Lord of the Sabbath

I think I had a revelation last night. This was not one of those "I was thinking about this for hours and came to this conclusion" revelations...but more like a "out of nowhere, I cannot even tell you what I was doing or thinking and BAM it hit me" revelations.

In each of the synoptic gospels, Jesus says that "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." [Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, and Luke 6:5]

What does He mean?

As far as I know, commentators always claim that Jesus is referring to His power being above the limitations of the Sabbath, that He is saying that He has the prerogative to determine the bounds of the Sabbath as part of His Lordship.

But that makes no sense.

Throughout the gospels we see nary a trace of Jesus breaking Torah in any form. He does things that go against the interpretations of the scribes or the "traditions" of the elders (Matthew15:2-6, Mark 7:3-13], but every indication is that Jesus keeps all aspects of the Torah, just as Paul, Peter, and every other Jew (Christian or otherwise) were to do. (Note Acts 21:20-28)

The action that Jesus is doing (or, rather, that His disciples were doing) was picking grains of wheat from off the ground (and perhaps rubbing them in their hands to free the kernels to eat). This was considered "work" by the Pharisees who accosted Him, but there is certainly nothing in the Torah proscribing this activity.

In other words, Jesus was not doing anything that would have required an alteration of the Torah, nor would doing so have matched every other indication we have about His following the written Torah throughout His life.

In the other examples where He is accused of breaking Torah (e.g. Luke 13:14-16, Luke 14:5) , Jesus does not excuse His actions by claiming executive privilege. He simply shows using logic that the Pharisee's interpretations are wrong. Such disagreements about interpretation were common among Jews of the day.

Finally, Jesus asked His followers to imitate Him. He was as far away from being a "do as I say, not as I do" type teacher as you could find. So, suggesting that He had some mandate to live above the Law or modify the Law as He saw fit makes no sense (and would manifestly go against Matthew 5:17-18). In any event, it is His disciples who are breaking the Pharisee's expectations of Sabbath observance, and we nowhere else see them claim any rights over Sabbath observations.

Let's stop and look at that passage I mentioned in passing: Matthew 5:17-18. Note the odd wording: Jesus came to "fulfill" the Law, which will remain in whole until "all things are accomplished."

That "fulfill" word actually has four different meanings:
i) It was a Jewish idiom for "interpret correctly" [which Jesus was about to do in His sermon.]
ii) It could also refer to "building up" or "tightening" the Law, which He was also about to do...but I'm not sure that was its intended meaning here in any event.
iii) It can refer to Jesus own keeping of the Torah (but that is also not too significant since most Jews saw themselves as keeping the Torah, note Luke 1:6 and Philippians 3:6)
iv) It can (finally) refer to Jesus fulfilling the Torah as an unrealized, deep collection of shrouded prophecies meant to show the Jewish people who the Christ was. This is what Paul means in Galatians 3:24 when speaking of the Law as a tutor. Most Christians (and even some Bibles) hopelessly gentilize this passage. Paul is clearly speaking of the Mosaic Law here (See Galatians 3:17)

It is this final meaning that no one picked up on until Jesus clarified it [Luke 24:27, Luke 24:44-45], and I think Christ's reference to the Son of Man being "Lord of the Sabbath" is a similar such allusion where an aspect of the Law is a prophecy to something greater concerning the Christ.

I think the same could be said of Jesus use of David as an example. In every case [Matthew 12:5-8, Mark 2:25-28, and Luke 6:2-5], Jesus refers to how David and his companions ate the consecrated bread "that only the priests could eat," a story that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Sabbath.

He didn't say this to mean that David had rights to break the Torah because he was David. If that were the case, he would have had no guilt for murdering Uriah. No, the point is not that David had special rights, nor even is it that special circumstances can allow someone to abandon Torah (note the other example given in Luke 6:2). Indeed, if Jews could abandon Torah whenever they were in danger of death, there would have been no need for them to be persecuted for their faith! Note also that such a claim would make Matthew 24:20 ludicrous, and in any event the disciples who were picking up grain were not famished or near death, so one could hardly say such "circumstantial" reasoning was the point of Christ's allusion to David or to the story in general.

I think Jesus' point with David is that He was cluing people into the fact that David was a priest-king (note again the separate example in Luke 6:2) and that was why it was okay for him to eat the bread reserved for priests and to "give it to his companions" [probably an allusion to the Word of God Jesus was giving to His.] Since David was a type of Christ, this really reflects on Jesus as a priest-king [highly relevant to Jews of the day who saw the Messianic Kingdom as coming when both a priest (Elijah) and a (separate) King came forward to rule the realm.

But I digress... getting back to "Lord of the Sabbath"

I think Jesus is making a prophecy (or an outright-yet-veiled claim to Messiahship) regarding the coming Kingdom. The coming coming Kingdom of God is referred to as "God's rest" (in particular, see Hebrews 3-4, but also consider Luke 5:17). I think that Jesus' talk of being Lord of the Sabbath refers to His Kingship over that Kingdom after the Father has given the burden of the crown over to Him.

If we see the Sabbath this way, it becomes an age-old promise of the coming Kingdom, yet another veiled aspect of Torah that is both normative and prophetic.

Thoughts?

Mark 13:20 --- Salvation not about the afterlife

The central tenet behind The Gospel You've Never Heard is that the Jews who wrote the New Testament did not think of the term "salvation" in the way we have been led to believe. The Jewish understanding of salvation (as made clear in the Later Prophets, among other places) is that of God vindicating God's people. It is then, of course, about what it means to be "God's people," which leads us into the discussion of the Holy Spirit and the cleansing of the New Covenant temple.

Anyways, Mark 13:20 is a stark exposition of this primary Jewish understanding of salvation, blatantly showing that the modern understanding of "deliverance from Hell" is totally out to lunch.

Mark 13:19-20 discusses God's Judgment that is coming against the world. Jesus says "In those days there will be suffering unlike anything that has happened from the beginning of God's creation until now, or ever will happen. And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no on ewould be saved. But because of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut them short."

This is the setting for the oft-quoted "He who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." [Acts 2:21, Romans 10:11, both quoting Joel 2:32 (or 3:5 depending on which Bible you have).]

Now, if "saved" here refers to "deliverance from Hell after death," then the importance of this wrath being short-lived "for the sake of the elect" is absurd. To say that "no one would be saved" if this wrath were prolonged upon the earth makes no sense with the modern understanding of salvation, for the modern understanding of salvation only has jurisdiction after the grand resurrection. Christ's focus is not on the Judgment that comes after the resurrection but on the wrath that comes before it. This is the focus of apostolic Christianity and dominated early church thought for the initial generations of the church. This is why Paul calls Christ "our savior from the coming wrath." This is why Peter has to inform his readers not to be perturbed that the day of God's vindicating them has been postponed. The early church, must as the Jews who came before them, were focused on God's vindicating them over their oppressors. Luther wasn't around to tell them that they all begin "by default" in hell and needed deliverance from it. Such a notion would have seemed ludicrous to Paul.

This notion of salvation as "deliverance from the coming global, physical wrath" is linked to the other primary notion of salvation as "deliverance from domination by our flesh" because they both are connected to the idea of being in covenant with God, for the Holy Spirit is the seal of the New Covenant and is sent to help this covenant succeed where the earlier one failed. This second definition of salvation, the one Christ describes when saying "Those who sin are a slave to sin, but if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed" is connected to a rather secondary definition of "saved" as the physical transformation achieved after the resurrection. The receipt of the Holy Spirit is a type of salvation in that we are no longer enslaved to sin. The receipt of a new body is the completion of this.

Matthew 8:16-17 and Substitution atonement

I'm currently doing a Bible study where all the discussions of Christ's work [and all the discussions of the Final Judgment] are collected together. I find these aggregations useful because they often reveal patterns not obvious from casual reading. Indeed, my very first blog was on how the evangelism shown in Acts is really not what we would expect given what most people are taught as "the gospel." [that post is here.]

While doing this I ran across Matthew 8:16-17. The interesting thing about this passage is that it puts a completely different frame on the "Suffering servant" prophecy of Isaiah 53.

The standard explanation of the prophesy in Isaiah 53:4-5 is that Christ took our sins upon Himself. Now, there is an immediate problem with this in that Isaiah describes the sacrifice of the suffering servant as a "reparation/guilt sacrifice"in Isaiah 53:10. This sacrifice was not one where the offenses were placed upon the sacrifice (indeed, often the "sacrifice" was not even a living creature.) It was a "paying back" not a "transfer of sin."

Indeed, if you read Isaiah 53 you'll see that Christ appears to be offered up as a "guilt offering" for sickness. The wording closely matches the discussion of how one was supposed to deal with lepers who had been healed in Leviticus 13 and 14. The word used in Isaiah 53:10 is the same as the word in Leviticus 14:13 to describe the offering. This was one of the three offerings made to cleanse a leper, allowing him back into the temple.

But Matthew 8:16-17 gives another reason not to see this prophecy as a defense of Penal substitution because Matthew claims Jesus was fulfilling it prior to His death when He healed those around Him. Hence, the focus is not on the infirmity being "placed on" Jesus statutorily, but rather that Jesus was "taking the sin away."

Now, the point here is not that Isaiah 53 was not also pertinent to Jesus' crucifixion. After all, the quotation in Acts 8:32-33 of verses 7 and 8 appear to refer to his death, and 1st Peter 2:24 could hardly be more clear that Christ's death is in mind.

However, Matthew's version proves that there is no requirement for the healing to be through transfer, and 1st Peter concurs that it is healing that is in mind here, not transfer of wrath. [In other words, the state of sickness people were in rather than future divine punishment.]

Neither does 1st Peter's version suggest transfer of guilt. Rather that passage puts Christ forth as an example [1st Peter 2:21] of enduring the persecution that people of God endure and leaving justice up to God [2:23]. The purpose suggested is not "to save us from God's wrath" but "that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness."
1st peter 3:18 gives a similar reason for Christ's suffering.

Indeed, if one takes 1st Peter 3:1-2 seriously, we have to accept that Peter was very much putting forward a "salvation by Christ's example turning us back to God." 1st Peter 4:1-2 hits this topic again.

Now, I don't want to indicate that I'm supporting a "Christ as good example" salvation here. Indeed, 1st Peter 3:21 shows that Peter is not going for this interpretation either. Christ as a mere "good example" could not have accomplished the sending of the Spirit. I'm merely pointing out that the passages that quote Isaiah 53 (as well as the typology of Isaiah 53:10 and Leviticus 14) do not suggest Christ's sacrifice as substitutionary.

Finally, it should be noted that Isaiah 53:10 is never quoted by an NT writer, and the Hebrew is rather hard to understand, so the application of that verse [both in ways for and against PSA] have to be taken as circumstantial at best.

What John 3:16 does (and does not) say

Of course, most people reading this blog will have heard a version of John 3:16. Many people consider it a concise description of "the gospel," and I would agree with that. The question is, if John 3:16 is a summary of the gospel, what gospel does it summarize?

The reason I bring this up is that the surrounding verses indicate that John 3:16 cannot possibly be a summary of the gospel of evangelical Christianity. Let's take a look at what John says after this oft-quoted verse.

John 3:16-17-
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

So far, so good. Nothing odd there.

John 3:18a-
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already,

At first this appears to drive home the commonly accepted gospel even more. We are told that those who do not believe have "been judged already." That sounds a lot like the idea of everyone being condemned to hell "by default" for their sins, and Christ is pictured as saving them, hence showing the love mentioned in John 3:16

But then we get to John 3:18b-
because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this really should raise an eyebrow or two. The evangelical gospel is primarily focused on heaven and hell, and how everyone more or less deserves the latter but through God's grace some receive the former. The issue here is that the "condemnation" John speaks of is not a condemnation for general sin, but rather a condemnation because someone "has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Reformed Christianity in particular is adamant that we are not condemned due to rejecting Christ (if so, that would not condemn the millions who never knew of Him). But here that is exactly what John is referring to.

Some would say that John is not speaking of "rejecting Christ" but simply "not believing." Those who "do not believe" (for whatever reason) are still "being judged" rather than having escaped that judgment. (Of course, this whole line of thought is contrary to those passages that describe the Judgment, where all are clearly Judged, believers and non-believers.)

But John is not talking about mere ignorance or "not believing," because he tells us exactly what the Judgment is for in the next verse, John 3:19-21

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

John is clearly describing two groups of people everyone who does evil and he who practices the truth. This latter forms another problem for evangelical Christianity, which says that no one can really practice the truth until they have already come to believe. But here John says the opposite: those who desire to please God are exactly those who come to Christ.

In any event, this last section shows that John is not saying "those who believe" versus "those who do not believe." He is making a separation between those who actively rejected Christ and those who actively came to Christ. You cannot with any intellectual integrity claim that a 12th century Native American "failed to believe" for the reason John gives here.
The same applies today even where some version of the Gospel is preached everywhere. If someone rejects the message of the church because history has exposed too much hypocrisy in the church to find it a solid source of spiritual wisdom, you certainly cannot say that person rejected Christ for the reason John gives.

So, if this passage serves as your gospel, you have to accept that it does not give a definitive description of who is condemned and who is not, for by its own words it would not apply to all people. Secondly, you would have to accept that the reason people come to Jesus is because they are dispositionally inclined to do God's will. That is very different from the reason most people accept for how or why someone believes.

This latter idea, that people believe in Christ or not based on whether they already have a desire to do God's will is a recurring theme of John's. Jesus says it about as clearly as one could hope for in John 7:17-

If anyone is willing to do [God's] will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or {whether} I speak from Myself.

This is repeated over and over, Jesus wants people to believe in Him because His words make sense. The commands He gives are ones that those who desire God naturally find value in, while those who were interested in their own gain are humiliated by Christ's commands.

This might all seem a bit odd, but it isn't odd if you take into consideration why and when John was written. John was written to Gentiles after the Temple had been destroyed which represented God's prophesied judgment against the Jewish leadership for rejecting Christ.

This is what John has in mind when saying This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

Obviously, the men here does not everyone. "Everyone" didn't reject Christ. The Jewish leaders did. And why did they reject Christ? As John tells us: For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

That is the reason the Jewish leaders rejected Christ. We are often told this fiction that the reason the Jews rejected Christ was that they were looking for a political leader rather than a spiritual one. That is simply not true. If that were the reason for rejecting Christ, then everyone would have done so. All the Jews (including Jesus' disciples) were expecting Jesus to eventually be anointed and become the new David, the new King (just as David had to wait on the fringes for Saul to be deposed). That is why the disciples are so shocked when Jesus is actually killed. The notion that He would rise from the dead to be king was unfathomable. They thought the game was up when He died [hence their forlorn response in Luke 24:21.]

You might be asking, so what is the point if John is just talking about the Jewish leaders?

To see the point of this you have to once again look at John's purpose. He is sharing the gospel with Gentiles, broadcasting that God's Kingdom is now open to them. The focus is not on the God so loved the world. The focus is on the whosoever. This notion of everyone (not just Jews) shows up throughout John. In particular it shows in the verse immediately before John 3:16. John 3:14-15 reads

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

The "lifted up" has a double meaning. It refers to both Christ's crucifixion and ascension, but it also refers to the "lifting up of Christ" for the world to see. Why? so whoever believes can receive eternal life. Note the similar language Christ uses when discussing this very idea later in John 12:32 -
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.

So, what we are seeing in John 3:16 is really a commentary on the destruction of the Temple [has been condemned already] and the reason for that judgment against the Jewish leaders.

You might wonder why John uses the term eternal life here if it is referring to the physical destruction of the temple as an indication of the judgment on the Jews. That's a topic for another blog, but it is linked (once again) to the context of this passage. The John 3:16-21 passage is a commentary on Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus. The eternal life here is linked to the kingdom of God Jesus refers to in John 3:3.

This Kingdom of God is not "heaven after we die," as Jesus makes clear in that dialogue. It is the baptism by the Holy Spirit, the seal of the new covenant God makes through Christ, a covenant in which everyone is invited to participate. The term that gets translated eternal life by John, when writing to Gentiles who do not know much about the Jewish O'lam Ha-Ba was the best way to get across the blessedness of living in the spirit. Eternal life is not even the best translation. Boundless life is probably a better one. [Greek does have a word that means "eternal" in the way we would think of the term, but it is not the word used here. It is used in Jude 13]. This shows in John's amazing definition of eternal life in John 17:3

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Note that this is really meant as a definition (or as close as a definition as you can get) to eternal life (or, rather, the Greek John used for that term). The grammar here is one John uses elsewhere when giving a dictionary definition or precise explanation of what something is. Other examples where John uses the exact same grammar are: John 1:19, John 3:19, John 15:12, 1st John 1:15, 1st John 3:13.

And that is why John 3:16 is a fine description of the gospel: God sent Jesus to allow all people to recieve the Holy Spirit (which, if one reads Galatians 3:13-14 closely, you'll find Paul saying the same thing!!!) It just is not necessarily the gospel people generally think of.

Pearls Before Swine

I've been meaning to blog regarding my thoughts on Christ's words in Matthew 7:6,
Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before swine; otherwise they wll trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces.

In my experience, people have taken this as an excuse for not trying to persistently teach the unresponsive about God. The idea being that the "pearls" are "pearls of wisdom," and that certain people are simply not capable of appreciating them.

You can read something of this typical interpretation here and here. Just google "dogs pearl swine" to find more.

The thing is, when read in context this really does not make much sense. Look at what is going on in the passage. Jesus is winding up His Sermon on the Mount. At the time, the Jews thought Jesus was a gifted rabbi who was reinterpreting the Torah. This happened from time to time, and such people were said to speak "from authority" [see Matthew 7:29]. In reality, we can see this as Jesus giving a portion of the new covenant's law. Moses brought the old covenant's law (the 10 commandments) down from mount Sinai, and Matthew portrays Jesus giving new commands on a mountain.

This sermon was mostly a discussion of commandments for God's people, but it also included reproaches upon the Jewish leadership who had warped God's law (Matthew 5:20 being a pretty clear example). This is what we read in the verses immediately coming up to Matthew 7:6. In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus lambasts those who among the Jewish leadership who would attack people for breaking some of the lighter parts of the Law when they themselves were neglecting the "weightier points" of mercy, protection of the weak, and faithfulness (see Matthew 23:23 for another such example).

So, given this context, why on earth would Jesus be giving advice about whom to speak wisdom to? Everything in the context suggests Jesus does not see His listeners as having much in the way of wisdom. He just got through saying they had a plank in their eye! Evangelicals, in their quest to turn everything into a discussion of getting people into heaven, sometimes say Jesus is talking about spreading the gospel to people who are not receptive...how could Jesus possibly have that in mind here? The people listening to Jesus just thought they were hearing an enlightened teacher, and not even his disciples had been told of what would happen to Jesus in the future. No, this is not about evangelism.

There are several clues that point to what Jesus has in mind. First, He speaks of not giving what is holy to dogs. We have managed to bastardize what the term holy means, and Jews rightfully chide us for doing so. Holy does not mean perfect or sinless. Holy means set apart. It means special or dedicated to a particular purpose. The Jews were to be a Holy people because they were to be dedicated to God.
And "dogs" was a standard epithet for non-Jews. Jesus uses the term in this way in Matthew 15:26, and understanding this usage is the key to understanding the Parable of Lazarus.

And what about "pearls" and "swine"? Matthew would later relate a parable where a pearl represents the coming Kingdom, and swine is, of course, yet another way of referring to those who were outside Judaism. Pigs are the standard example of an unclean animal, an animal only Gentiles would eat. Jews would not even eat at a table on which pork was served.

When we put these together we see that Jesus is not merely giving some random wisdom about how to divvy up our words to different people. We've turned His words into that because we are trained to ignore the crucial Gentile-Jew issues pervading apostolic Christianity.

No, Jesus is warning the Jews that their special place as God's chosen people is in danger. His words are an admonishment presaging what would ultimately occur later when the Gentiles are allowed in due to the unfaithfulness of the Jews (Romans 11:20, and Romans chapters 9 through 11 in general). This is the same fate Jesus would later describe in Matthew 21:33-46 and Matthew 22:1-14.

It turns out that this notion of Jesus warning the Jewish nation is further verified if we go back to the original passage and read further. What does Jesus say after this pearls before swine verse? Matthew 7:1-11 recounts Jesus' exhorting the Jews to "Ask, Seek, Knock," with the promise in 7:11

If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?

But what does the "good gifts" refer to? People today assume this passage is about praying for things we need and having God give them to us. But the word "gift," (as I described in a recent blog entry) was the term that referred to the Holy Spirit, the sign of the new covenant!

Once again we see Jesus pleading with the Jews to repent for the Kingdom is at hand (just as He did in Matthew 3:2). He is asking them to seek the inclusion in the new covenant by turning back to God.

You probably think this is all just a little shaky... interpreting this "good gift" as the Holy Spirit here... and you will probably think that up until the time you read the parallel passage in Luke 11:13!

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will {your} heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

In Christ, God was reaching out to the unfaithful people who had spurned the Almighty for so long. The new covenant is about to commence through the power of the Spirit. This blessing is the birthright of the Sons of Jacob. However, they were in danger of rejecting that gift without realizing it through their lack of faith.

Interesting Scriptural Find of the Day

I'm going through the Tanakh, and I found this interesting verse Jeremiah 7:22-23 .
For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice. But this is what I commanded them: Do My bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoin upon you, that it may go well with you.

I find this an interesting observation...that the sacrificial system was not even originally a part of "The Plan" so to speak.