Jesus and the Religion of Israel in His Day

 

Introduction 

Jesus did not emerge from the rabbinic schools or priestly families of his day.  He emerged within a prophetic movement inaugurated by John the Baptist that attacked the failed system of religion offered by the synagogues, Temple, and religious leaders.  He accepted the critique of Israelite religion in the days of the prophets as an appropriate critique for his own day.  This ‘Kingdom of God’ movement stood over against the established, Jewish religion even if it was—importantly—also a fulfillment of it.

Just what were the failures of Jewish religion in Jesus’ day?  The Gospels focus on two groupings of religious leadership in particular: the scribes and Pharisees, and the Sadducees and chief priests.  The former represented a Law-based form of Judaism that was able to survive even the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.  The Pharisees were not priests but businessmen dedicated to living according to Jewish legal precepts, such as tithing.  The scribes were persons learned in the Law who allied with the Pharisees in their attachment to the Law.  The Sadducees and chief priests offered a Temple-based form of Judaism that focussed on the Temple, with its sacrificial system and liturgies.  The Sadducees were priests with control of the Jewish legal body, the Sanhedrin (which included Pharisees).  Jesus was opposed to both groups while He upheld the Law and honoured the Temple.  He sought no compromise with any of the religious groups and leaders of His day and, falling afoul of them all, they plotted His death.

Jesus’ Encounter with the Sadducees and Chief Priests

The Synoptic Gospels tell only of one of Jesus’ trips to Jerusalem as an adult, when he went to the cross.  (John's Gospel reports Jesus' various trips to Jerusalem around religious festivals.)  As priests and religious leaders, the Sadducees would only be found in Jerusalem, and it was there that Jesus encountered them.  Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and challenge of the Temple rulers is climactic for his ministry and wholly confrontational.  Indeed, it leads to His death.  Jesus’ initial action in Jerusalem was to cleanse the Temple—a direct indictment on the insufficiency of the Sadducean and chief priests’ religious responsibilities and oversight.  Despite their apt management of Judaism’s political situation with the Romans, the religious festivals, the sacrifices, the finances, and governance of strictly Jewish religious matters, they had utterly failed as far as Jesus was concerned.  They had simply failed to produce the righteousness expected in God’s Kingdom.  Whatever the details, what they offered the nation was wholly inadequate and required an entirely different sacrifice for sins—Jesus’ own sacrificial death on the cross.

The Sadducees had reached a point beyond any hope of reform.  They needed to be replaced: there was nothing that they offered that needed to continue.  Jesus did not offer to sit down and discuss matters; he came to Jerusalem to judge and to offer the alternative of himself.  Ever since, the challenge remains: are keepers of the faith (now Christianity) offering a worship of pure and righteousness lives of themselves and those they oversee, or are they keepers of a religious institution that does not produce the fruit of righteousness?  For Christians, this also means recognizing that all worship is directed to God through Jesus’ provision of his righteous life and pure sacrifice as only through His shed blood is there forgiveness of sins and cleansing from all unrighteousness.

Jesus’ Use of the Old Testament to Criticise the Temple Priests

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus offers three Scripture passages to explain his actions for cleansing the Temple (Matthew 21:13, 16).  They point to a change in the worshippers, worship, and worship leaders.  Jesus’ first reference is to Isaiah 56 (verse 7) with the phrase ‘house of prayer,’ that is, the Temple.  The chapter speaks of an ethical failing in general of God’s covenant people to ‘keep justice, and do righteousness’ (v. 1), keep the Sabbath, and keep their ‘hands from doing any evil’ (v. 2).  The chapter makes ethics the definition of right worship and is the key to membership in Israel.  Thus, foreigners (Gentiles) and eunuchs are not excluded from worship if they keep God’s covenant and Sabbaths (vv. 4, 6).

When Jesus cleanses the Temple, his action is an enacted judgement on the constant failure of those leading Israel in worship.  Just as is the case with Jesus’ next enacted judgement—the cursing the fig tree (Matthew 21:17-22)—Jesus’ claim is that the religious leaders of Israel have failed to produce the fruit of righteousness.  They will, therefore, be judged decisively.  Matthew 24 foretells the coming of judgement on the Temple: Jesus says that the Temple will be ruined.  If Jesus entered Jerusalem in AD 30, this prediction came exactly 40 years before its fulfillment in AD 70.

This reference to Isaiah 56 emphasises the fact that religion means nothing if it does not produce the righteousness God calls for in His covenant.  Having buildings and people and traditions and liturgies and religious leaders mean nothing if the people remain in their sinful ways.

Jesus’ second reference to an Old Testament text comes with his words, ‘den of robbers’ (Matthew 21:13).  The reference is to Jeremiah 7 (verse 11).  Once again, the text is about the Temple and the failure of the Jews (specifically, the southern Kingdom of Judah) to render moral righteousness.  They seem to think that mere possession of religion—of the Temple—guarantees them an acceptance by God.  Jeremiah, however—and Jesus following his prophetic challenge—says that the people have made God’s Temple a ‘den of robbers.’  Jeremiah lists a number of their sins: their lack of justice, oppression of sojourners (non-Israelites), the fatherless, and widows, their shedding of innocent blood, idolatry, stealing, murdering, committing of adultery, and dishonesty (swearing falsely) (Jeremiah 7:5-9).  Jeremiah warns the people that they cannot do these things and think that God is with them simply because they have the Temple in Jerusalem.  Rather, God is the one who chooses whether He will dwell in the Temple, and He makes this choice based on whether they sin or live righteously: ‘…then I will dwell in this place…’ (v. 7).  The challenge remains for every expression of the faith: do not confuse the external features of religion—cathedrals, churches buildings, liturgies, religious practices—with righteousness.  God cares about the peoples’ ways and deeds (Jeremiah 7:3).  As there is no real ‘Temple’ without God choosing to dwell in it, so there is no faith without the righteous life (‘ways and deeds’).

The third text Jesus references when he cleanses the Temple in Matthew’s Gospel comes from Psalm 8, a psalm about worship.  The psalm speaks of creation’s worship of the Creator.  The setting is not the Temple but all the earth as God’s place of worship.  Thus, the text, as it is used by Jesus, suggests that God does not need the Temple for his dwelling place.  Nor does God need the worship that the worship leaders offered in the Temple.  Jesus essentially replaces the worship of the priests with that of the children singing his praises in the Temple courts: as Psalm 8 says, ‘babes and infants’ can offer praise to God (verse 2).  The incident brings out a contrast between the Temple and Jesus, worship through sacrifices and worship of Jesus, and the worship leaders and the children leading in new worship.  As such, the passage challenges all forms of Christian faith to render worship to Jesus, not reducing worship to the aesthetics of a magnificent place or liturgy.

Jesus and the Sadducees’ Understanding of Scripture and God

When the Sadducees challenge Jesus at the Temple, they try to catch him on his theology.  Their purpose is to undermine his authority before the people, showing that he lacks a sophisticated or academic enough handling of the Scriptures to arrive at a rational theology.  They try to catch him in the illogicality of his theology of the resurrection—a theology that the Pharisees and people of Israel would have shared.  Thus, they approach Jesus on a particular theological point that they themselves hold.  As Josephus says, the Sadducees did not believe in angels or in the resurrection, and they only believed in a canon of Scripture limited to the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy).  By raising the question of the resurrection, then, the Sadducees challenge Jesus in two ways: the rationality of his theological position and the authority of his theological position.

As to the rationality of Jesus’ theology, the Sadducees offer the case of a woman who married seven times.  They ask Jesus, ‘In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be?’  Jesus replies that, after the resurrection, men and women no longer marry—in other words, there is no continuation of the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:27).  There is no marriage since marriage between a man and a woman exists to fulfill this mandate.

As to the authority of Scripture, the Sadducees might have thought that they had caught Jesus.  Some Old Testament texts might be cited to establish a doctrine of the resurrection, such as Isaiah 26:19 or Daniel 12:2 (and a few others).  But Jesus has the challenge of answering the Sadducees with reference to their limited canon of the Pentateuch.  Thus, he cites Exodus 3:6, where God identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-patriarchs living hundreds of years earlier.  Jesus interprets this passage to say that God is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matthew 22:32).  Thus, these patriarchs, though dead many years earlier, have a hope of the resurrection.  The argument is more than rhetorical.  God gives His name to Moses as ‘I AM’ (Exodus 3:14)—the One who has life in Himself.  This God, the Creator, is equally the giver of life who will one day resurrect Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the dead.

In saying this, Jesus criticizes the Sadducees’ approach to Scripture.  He does not directly attack their limited canon, although his own theological interpretation and message is taken from the whole Old Testament (cf. Luke 16:29, 31; 24:27, 44; cf. Acts 26:22; 28:23).  He does critique them for their failure as interpreters of Scripture.  Jesus says to the Sadducees, ‘You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God’ (Matthew 22:29).

In challenging the Sadducees in this way, Jesus adds to his criticism that they do not know the power of God.  The God who has life in Himself has great power—power enough to give life—is able to raise the dead.  The life-giving power of the Creator is certainly in the Sadducees limited canon of Scripture, but it is not in their own, personal theology.  Their hyper-rationality has become a way to read against Scripture.  They have not only a wrong theology but also a wrong experience of God.  One can hardly interpret texts such as the Pentateuch correctly—with all the references to God’s creative and redemptive power—if one has little to no belief in the power of God in the first place.  Religion ends up being a head-faith, a collection of ideas, rather than a relationship with the One who can raise the dead.  It becomes aesthetic rather than worshipful, therapeutic rather than pastoral, and academic rather than transformational.

Jesus’ Kingdom Righteousness and the Pharisees’ Ethic of Compromise

Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God was a direct attack on the moral compromise of religion in his day.  In the Synoptic Gospels, His primary opponents were the Pharisees and scribes. One cannot compromise the moral demands of God while claiming to live under God’s reign.  Such compromise, however, was the very stuff of the Pharisees and scribes while they at the same time claimed the moral high ground of following religious law.  What they actually did, however, was use their interpretation of the Law to avoid its moral demands.  For this reason, Jesus called them hypocrites--actors.  The problem with the Pharisees and their learned interpreters of the law, the scribes, was not that they were legalists but that they found clever legal interpretations so that they could break the Law.

Thus, Jesus says to his disciples,


Matthew 5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Pharisees are misrepresented if they are presented as unloving legalists.  That may be so in some respects, but their main problem was their crafting of an ethic of compromise.  They used the Law in ways to avoid God’s higher demand of a righteousness of the heart.  In a strange twist, the Law’s letter was used to avoid its intent.  Love is not the undoing of demand but is itself a higher demand.  As Jesus says,


Matthew 22:37-40 … You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  38 This is the greatest and first commandment.  39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

 Thus, when the Law is practiced without love, it is a half-measure of God’s commandments.  It is a compromise.  God’s commandments are expressions of how to love others.  All the commandments remain; they hang on the higher laws of love.

 Examples of the moral compromise of the Pharisees and scribes undoubtedly follow Jesus' warning about them in Matthew 5.20.  Jesus' examples have to do with their teaching on murder, adultery, truthfulness, retaliation, and hate of the enemy (Matthew 5.21-48).  Jesus calls, rather, for an ethic of the heart that takes these laws as indicative of a higher demand from God, a righteousness of the heart.  The Pharisees’ teaching about observing the Sabbath could, on occasion, be a way to avoid showing mercy (Matthew 12.1-8).  Their focus on lighter laws could be a way to avoid the weightier laws (Matthew 15.1-20; 23.16-26).    Their attention to outward laws and piety that others could see allow them to hide their breaking of other laws while receiving praise for piety (Matthew 6.1-5; 23.5-7, 26-27).  The permission of certain Pharisees to allow divorce for any cause and remarriage only hides a permissive ethic allowing adultery by means of legal divorce (Matthew 19.1-9).  Jesus, instead, calls for an ethic on divorce with no compromise:


Matthew 19:7-9 They [the Pharisees] said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?"  8 He said to them, "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery."

Thus, Jesus sweeps Moses’ compromise of divorce away in favour of God’s ethic for marriage in creation.  Life in the Kingdom of God brokers no compromise with sin but calls instead for righteousness and holiness.  Anything less is not Kingdom righteousness.

 What might have been the causes for the Pharisees’ ethic of compromise?  They believed they had found a comfortable compromise, an ethic whereby sinful people might live adequately—so they presumed to believe—before a holy God.  As such, their ethic may have been considered a practice of pastoral care, yet one that Jesus dismissed summarily:


Matthew 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Another cause leading the Pharisees to compromise their ethic was an interest in doing things that were self-serving.  Jesus says of them that


Matthew 23:5-8 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.  6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues,  7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.  8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.

Even the lure of money entered into their motives:


Luke 16:14-15 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.  15 So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.

Jesus’ opposition to the Pharisees was an opposition to moral compromise.  He built upon John the Baptist’s call to be baptized with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in preparation for the coming of God’s Kingdom.  He called his disciples to live fully under God’s rule without compromise.  And he went to the cross to provide a sacrifice to save his people from their sins.  But of the compromising Pharisees, he said,


Mark 7:6-9 ... Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;  7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'  8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."  9 Then he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!

Conclusion

Jesus’ Kingdom movement was a reform movement.  He did not try to work within the Jewish religious structures of Law and Temple to bring reform, but He continued to uphold the Law and honour the Temple.  In order to bring reform to the compromising and immoral interpretations of the Law practiced by hypocritical Pharisees and scribes, He both upheld the details of the Law while providing a new interpretation of it.  Jesus understood that an interpretation of the Law was necessary: there is no such thing as Law that does not need interpretation.  He offered three approaches to the interpretation of the Law. 

First, the Law must be interpreted as an outward regulation of an inward devotion to God from the heart.  Without a ‘heart righteousness,’ the Law would become, as it had among the Pharisees and scribes, an outward set of rules that allowed them to become religious actors, ‘hypocrites.’ 

Second, the Law must be understood as the civil Law of Israel that was derived from but not exactly equivalent to the Law of God, especially that reflected in creation.  Thus, divorce might have been permitted by Moses, but God’s intention in creation was that marriage between a man and a woman was permanent.  A creational lens on the Law did not relax its precepts but heightened its commands so that there was no room to compromise with sin.

Third, the Law needed to be interpreted in light of and with reference to God’s character, which could also be seen in His acts in salvation history.  God’s forgiveness, mercy, and love were key to a right interpretation of the Law.  God’s character and purposes, moreover, came to full expression in Jesus Christ.  In this way, Christ becomes ‘the Word,’ as John wrote at the beginning of his Gospel.  The Law was an expression of the Word of God.  They were Christ’s commandments (John 14.15).  Jesus came from the Father to give His disciples God’s Word of truth (John 17.8, 17).  Paul would express this by saying that Christ was the ‘end’ of the Law (Romans 10.4).  Either he meant by this that Christ replaced the Law or that He was the goal and fulfillment of the Law, and it is likely that some interpretation involving both views is true.  Christ replaces the Law in that He accomplished the righteousness toward which the Law aimed.  Inasmuch as He did so, He also fulfills the purposes of the Law.  As Paul earlier and more explicitly stated in the same epistle:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8.3-4).

The Law remains holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7.12), and its precepts that apply to all people (i.e., not the civil and religious laws that worked for Israel alone) remain for God’s Church.  Yet it represents a righteousness achieved only by Christ Jesus and by those living in Him and not in the power of their own flesh.

The religious leaders of Israel, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the scribes and priests, failed precisely where they made religion a religion of the flesh or a human enterprise.  The Law was not to be manipulated.  It did not offer opportunities for an outward show of piety.  Neither did the Temple. It did not offer a legal and sacrificial system that was devoid of mercy (cf. Hosea 6.6, quoted by Jesus in Matthew 9.13; 12.7). Christ embodied divine mercy and offered forgiveness for sins through His sacrificial death, achieving for us the righteousness toward which the Law pointed but which it was powerless to achieve.  Thus, Jesus did not simply reform the instruments of religion, the Law and the Temple, in Judaism; He transformed them by achieving what they could not achieve.  He represented in Himself what they were but now understood in relation to God’s character and purposes in creation and salvation history.

Where certain quasi-Christian expressions of religion fail is along the same lines of Judaism in Jesus’ day.  Some try to manipulate the Biblical teaching on morality in the same way that the scribes and Pharisees did.  This perversion of religion was nothing new in Jesus day: Isaiah warned of those ‘who call evil good and good evil’ (5.20).  Some make religion all about the show of outward righteousness (now called ‘virtue signalling’ and what Jesus called hypocrisy as the word had originally to do with actors).  Some make it all about grand worship services without any expression of a heart for God.  Jesus’ Kingdom righteousness was a religious reform that began with a right devotion to God as Father, with a religion of the heart, and with God’s mercy and forgiveness through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Truthfulness, Not Diversity, Establishes Unity in the Church

 

Life in community involves truthfulness.  Without it, there will be no unity in the Church.  Or we might say that any claim to unity will be a false unity.  In some churches and denominations today, a false unity is offered on the grounds that a more important virtue, diversity, defines both unity and truthfulness.  Three passages will be considered briefly on this matter: John 17, Ephesians 4, and Zechariah 8 (the latter text being quoted in Ephesians 4).

Throughout the latest Lambeth Conference (2022), the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out the obvious, that there are two different groups in Anglicanism holding to two different, incompatible views on sexuality and marriage. He then went on, shockingly, to claim that both views are true for their own groups (a Postmodern, not Christian, claim).  He next claimed that this disagreement was a feature of  a higher form of unity based in diversity.  In an official attempt during the conference to express this view, the doctrine of the Trinity was invoked in a heretical way.  It was claimed that the doctrine of One God in three Persons demonstrated unity despite diversity, or even because of diversity.  This false understanding of the Trinity and careless use of an analogy failed to understand the full unity of the Persons of the Trinity, not their holding incompatible views and yet agreeing to work or walk together.  More might be said about the lurking heresies in such an argument, but, for the purpose of this reflection, truthfulness rather than different understandings of the truth is essential for Christian unity.

John 17 

Jesus' prayer to the Father in John 17 is a prayer about unity, the unity that He has with the Father, the unity that His disciples have with Him, and therefore the unity that the disciples have with the Father.  That unity is not a unity with the world--and we might note in passing that 'the world' refers not only to the idolatrous nations but also to the Jewish religious establishment from which Jesus and His disciples have separated.  What, though, is the nature of this unity of which Jesus speaks?  The answer is that it is a unity in the truth of the words that Jesus has received from the Father and given to the disciples.  Two verses might be quoted to make this point:

For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.... Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth (John 17.8, 17).

The unity that Jesus prays for is a unity in the truth, and the truth is in the 'words' that Jesus has spoken to the disciples--in the revelation from the Father through the Son.  This is precisely the opposite of a Postmodern notion that truth is decided by a group and that different groups can respectably hold to their own truth, and that the different groups with their different truths can have a higher sort of unity.  Postmoderns believe that conformity is a lower kind of unity, whereas the unity of groups holding to different versions of the truth is a higher unity--the unity of diversity.  Contrast this notion to what Jesus prays for in John 17: a unity in the truth over against the false teaching of Jewish religious leaders. These two notions of truth could not be further apart.

Zechariah 8.16-17 and Ephesians 4.15, 25

Consider next a passage in Zechariah 8.16-17 and Paul’s use of it in Ephesians 4.  Together, they help us see that God has a plan for his people to establish their peaceful community on truthful interaction with one another.  This involves truthful speech and true judgements.  It also involves correcting theological and ethical errors.  This vision of truthfulness is something that Zechariah prophesied would be established by God one day in the future, and Paul sees it as characteristic of the Church now.

In a passage that prophesies God’s future restoration and renewal of His people and the land, Zechariah also lays down a new way of life for the people of God:

These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate, says the LORD (Zech. 8.16-17). 

In this passage, sources of strife that will be removed are lying and false judgements.  Watch a football match with referees who fail to be fair and see how quickly a peaceful rivalry can turn ugly.  God promises of a renewed community, though, include the notion that it will be peaceful through its truthful living.

 Paul seems to have this passage in view when he writes an epistle of peace to churches in Ephesus and possibly the surrounding region.  His familiar words are,

speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ (Eph. 4.15).

If Paul is thinking of Zechariah 8 when writing these words in Ephesians 4, he is then identifying the church with God’s restored remnant that is living in the restored and renewed community that is the Church.  In the Church, Zechariah’s future prediction has become a reality.  They are no longer ‘sinful Israel,’ and they are no longer ‘Israel in exile because of their sins.’  They are, instead, God’s renewed people.  Thus, they are to live differently, and that difference is characterized by truthfulness.

Just what does Paul mean by the phrase ‘speaking the truth in love’ in Ephesians 4.15 and 25?  I’ve often heard people quote this as grounds for ‘straight talking,’ telling people the truth about themselves, their behaviour, their attitudes, and so forth.  Is Paul talking about reality therapy?  Not likely.  The passage in Zechariah has in mind being truthful as opposed to being dishonest.  It is a passage against cheating people in the marketplace, lying on the witness stand, and corruption in general.  Paul’s use of this passage is more specific: ‘speaking the truth’ is what people who are blown about by every wind of doctrine need from others in order to set a straight course in life once again.  The full passage reads as follows:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love (Eph. 4.14-16).

Thus, Paul does not have in view telling people the truth about themselves but telling people the Truth, setting people straight when they are led into error by false teaching, whether false doctrine or a false way of life.  In the context of this verse, false teaching is as much about what one believes as about how one lives; it is not just about theological error.  In fact, in this passage Paul probably has ethics more in view than doctrine.

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity (Eph. 4.17-19).

Thus, the falsity that needs correction is the false life.  The most specific definition of this error involves licentiousness and impurity.

Just a few verses later, however, Paul returns to the full sense of Zechariah’s point when he says, more generally,

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another (Eph. 4.25).

Falsehood of any kind, including theological error, immorality, or lying itself, is rejected by the people of God who know the truth.  They are called on to speak this truth to one another as members of one another.  Therein lies the foundation for the unity of the people of God and for the peace that divided groups can find in Christ, who is our peace (Eph. 2.14).

From Zechariah and Ephesians, we learn that truthfulness has to do with:

·       being honest with one another in the sense of not lying, practicing corruption, rendering false judgements, and so forth (Zechariah);

·       correcting people blown off track by false teaching about what we believe and how we live (Ephesians);

·       living out God’s vision of a renewed, peaceful community here and now in the church (Zechariah and Ephesians).

As the renewed people of God, our community should be known as a community united in practicing truthfulness.


Related Essays on This Blog by Rollin Grams:

‘Christ’s Gifts for Unity in the Body of Christ (Ephesians); https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2022/08/christs-gifts-for-unity-in-body-of.html

‘The Church is Not a Zoo: Unity, Not Diversity, is the Church’s Communal Value’; https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-church-is-not-zoo-unity-not.html

‘Is Diversity a Christian Value?’; https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2019/10/is-diversity-christian-virtue.html

‘Issues Facing Missions Today: 50. Preserve the Unity of the Church?’; https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/04/issues-facing-church-50-preserve-unity.html

‘Issues Facing Missions Today: 48. Heretical Teaching and False Unity Then and Now; https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/04/issuesfacing-missions-today-48.html

‘Stay or Leave? Is John 17 Grounds for Staying in Mainline Denominations in Our Day?’; https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2019/09/stay-or-leave-is-john-17-grounds-for.html 

Christ’s Gifts for Unity in the Body of Christ (Ephesians)

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a letter addressing the issue of the unity of the Church.  In Ephesians 4.7-16, he turns to the theme of Christ’s gifts for unity in the church.  This theme applies to every believer and to the church’s ‘ligaments’—ministers of unity.  We have much to learn from these few verses in an epistle devoted entirely to the theme of unity.

Ephesians: Paul’s ‘Politics’ of Church Unity

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, wrote a work called Politics over 300 years before Paul.  It explores the nature of community in terms of the city state, although it also addresses the family as the basic unit for society.  In a similar way, Paul addresses the dynamics of Christian community—the Church—in Ephesians.  He, too, addresses the family as a basic unit for this new concept of community (Ephesians 5.22-6.9).

The Church can be contrasted not simply to the city state but to the Roman Empire itself.  The Roman Empire unified a large portion of the known world that extended to the borders with the Persian Empire in the east.  It included the habitable regions of North Africa, Spain in the west, and it drew its northern border with the Germanic tribes.  In this vast region, numerous ethnic groups were united under a single emperor through all the mechanisms of unity that the Romans offered: its system of law, its amazing system of roads, and, especially, its military power that established the pax Romana, the peace of Rome.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians offers a very different understanding of unity from Rome.  If the Roman division was between itself and the barbaric tribes, the Church offered a concept of community that could include the barbarians.  The Church was made up of people from any group that accepted the Lordship not of the Emperor but of Jesus Christ.  There were no ‘citizens’ and ‘non-citizens’ as in the Roman Empire—all believers were citizens of the Church.  Paul begins Ephesians by emphasizing this point.  The greatness of God’s power, unlike Rome’s power, is demonstrated in God’s raising Christ from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavenly places (Eph. 1.20).  The ruler of this new people, the Church, is not the Roman Emperor but Jesus Christ: God put everything under Christ’s feet

and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1.22-23)

The Church, like the Roman Empire, is, indeed, a place of unity and peace.  But this peace begins as a peace with God.  Unlike the powerful personalities of the Roman Empire, Christians rejected the way of the world, disobedience towards God, the passions of the flesh, the desires of the body and mind, the life of anger (being, prior to Christian faith, ‘children of wrath’) (Eph. 2.1-3).[1]  Instead of the hand of power to maintain peace, God meets the human condition with a love that offers mercy, salvation, and a new existence in Christ (Eph. 2.1-10).

With Christ as our peace (Eph. 2.14), the wall of division between Jews and Gentiles is broken down so that all believers might be built up into a new Temple to be God’s dwelling place (Eph. 2.11-22).  In Paul’s explanation of the reconciliation and peace that we find in Christ in Ephesians 2.11-22, he brings several texts together from Isaiah.  Isaiah prophesied that the conflict between Israel and her oppressors would end when a child was born to occupy the throne of David and establish justice and righteousness forever (Isaiah 9.1-7).  He would be called, ‘Prince of Peace’ (v. 6).  Paul links Isaiah 57.19 to this in Ephesians 2.17, which says, ‘And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.’  In Isaiah 57, God says that He had been angry with Israel but would bring healing and comfort.  Verse 19 reads, ‘Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the LORD, “and I will heal him.’  Previously, God said that after His anger, He would have compassion on Israel and be her Redeemer (Isaiah 55.8).  His ‘covenant of peace’ would have no end (v. 10).

A number of other passages in Isaiah point to the coming peace of God.  Isaiah envisions a day when the nations would stream to Zion to learn righteousness from God, saying,

He shall judge between the nations,

                        and shall decide disputes for many peoples;

             and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

                        and their spears into pruning hooks;

             nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

                        neither shall they learn war anymore (2.4).

The ‘good news’ that the runner announces about the restoration of Israel from captivity is the news of peace and salvation (Isaiah 52.7).  God’s Servant would sprinkle many nations (52.15) and be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and bear the chastisement that would bring peace (53.5).  Thus, the peace Paul has in mind is the peace of which Isaiah spoke.  It was a peace that would restore Israel and that would include the Gentiles.

Ephesians 3 continues to make the point that Jews and Gentiles are now united according to God’s mystery revealed in the Church.  The Church, then, is the place to find unity in a world that otherwise knows no peace.  The ‘mystery’ that Paul shares is the Gospel and its outcome of Jews and Gentiles united as fellow heirs in the Church, the body of Christ:

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3.6).

Ephesians 4.1-5.20 explores several dimensions of the unity of the Church.  At the risk of rushing too quickly through this important section, we might highlight six significant points about Church unity in these verses.  First, there are Christian virtues for every believer in the Christian community: humility, gentleness, patience, love, unity of the Spirit, and peace.  The parallel letter to Ephesians, Colossians, also lists virtues for Christian unity.  There are, first, vices that bring enmity between humanity and God, and believers need to rid themselves of these vices in their pursuit of Godly unity:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming (Colossians 3.5-6).

This passage in Colossians next lists vices that bring about disunity between people—vices that should not be present in Christian community:

In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.  8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices  10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.  11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3.7-11).

Paul then lists virtues that establish communal unity within the church:

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.  16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3.12-17).

Second, unity of the Church is a unity in the life of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Paul says,

There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-  5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4.4-6).

Third, Christian unity is maintained through gifts of Christ to each person in the Church and the gift of certain ministries of unity (Eph. 4.7-16)—a point to be explored in more depth, below.  Fourth, unity is upheld as people reject the false, sinful life and embrace the truth in Jesus (Eph. 4.17-5.21).  Fifth, Paul examines the smaller unit of Christian society—the family—and argues that its peace and unity depends on submitting every relationship to the Lordship of Jesus Christ (Eph. 5.22-6.9).  Sixth, as with Rome, peace comes through military might, not weakness and unpreparedness.  Unlike Rome, though, this is a spiritual warfare and requires fighting with the armor of God (Eph. 6.10-18).

The Gifts of Christ: Ephesians 4.7-16

In Ephesians 4.7-16, Paul emphasizes that unity is a matter of Christ’s gifting.  The point is made ever so briefly with respect to the gift that each person is granted (v. 7).  One must recall in this point its elaboration in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12.3-8.  In 1 Corinthians 12, as in Eph. 4, Paul begins with a Trinitarian reflection on the unity of the church:

 

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;

 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone (1 Corinthians 12.4-6).

 

He then lists gifts of the Spirit that promote unity: word of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12.8-12).  He later lists services and activities appointed by God in the community that contribute to unity: apostles, prophets, miracles, gifts of healing, helping, administration, and kinds of tongues (1 Corinthians 12.28).

In Romans 12.3-8, the gifts that promote the unity of the body are prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, oversight, mercifulness.

In the Ephesians passage, Paul supports his thoughts about Christ’s gifting his people with a quote that he alters from Psalm 68.  The Psalm actually says,

Psalm 68:18 You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.

Paul, though, says

Ephesians 4:8 Therefore it says, "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men."

However, the Psalm ends with the point that God ‘gives power and strength to his people’ (Psalm 68.35).  Thus, Paul captures the point of divine gifting in the Psalm.  Yet there is more to this psalm and its relevance for Ephesians: its emphasis on the community of God’s people.  Psalm 68’s description of God’s people has the same theological understanding as Ephesians: the dividing line is between God’s enemies and God’s people.  Thus, any concept of unity has to do with unity of God’s people, not unity of all peoples.  It is a unity that cuts across every other division that is of no importance: status, ethnicity, gender—as long as one is among God’s people.  This obvious point nevertheless needs to be made: unity has nothing to do with tolerance of diversity but is about diverse gifting that produces unity.  Psalm 68 speaks of God’s gracious gifts for his people—his care for them, protection of them, saving his people, and his powerful working for his people.

Thus Psalm 68 relates to the notion of the gifted people of God, the body of Christ, in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4, where he quotes from the psalm.  The quotation in Eph. 4.8 includes reading ‘You ascended on high’ as Christ’s ascension.  Christ’s Lordship is essentially an authority to give gifts to the Church.  Paul therefore turns to explain that gift-giving authority in terms of ministers for the Church.

Ligaments of Unity

The metaphor of ligaments for the Church’s ministers is most appropriate.  The earlier description of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians and Romans focuses on the members of the body each contributing to the unity of the body.  Ephesians 4.11, however, adds that there are ministers of unity, like ligaments that connect the parts of the body.  A hand or a foot might have a function it delivers for the sake of the body, but the ligaments help to forge the unity of all the body’s parts.  Paul lists these ligaments—these ministers of unity—as apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers (the Greek suggests an overlap or relatedness of ‘pastors’ and ‘teachers,’ perhaps because pastoral care overlaps with giving correct teaching in the local church.  That is, the different roles of apostle, prophet, and evangelist involved ministry outside the local church, whereas pastors and teachers involve ministry inside the local church.  If this is the correct way to understand the roles, we can see that there are ministers that provide unity between churches (apostles, prophets, and evangelists) and ministers that work to create unity within the local church.

Apostles establish the apostolic teaching of the Church.  It is foundational and not in dispute.  As Jude says, the faith was 'once for all delivered to the saints' (Jude 3).  The prophets, of course, can foretell something about the future, but their primary function is to warn.  They warn and encourage people, reminding them of what God says.  Evangelists proclaim the Gospel--their function is to state the Gospel and to clarify what is and is not God's 'Good News.'  Pastors care for the sheep, bringing correction, feeding them good food, protecting them, and being present with them in all life's stages.  Teachers teach the Word of God, being knowledgeable and careful in their interpretation to honour what was written by persons inspired by God.  These roles are the roles of agents of unity in the local and universal Church.



[1] Often, ‘children of wrath’ is understood to mean children with whom God was angry.  He NIV even translates the phrase as ‘objects of wrath’ to make this point.  That is theologically correct and may be Paul’s meaning here.  Yet Titus 3.1-7 is a parallel to Ephesians 2.3-10 and encourages a reading of this phrase to mean that people before coming to Christ passed their days in ‘malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another’ (Titus 2.3).


The Second Week of Advent: Preparing for the peace of God

[An Advent Homily] The second Sunday in Advent carries the theme, ‘preparation for the peace of God’.   That peace comes with the birth of C...

Popular Posts