God and Patterns

God likes patterns and repetition. 

I have started thinking about this again since teaching the book of Joshua this quarter.  The children of Israel go through a similar intentional pattern as their forefathers did when they left Egypt.

They renew the covenant, cross the Jordan river on dry ground, circumcise the men, and God speaks to Joshua in a like manner as the burning bush experience.  Just like God had honored and established Moses as the leader, so he does the same for Joshua.  A part of the pattern is to connect the new generation to their important story and history.  It was also to encourage them to act differently than their forefathers did in being faithless and disobedient.

The New Testament is filled with patterns and allusions to past stories.  For example, the Lord’s Supper is rooted in the Passover meal of Israel, Jesus’ instituting it before his death, and early Christians celebrating it.  We continue this great legacy and pattern every Sunday.  Jesus and Paul describe the pattern of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as being reenacted in our baptism and spiritual lives.  Christians are called to die to themselves and rise to walk in the newness of Christ.  This is all possible because of the actual death and resurrection of Jesus.

There is a real sense where the old law is a pattern and analogy for the new covenant.  The garden of Eden and the Temple of Israel serve as a foreshadow of heaven.  The human body and the union of marriage is a patten for the church.  On and on we could go.  Look for these as you study Scripture.

God does all of these, it seems, to help us understand and to promote our faithfulness.  We are just continuing the chain by further adding links in the ancient story and patterns.  We also are better able to understand future spiritual things by understanding these physical patterns and parallels.  

“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”(1 Corinthians 10:6)