Through this dark and troubled land
You will guide me with Your hand
As I stand on ev’ry promise of Your Word
In part one of our three-part series, we reflected on the reality of what it means to be part of God’s covenant people in a fallen world: God often feels hidden.
From the Lisbon earthquake on All Saints’ Day to the aching silence of God in our desperate hours, the people of God have long cried out: How long? Why? Where?
They have often reached out on God’s line, only to be met with apparent silence.
Sometimes in the Old Testament, God’s hiddenness seems inexplicable – the faithful have no idea why God seems altogether absent.
The classic case is Job – he had no idea why he was afflicted the way he was, even though he was blameless.
This is the experience of innocent suffering – when we encounter divine silence, absence, or even perceived disfavour, though no particular sin stands out.
Hiddenness, Sin and Exile
Yet more often than not in the OT, God’s hiddenness is a response to the sin of His covenant people.
David, deeply aware of his own sin, prays, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).
Isaiah, reflecting on Israel’s exile, declares, “Your sins have hidden his face from you” (Isaiah 59:2).
Sin and hiddenness are intertwined within the covenant.
Israel was warned in Deuteronomy 28 (and repeatedly elsewhere) before entering the land:
“If you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God… all these curses shall come upon you…” (v15)
“The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known…” (v36)
“You shall be plucked off the land… and the Lord will scatter you among all peoples…” (v63–64)
Yet “they would not listen, but were stubborn… Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight…”
The exile (first to the northern kingdom in 722 BC and next to the southern kingdom in 586 BC) occurred “because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God…” (2 Kings 17:7–23)
Foreign oppression and eventual exile became the primary expressions of God’s hiddenness, prompting Israel’s agonised questions: How long? Why? Where?
The Power of Promises
How did God’s people continue to live out their identity in the midst of such disintegration?
Why didn’t they completely collapse as a community?
Answer: the thread of God’s promises held them (and their story) together.
Promises of old and promises freshly made through the Prophets.
In exile, God’s promises bridged the chasm between divine hiddenness and divine faithfulness.
To be sure, it isn’t only in exile that the promises of God carry such weight.
Throughout the Scriptures, God’s promise is that slender thread that is robust enough to pull God’s people into their future.
From the promise of the serpent-crusher in Genesis to the promise of a new world in Revelation, God ties the plot together by the thread of promise.
From the birth of Israel (through the promise to Abraham) to the golden age of Israel (where God promises David and everlasting kingdom), God pulls his people forward by the thread of promise.
The thread is always operative in the narrative even when it isn’t explicitly mentioned.
Even when the thread is not mentioned, it is always present, always pulling.
And when Israel’s institutions – the temple and the land – are taken away, that thread became front and centre, explicit and existential.
God’s people are always sustained by his presence and his promises.
When the former is taken away the latter becomes all the more prominent.
In exile and oppression, prophetic oracles becomes the dominant way that God picks up the phone.
The Prophets become God’s designated telephone operators, ensuring that the line is open between the covenant people and their covenant Lord.
Promises Frame Our Lives
Yet it is not just Israel that experiences the power of promises, Christopher Watkin puts it this way:
“The figure of promise and fulfilment rhythms the biblical experience of time. We all know what it is like to have our experience shaped in this way. Sitting in a café waiting for a friend who has promised to come in five minutes’ time just feels different to sitting in a café with no appointment due that day. Doing reps at the gym with the prospect of resting in 5–4–3–2–1 will help you push harder than if you had no idea when you are going to finish. Furthermore, fulfilment means so much more if it is the final realization of a long-awaited event. This is why my children are infinitely more excited about a little patch of grass they have grown themselves than a splendid orchid we bought from the garden center: they have been anticipating this fullness, seeing it come a little closer every day.”
What promises shape your life?
Which ones frame your experience of time most powerfully?
Is it the promise of promotion?
The promise of a doctor’s prognosis?
The promise that things will get better?
And when hiddenness is all you know of God, are there promises that still sustain you?
Whether under the Old Covenant or the New, holding fast to God’s promises is vital for the pilgrim. Without them, life loses its meaning. If we cling instead to the false promises of the world, we find ourselves led – quite literally – to dead ends. Without the thread of divine promise, faithfulness becomes impossible to sustain. That is why so much of the New Testament speaks us, “elect exiles” (1 Peter 1:1) – strangers in the world, anchored by promises that rests on God’s unfailing word.
May God strengthen us to cling to His promises – slender as it may seem, yet strong enough to pull His people into the future He has prepared.
