In Genesis, we see a God who, from the onset of creation (macro level that impacts the micro) and throughout the story of the flood and finally of the patriarchs (micro level that impacts the macro), addresses and brings order and function out of the chaos and evil afflicting the earth. In this story that spans centuries, God shares his name with the patriarch Abraham as God Almighty, “El Shaddai,” identifying himself in terms of his engagement on Abraham’s behalf for good. The heart of this story flows from Joseph’s lips near the end of the narrative when he refers to the horrid slavery and affliction he endured. “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
While there is a subtle undertow of wonder at the destructive capacity of evil, God’s message to us through his name, El Shaddai, strikes resounding awe in the hearts of those who would consider the life-giving potency of good. Abraham’s life and his three following generations form an illustration of how man can resurface from the dark and hopeless places and progress into friendship and purpose with God. Genesis chapter 17 is where God first introduces himself as “El Shaddai” and renames the patriarch Abram (revered father) as “Abraham” (father of a multitude). There, he affirms that he is a God who multiplies goodness, promising to bring Abraham a miracle child as a momentous generational blessing of goodness to the entire world.
We are left to ponder how one tiny child or even a grown man could ever manage to bring such a blessing, but such a day has already come and run past us: when Jesus walked this earth, he brought ultimate goodness through his clash with hell and the grave. That event may challenge our intellectual side, but those of us who have encountered that Almighty Word in some way have lost all our feigned dignity, as our spirits anxiously rumble to encounter Him still more.
Some translators have traced the etymological roots of Shaddai to shadah, “the many-breasted one.” This suggests a comforting picture of God, but contextually, following a derivation from shadad, the God of “an overpowering destruction,” it arrives closer to the picture of what Genesis is trying to communicate. As a scholar of unknown origins comments, “The truest definition of El Shaddai is, ‘I am the God of (over) utter ruin and devastation and I am here to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.”
Fast forwarding across time, the Omega of the final days and the Alpha of a new age continues on as God Almighty, El Shaddai, in Revelation 21:22: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (ESV). These amazing words announce the consummation of creation when Eden is reinstituted by fully integrating heaven and earth (observe the Edenic symbols at the end of the Apocalypse like the Tree of Life and the River in Revelation chapters 21-22).
El Shaddai is present at the end like he was in the genesis of the world, reigning above all the ruinous, destructive evil of the world. In Eden, Pandora’s box was the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the future, El Shaddai gathers all evil and puts a tight lid on a container called hell. God’s presence then becomes so integrated into the earthly realm that no temple is needed (Revelation 21:22). El Shaddai and the Lamb are fully accessible in all of creation, light penetrates everywhere and nothing is hidden. There is no shroud: no fleshly tent bars the way. The physical realm is no longer estranged from the spiritual, as El Shaddai displays the compelling fruit of his goodness. Wow!
When Joseph said in Genesis chapter 50 that God “meant it for good,” that word “meant” signified God looking at something and coming up with a creative idea, a eureka, that would create a masterpiece of goodness instead of a smoldering carcass of evil. God is looking for people that will walk with him just as Abraham trod across a vast promise land for decades when the only note he held on the property was faith. He is looking for a person just like you who is willing to look beyond all their history of failure and personal chaotic dysfunction and trust that the one who said, “let there be light!” will speak it over your life too.
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