Why does God Allow
Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Should God’s existence be
proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven
Fideism vs WCG.htm
Does the Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm
How Did First-Century Christianity and Judaism Become Different?
How
did Christianity change under the influence of persecution in the first century
and how it was different from Judaism? One fundamental problem to consider in
answering these questions concerns how to interpret the doctrinal changes that
overtook the Christian church after c. 100 A.D. That is, many laws which are said to be “Jewish” were still obeyed
by the early first-century church, but they were increasingly discarded after
the time the Apostle John died and the writing of the New Testament
ceased. There’s good evidence that the
first century church still kept the Saturday Sabbath, the Holy Days listed in
Leviticus 23, tithing, and even the clean/unclean meats distinction. Now, if the earliest followers of Jesus kept
these laws after His death and resurrection, wouldn’t we still be obligated to
keep them today? What authority did the
early majority-gentile church have for substituting Sunday for Saturday, and
Easter for the Passover?
Here
it shall be maintained the differences between the two Testaments have been
exaggerated, that God has always saved people in the same way in both periods, and
that Christianity organically grew out of Judaism, as is implied by Revelation
12’s description of the woman being both Jesus and the early church. Even supposedly "anti-law" Paul
felt the need to engage in purification rituals because he had to accommodate
many in the early church who had believed were "all zealous for the
Law" (Acts 21:20). The early
church was almost entirely Jewish, up until after Cornelius and his gentile
family were converted to Christianity (Acts 10). As has been documented in Samuele Bacchiocchi's “From Sabbath to
Sunday,” gentile Christians (in particular) in the Roman empire largely
abandoned the Sabbath, the Passover, and other hallmarks of Judaism heavily due
to a wave of anti-Semitic persecution under the emperor Hadrian early in the
second century A.D. in response to the second major Jewish revolt (A.D.
132-135). Hence, traditional
Christianity, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, came to accept Sunday
and Easter as replacements for the Sabbath and Passover, the former two plainly
coming out of the paganism of the of the Roman empire. Naturally, the gentiles who came to
increasingly make up the bulk of the membership of the church found these
customs easy to accept. After all, when
the Roman government came looking for those practicing the Sabbath, the
Passover, etc. to punish them, not keeping them was an asset: "We aren't Jews! We're Christians!" The dispensationalist school of Biblical
interpretation's largely unacknowledged foundation is to explain, accept, and
justify such an Biblically unauthorized substitution of pagan customs for Old
Testament observances. It uses a
preconceived interpretation of Paul's letters to interpret the Gospels, and the
New Testament to interpret the Old Testament, while denying any significant
feedback interpretation going the opposite way.
Of
course, a book could be written on this subject, especially if various
speculations are added. Let’s look at
how pagan persecution and persecution influenced the church’s doctrines, especially
after the second century. Christians under Roman rule faced
occasionally deadly persecution spasmodically until the time of
Constantine's declaration of religious tolerance with the Edict of Milan (313
A.D.) Now the Emperor Nero reigned from 54 to 68 A.D., and
then Domitian was emperor from 81 to 96. So what was happening to
Christians during this time? Nero and Domitian both persecuted the
Christians. Nero unleashed the first Roman persecution of the Christians.
He made those living in Rome itself scapegoats for the fire that
broke out in 64 A.D. after he was suspected (most likely unfairly) of starting
it himself. Domitian unleashed a more general persecution of the
Christians. Eusebius, the early Catholic "Father of Church
History," said that Domitian unleashed the second persecution against
Christians, although he also killed others who weren't.
One
very important event during this time was the Rome's crushing of the first
major Jewish revolt in Holy Land (66-73 A.D.), resulting in the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The small band of true Jewish Christians who lived
in that area took heed concerning Jesus' predictions about Jerusalem's fall
(Luke 21:20-24), and fled to Pella. This event was crucial for eventually
ending "Jewish Christianity" as perceived by Rome itself. (It
also largely created the Diaspora as we understand it
today, since so many Jews were killed or driven from the Holy Land
that this was only really reversed by modern Zionism in the last
century). That is, earlier in the first century, the Roman
government just perceived the Christians as another sect of Judaism, much like
the Pharisees and Sadducees were. But after Rome's legions
inflicted this devastating blow against the Jews, Christianity began
to be perceived much more as a new gentile religion. Hence, the
Christians soon lost the legal protections they had had as
"Jews," but had to endure Rome's demands for them to worship the
emperor whenever Rome happened to want to enforce them. (They generally
were never very systematic about persecuting Christians over the centuries, but
would allow local variations by various officials to occur and decades could
pass in many areas without any Christians being put seriously to the
test).
Another
problem during this period was the beginning of a serious apostasy and falling
away from the original truth as Peter and Paul understood it. (Although
we can't be sure of their exact years of death, they probably died towards
the end of the reign of Nero). Although the Apostle John continued
to live until perhaps 100 A.D., many false teachings began to enter the
church. John himself warned his readers repeatedly against
false teachers and teachings (I John 2:3; 3:4, 22; 5:3; 2 John 7; 3
John 9-10). The early Catholic writers blamed these, such as the
later Gnostic heresies, as starting with Simon Magus. (See Acts
8:9-10). Although that can't really be proven, deep doctrinal
problems developed from very early on in the history of Christian religion,
such as shown by Jude (verse 3) asking his readers to "contend earnestly
for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." Jesse
Lyman Hurlbut, in his "The Story of the Christian Church," p.
33, wrote, "For 50 years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over
the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises
about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a
church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and
St. Paul." By 110 A.D., we find Ignatius writing about Sunday
observance for church services, yet the early church would have kept the same
Sabbath as the Jews, the Saturday Sabbath. The church historian Samuele
Bacchiocchi especially attributes the change in days in his
book "From Sabbath to Sunday" to the persecution of the Jews by
the Emperor Hadrian after crushing the second major Jewish revolt in the Holy
Land (122-125 A.D.) His inference is that the gentile Christians
decided to go to church on Sunday in place of Saturday so they wouldn't be
persecuted as Jews. Similarly, we find in Rome in the early second
century the celebration of Easter in place of the Passover (Nisan 14 by the
Jewish calendar), which men in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, Polycarp
and Polycrates, still upheld. These changes in the Sabbath and the Holy
Days weren't authorized by the New Testament, but were done by the
church based on its own human authority.
Now,
how different should have the early church been from Judaism? What laws from the Old Testament were not to
be followed anymore? What ones were to
be kept? Let’s analyze this issue in
careful detail. If indeed the New Testament
writers were making such a drastic break with their Jewish past, why is the New
Testament so full of Old Testament citations and allusions, which are made to
justify Christian theology, especially the identification of Jesus of Nazareth
as the Messiah? Why didn’t Jesus hardly
hint at such a radical change soon to come concerning the Old Testament law
during His public ministry? Instead, he
specifically denied an anti-Old Testament law interpretation of his ministry in
Matt. 5:17-19:
Do not think that I came to abolish
the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and
earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the
Law, until all is accomplished. Whoever
then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others,
shall be called ["]least["] in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever
keeps and teaches them, he shall be called ["]great["] in the kingdom
of heaven.
Why
should he tell the disciples to "Go and make disciples of all the nations
. . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you"
when most of what he had spoken was irrelevant because the old covenant was
still in force while he was in the flesh?
Turning to Paul, the clear implication of his citation of Genesis 15:6
and Hab. 2:4 (such as in Gal. 3:6, 11) is that humans are saved the same way
under both the Old Covenant and the New.
He noted that "David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to
whom God reckons righteousness apart from works" (Rom. 4:6) before citing
from Psalms 32, which implies the salvation theology (soteriology) of the Old
Testament was like that of the New Testament.
The role of the law or obedience relative to salvation or justification
was the same for the Jews before the crucifixion as it is for Christians today
in God's sight, even if Jewish tradition and the oral law saw it
otherwise. Consider that when Paul
wrote this to Timothy that parts of the New Testament did not yet exist, or at
least had not been likely all gathered together: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness . . ." (II Timothy 3:16). Having made in the preceding verses a
reference to Timothy being raised a believer in the true God through the
"sacred writings," Paul obviously primarily had the Old Testament in
mind when he wrote this. If the Old
Testament is so largely irrelevant to Christians, why would Paul say this,
after citing the Exodus and Israel wandering in the wilderness: "Now these things happened to them as
an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of
the ages have come" (I Cor. 10:11; compare I Cor. 10:6 and Rom.
4:23-24). Of course, citing such points
in rebuttal against extreme dispensationalism and its offspring, a presupposed
radical discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity, hardly scratches the
surface of such a vast subject. Much of
Evangelical Protestantism and Catholicism today presupposes a funadamentally
flawed general school of Biblical interpretation which should be rejected at
its foundation.
What
the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 decided concerning circumcision and the law of
Moses has often been misunderstood.
Wilf Hey and John Meakin in their truly brilliant essay, "Acts
15 The Jerusalem Conference,"
describe that the ONLY issue under discussion was circumcision, not the whole
law of Moses, when considering what was made no longer binding on the
gentiles. Acts 15:1 states the issue
thus: "And some men came down from
Judea and began teaching the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to
the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" This same subject is repeated periphrastically (which
means a roundabout or indirect expression is used to mean the same thing) in
Acts 15:5: "But certain ones of
the sect of the Pharisees who had believed, stood up, saying, 'It is necessary
to circumcise them, and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.'" At the council, Peter got up and discussed
the gentiles having been justified by faith, and mentioned (v. 10) that a "yoke"
should not be placed on the gentiles that the Jews could not bear. From the context of the verses right around
it (v. 9, 11), the immediate issue that turned circumcision into the yoke was a
false approach to how a person was justified and saved which had grown up in
Jewish tradition, not the content of the Torah itself. The whole law was not the subject here, but
circumcision was in particular, as Bacchiocchi noted (Sabbath in NT, p.
32), since the context was a general discussion of circumcision and its
justifying role. (Compare Peter's language with Paul's in Gal. 2:3-4). In verse 24 (NKJV), the Greek not only
implies a periphrastic construction (i.e., makes a rather convoluted reference
to circumcision), but that it is a one-time act. The standard WCG interpretation of this
verse is to say "circumcision" and "the Law of Moses" are
basically separate entities, with the former just one law out of the latter,
and that the conference abolished both, excepting the still binding regulations
found in verse 29. However, the
construction of the Greek is points to to a periphrastism, as Hey and Meakin
note:
The argument in v5 is surely not that
the Gentiles 'must be circumcised AND required to obey the law of Moses': The Greek actually has three verbs, all
infinitive [a verb, in the form of "to run," "to jump,"
"to laugh," that has not been conjugated yet, which means to be given
a subject and changed in form, such as "I run," "He jumps,"
"she laughs"--EVS]: 'to be
circumcised', 'to charge' and 'to preserve'.
The last two are shorn of modifiers and joined together with 'and'. This is periphrastic: The first is accomplished with a view to the
second. In effect a rewording can be
that the Gentiles are 'to be circumcised, charged [thereby] with a view to
preserving the law of Moses'. Note that
the 'and' is actually placed between the second and third verbs (in the
original Greek text), very much suggesting a periphrastic interpretation.
This
argument is quite technical, but--alas!--very important when considering how to
interpret Acts 15. For if the main
subject was circumcision, and how the gentiles were to be considered
Christians, then interpreting this conference to mean almost the whole law of
Moses was abolished is incorrect.
A further, important issue is to
realize that when the four still remaining stipulations from the law of Moses
are singled out by the conference, this does not mean they are all that is
left. As Hey and Meakin, as well as
Bacchiocchi noted in “The Sabbath in the New Testament answers to questions,” p. 29-34, 101-102,
163-164, the gentiles felt the need to become part of the covenant community of
Israel to be saved. Here, the council
considered the church (Bacchiocchi) "not as a new Israel arising out of
the rejection of the old, but as the 'old Israel' being restored according to
God's promise," especially as shown by James' citation of Amos 9:11. Among the Jews themselves they had disputed
over which laws the gentiles who wished to obey God had to observe (compare
Isa. 56:3-8). The standard, more
liberal Jewish interpretation of the law said the gentiles needed only to
observe the same four laws that the Jerusalem Council eventually selected,
which all come from Lev. 17-18, because (gentile) foreigners were specifically
mentioned in them. The competing Jewish
interpretation of what the gentiles had to do said they had to perform the
circumcision as well. What happened at
the Jerusalem conference was that latter rabbinical view, which the Christians
who were Pharisees had accepted, lost out to the former, more liberal
interpretation, when both had had significant followings in Judaism. The important, bottom-line point of this
discussion is that the four laws the Jerusalem conference listed were not
arbitrarily or randomly picked out of the Torah, nor should they be seen as all
that is still binding from the Torah (or the law of Moses) upon Christians, but
rather what in particular allowed the gentiles to be grafted into spiritual
Israel, the church.
So
now--getting back to mixed fibers and tassels--how do we know what has been
abolished and what has not been? The
best approach is to draw upon Christ's example in the Sermon on the Mount, and
how he expanded the meaning of two of the Ten Commandments (Matt. 5:21-30). The law against murder became a prohibition
of hating or even insulting our fellow men.
The law against adultery applied also to men lusting after women in
their heart. Therefore, the basic
solution to knowing what still is in force is whether it can be derived
directly or indirectly from the Ten Commandments, since we know they are still
in force. The parts of the Old
Testament law which expand upon the general meaning of each of the Ten
Commandments are still in force. For
example, the commandment against adultery means the laws against homosexual sex
(Lev. 20:13), bestiality (Lev. 20:15-16; 18:23; Ex. 22:19), incest (Lev.
20:17,19; 18:6-14), and fornication (Lev. 22:28-29; Ex. 22:16) are still in
force. One important exception exists
to this process: The two Great
Commandments (Matt. 22:36-40), which are to love God above all and love your
neighbor as yourself (Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18), can be seen as condensations of
the Ten Commandments. The first four
commandments state how you are to love God, and the last six how to love your
neighbor, in more specific forms (compare Rom. 13:8-10). However, the fact one can summarize the law
this way does not mean its specific points have been abolished, for
"love" needs to be defined as God would have it, not as we humans
might want it. Although there is the exception
of the two Great Commandments, the Ten Commandments still can be used to figure
out what other, scattered laws in the Torah are still in force, by seeing if
they amplify their the spiritual meaning.
This combination of the Ten Commandments, the two Great Commandments,
and the various scattered laws of Moses that can be derived from them I call
the moral law, because it expresses God's will for mankind for any place
and time.
On
the other hand, we know what laws in the Torah are gone by referring to where
the New Testament clearly abolishes some law.
Then, in turn, we can figure out which laws indirectly were
abolished from the ones which plainly have ended. For example, notice Hebrews 9:9-10: ". . . Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are
offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they
relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body
imposed until a time of reformation."
This scripture, along with Heb. 10:1-18, show that the animal sacrifices
were abolished. Notice in particular
verse 18: "Now where there is
forgiveness of these things ['sin' and 'lawless deeds'], there is no longer any
offering for sin." The reference
to "washings" is particularly noteworthy, because it means all the laws
tied to ceremonial cleanness were ended.
Thus, such laws as those that excluded women from Israel's assemblies
due to their menstrual periods and childbirth are no longer binding (Lev.
12:4-8; 15:19-33). Corresponding to the
end of the animal sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood which offered them also
has been abolished (Heb. 7:12, 18-19):
For when the priesthood is changed, of
necessity there takes place a change of law also. . . . For, on the
one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its
weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other
hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to
God.
Furthermore,
Paul and the Jerusalem Council plainly say that circumcision is not a
requirement for Christians (Gal 5:2, 11; Gal. 6:15; Rom. 2:26-29; Col. 3:11;
Acts 15:1, 5, 7-11, 23-29). Hence,
knowing clearly what is still in force (the Ten Commandments), and what is not
(the animal sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, and the laws of ceremonial
cleanness), in principle Christians can work through the Torah's 613 laws, and
figure out which ones are still in force and which ones aren't by a process of extrapolation
(as aided by the Holy Spirit).
However,
before turning to do some such derivation and extrapolation, let's notice the
implications of a document found among the Dead Sea Scrolls called MMT and its
relationship to interpreting Eph. 2:11-19 when compared to Gal. 2:11-16. MMT stands for (in Hebrew) "Miqsat
Ma'ase Ha-Torah," which has been translated "Some important [or
'pertinent'] works of the law" by Biblical scholar Martin Abegg. In his article, "Paul, 'Works of the
Law,' and MMT" in the Biblical Archaeology Review
(November/December 1994, pp. 52-55, 82), he discusses how in MMT for the FIRST
time a contemporaneous use of the Pauline term, "the works of the
law," was found outside the New Testament. Paul uses this term in Gal. 2:16; 3:2,5; Rom. 3:20, 28. The big question had been what did he
designate by this term, for it is absent from first and second century Jewish
rabbinical writings. But now, with MMT,
there exists a contemporaneous use of "works of the law," which helps
greatly in defining its meaning. It is
important to note that MMT does not use this term to refer to the Sabbath, the
Holy Days, tithing, etc., nor does it refer to the Ten Commandments. Nor does it refer to such spiritual duties
as caring for the poor, visiting widows and orphans, or any other "good
work." (Here, it deals a potential
death blow to the basis of Martin Luther's reformation teaching of
"salvation by grace through faith alone"--but that's another
subject). Instead, it refers to a
number of (for twentieth-century Christians) very petty laws that separate Jew
from gentile. The document chiefly
consists of a long list of rules or laws that compose "works of the
law," with the Qumran author towards the end concluding that, if you obey
these laws, "you shall rejoice at the end of time when you find the
essence of our words true" and (important for our purposes) "you will
be reckoned righteous, in that you have done what is right and good before
Him." So, Paul must have been
refuting the theology of documents such as MMT in Romans 3-4 and Galatians 2-3
by referring to Abraham being reckoned righteous by faith (Gen. 15:6),
not by works. So now, what exactly are
some of the laws listed in MMT? Abegg
(p. 53) gives this list, although it isn't exhaustive because he says about 20
separate "religious precepts" are listed in it altogether (the all
capitals are mine):
The issues including bringing Gentile
cord into the Temple, the presentation of Gentile offerings, and the cooking of
sacrificial meat in unfit (impure) vessels.
Other rulings concern cleansing of lepers, admitting the blind and the
dead into the Temple; and permitting intermarriage with Ammonite and Moabite
converts . . . the transmission of impurity by a flow of water (musaq),
THE INTERMIXTURE OF WOOL AND LINEN (sha'atenz), plowing with diverse
animals (qilayyim) and perhaps the climax of the discussion: the intermarriage of priests with the common
people.
The
implications of this list of the works of the law are enormous, for in
conjunction with Eph. 2:14-15 when compared to Gal. 2, these texts show these
laws are no longer binding on Christians.
Consider Paul's statement in Eph.
2:14-15: "For He Himself is our
peace, who made both groups [Jews and gentiles] into one, and broke down the
barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is
the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make
the two into one new man, thus establishing peace . . ." Paul uses a very convoluted expression
here--"the Law of commandments contained in ordinances"‑‑so
what is he exactly referring to?
Clearly, it can't be he meant the entire Old Testament law was
abolished. The context of the
discussion here was Paul saying the gentiles had not known the true God at
all. They had been condemned to
spiritual death but by being enlightened by the death of Jesus, who united them
with the Jews into one body, the church.
The parallels to Gal. 2:11-16 are remarkable, for here Paul attacked
Peter for suddenly choosing to eat separately from the gentiles when certain
Jews arrived from James in Antioch.
Paul condemned him, saying (v. 16):
"[N]evertheless knowing that a man is note justified by the
works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed
in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the
works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be
justified." Evidently, what
happened was that these Jews associated with James believed in some theology
similar to that found in MMT--that one is "reckoned righteous" by
obeying "the works of the law" that kept Jew and gentile
separate. They influenced Peter to stop
eating with the gentiles by persuading him that it was a sin or otherwise
undesirable based on these views. Paul
condemned Peter as well as this kind of theology, saying one is made righteous
with God by faith, not by obeying these petty laws that separate Jews from
gentiles. When comparing this
discussion in Gal. 2 with that in Eph. 2, a safe conclusion is that the laws in
the Old Testament that separate Israelite from gentile, or those which
symbolize this separation, have been abolished for Christians.
Now
this brings us to the subject of mixed fibers (Deut. 22:11; Lev. 19:19) and
whether this law is still binding on Christians. Remarkably, since this law was included in "the works of the
law" found in MMT, Christians need no longer obey it any more than they
have to be circumcised. Although on the
surface this law does not seem to have anything to do with separating Jew from
gentile, it may have symbolized this separation. Just as two types of fibers were not to mix, neither should Jew
or gentile mix through marriage or religion.
On a personal note concerning this issue, I remember hearing one WCG
evangelist who was sent to the Lansing area to argue in favor of the doctrine changes
that had been made concerning the law and the Sabbath. He heavily used the example of mixed fibers
to show that the authority of the Old Testament law was not binding on
Christians, otherwise we could not wear clothes that had (say) cotton and polyester
in them. At that time, I could not
really refute that argument. But now,
knowing the implications of MMT from this article in the “Biblical Archaeology
Review,” this claim can be successfully rebutted. This situation shows that sometimes we need to go in faith,
putting some of the more difficult problems found in Scripture "on the
shelf" to deal with later, when then God may eventually lead us to a
solution. For it was obvious that the
general premises of biblical interpretation upon which the Worldwide Church of
God bases its doctrinal changes in 1994-1995 were very dubious, so I rejected
them, even if not all "the problem scriptures" for my alternative
view had been worked out at that time.
To conclude, the other laws that evidently symbolize the separation of
Israelite and gentile, such as the one against sowing two different kinds of
seeds on the same piece of law or plowing with two different animals together
(Lev. 19:19), have also been abolished for Christians.
Now--what
about the laws that require physical reminders of the Law in general? Are they still required of Christians? For example, note Deut. 6:8-9: "And you shall bind them as a sign on
your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your gates." Are
the phylacteries that ultra-orthodox Jews wear on their foreheads, which often
look like small wooden blocks with Hebrew writing on them, required for
Christians because of this scripture?
Or, consider the requirement to wear tassels on clothing, which had the
same function (Num. 15:39-40):
"And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the
commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart
and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, in order that you may
remember to do all My commandments, and be holy to your God." Must Christians wear tassels or special
fringes on our pants, suits, or dresses to physically remind us of the
law?
Christians do not need such physical
reminders of the law, and need not obey the Old Testament laws that require
them, because the law is now written on our hearts. By contrast, ancient Israel mostly tried to obey the Ten
Commandments and the law in general by their own physical strength (note Ex.
19:8; 24:3, 7; Gal. 3: 10, 12). Most of
them never had the Holy Spirit, so God didn't help them to obey. However, for Christians, the situation is
very different, for God helps us to obey the law through the Holy Spirit in
us. The very foundation of the new
covenant concerns God's law being written on our hearts (Heb. 8:10): "For this is the covenant that I will
make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, and I
will write them upon their hearts."
As Paul explains, what matters now is that the spirit places the law in
our hearts (II Cor. 3:2-3): "You
are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being
manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with
ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on
tablets of human hearts." The old
administration of the law has been abolished which placed a literal physical copy
of the Ten Commandments in the Ark of the Covenant to serve (among other
things) as a collective physical reminder to all of Israel to keep the law in
exchange for promised physical blessings (II Cor. 3:7, 11):
“But
if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that
the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the
glory of his face, fading as it was . . . For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which
remains is in glory.”
With
the new covenant's arrival, God no longer requires worship focused upon the Ark
of the Covenant and the sacrifices around it because of Jesus' death and the
coming of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11, 13-14). The physical objects in the temple and tabernacle which
"serve[d as] a copy and shadow of the heavenly things" (Heb. 8:5),
which included the Ark of the Covenant above all, are not requirements for
Christian worship. Hence, if
"spiritual Israel" (note Gal. 6:16) no longer needs the physical copy
of the Ten Commandments found in the Ark of the Covenant as a reminder to it collectively
to keep it, then neither do we individually need to use our own physical
reminders of the law, such as phylacteries, doorposts with the Ten Commandments
on them, or clothes with tassels and special fringes on them.
Consider
these laws: "No one of
illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his
descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the
Lord. No Ammonite or Moabite shall
enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth
generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord" (Deut.
23:2-3). The latter law is now
abolished because Israelite and gentile are saved the same way under the new
covenant, as demonstrated by Eph. 2 and Gal. 2-3. The former law is equally done away with, because the physical
descent of someone no longer matters.
What matters is whether God has called them, and what personal relationship
they have with God. God wants everyone
to repent, bastards (ahem) and legitimate alike (Acts 17:30): "Therefore having overlooked the times
of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should
repent." All have sinned, but God
will save all who are called, repent, are baptized, and continue to follow God
lifelong (John 3:16; Rom. 3:23).
Similarly, the law against allowing those "emasculated, or has his
male organ cut off" to enter the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:1)
obviously no longer applies to Christians today, as demonstrated by Philip
baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:27-39).
Clearly, the Old Testament laws that restrict who could enter the
assembly of the Lord by some physical characteristic have been abolished by the
principle proclaimed by Paul in Gal. 3:28, Col 3:11, and I Cor. 12:13. Regardless of such physical characteristics
such as nationality, gender, or condition of bondage, God is not partial to
anyone under the new covenant (Acts 10:34-35; James 2:1-6).
Another
category of laws, or (often) parts of laws, that are all abrogated for Christians
in this age are those tied to ancient Israel being both a church and state
united together under God as a theocracy where God directly ruled Israel. Today, God has authorized no human
government to be His representative on earth, even if they may enforce laws
that properly protect people (Rom. 13:1-7).
Our citizenship is in heaven, and so our first loyalty is to God, not
our country (Phil. 3:20). Jesus said
his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). He refused to allow humans to make Him their king while He was in
the flesh (John 6:15). Hence, all the
death penalties scattered throughout the Torah certainly should not be enforced
by Christians today, such as the one for defiantly breaking any law of God,
like the Sabbath (Num. 15:30-36). One
cannot argue that because the Sabbath was tied to a death penalty that has been
abolished, it is gone also, without correspondingly admitting that adultery
(Deut. 22:22), fornication (Deut. 22:20-21), rape (Deut. 22:25), sorcery (Ex.
22:18), bestiality (Ex. 22:18), and homosexual sex (Lev. 20:13) would be
similarly legalized so far as this reasoning goes. Similarly, the laws regarding Israel's army don't apply to
Christians today (such as Deut. 24:5), because we are to love our enemies,
which simply can't be expressed by killing them on the battlefield, regardless
of how much we may wish to twist Jesus' words so we can be patriotic during
wartime (Matt. 5:38-47; 26:51-53).
Again, since no nation is a theocracy authorized by God, no nation's
army is authorized by God to kill others for any reason, except perhaps
criminals in situations of martial law (re:
Romans 13:1-7 again). Even in
those situations true Christians should not be involved acting as police. Hence, all the aspects of laws that are tied
to the state inflicting penalties on criminals and other violators of the law
are abolished for the present time before Christ returns (at least), even if
the law itself may still be a sin to violate, because no human government today
is authorized by God to represent and enforce His will on earth, as ancient
Israel's was.
Another
law to consider is that which required an (unmarried) man who had lived with
his brother to marry his deceased brother's wife should his brother die without
having a son first (Deut. 25:5-10).
Using a case history based on this law the Sadducees once tried to trap
Christ concerning His belief in the resurrection (Luke 20:27-38). Would this law still be binding on a
Christian man who lived with his brother and his wife today, should his brother
die? To answer this, let's note that
not all marriage regulations found in the Old Testament are still binding
today. Christ made that very clear to
the Pharisees in Matt. 19:7-9:
"They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give her a
certificate of divorce and send her away?'
He said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you
to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife,
except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.'" The same point is made in the Sermon on the
Mount (Matt. 5:31-32). This regulation
in Deut. 25 could be said to reflect "the hardness of heart" from the
female view, for if the brother totally refused to marry his brother's widow,
she was to pull his sandal, spit in his face, and say, "Thus it is done to
the man who does not build up his brother's house" (Deut. 25:9). (Conspicuously, he was not put to death or
fined for refusing, but instead was just publicly humiliated). The harshness of this attitude often was as
bad as the man who divorced his wife for not-so-good reasons. Furthermore, much of this law involved the
machinery of the state being used to enforce it, since the spurned widow went
to the "elders of his city" (v. 8) to complain and enact this drama
before. This means it (or much of it)
may well have been abolished along with the death penalties mentioned earlier
since no nation's government is a true theocracy today. Furthermore, for a Christian widow, she has
full choice about whom to marry, so long as he is a Christian as well (I Cor.
7:39). Correspondingly, wouldn't a
Christian man have equal freedom, especially when Paul believes being unmarried
is the spiritually superior state? (Note
I Cor. 7:8-9, 32-38‑‑I believe HWA was wrong on this score). Hence, by drawing upon the precedent of
other scriptures, it's dubious to say this law is still in force today.
Of
course, many other individual Old Testament laws could be analyzed in this
piecemeal manner, but this is sufficient for now. Now, let's investigate whether tithing, the Holy Days, and
clean/unclean meats are still binding on Christians. For, after all, since they are not mentioned in the Ten
Commandments, one could argue that the Sabbath is in force, but these laws
aren't. First, let's consider how the
festivals are implicitly contained in the Sabbath commandment as annual
Sabbaths, in contrast to the weekly Sabbath.
In Leviticus 23, we find that "The Lord's appointed times"
include the weekly Sabbath and the Holy Days together. While one could object that the time during
which the annual Holy Days occur is never actually called "holy," the
fact remains that the same regulations against work occur on them as concerning
the weekly Sabbath. For example, for
the Feast of Trumpets, we have this command:
"You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an
offering by fire to the Lord" (Lev. 23:25). Just as Moses was on holy ground when he saw God in the burning
bush, and so he had to take off his shoes, we show that a given piece of time
is holy by avoiding all unnecessary worldly work on that time by turning our
own foot away from doing our pleasure on that day (Ex. 3:2-5; Isa. 58:13-14). When scripture, not just the Jews, calls the
First Day of Unleavened Bread a "Sabbath" and a "high day"
(John 19:31), which fell on a Wednesday in A.D. 31, why should we believe that
the time is not holy also? To say they
are only holy to the extent there is a "holy convocation" on that
day--meaning because Christians gather on that day, when they could do so on
any other randomly chosen day--reiterates a familiar WCG argument. But can this be true, when such a term as
"Sabbath" is applied to the First Day of Unleavened Bread? Such days are holy independently of whether
any human being recognizes them as such.
Since the Holy Days can be subsumed under the fourth commandment,
similar to the way the laws against fornication and bestiality are covered also
by the seventh commandment, there's every good reason to believe they are still
binding, so long as no clear abolition is found in scripture concerning
them. Since both Christ and the early
church observed these days, or made mention of them, they are still binding,
when we reject dispensationalist principles of biblical interpretation (Acts
18:21; 20:6, 16; 27:9; I Cor. 5:7-8; Col. 2:16; John 2:13, 23; 5:1; 7:10; 7:37;
Luke 2:41-43; 22:8).
But
now, what about the command to tithe?
Among the Ten Commandments, none look anything like it on the
surface. However, note the implications
of Malachi 3:8-9: "'Will a man rob
God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, "How have we robbed Thee?" In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of
you,' says the Lord of hosts."
Since the eighth commandment prohibits stealing, the implications are
clear: Since God owns the world, and
owns us, whether we admit it or not, we are to "pay rent" to Whom we
"lease" these physical things from, and pay tithe on our increase
(earnings). Furthermore, Christ says,
when rebuking the Pharisees for obeying minor matters of the law while
neglecting the great ones like justice, mercy, and faith, that they should
still have tithed (Matt. 23:23). The
standard way for dispensationalists to evade such a text is to say it was
spoken while the old covenant was still in force, and is therefore irrelevant
to us today. Of course, such an
argument invalidates virtually all the words of Jesus, including the Sermon on the
Mount. Maybe red letter Bibles exist in
order to know immediately what Christians can all the more safely ignore! Similarly, when examining the Letters
(Epistles), no mention of tithing exists outside of Hebrews 7, such as in I
Corinthians and II Corinthians.
Therefore, using that old dispensationalist standby, the argument from
silence, it is said this law has been abolished since no mention is made of
it. After all, does not Paul say (II
Cor. 8:8), "I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through
the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also"? However, since this text concerns famine
relief for other Christians, not support of the ministry, tithing certainly
wouldn't naturally come first in Paul's mind in such a situation. While Paul may not have explicitly mentioned
tithing when saying he had a right to financial support from the brethren (I
Cor. 9:4, 9-15), this is no proof of its abolition. As discussed above, when one rejects extreme dispensationalism
and a radical discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity as principles of
Biblical interpretation, we should assume a given Old Testament law is still in
force, unless clearly abolished. The
argument from silence--that because a certain Old Testament law is not mentioned
in the New Testament or the Letters and Revelation, therefore it is
abolished--assumes at the start that dispensationalism is true, and that the
Old Testament is irrelevant as a guide to Christian conduct except so far as
the New Testament or the Letters say otherwise. Therefore, unless one proves extreme dispensationalism and
radical discontinuity to begin with, which certainly are problematic, we should
reject the argument from silence as a means to abolish any Old Testament law.
Now,
are the laws concerning clean and unclean meat binding on Christians? It is said that all meat was made clean by
Peter's vision in Acts 10, since one can't say the gentiles are literally clean
without the animals in the vision having been made clean as well. However, this conclusion was not what Peter
drew from his vision--all he mentioned when interpreting it for us was it
concerned the gentiles being clean (v. 10):
"You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to
associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I
should not call any man unholy [literally, 'common'] or unclean." Why should we read more into it? After all, God may have ordered Peter to
"Arise . . . kill and eat!," but it is hazardous to take
literally anything associated with a vision itself. (Furthermore, God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but that
was a command He did not actually wish to be fully obeyed). Above all, we know from elsewhere in the New
Testament that not all the animals are now clean (Rev. 18:2): "And she [Babylon] has become a
. . . prison of every unclean and hateful bird." Furthermore, when the Second Coming occurs,
punishment comes upon those who eat unclean food, which shows these animals
aren't clean now (Isaiah 66:16-17):
“For
the Lord will execute judgment by fire and by His sword on all flesh, and those
slain by the Lord will be many. Those
who sanctify and purify themselves to go to the gardens, following one in the
center, who eat swine's flesh, detestable things, and mice, shall come to an
end altogether,' declares the Lord.”
Therefore,
good reasons exist to believe the law against eating clean and unclean meat is
still binding today on Christians.
Now,
it will be objected that didn't Christ say that (Mark 7:18-19) "whatever
goes into the man from outside cannot defile him; because it does not go into
his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated"? Here, the context is crucial, and by
looking at the parallel account in Matt. 15, we can know more clearly what
is going on. First of all, the
challenge to Jesus concerned eating food with unwashed hands, an aspect of the
oral law that was out of the traditions of men. It was not a dispute over the matter of clean and unclean food,
which is made clear in Matt. 15:20: "These
[spiritual sins] are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed
hands does not defile the man."
One has to read into the discussion that Christ was nullifying the laws
concerning clean and unclean meat.
Evidently Peter himself, who listened and even participated in this
discussion, did not interpret it in this manner, because even long after the
crucifixion he had never eaten unclean or common meat (Acts 10: 14). True, in the Westcott-Hort/critical text
that underlies most modern Bible translations we get (by changing a single
letter of a single word in the Greek) the editorial comment "(Thus He
declared all foods clean)" in Mark 7:19.
However, this text type is defective, and the Received Text that
underlies the KJV and NKJV is superior--but proving that point is way beyond
the purpose of this paper. Suffice it
to say, it's unwise to base a significant doctrine on whether one Greek word
contains an omicron or an omega in it.
Furthermore, let's not take Christ's use of the word "whatever"
too broadly--it may have meant out of all the things the Jews, and in
particular the Pharisees normally ate, not out of all possible animals that can
be eaten by anybody. So, by comparing
Mark 7 with the parallel account in Matt. 15, and by avoiding reading more into
it than is already there, it appears that Christ did not mean to say the laws
against clean and unclean meat had been abolished, but that the Pharisees'
complaint about Christ's disciples not washing their hands before eating was
invalid.
To
figure out which laws in the Old Testament are still in force before the Second
Coming can't be done by any one principle of interpretation. The Bible does not tell us explicitly any
systematic approach to this question.
However, when we reject extreme dispensationalism, a radical
discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity, and the resultant corresponding
argument from silence, the presumption should be that a given Old Testament law
is in force unless plainly or by deduction from what is plain we can know it
has been abolished. True, some
exception exists for each simple rule we can come up with to figure out what
has been abolished. For example,
suppose one says that if a law was obeyed before the old covenant was
established, therefore Christians should obey it today. Then circumcision and animal sacrifices are
binding (Gen. 4:3-5; 22:8, 13; Gen. 8:20; 17:10-14). Suppose it's said that a law which will be obeyed in the
millennium is binding today. Then
animal sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood are binding (Eze. 44:9-12,
27-31; Isa. 66:20-21). One could say
that if Jesus and/or the apostles did it, then Christians should (re: I John 2:6; I Pet. 2:21). But then there's the problem of Jesus
evidently wearing tassels (Matt. 9:20; compare 23:5) and Paul evidently
observing a Nazarite vow (Acts 18:18--but compare I Cor. 11:14) and ritually
purifying himself and visiting the temple (Acts 21:24, 26). Thus, no one rule can answer such a question
for us. However, by using a combination
of them, one can, especially in conjunction with the approach sketched
above of extrapolating and deriving from the laws that clearly have been
abolished and those which are clearly still in force to investigate those laws
whose status has not been figured out yet.
After all, if the Holy Days were commanded for ancient Israel, and the
early church and Christ did observe and/or mention them, and that in the
millennium they will be observed (Zech. 14:16-19; Eze. 44:24), then it's safe
to say they are still in force today.
If the patriarchs practiced at least some type of tithing (Heb. 7:4-10;
Gen. 14:20; 28:20), God commanded it under the old covenant, and Christ said it
should have been obeyed (Matt. 23:23), then it's safe to assume it is still
binding on Christians. If the animals
were clean and unclean before the old covenant was made (Gen. 8:20--at least
for the purposes of sacrifice--note Gen. 9:2!), that they were under the old
covenant, and that they will still be unclean shortly before the second coming
(i.e., now!) (Rev. 18:2; Isa. 66:16-17; Hosea 9:3), and during the millennium
(Eze. 44:23), it's unwise to consider this law abolished for Christians
now. The continuity about
certain of God's laws between various periods (or dispensations) points to the
conclusion that those laws are still in force.
It is absurd to see the Christian era after the crucifixion and before
the millennium as presumably law-free unless we get a reconfirmation of some
Old Testament law in Paul's letters (etc.), then note this era is bracketed on
both sides by laws which were enforced under the old covenant and will be
enforced during the millennium, and then claim Christians need not obey these
laws when they have not been clearly abrogated in the New Testament. Silence should be taken to mean no change
has occurred, rather than some change did happen, once we reject the extreme
dispensationalist/radical discontinuity principles of biblical
interpretation. In short, extrapolating
and deriving what was required (or may have been) of people in other
dispensations is still relevant principle to sorting out what is required of
Christians today.
While
the principle that we should assume only the Ten Commandments are in force and
nothing else contains an elegant simplicity worthy of English philosopher
William of Ockham's "razor," it assumes certain principles of
biblical interpretation that appear very questionable, such as extreme
dispensationalism, a radical discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity,
the argument from silence, and that the Bible should only be interpreted
backwards, from the Letters to the Gospels, and the New Testament to the Old,
without much or any interaction back and forth. True, the approach propounded above, that we can derive and
extrapolate from the Ten Commandments and from what is clearly abolished, such
as animal sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, and circumcision to determine
which other Old Testament laws are binding on Christians, is not a clear, clean
approach from the point of view of human reason. It requires a lot more human judgment as guided by the Holy
Spirit to perform. It needs more faith,
because not all the "puzzles" posed by a given Old Testament law may
be instantly resolvable, except upon further research or even discoveries by
scholars (such as MMT). However, the
"puzzles" posed by assuming Pasadena's (and evangelical Protestant
Christianity's) principles of Biblical interpretation are much worse and more
numerous. So, it's time to choose an
overall set of principles of Bible interpretation that see the continuity
between dispensations, that see how Christianity grew out of Judaism without a
radical rejection of everything Jewish, and that we should assume that a given
law is in force, unless we can figure out it has been abolished, rather than
assume all Old Testament laws not repeated in some 12-13% of the word of God
(the Letters and Revelation) are fundamentally irrelevant for Christian
conduct. No need exists for
Sabbatarians to accept these premises, and then use the Ten Commandments as a
kind of "door stop" to prevent their full implementation.
Now
let’s examine whether the Catholic church was the first church. A problem we face here is how to define
"church," and whether a given church that changes its doctrines over the
centuries is still the same "church." A good and free booklet
on this general issue is "God's Church Through the Ages," by John
Ogwyn. You can find it at http://www.lcg.org/cgi-bin/tw/booklets/tw-bk.cgi?category=Booklets1&item=1104363708.
It can say much more than I would be able to in this email to you.
Suppose
a group of people who believe Jesus is their Savior kept changing their doctrines
over the decades after His death: Would they still be the same
"church"? For example, it's well known that in the fourth
century, after the Roman Emperor Constantine proclaimed toleration for
Christianity in A.D. 313 that the church underwent great changes
during that century. Many practices that hadn't been part of the
mainstream church were adopted wholeheartedly then, such as the acceptability
of Christians to join the Roman Army, and to no loner be pacifists. The
church and state began to unify under Roman rule, for by the end of
the fourth century, Christianity was the only legal religion within the
Roman Empire, while it had been a small persecuted minority group (maybe 10%)
of the poplation of Rome at its beginning. Using statues (i.e., idols
or graven images) as aids to religious worship became much more common
during that century and afterwards than they had been before c. 300
A.D.
But
other changes had occurred in earlier centuries. The church historian
Samuele Bacchiochi in "From Sabbath to Sunday," for example, argues
that the (by then) largely gentile church in the early second century
changed the day for religious services and observance from the Jewish
observance (of Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) to what became the traditional
Christian day of rest, Sunday. They didn't do this for Biblical reasons,
but for such reasons as to escape persecution directed against the Jews by the
Roman government after their revolts in Palestine (A.D. 66-70 and 132-135), the
influence of the planetary week of the pagan religion called
Mithraism, and because of anti-Semitism within the church that wanted to
reject specifically "Jewish" practrices and ceremonies.
If
the church radically changed its doctrines early in its existence, it
becomes hard to say it is the same "church." Suppose we
changed most of the major parts in a car, like the engine and transmission, but
kept the same sheet metal for its "skin," is it the
"same" car then? The Protestant Scholar Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
wrote in the "Story of the Christian Church," p. 41: "For
fifty years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church, through
which we strive vainly to look; and when at least it rises, about 120 A.D. with
the writings of the earliest church-fathers, we find a church in many aspects
very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul."
So
then, is the Catholic Church the first church? I wouldn't say it is so
long as it upholds doctrines that the first-century church didn't teach, as
revealed by the Bible. Instead, the real question to ask is,
"What church has the most correct teachings?"
Another important question is, "What is the source of our religious
beliefs?" If we use the Bible as our ultimate source of authority,
not tradition or people's feelings or reason, we can readily find out
the Catholic church isn't teaching correct doctrines in a number of areas, such
as through having an unmarried priesthood as a standard requirement when
Peter himself was married (Mark 1:30).
After
all, although the Catholic Church cites Matt. 16:18 for giving the papacy
authority, this is a massive overreading of the text: For example, how
would Jesus be telling Peter that what his successors said could override the
words of God in the Flesh, as found in the Gospels? If tradition
disagrees with the Bible, after it has been carefully read, studied, and
interpreted, tradition should be rejected. Consider when Jesus said
Jewish oral tradition had to be rejected when it contradicted the Old Testament
(Matt. 15:2-6, Mark 7:5-13). We as Christians should do the same when
necessary. Furthermore, it's known that the teachings of early and later
Catholic authorities and writers disagree, so then how do we know which
position is right? The medieval Catholic scholar Peter of Abelard wrote a
book called "Sic et Non," which listed various (major) Catholic
writers disagreeing with each other on various doctrinal issues. So then,
what position constitutes "authoritative tradition," except for the Pope
(or the teaching office of the church) centuries later rather
arbitrarily choosing the position that's deemed to
be "correct"?
This
very brief survey above shows how early Christianity was still similar to
Judaism in many regards but later was influenced doctrinally by pagan Roman
persecution in the first and second centuries.
Eric
Snow
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