Emotional Theology: Unity in Community

“And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities” Psalm 130:8

His – Your eighth grade English teacher would have circled the word in red. She would write in the margin, “number disagreement”. “Israel” is plural but “his” is singular. Did God make a grammatical mistake? Take a look at this verse in your translation and see if someone corrected it (like they did in the NIV). What a mistake! There is a reason why the number doesn’t agree. It’s a lesson in God’s view of community.

You will hardly be surprised if I tell you that Hebrew doesn’t work like English. Why should it? If I want to add a possessive pronoun to a Hebrew noun (like his iniquities), I don’t use a separate word (“his”). All I do is add a single consonant to the end of the noun. The whole idea is expressed in a single word that looks (in English) like this: iniquities his. So far, so good. Now here’s the lesson in community. The noun (awonim = iniquities) is plural, but the added suffix (“his”) is singular. This is no mistake and to correct it for English readers is a tragic error. The entire point of this word is that God sees His children as one! The Hebrew thought pattern is not like our Western world. The tribe is a single unit. The people within the tribe are not individuals who are combined to make the tribe but rather like the water droplets in the rainbow. Take the droplets out and the rainbow ceases to exist, but the rainbow is not the water droplets. It is the water droplets all mixed together with the light.

This is a difficult concept for Greek-based Western world people to grasp. We think as individuals. Our lives circulate around a worldview that begins with isolated persons. We do not have a tribe mentality. But God does! God looks at His children and calls them by a single name, Israel. All together one. The sum more than the parts. A celestial gestalt.

Here’s the deep emotional theology: without community, you are never a part of God’s tribe. Your connection to the body brings you into fellowship with the Father. If you want to be closer to God, be closer to others. If you want intimacy with God, open yourself to intimacy with others. Break down those “individual” self-protecting walls. Tear apart the Greek paradigm that says you are your own castle. God says something different. Plural iniquities. Singular ownership. You and I are so deeply connected in God that my sins are your sins and your sins are my sins. And the God of glory removes them all just so you and I will never again have walls.