Wednesday, August 17, 2022

BONES in the Bible. A Brief Study in Response to a Brother’s Question


(Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1516
Matthias Grunewald)

Exodus 12:43-49 (but especially verse 46)

Psalm 34 (but especially verses 19-20)

John 19:31-37 (especially verse 36) 

Bones in the Old Testament (and in OT Hebrew thinking) are part of the soul/life of a person, a family, a friendship, a body of people (like the nation of Israel, or the Church the Body of Christ, or - I think - the whole people or kingdom of God (as in: "you are my flesh and bone", or "bone and blood", or other variations).

Our bones knit us together (make us whole, one, united). Our bones make us whole in the sense of making us strong, or able, or properly functional.

The Passover Lamb, as a sacrifice, and as the basis of the Passover meal, is a mediator, and a promise, and a bond on the journey from Egypt to the Promised land, from slavery to freedom. The Lamb represents God, and God's promises (as being strong, and well tied together, and complete) for the journey. The Passover Lamb represents Israel/God's people (including the Church), who are an offering to God as one body, and one soul for the journey.

Jesus is the wholeness of God coming to us, and the wholeness of us, ourselves, including all of God's beloved people and creation.

Jesus is (incarnates) the offering of Israel, and of the house of David, and of the whole of the Church: offering to God the wholeness that we cannot give to God because of our fallenness.

In Christ our self-giving will be whole, entire, perfect, strong, fully functioning; and this will be fulfilled in us when God finishes his work of making a new heaven and earth. But we can have some connection with this in our lives now.

It represents how we stand before God and each other in faith, hope, and love.

In the end, we can count on God's promise that we will not be broken, just as Christ remained unbroken for us. Sometimes, by the Lord's grace and gift, we can experience being held within this promise now.

Brother! Thank you for asking about the bone and the unbroken bones in the Bible, because it's an issue that we Christians do not deal with very consistently or thoroughly. Usually, we deal with these issues from different "pivot points" than through "the bones".


, (From Ghent Altarpiece, by Jan van Eyck, completed 1432)

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