Fingers

Fingers June 6, 2014

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,” David writes (Psalm 8:3). Why would God create with His fingers? Why not His hand?

Fingers are needed for subtle work. Hands are instruments of power; fingers are organs of skill. Hands are political. Fingers are artistic. Hands can push, strike, slap, but they can’t  manipulate – they aren’t fully manus – without fingers.

God writes with His finger (Exodus 20:12; 31:18). He creates with His fingers because, as David says in Psalm 8, He writes creation as a message to creatures. He writes to creatures through creatures (Hamann). Creation is God’s letter, and so is the new creation of church (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

Fingers are also for making music. David celebrates the God who trains his “fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1). He battles demons when, Spirit-filled, he plays the harp to chase away Saul’s demons and when he exalts Yahweh in praise. 

God creates with His fingers because he plays the world into being. 

Jesus too drives out demons with the finger of God (Luke 11:20), which is the Spirit (cf. Matthew 12:28). He is the new David, strumming in the Spirit to defeat Satan. 

If the Spirit is God’s finger, then the Spirit is not only God’s ink but God’s instrument, the divine melodist who sets the Father’s Word to music. The Spirit murmurs over the dark void to establish harmonies(Genesis 1:2).

Jesus is also the great High Priest, who sprinkles blood from His finger to expel impurities from the sanctuary (Leviticus 16). The high priest rewrites the sanctuary in blood; he plays the pollutions out of God’s house.


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