The Faithfulness of God: For Better and For Worse

In May and June 2019 I stayed for two months in Jerusalem accompanying a family member who received brain injury rehabilitation therapy there. Overlooking the city and also the Mount of Olives I wrote then and there an article. The article has been published already in 2019 in Dutch. In December 2020 it appeared in the English edition of Israel and the Church, a Journal for Biblical Studies to Equip the Christian Church of Christians for Israel-International.

The introduction to the article reads:

“This article deals with the given that our understanding of the faithfulness of God (toward Israel) shows and confronts us with our understanding of God Himself. The measure in which we have learned to understand God’s self-revelation—as given to us in Scripture—enables us or hinders us in our understanding of God’s faithfulness toward His people, and per consequence also in the understanding of God’s faithfulness toward the whole of His creation, including ourselves.

Focusing in this article on the exile and return of the Shekhina gives us an opportunity to understand the interrelatedness of our view of God and our understanding of His faithfulness. This again has a bearing on the manner we look at the actual history of His people Israel.”

The editor of the journal, Kees de Vreugd, writes in his foreword to the December 2020 issue of the journal:

“A very special and profound approach is taken by Rev. Edjan Westerman (author of “Learning Messiah”), who asks if one could Biblically speak of the exile of the Divine Presence. His thoughts on this question reveal deep Biblical-theological insights, as well as they reflect Jewish understandings of God, Israel and exile.”

The whole issue can be ordered at the webshop of C4I-International.

The full text of my article can be downloaded here.