4. The Face of God – In the Old Testament there is an interesting dilemma about whether human beings can be permitted to see God’s face, which equates to the overwhelming knowledge of God (cf.Exod.33:20ff; Num.12:8), and live (Gen.32:20; Exod.3:6; 20:19; 24:2,10). Yet there is an association between the face of God and ‘ blessing’ ( Num.6:24ff; Ps.4:6; 67:1), and the hiding of God’s face and divine ‘abandonment’ and ‘disgrace’ (Deut.31:16ff; Ps.22:24; 27:9; Isa.57:17; cf.Ford:p218; Stockitt:p118 ).

Seeking God’s face is associated with the pursuit of holiness and repentance (1 Chron.16:11; 2 Chron.7:14; Ps.24:3-6; 27:8) and the “shining face of God is a summary statement of salvation.” (Ford:p217; cf., Ps.31:6; 67:1f; 80:3,7,19 .) In fact, “to follow the Hebrew word ‘face’, through the Old Testament is to be offered a fresh perspective on salvation from that associated with most doctrines of atonement.” (Ford: p217.)

This is especially true if we juxtapose shame, described by a loss of face or an inability to lift the face (Ezra 9:6; cf., Stockitt: p118), with salvation represented by the ability to look into the ‘shining face of God’. The answer to ‘shame’ is to see God’s face; something greater than empathy, it is the experience of God’s smile of acceptance.

This Old Testament dynamic is worked out in the New Testament – Christ is God incarnate, face-to-face with humanity. Not only can we look to the Transfiguration (Mt.17:2; Lk.9:29;cf., Farrar:p238; Hendriksen: p504, 510; Marshall: p383), to the teaching of Paul (2 Cor.4:6 Lias:1892:p61f; Plummer:p62,121: Thrall:p317; cf.2 Cor.2:10), and the evidence of Revelation (Rev.1:16; 22:4; cf., Stockitt: p119), but if we consider Jesus using ‘facing’ as an interpretative aid: “then its literal and metaphorical ramifications are vast, ranging through the great variety of meetings, dialogues, addresses and conflicts; through ideas of rejection of evil, with conversion and repentance as ‘turning’; the Last Supper authorising a face to face community around a meal; and an eschatology (‘now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face’ – 1 Cor.13:12).” (Ford: p220.)

Critically, at the Cross, Jesus cries out ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ (Mt.27:46) which comes from Psalm 22. Later in that Psalm comes the answer ‘he has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help’ (Ps.22:4). There is a suggestion here that we can look to the Cross for a resolution of ‘loss of face’ – of disgrace/shame. On Christ’s face “we see the cost of God’s initiative in bodily form. It is a human face that is in torment, the face of one who is in a place of shame,” (Stockitt: p118). This face was the face that had looked with pain at Peter after his denial (Lk. 22:61). In front of that face Peter’s shame was intense, but in front of that face Peter’s shame was addressed (Jn. 21:15ff; cf., Stockitt: p118).

Also at the Cross we see the dead face of Christ – the dead face of God. The dead face means that we cannot separate the atonement from the physical humanity of Christ. The dead face indicates that the person has died. The dead face, “acts somewhat like a black hole of infinite, impenetrable meaning. … But it is, most importantly, a black hole with a human face. Evil, sin, death, suffering and all the distortions and corruptions of creation can now be identified with this face. There can be no separation of person and work here. The face of this person leads to the heart of his work. Many atonement theories rely too heavily on the language of ‘event’ – one objective happening once for all. … The dead face by no means rules out event language – it is incomprehensible without it. But it ties it into person language in a way that other forms of expression do less adequately.” (Ford: p221.)

References:

David Ford; “The Face on the Cross”; in Anvil, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1994; p215-225.
Robin Stockitt; “‘Love Bade Me Welcome; But My Soul Drew Back’ – Towards an Understanding of Shame”; in Anvil, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1998; p111-119.

For other references see the bibliography on this site.

3. Shame in the teaching of Jesus – If shame is to be considered to have a prominent place in the thinking of New Testament authors, we would expect to encounter in the stories about Jesus in the Gospels.

Examples include:

Luke 11:5-13, where a sleeping man avoids shame (to himself and his village) by granting the request of his neighbour. (Bailey: p119-33; Stockitt: p114.).

Luke 15:11-32, where Jesus speaks of a family that experiences deep shame, the younger son’s requesting the money and leaving home would have brought untold shame on his family (Bailey: p165; Musk: p163; Nouwen: p36).On his shameful return to his village he expects scornful mocking by the community (Bailey: p178). The father’s actions, within the culture of Jesus’ day, were incredible. He took on himself the shame of the prodigal – running through the village, embracing both the shame and his son (Bailey: p181; Musk: p163). This story of shame, perhaps “more than any other story in the Gospel, … expresses the boundlessness of God’s compassionate love.” (Nouwen: p36; cf., Musk: p164.)

In John 8:2-11 we see Jesus dealing with the shame of the woman caught in adultery. He “shatters the solidarity of the shamers,” (Clapp: p28 cf., Jn 8:7) and, unlike the Pharisees who use shame to hurt and destroy, “Jesus uses shame to affirm and rescue a degraded woman. He does not deny the shame of her sin, but he refuses to let shame have the last word or define her.” (Clapp: p28 cf.,Jn 8:11.)

References:

Kenneth Bailey; “Poet and Peasant”; Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983.
Rodney Clapp; “Shame Crucified”; in Christianity Today, March 11,1991; p26-29.
Bill A. Musk; “Honour and Shame”; in Evangelical Review of Theology, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 1996; p156-167
Henri J. M. Nouwen; “The Return of the Prodigal Son”; Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1997.
Robin Stockitt; “‘Love Bade Me Welcome; But My Soul Drew Back’ – Towards an Understanding of Shame”; in Anvil, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1998; p111-119.

2. Honour, shame and holiness/righteousness are significant in different parts of the New Testament. So I’ve made this the second theme relating to shame in the New Testament.

We will return to this theme later, so, just for now, here are a couple of pointers to places where the pivotal values of honour and shame appear:

a) K. C. Hanson demonstrates the honour/shame dynamic behind the ‘makarisms’ of the Gospels, suggesting that honour (Mt.5:3ff) and shame (Mt.23.13ff) bracket the Lord’s ministry. (Hanson: p81ff. – ‘makarisms’ = ‘blessings/woes in Matthew)

b) Halvor Moxnes highlights the themes of honour, shame and righteousness, as an important part of the epistle to the Romans (Moxnes: p61ff). Paul, in Romans, spoke to a society with a strong honour code, which as a result was highly stratified, and had a strong sense of shame. His message to Christians subverted the relationship between honour and shame, in that he juxtaposed shame with ‘holiness’. He challenged Christians to step outside of a dynamic which was endemic in society; to have a separate identity based, not on honour/competition but on holiness/righteousness. He highlighted that the resources available to achieve this came from God and could be experienced in the life of the Spirit.

References:

K. C. Hanson; “How Honourable! How Shameful! A Cultural Analysis of Matthew’s Makarisms and Reproaches”; in Semeia 68; “Honour and Shame in the World of the Bible”; 1996; p81-111.
Halvor Moxnes; “Honour and Righteousness in Romans”; in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Issue 32, 1988; p61-77.

In the last few posts we have considered some Old Testament passages in which shame is a significant theme, or where shame seems to have an impact on events. In due course we will consider some New Testament passages where this is also true. But first, some of the themes within the New Testament that are shame related.

I consider that the key elements of the New Testament approach to shame are:

(a) lack of a ‘sense of awe’;

(b) honour and shame;

(c) shame in the teaching of Jesus;

(d) the face of God; and

(e) shame and the Cross and the Passion of Christ.

We’ll take each of these in turn over the next few days:

1.  A sense of awe and discretion-shame seem to be absent from the pages of the New Testament. Indeed there is even seems to be an unabashed shamelessness evident:  “At almost every point of symbolic significance, shame – conceived as a sense of awe, a reticence before the holy – is abolished. There are no holy places that one may no longer enter into: there is no temple in the Revelation of John. There are no holy things that one may no longer touch: Peter, with his Old Testament scruples about unclean animals, is told that there are no unclean things now. When Jesus dies, the veil of the temple is rent in two. … Jesus does away with special holy places and permits free access to God.” (Schneider: p115, cf., Mt.27:51; Mk.15:38; Lk.23:45; Acts.10:9ff,24ff; Rev.21:22.)

Further, Jesus challenges the traditional meaning of the Sabbath (Mt.12:1ff; Lk.13:10ff.), and introduces familiarity into relationship with God. Paul defeats ‘Judaisers’ who want to impose Jewish rituals on new Gentile believers. (Acts 15: 1-35.)

This might appear to suggest that all vestiges of shame/awe can be cast off, and perhaps explains the absence of shame in the traditional thinking of Western society and the Western church. This is, I believe, not what was intended. We are intended to read the New Testament against the backcloth of the Old.

The New Testament: “adds an important dynamic to the picture. The religious encounter is not only one of reticence before that which one venerates; it also involves the revelation of what is hidden. Religion may be understood as the dialectic of covering and uncovering of the sacred in time and space. … The freedom and intimacy of the New Testament presuppose the restraint and respect of the Old Testament. The invitation to address God as ‘Abba‘ is issued to those who dared not utter His name.” (Schneider: p116.)

This does not, however, go far enough. The ‘dynamic of covering and uncovering’ is essential to religious experience, but so also is the sense that ‘shame’ has been dealt with. This is not to imply that we are now to be ‘shameless’, or that ‘shame’ should no longer be part of the experience of Christians, but rather to note that the experience of shame, first noted at the Fall, ^{has been realigned or renewed by the work of the ‘Second Adam’.}

References:

Carl D. Schneider; “Shame, Exposure, and Privacy“; Beacon Press, Boston, 1977.

There are a myriad of references to shame in the Psalms and it would take too long to examine these here. However, one theme which we have not addressed in biblical references is that of being seen as shameful by God. Shame in our own eyes, shame in the eyes of our community have been recurring themes, but ‘shamed by God’ has not. Robin Stockitt points to references in the Psalms that show that biblical writers can define shame in terms of divine abandonment. He provides some examples:

Psalm 89: “‘You have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one. You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled (shamed) his crown in the dust. … You have cut short the days of his youth, you have covered him with a mantle of shame.” (Ps. 89:38f,45). The king was not guilty or lacking in obedience. “The king had placed his trust in YHWH but had appeared foolish. It looked as if his trust had been misplaced. As Bechtel puts it, ‘both the violation of trust and the reversal of expectation caused shame.'” (Stockitt: pp114-115.)

Psalm 25: 1-3: ‘To you O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I have trust, let me not be shamed.” In this and other Psalms the psalmist explicitly and publicly puts “his trust in YHWH, therby exposing him to the risk of being taunted or mocked by others less devout than himself. He therefore cries to the Lord that he would not suffer humiliation and shame in the eyes of his adversaries.” (Stockitt: p115.)

Psalm 35: 4, 26: “The corollary of this is that the one who has been shamed asks that the Lord would vindicate his faith by shaming his opponents … Here God is the subject of the act of shaming, suggesting that God’s shaming is connected to both his judgement and to a sense of disclosure. By shaming the opponents of the Psalmist, God is making plain their deceit and hypocrisy for all to see. The psalmist is not so much demanding revenge but that the falsehood of his enemies be recognised as falsehood. God’s active role in shaming can be seen also in the NT where the same collection of meanings is evident. … [see 1 Cor.1:27]. Here God is seen to be exposing the false wisdom and strength of those who do not know him. He is judging the hardness of their hearts by shaming them.” (Stockitt: p115.)

He comments finally that “shame in the biblical material does not have the primary meaning of private individual embarrassment that it has come to mean in the present day. Rather, shame has the sense of being in a place or location where there is a loss of honour, recognition and dignity. It is experienced in the public domain, it is corporate in its mechanisms and it is potentially devastating in its consequences.” He too sees shame as having a capacity to destroy our very being. (Stockitt: p115.)

References:

Please see the bibliography on this site.