoples serve have no reality. In our language today we would say that are all merely social constructs.

We see that with this first plague. Both Pharoah and the Nile were natural phenomena and yet both were invested with the supernatural and were so treated as one of the 80 or so gods that belonged to the pantheon of Egyptian gods.

This should pause us to ask what are the fake gods in our culture that we have, by means of projection, imbued with the supernatural?

What of our Scientism wherein we project divinity upon something that clearly is only a natural phenomenon? What of our technology wherein we do the same?

We laugh and make fun of the ancient Egyptians for their turning crocodiles, rivers, hippopotami, snakes, frogs and vultures into gods but how far are we from just that by turning psychology, management techniques, and the FEDS into gods by means of projecting the supernatural upon them.

We should also note, that all these Egyptian gods running around demonstrates once again that all cultures are hopelessly expressive of the gods they serve. Modern man in the West likes to pretend that his culture isn’t an expression of the gods he serves and yet a how far removed are we really from the Egyptians? It was clearly the case for the Egyptians that in Pharoah they lived and moved and had their being. Is it any less the case for the Modern West that we look to the State as our god?

Well… let us consider one more reality before leaving off this morning.

Many scholars believe, and I submit that they make a good case that what is going on with the plagues including this turning water to blood is that Yahweh is doing to Egypt a reverse of what he did in Creation. The argument is that just as Yahweh ordered the universe in creation so Yahweh is disordering and undoing creation as applied to the Egyptian world. Now we have already hinted at this but note here some of the Biblical evidence particularly as it applies to the first plague of blood;

To initiate the plague of blood, we are told that Aaron is to take his staff and hold it over all of Egypt’s bodies (or gatherings) of water. The Hebrew word used in Exodus 7:19 to describe the “bodies” or “gatherings” of water is מקוה the same word that appears in the opening chapters of Genesis when God creates the seas:

בראשית א:י וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לַיַּבָּשָׁה אֶרֶץ וּלְמִקְוֵה הַמַּיִם קָרָא יַמִּים וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים כִּי טוֹב

In Gen 1:10 God called the dry land Earth, and the gatherings (מקוה) of waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.[6]

The use of the unusual Hebrew word מקוה in connection with the plague of blood[7] cannot fail to evoke an association with the creation of the seas in Genesis 1:10 and indicates the cosmic import of the plague.

Similarly, the expression in Exodus 7:19 “Let them be(come) blood” (וְהָיָה דָם) echoes the use of the same verb (though not in the exact same form owing to a different linguistic context), “Let there be(come)” (יְהִי), in the creation story in Genesis.[8]

However, in contrast to the creation, where the primeval waters are not altered by a creative act, the first plague demonstrates that God is able to change the very nature of things.

God is visiting chaos upon the Egyptians. He is uncreating them.

This is altogether appropriate given that Egypt refuses to live in God’s reality. Egypt has created a false reality to live in and now God is uncreating their false reality. He is disabusing them of their social constructs. He is essence turning them over to their sin.

“You want to live in a false reality… I’ll take from you real reality and you let me know how that goes.”

This next observation is probably controversial, but you’ll be hearing it week to week so we should get it on the table. I think what is going on here is God is mocking the Hades out of the Egyptians. In this battle between the Egyptian gods and Yahweh God is rubbing their pretentious Egyptian noses in their profoundly stupid social constructs. What’s more it is a polemical mockery.

And why does he do all this?

Because God will not share His glory with another. God will not be mocked which is what all idolatry is. Idolatry is a mocking of God.

God does this to rescue a people who are not any better than the Egyptians. He has set His love upon Israel and it is that love alone … a love that was constantly unrequited that drove God to deliver His people.

It is the same love, grace and compassion that provided delivery for us in our houses of bondage. God could have rightly left us in our sin and misery but out of His great love He provided a deliverer for us and rescued from the slavery of sin. It is the character of God to love because He loves. It is the character of God to rain nuclear vengeance upon those who touch the apple of His eye.

Remember vs. 7. He does all this to make Himself known.