Abraham’s Justification, My Justification, God as Father

1. Devorah Dimant, “Use and Interpretation of the Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) 394.

“Abraham–’found faithful when tested’–the formula used of Abraham also in Sir 44:20 LXX, and is composed of an allusion to Gen 22:1 ‘God tested’…and to Neh 9:8 ‘you have found his heart faithful to you’. The second part of the verse is a slightly altered reproduction of Gen 15:6 (influenced by the formula applied to Phinehas in Ps 106:31).”

Genesis 15:6 states, “And [Abraham] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness” (NRSV). In Romans 4, Paul applies this to Abraham’s justification at a specific point in his life: In Genesis 15, God promised that Abraham would have children, Abraham believed God, and God considered Abraham to be righteous on account of his faith. Paul points out that this all occurred before Abraham was circumcised, meaning that God does not declare people righteous on account of circumcision.

Many Protestants conclude that all one has to do for God to consider him or her righteous is to trust in what Christ did on the cross. As Paul says in Romans 4:5, “But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” As Luther says, Christians are snow-covered dung: they are sinners, yet God accounts them as righteous when they accept his free gift of salvation.

James, however, appears to interpret Genesis 15:6 differently. In James 2:21-24, he states: “Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” James seems to associate Abraham’s justification with his willingness to sacrifice Isaac.

There are all sorts of interpretations of Genesis 15:6 in the history of biblical interpretation. I Maccabees 2:52 goes with the akedah view: “Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?” In medieval times, the Jewish exegete Rashi went with the Pauline interpretation. Nachmanides, however, said that the verse means Abraham believed God and accounted God as righteous, meaning the passage wasn’t about Abraham’s justification at all, but rather Abraham’s praise of God. Some maintain that Genesis 15:6 was not a specific incident but rather a summary of Abraham’s life: throughout his life, Abraham believed God, and God considered his faith righteous.

What’s interesting is Psalm 106:30-31: “Then Phinehas stood up and interceded, and the plague was stopped. And that has been reckoned to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.” This is referring to the incident when Phinehas killed a man who was with a Midianite woman (Numbers 25). God then grants Phinehas a covenant of eternal priesthood.

Apparently, deeds other than believing God can be accounted as righteousness. That makes me wonder: when Genesis 15:6 says that God accounted Abraham’s faith as righteous, does that mean God is declaring Abraham righteous apart from works? Or does it mean that God was pleased with Abraham’s faith and reckoned it as an act of righteousness: When Abraham believed, God put a checkmark in the “good” column? Abraham could still earn marks in the “bad” column, however. Suppose he did not circumcise himself or his family? Genesis 17:14 states, “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” And what if he chose not to sacrifice his son?

2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1910) 744.

Hegesippus (second century C.E.) “felt perfectly at home in the Catholic church of his day which had ascended from, or rather never yet ascended the lofty mountain-height of apostolic knowledge and freedom.”

I’ve been reading something like this throughout Schaff: many of the early church fathers did not understand justification by grace through faith alone. Rather, they focus on avoiding hell by doing good works. I’ve wanted to comment, but I usually find something more interesting in Schaff that I write about instead. Today, however, I had pretty slim pickings.

I’m not going to comb through the early church fathers right now, but my impression is that they indeed did believe that Christ’s blood brings forgiveness of sins to those who have faith. But it doesn’t stop there for them. Barnabas thought that alms could also atone for sin. Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas warn believers that certain sins could lead them to hell.

There’s one lady who witnesses to me every now and then: She says that one can know he or she will go to heaven by accepting Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. When I told her that I go to a Latin mass, she responded that she used to be a Catholic, but she was never sure that she was saved. After all, Catholics say that committing a mortal sin can lead a believer to hell, provided he doesn’t repent!

I admire and envy her sense of peace. And I can see some scriptural basis for it. Paul says in Romans 4:5: “But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” This passage seems to say that one doesn’t have to do good works to be saved; rather, one has to trust the one who justified the ungodly. And when a person has that kind of trust and assurance, he or she can truly love (Galatians 5:6). I’d rather my love flow from my assurance and peace rather than love in order to be saved. It’s a difference between running down-hill and climbing up-hill!

The problem is that Catholics aren’t getting their views on mortal sin from nowhere. Paul says in I Corinthians 6:9-10: “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers– none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21 has, “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

If people are saved by trusting in Christ’s sacrifice apart from works, then how can any sin disqualify believers from the kingdom of God? Yet, Paul issues such a warning. When Paul says that people are justified by grace through faith, apart from works, does he mean that’s how they become Christians, not how they maintain their salvation? Is he talking about how people get into the door–by receiving God’s free grace? Even Catholics affirm that God’s the one who gets the ball rolling–with his undeserved grace!

3. “God’s Love for Israel,” A Rabbinic Anthology, ed. C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938) 62.

“‘The Lord is my helper’ (Ps. CXVIII, 7). The matter is like two men who come to the judgment seat, and they are afraid of the judge. It is said to them, ‘Fear not, let your hearts take courage.’ So Israel will stand at the judgment before God, and will be afraid because of the Judge. Then the angels of the service will say to them, ‘Fear not, do you not recognize Him? He is your fellow-citizen, as it is said, ‘It is He who will build my city’ (Isa. XLV, 13); and then they will say, ‘Fear not the Judge; do you not recognize Him? He is your kinsman, as it says, ‘The children of Israel, the people related to Him’ (Ps. CXLVIII, 14). Then they will say, ‘Do you not recognize Him? He is your brother, as it says, ‘For my brethren and friends’ sake’ (Ps. CXXII, 8). And even more, He is your Father, as it is said, ‘Is not He thy father’ (Deut. XXXII, 6). (Midr. Ps. on CXVIII, 7 (242b, 10)”

I haven’t checked out the scriptural references to see what exactly the rabbis are doing with them, but there are two points I want to highlight: First of all, this appears to be another example of a rabbinic grace passage. Luther could have said the same thing, only he would have added stuff about the incarnation and Christ being our brother! At the same time, there are other rabbinic passages that do not exclude works from consideration at the judgment. One can perhaps reconcile those with this one by remembering the rabbinic statements that God has both mercy and justice, or that God will purify certain Jews in Gehenna before they can enter eternal bliss, or that God will give his people the benefit of a doubt (see Cursed Soil, Fellowship with God, Weighing Deeds). Put together, these passages convey the message that both works and grace will play a role in the last judgment.

Second, this passage affirms that God is the Jews’ brother and father. I’ve heard Christian sermons and read Christian books claiming that Jews in Christ’s time did not call God “Father.” That’s why they say Christ was so radical when he opened the Lord’s prayer with “our Father.” But the rabbis believed that God was the father of Israel, and there is scriptural basis for this view. God calls Israel his firstborn son (Exodus 4:22-23). Moreover, there are biblical passages in which God can be like a father to individuals, not only an entire nation:

Psalm 27:10: “If my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me up.”

Psalm 68:5: “Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.”

Psalm 103:13: “As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.”

Proverbs 3:12: “for the LORD reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”

I’m not sure if Islam has the same sort of idea. The Koran emphatically denies that God has a son (4:171), but that’s usually in response to the Christian idea that Jesus actually is God, or the (fictitious) rabbinic view that Ezra and the rabbis were divine (9:30-31). I’m not sure if it sees God as a father in the sense that he loves and takes care of people as a father would his children, although, of course, it is quite clear that Allah is compassionate! When I was at Harvard, I heard a Christian speaker tell us about a Muslim who converted to Christianity when she heard its concept of God as a father. Could she have found the same idea in her own religion, or does Islam primarily conceive of God as a righteous autocrat and judge?

Aram and Edom, Levitical Ministers, What’s God Want?

1. Benjamin Kedar, “The Latin Translations,” Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) 309.

“First one may mention those blunders of the translators that can be explained only from the Hebrew. The [Old Latin] has Edom for Aram (2 Chr 20:2)–correctly rendered ‘Syria’ by the LXX and Vg–due to a confusion of the Hebrew letters Res and Dalet that especially resemble each other.”

In my post, Code-Words, Justin on Eternal Punishment/Immortal Soul, Destabilizing, I referred to scholars who believe that the Syriac Peshitta substitute “Edom” for “Aram” (Syria) to avoid offending the Syrians, in whose midst some Jews lived. That’s a strong possibility. But could it be possible that it did so because, like the Old Latin, it misidentified a Resh as a Daleth? It can happen! A reader may think that he sees a bump behind the Resh, making it a Daleth. Or perhaps the manuscipt he’s using has a Daleth. One problem I have with the deliberate-substitution-to-avoid-offending-the-Syrians view is that the Bible only shows that the Syrians used to be Israel’s enemies, and even that is mixed. Sometimes, the Syrians are the Israelite’s friends, or at least they’re not hostile. Would the Syrians get offended if they heard the Israelites saying that Israel and Syria were enemies at some point?

At the same time, history has implications for the present. How we present certain people in the past can seriously offend people today. So the deliberate-substitution-et al. view still makes some sense.

2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1910) 646.

Clement (first-second century C.E.) “represents the Levitical priesthood as a type of the Christian teaching office, and insists with the greatest decision on outward unity, fixed order, and obedience to church rulers.”

Armstrongites have maintained that their ministers are Levites. Sometimes, they used a racial argument, for I’ve heard that Herbert Armstrong claimed actual descent from the tribe of Levi. At other times, they appealed to New Testament authority. When Paul is telling the Corinthian church that he deserves to receive payment from them, he appeals to the priests of the Old Testament: “Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is sacrificed on the altar?” (I Corinthians 9:13). Some interpret this to mean that Paul equates the ministers of the New Testament with the Levites of the Old.

What’s at stake here? Primarily tithing. The Torah says that the Israelites should give tithes to the priests and the Levites. Sometimes, the whole “ministers are Levites” spiel can degenerate into the absurd. A relative of mine told me a story about a couple that brought fruits and vegetables to the church. The minister demanded that he have the first pick, since he was a Levite and didn’t have an inheritance. My relative thought, “You dummy! Which of us here does have an inheritance?” To their credit, the couple said that the minister could have the first pick, but they weren’t going to bring any more fruits and vegetables to church. And, predictably, the minister told them they had a bad attitude. On well!

Schaff seems to be referring to I Clement 40-41 (in the BibleWorks version). I’m not sure if Clement is equating the ministry with the Levitical priesthood, as much as he’s saying that God established an order. That was the case in the Hebrew Bible, and it’s also the case in the New Testament. For Paul, there may be an analogy between the Old Testament priests and the ministers of the church, but that doesn’t amount to an equation. Paul also likened himself and other ministers to an ox that treads out the corn.

I may read the Catholic Catechism at some point. I wonder if it equates the Old Testament and New Testament priesthoods?

3. H. Loewe, “Introduction,” A Rabbinic Anthology, ed. C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938) lxxxii.

“We are not bound by the utterance of every single Rabbi who is mentioned in the Talmud…There is a great difference between the authority which Christians ascribe to the Gospels and that which Jews assign to Rabbinic literature. Nahmanides, in 1263, did not hesitate to proclaim that a Jew was at liberty to reject haggadic interpretations, though, naturally, he allowed to Haggadah great ethical value.”

Ever since I’ve done my daily quiet time outside of the Jewish/Protestant canon, I’ve wondered about the basis for religious authority. Can I get anything out of the Deuterocanonical writings and the Koran, if I don’t believe that God inspired them? Part of me says “yes,” the same way that I get good lessons from Joan of Arcadia and Desperate Housewives, even though they’re not divinely-inspired (as Desperate Housewives‘ mainstreaming of homosexuality demonstrates). But part of me says “no,” since they make clear claims about God, and I’m not sure if I can trust them, if they’re not divinely-inspired.

Maybe I can acknowledge that they testify to their experience. Perhaps, but people can misinterpret their experiences. Plus there’s the question of whom I should believe. Jesus in John 8:24 says those who don’t believe he’s I AM (God) will die in their sins. My impression as I read the Koran is that it consigns Christians who believe in Jesus’ deity to hell (Sura 5:72-73–see Does Islam Believe Jews and Christians Are Saved? and The Anonymous Muslim, as well as the comments). One source says we go to hell for not believing in Jesus’ divinity, and another says the opposite. Which is right? And how do we know?

What is God’s view on how we can please him? There are Old Testament passages that emphasize repentance and doing the right thing. Isaiah 1:16-18 states: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (NRSV). Ezekiel 18:27-28 has, “Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die.” In these passages, the path to atonement is doing good and not evil.

But Paul says that belief in Christ is essential to salvation. He doesn’t even think that a person can do good apart from Christ! “For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law–indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8). You want to know where hard-core evangelical exclusivists get their idea that good non-believers will go to hell? (Of course, they’d deny that they’re actually “good”). One source is Paul.

Islam, Judaism, and Christianity base their soteriologies on something in Scripture. Islam and Judaism continue the Hebrew Bible’s trajectory that repentance and good deeds lead to atonement, which means non-Christians can be saved. Christians, however, focus on the Hebrew Bible’s claim that God needs to circumcise people’s hearts and actually make them subservient to God’s law (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 31:32-33; Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:24-28). Who is right? I have a hard time thinking, “Oh, I can get something edifying from all of these views.” This is a crucial issue. It relates to whether one spends eternity in heaven or hell (assuming eternal torment)!

What does God want, and how can we know?

Clement, Dispensationalism, and Salvation

For my daily quiet time, I’ve been reading early Christian writings, such as Shepherd of Hermas, Barnabas, and I-II Clement. Their Christianity seems to differ from dispensationalism, particularly the brand I encounter when I read Bullinger and Scofield.

According to the dispensational writings and churches that I’ve encountered, we’re now in the age of grace. Jesus preached to people who were still under a covenant of works, so when he said that God wouldn’t forgive them if they didn’t forgive others (Matthew 6:14-15), he wasn’t establishing a principle that applies to Christians today. For certain dispensationalists, Christians don’t forgive others in order to be forgiven by God. Rather, they forgive others because they’ve already been forgiven by God (see Colossians 3:13). As far as they’re concerned, this is the age of grace, which began under the apostle Paul.

Dispensationalists also tend to go with once-saved-always-saved. They point to passages that talk about believers having been sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption (Ephesians 1:13; 4:30). For them, a seal is an absolute guarantee that one will enter the good afterlife–no “if”s, “and”s, or “but”s.

But this isn’t exactly the view that I encounter in early Christian literature. I’ll focus here on I-II Clement, epistles written in the first-second centuries C.E. I’ll be quoting the version that appears in The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden.

Regarding forgiveness, let’s take a look at I Clement 7:4: “Be ye merciful and ye shall obtain mercy; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: as ye do, so shall it be done unto you: as ye give, so shall it be given unto you: as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind to others, so shall God be kind to you: with what measure ye mete, with the same shall it be measured to you again.”

As far as Clement was concerned, Jesus’ principle of forgiving others in order to be forgiven by God still applied, long after Paul had supposedly inaugurated an age of free grace (in the view of dispensationalists). And, unlike certain dispensationalists, Clement deems the Sermon on the Mount to be authoritative for Christians, since he cites it as an authority.

On the seal, let’s consider II Clement 3:13, 18: “Thus speaks the prophet concerning those who keep not their seal; Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be for a spectacle unto all flesh…This, therefore, is what he saith; keep your bodies pure, and your seal without spot, that ye may receive eternal life.”

According to the author of II Clement, the seal of the Christian can indeed be broken, leading to his eternal punishment in hell. That’s why he needs to repent. His eternal life is at stake. It’s similar to the Catholic belief of “you need to repent of mortal sin before you die.”

I don’t care for this doctrine, but I don’t think I can blithely blow it off, either. People can respond, “Well, Clement isn’t the New Testament, and the New Testament is what we follow as Scripture.” But if Paul had inaugurated a special dispensation of free grace and eternal security, as dispensationalists maintain, isn’t it odd that Christian writers in the second century didn’t seem to know about it?

Knowing Good, Doing Good?

Source: John Sellars, Stoicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) 53.

“When one of his students interrupts and says that studying logic is a waste of time because it will not help him improve his character, Epictetus replies by saying how can any of us hope to do that unless we are able to define what it is that we hope to improve and are able to distinguish between truth and falsehood.”

This quote is from a chapter that discusses the Platonic idea that to know the good is to love and do the good. The Stoics somewhat agreed with Plato on that, yet they maintained that truly “knowing” the good often entailed a lot of time, practice, and discipline. It’s not just a matter of hearing information and becoming instantaneously transformed, as far as the Stoics were concerned!

The quote seems to talk about a light going on in a darkened mind. A person realizes that he’s supposed to live a certain way, and logic inexorably points him in that direction. He can now work on building character, since he know what good character is, and why it actually is good.

In my I Clement quiet time, I read 17:17 (in the Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden), which states that Christ enlightened the darkened mind. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on in Clement’s head, but it reminds me of what I got from Tim Keller in my time in New York: when we truly receive the Gospel of God’s free grace through Christ, our perspective is changed in so many ways. We are touched by God’s love, and that influences how we view and treat ourselves, our neighbors, and society.

That’s kind of a Platonic way of seeing things: know something to be true and right, and you automatically do it. But is this always the perspective of the Bible? Not necessarily, for James says that faith without works is dead, and that the demons believe God is one and tremble. One apparently can have correct knowledge without it changing his life for the better.

A relevant topic is the villain on the last episode of Joan of Arcadia. On some level, he knows God, since God spoke to him. Still, he hates God. At the same time, what he believes about God is not necessarily so, for he thinks that God forsakes people and is a love-starved, narcissistic deity. If he truly knew God’s love, would he believe that way and act accordingly? I’m not sure. It’s possible. Lucifer knew God, yet he pursued power rather than receiving God’s love.

Humility, Contribution

Have you ever had a situation in which you hear all sorts of things about a particular topic in a short period of time, and you wonder if God is trying to get your attention? That has happened to me this week with respect to two topics:

1. Humility. I read about it yesterday in my AA Daily Reflection. It was the topic of my I Clement quiet time. The Waltons also touched on this issue. Yet, after all of this, I still don’t know what to say about humility.

The AA Daily Reflection was about regretting our past mistakes while maintaining a healthy self-esteem. “When I ask for the power to carry out God’s will for me, I am made aware of my powerlessness,” it says. I Clement 8 concerned being humble before God because he’s more powerful than us and we’re all sinners. And the Waltons episode was about a young pastor (played by John Ritter) who vehemently preached against sin and tried to avoid the “wiles of the devil”–through cold baths, exercise, and chores. Then, he inadvertently got drunk off of the Baldwin sisters’ “recipe.” As a consequence, he got booted off the church’s speakers’ roster, and he learned that he too made mistakes.

I’m not sure what to do with all of this. I can understand my need for God, but I don’t often have the faith that he will help me out. Moreover, grovelling before God because he’s more powerful to me and I am a flawed human being does not appeal to me in the least–in neither inspires me nor feeds my hungry soul. And I don’t really feel John Ritter was a deliberate sinner in that Waltons episode, since he wasn’t aware that the recipe was moonshine (or, as the Baldwin sisters call it, “sunshine”).

I guess what I walk away with is this: my thoughts sometimes scare me, and, in those times, I feel a need to draw closer to God–for comfort, for love, for nourishment at the well of goodness, and for protection from evil. We are all prone to mistakes, whether they be deliberate or inadvertent, and that’s why I feel that I need God.

2. There’s a woman at one of my AA meetings who always felt useless, in the sense that she didn’t think she was all that helpful to others. Recently, she went to a religious retreat, and the priest told her that what she’s said or written may have helped somebody else.

That coincided with a few other things in my life. On a Joan of Arcadia episode, “Secret Service,” Joan doesn’t understand how she’s helping other people, since she doesn’t always see the results of her actions. And Joan’s mother, Helen, feels that she (Helen) hasn’t reached any of her students as an art teacher. But both learn to have faith that their actions are touching other people, whether they realize it or not.

I thought more about this issue as I reflected on my stormy conversation with Stephen aka Q this past week, which occurred under his son Nebcanuck’s post, On Abortion. Stephen argued that, in determining whether to preserve the life of the mother or the baby when a mother’s life is in danger (through childbirth), we should look at the effects of our decision on both the individual and the community. After all, the biblical religions are strongly communitarian. He opted to save the life of the mother, since she has a concrete effect on an actual human network.

I asked, “But what if abortion gets rid of the next Einstein?” Stephen responded that it may also get rid of the next Manson, so such scenarios cancel themselves out. I asked, “Then what if the mother doesn’t contribute much to society?” I had in mind a welfare mom who uses drugs and has babies to make more money. Stephen responded that this kind of welfare mom may still matter to people, such as her friends, her family, her children, etc. In short, we can’t really say that any particular person doesn’t contribute to society.

Of course, a lot of the storm was about my statement on welfare mothers, and I’m not going to try to defend that here, except to say that I wasn’t intending to stereotype an entire group of people. But what I want to look at is the issue of societal contribution. When you think about it, we all contribute good and bad to the world around us. Am I personally a benefit to society? Yes, but I’m a detriment to it as well.

Let’s take my blog, which is where I write things that can have an impact on others. Some of my writings are inspiring and full of faith, hope, and love. Others are cranky, complaining, and doubting in the area of faith. A person can visit my site and walk away thinking she should believe in God, while another may read a different post of mine and reach the opposite conclusion. So am I a net benefit to society? I have no idea.

But I guess that was the risk God took when he created human beings. He made us with free will, and that entails the possibility that we will make mistakes. Maybe that helps us to minister to one another as we try to walk the righteous path.