Understanding the Bible as a Narrative

The Bible is best understood as an unfolding narrative about humanity's understanding of God. In the Old Testament, God was seen as the author of both good and evil, and Satan was his minister of wrath, bringing about destruction as God's left hand. This can be seen in several places, but most clearly in the book of Job, where God and Satan act as a team. Job 1:8-12,

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord

It’s astonishing to me that this is taken literally by anyone! For starters, since when has Satan been free to enter and hang out in the presence of the Lord? And since when has God baited Satan into testing us? Jesus radically challenged the Old Testament notion that God is the author of both good and evil. John 10:10,

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Old Testament believers would have seen destruction, loss, and death as the activity of God, but Jesus made it clear that this is not the case – God’s intention for us is that we have life and live it to the full. When tragedies occur and we claim that they are the will of God, we deny the teaching of Jesus. 

We can use the clarity Jesus gave us on this to shine a light on some familiar and oft-quoted verses, such as Job 1:21,

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
    and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
    may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Job’s understanding of God was fundamentally flawed, seeing God as the author of his suffering. The whole book of Job is weighed down by this common Old Testament confusion, and as a result, we should be wary of drawing theological conclusions from the text. To put it simply, if we get our theology from Job, we have to put aside Jesus. As the writer of Hebrews put it, Jesus is the exact representation of God’s being, meaning that if we can’t see it in Jesus, it is not part of the nature of God. 

A conditional covenant versus an unconditional covenant

There are several covenants between God and the Jewish people in the Old Testament, but when teachers refer to ‘The Old Covenant’, they are usually speaking of the covenant sworn at Mount Sinai. The Sinai Covenant established the Hebrew Law and, by nature, it was entirely conditional – if you do all these things, I will bless you, but if you don’t, you’ll be cursed. 

For example, Deuteronomy 28 lists all the blessings God would pour out on the Israelites if they were faithful to him. Deuteronomy 28:1-2,

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

The list itself is lengthy, including promises of fertility, high crop yields, dominance over enemies and so on. In verse 15, we see the flip side:

However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

If the Israelites were unfaithful to God, they would be cursed everywhere they went, their crops would fail, their children and livestock would be cursed, they would be plagued with diseases, etc. 

This conditional covenant couldn’t be more different than the unconditional covenant established through Christ, which is dependent on his faithfulness rather than our own. Ephesians 2:8,

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

When we consider these two covenants, are we to see them as equal? Equally good and kind? Equally gracious? Equally representative of the nature of God? Of course not. The Sinai Covenant was a hideous burden for all who lived under it, but the Covenant of Christ is the most beautiful promise of all time. It frees us from fear of failure and guarantees us that God’s love and favour will never waver. 

For me, knowing the covenant we live under and rejecting the one we are not is key to understanding the Bible as a narrative. The Old Testament belief that God is the author of both good and evil is superseded by the teachings of Christ, and the Sinai Covenant has been superseded by the Covenant of Christ. The New Covenant is not just different; it is truer and better than the Old Covenant by every measure. The flawed version, drenched in fear and demanding perfection of us, has been cast aside in favour of a perfect unity with the divine. When we understand that the Bible is a narrative, as an unfolding story, it makes sense to put aside the misunderstandings and confusion found in the Old Testament and to fully embrace the unconditional love of Christ. 

The writer of Hebrews confirms this view of the Old and New Covenants in this thunderous excerpt. Hebrews 12:18-24,

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 

The contradictions between The Old Covenant and The Covenant of Christ are not something we have to try and reconcile. We have not come to a terrifying, exacting God; we have come to joy, to personal fulfilment, to union with God and each other, and to Jesus, the mediator of our everlasting, unconditional covenant. We do not need to wrestle with both covenants and live in painful cognitive dissonance. We need simply to abandon confusing and frightening ideas and embrace what was given to us in Christ. 

If the Bible is a narrative, the best way to understand it is to question which part of the narrative we are reading – the confusing passages where God is seen as the author of both good and evil, or the clear image of God seen in Jesus. There is nothing more consequential in the life of a believer than their understanding of God's nature.

Note from the author:

The common interpretation of the book of Job is, in my view, devastating to anyone who hears it, because it confuses believers about the nature of God. To demonstrate this with absolute clarity, I’ve written a book called Job: A Story of Salvation that examines the text chapter by chapter (under a pen name, James Bewley). For UK readers, Job: A Story of Salvation can be found here.