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Galatians 3:10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
I’ve taught an adult Bible study here on our campus for the last 15 years. Right now we’re in the middle of Galatians, chapter 3.
I can’t read this paragraph without thinking about the “seeker sensitive” decision to attempt to create interest in Jesus through various kinds of felt needs.
There’s no doubt that the application of the cross and the Lordship of Christ can take us literally anywhere in human experience. So it isn’t irrational to say “If we talk about sex in marriage, or finances or parenting, or stress, we will eventually be able to talk about the Gospel.” You can connect the dots with this method.
In fact, looking back on my own preaching career and method, I’ve used this method a lot. I work very hard at finding introductions and illustrations that come at my audience contrary to their preconceptions about what Christians are going to say. I like nothing better than to go down one direction and then suddenly make the relevance of the Gospel apparent when most of my hearers least suspect that it’s coming.
But we have to face something that is unavoidable in the New Testament text: when the Apostles present the Gospel, they do so almost exclusively in terms of how Christ rescues us from a problem humanity has in reference to God.
Christ redeems us from the curse of the law. OK, what kind of problem is that? It’s a problem with God, a problem understood in the context of the law of God and God’s moral demands.
There are obvious dimensions to this salvation on the human plane, but if we aren’t talking about Christ in reference to a redemption from God as well as by God, we aren’t talking about the New Testament gospel.
What makes this important is the undeniable fact that we live in a culture where human beings will think about any issue from almost any angle OTHER THAN in reference to the God of the Bible. If God is going to come into the picture, he will be deconstructed into a God who makes no demands and only offers help.
Can I get my students to pray a prayer to receive Jesus as savior? Yes.
Can I get them to believe that God is the kind of God presented in the Bible? Especially in the Old Testament? No.
And this doesn’t change if I get them to listen to messages on sex, parenting or finances. It doesn’t change if I find “side doors” into the though processes of the person hearing the Gospel.
Christ became a curse for us. But who says we’re cursed? I don’t feel cursed. Do you?
Christ redeems us from the curse of the law. Whose law? Why does someone else’s law apply to me?
Christ justifies us by faith, apart from works of the law. What is justification? Well….was there some question of whether God would accept us? Isn’t that what he does all the time for everyone?
I am impressed when preachers can present the Gospel straight on and bring people into a class or study where the Biblical categories make sense.
I am not so impressed when the Gospel is taken out of its New Testament context and made into a general proclamation of salvation that isn’t primarily in reference to God.
The Internet Monk Archives 
I’m more and more convinced that sharing the Gospel is almost always the most effective in the context of relationship. Not *only*, but *mostly*.
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“The eating of the Tree of Knowledge was an event purposed by God to give man a Free Will.”
Huh? Eating the fruit couldn’t give free will since free will needed to already exist for them to eat the fruit in the first place? They already had free will before they ate the peach.
There are quite a number of other whoa’s there for me too.
MDS – “The mental gymnastics of getting all the puzzle pieces put together correctly satisfies a certain sort of itch, but is void of life. They become a curse to my living in relationship…..”
Right on brother. I’m a recovering theology debater myself. I still enjoy the “mental gymnastics” as you put it, but I’ve found it to be largely hollow. (at least in the way I approached it – as a debate tournament) And when that hollowness got expressed in arguments/debates, it was pretty bad for my relationship with God and everyone else. As I go through life, I’m becoming less and less worried about precise theology beyond the Nicean-type level.
On the flip side, I am becoming more bothered by the divorcing of Jesus from everything else in the Bible. A Jesus who came to save us from big, vague, hazy somethings gets pretty hazy too and seems to stop being Jesus pretty soon.
How do the two go together? I’m not really sure. On one hand I’ve got an understanding that is much more inclusive than before, but it’s also getting a bit more dividing than it was before because there is a HUGE population of people who say “Jesus saves!” but don’t seem to think of what they might be saved from or what it is that caused the need for saving in the first place. I start to have more questions about those people than about my gay friend who argues up and down that there’s nothing in the Bible about homosexuality, but trusts in Jesus who saves from God’s judgment for our failings.
I suspect I suffer from some version of Multiple Personality Disorder.
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Carolyn:
This appears to me to be Word-Faith teaching, quite similar to Kenneth Copeland and various Tulsa teachers and prophets. Would that be correct?
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This stuff’s not going to be on the test, is it?
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Gotta take a young woman to a court ordered meeting. Will elaborate soon as I return.
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Carolyn,
Double Whoa! Can you elaborate on that? You lost me.
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>…Death did not happen as a result of sin…but as a completion of God’s plan to make ‘man in our image.’
Whoa.
>….Christ’s spiritual death (death of His soul)…not His physical death…
Whoa again.
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We are in the ‘Love’ part of the Law. “If you love me…you will keep my commandments.” The glorious interactive Love between God and the individual believer….accomplishes righteous fruits (deeds). God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are workers. Most words used in connection with God….are action verbs. Each person chooses to remain in ‘death’ or to move from death to ‘Life’ in Christ Jesus.
“peace”
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For many…confusion happens when trying to divide the Law into Old and New Testament Law. Then Ten Commandments (the shall nots) proved those already under the ‘Curse’ were guilty (‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God) and in need, therefore, of redemption. Christ’s spiritual death (death of His soul)…not His physical death (crucified fleshly body) removed the ‘appointed’ spiritual ‘death’ or ‘curse.’ But….but….but…in order to pass from the ‘death’ back to ‘life’….one has to accept the redemptive act. Christ’s redemptive ‘death’ and resurrection to Life, invoked the latter part, or the fulfillment of the Law. “Love” is the fulfilling of the Law….therefore, the complete Old and New Testament Law …both condemns and redeems man.
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God has ‘appointed unto man once to die’….thus the curse. That ‘spiritual’ death happened in the Garden when Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge. Death did not happen as a result of sin…but as a completion of God’s plan to make ‘man in our image.’ After Eve and Adam had both eaten, God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know GOOD and EVIL;….’ The eating of the Tree of Knowledge was an event purposed by God to give man a Free Will. Man now has internalized (experienced) both good (Garden with God) and evil (destructive nature of Satan). God ‘appointed’ the state of ‘death’ or ‘curse’ for man. God also ‘appointed’ man redemption from the ‘curse’ of death (‘lamb slain before the foundation of the world’).
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Dana and MDS,
I couldn’t have said it better, and obviously didn’t!
Willard and Wright have also helped me tremendously.
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Regarding the Galatians verses Michael quoted, what does it mean to be cursed through living according to the law? What is meant by salvation?
The comments by Dana and her reference to Willard and Wright along with other recent comments by others remind me of the place I have settled into concerning these questions. Salvation, I believe, is a present event wherein the believer is present to, receives from, and participates with the vital life of the Trinitarian God. In its fullest sense, it is heavenly intercourse with our God. I am saved, am being saved, and will be saved by His life flowing in and through me. In the moments I commune with Christ in this way, I become a source of life for others, and even the earthly creation. The life and grace of God as a source of healing and renewal are a natural consequence of lives that are relationally connected with Christ.
Conversely, to the degree that I reduce the teaching of scripture to doctrinal precepts and live accordingly, I cut myself off from Christ. He becomes unnecessary. My relationship to God becomes formal and distant. I have no relation to a living God but only precepts and mathematical formula. I live by law and thus my life is accursed. Living outside and disconnected from the source of life, I live by my own wits. There is nothing to sustain me. My life becomes accursed. I am not lost to a future salvation, but truly I am lost to a present one that connects me to the life of God available in relationship with Jesus Christ.
One of the reasons I am no longer a Calvinist is that the Reformed mind too often makes salvation dependent upon the perfection of doctrinal purity. God is wholly other and unapproachable; the Holy Spirit a vague something or other; and Jesus but the guy who came down to earth and faithfully and completed the task given him by the Father. He now sits at the right hand of God, and for all intensive purposes is as unapproachable as the Father. Our business as believers and church is mostly to keep the house in order and live faithfully as though we were still under the law. Of course we now live under the law by grace. (Somehow that is supposed to make sense.)
I do not deny the atonement theory, but practically it leaves my life untouched by the living Christ. The mental gymnastics of getting all the puzzle pieces put together correctly satisfies a certain sort of itch, but is void of life. They become a curse to my living in relationship to a real God who is embodied in a real person that loves me in this present moment and desires that I would love Him in the same way.
And so I have come to believe salvation is the life I am ever so often awakened to and aware of; that it is an ongoing and presently available relationship with Christ; that it exists even when I am unaware of it and living under the curse; that God keeps me even in those times I seek life elsewhere; and that one day I will awaken to His life in such a way so I will never lose track of it again. Until that day, I am only a child dependent for life in every moment by the faithfulness and grace of my loving parent. Child that I am, I’m often distracted and chase balls across the street. I sometimes become angry and lay on the floor kicking my feet. I will shut my door and refuse to come when called to supper. Sometimes I even jump out the window and run away. But I always return. I have no other home to go to. My Father loves me and waits for me to grow up. He promises that one day I will be like Him. I am impatient and ashamed. He isn’t.
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davidbmc wrote: “Sorry kids-but I will never be good enough. It is grace by faith or nothing. And finally does fulfillment mean abolishment?”
I’m glad we are on the same page! Like you, I’ll never measure up to what the law demands – I’ll never love God and my neighbor the way I should or the way I would like to love them. I like the way you ended your comment with the scriptures. I keep thinking that if I can really grasp the truth that I really am really forgiven, deeply loved, and then live under grace not the law, that I will be better able to love God and my neighbor with a free and merry heart instead of one bound by the law.
There seems to be something about being constantly put under the law instead of grace that seems to put my focus on me instead of where I want to put it. Funny how I didn’t have this problem before I started going to these supposed “Bible” churches that were serious about God and on fire for God. I used to be much more other-centered than me-centered. I keep thinking there is some kind of misuse of the law going on that puts the focus on me instead of God and my neighbor? I wish I could put my finger on it.
I keep wondering if this is the point of confession/absolution and the Lord’s Supper – there I receive forgiveness for my daily failures so I can stay focused on the wonders of Christ and loving my neighbor instead of me – somehow I am progressively cleansed and sanctified through these means not through obedience to the law? But obedience to Christ – is to have faith in him? The law drives me to Christ and my need for daily repentance and faith?
Son of Adam wrote: “If all we needed was for Jesus to just die for us, why did He spend so much time teaching us about the Father and the Kingdom of God and what following Him actually entailed?”
I keep thinking that Christ taught us about the Father to teach us how God sacrificially and deeply loves us and sent Jesus to be perfect in all things for us and to die for us as the law requires so we could come home to him. No one could do this and save us from his wrath except by the Father’s gift of his Son and the Son’s willingness to perfectly obey his Father for us and his willingness to lay down his life and die for us and then send his Spirit to us?
I also keep thinking that he taught us what the kingdom of God is because that is what we are given (and how his kingdom operates) when we repent and turn away from our own righteousness/works/sin to love, fear, and trust in Christ (his person and works) instead of ourselves?
The only way we can enter into his rest or his kingdom is “by grace through faith in Christ Jesus” – and in his kingdom there is suffering caused by following/belonging to Christ. We no longer follow the world or our sinful natures even though we fail constantly in that. Somehow his grace is always sufficient even though in our eyes it seems that there should be more required of us? Our sinful natures adds rule, definitions, parameters, and traditions to the law in order for our Pharisee-ical flesh to feel like we can keep the law, or feel better than others, or to bring the law of God to naught? Somehow, if we leave the parameters of “by grace through faith in Christ” we are dead ducks spiritually?
Sheesh, who can keep the law perfectly? The only One I know of is Jesus Christ our Lord. That does not prevent me from seeking to love God and my neighbor whole-heartedly, but it enables me to understand that I will never be able to do it like I should or want and to always turn to Christ – to trust in him and not me?
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In “Divine Conspiracy” Willard writes about “gospels of sin management”. iM, if you haven’t read that book yet, I hope you will. If “the Gospel” or “Salvation” is only concerned with sin management, then we are truly hamsters on a wheel, spinning forever with only the sight of a cage before our eyes.
The point of the passage is the “so thats” at the end of it: the blessing of Abraham coming to the Gentiles, and all of us, Jew and Gentile alike, receiving the promise of the Spirit by faith. So further investigation might be directed toward contemplating the questions, “What is ‘the blessing of Abraham’?” and “What does ‘the promise of the Spirit’ mean?”
I’ve come to believe that Salvation isn’t something we “get”, but rather something into which we enter: a life of healing and wholeness (included in the range of meaning of soteria) that humans were meant to live from the beginning, totally and finally opened up to us because of the goodness, mercy and love of the Father manifested supremely in Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension and sending the Holy Spirit. It’s not a transaction but a turning, to the way of being human that God meant for us from the beginning: the freedom, as distinctive persons and as redeemed humanity as a whole, to love God and love one another (and rightly steward God’s good creation). We can simply (!) trust (faith, pistis, as a verb) and step into that life because God has forgiven our sin through the cross and Jesus has defeated death through the resurrection. Forgiveness is the ground on which we stand; the life that is truly life, the life of the age to come (“eternal life”) courses through us when the Spirit dwells within. Moralism doesn’t even apply. If I am “in Christ” I don’t have to fear God’s judgment in any way. One’s doctrine doesn’t have to be completely nailed down in order to apprehend this.
I’ve heard and read Paul nearly all my life, and never had a clue about the things that were driving him, his Leitmotifs, so to speak, until I read NT Wright; then the epistles began to make sense as a whole. Willard and Wright gave me ways to interpret scripture that have given me a good God and a Jesus I can fall on my face and worship. I still have some questions about some disturbing passages of the OT, but I suspect the way through lies in further study of what those episodes meant to the earliest Christians, along with an understanding of the inspiration of scripture other than what’s wrapped up in the current concept of “inerrancy”.
Ok, this is long enough.
Dana
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I actually struggle with the opposite: telling others, or even _thinking_ others as so fallen or “cursedâ€, to use the language of this post, so as to need the sacrificial and atoning death and resurrection of Christ. Once you cull out the “obvious†targets for mercy and grace (rapists, murderers, drug dealers, etc.), I just really struggle with the idea of telling someone to their face that they’re going to be separated eternally from God without…well, the classic evangelical formula. — Michael
I would like to offer a caution. I’ve seen the “convincing them that they are sinners and need a Savior” phase all too easily degenarate into in-your-face hellfire-and-damnation denunciations. (Tearing into someone right off the bat is not the way to get them to listen to you.) Perhaps you are afraid of having this reaction or getting the resulting backlash from someone who has experienced this?
And how do you convince someone that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” when (a) they’re pretty satisfied with how they turned out and/or (b) they’re going to instinctively defend themselves if you come across as attacking them? (And the groundwork in (b) has been prepared by preacher after preacher in their past experience — re Culture Warriors, Demon-chasers, and Witchfinders-General. Or observations of Christians treating each other shabbily.)
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In my comments I hope I have not given anyone the idea that by following or obeying Jesus’ commandments we then earn anything, but rather that inherent in the commandments there is also a blessing for us. They are the words of eternal, new life, not that by keeping them we win any points with God. Truly there is the promise of a new bodily resurrected eternal life aspect to salvation, but equally there is the salvation we can experience here and now from the cycle of self-destruction we find ourselves in. And this is not to be read necessarily as Jesus getting us out of our specific marital problem, financial mess, or health crisis. This salvation we find in repentance and following Jesus as a way of life. If all we needed was for Jesus to just die for us, why did He spend so much time teaching us about the Father and the Kingdom of God and what following Him actually entailed? Is it not our allegiance, our faith, this entering into His Kingdom that He desires?
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TADA!!!!!
Thank you SjB! You have summed up my thoughts PERFECTLY!
The only thing I would add is that I dont think it’s just a problem with the seeker-sensitive movement. I was in a traditional church my entire life and it was the exact same thing. You must “do this” in order to be good enough.
Sorry kids-but I will never be good enough. It is grace by faith or nothing.
And finally does fulfillment mean abolishment?
Romans 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Colossians 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
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iMonk, I’m not sure if I’m tracking this properly, but it seems to me that Galatians is pointing out that we cannot be saved or please God by works of the law? We are only saved and please God by trusting in Christ as the perfect fulfillment of the law and our salvation from the wrath of God because we constantly break the law and can never fulfill/keep the law perfectly? The wrath of God against sin is what is so clearly portrayed in the OT? Jesus is both the perfect fulfillment of the law and the sacrifice for our sin required in the OT?
I have struggled with this subject a lot because of so many years of sitting under teaching that focuses on the law (principles) as the way to clean up my life, or the way to be sanctified, or the way to ‘succeed’ in life, or the way to please God and avoid his anger and fall from grace (lose my salvation), or the way to be a good church member (tithe plus give to every other request for offerings, volunteer for everything, be at church every time the doors are open, get on the pastor’s program of righteousness, be perfect in following the principles or you are not trying hard enough). You must keep the laws (principles) proclaimed from the pulpit or you are a failure or lazy or worthless as a Christian. Problem is that I am a failure and cannot keep the law! How can I be saved from this? Where is the gospel to tell me that Christ died for me because I’m a sinner who can’t keep the law perfectly no matter how hard I try? The law is never satisfied! It is a relentless and merciless taskmaster that never remembers that I am but dust and a fallen creature.
Over the years I have become so law (principle) oriented instead of grace oriented in my relationship with God that I want to pull out my hair at times. It’s such an exhausting hamster wheel of never-ending works of the law (principles for living). The gospel was turned into law.
I think it is very hard to understand grace and salvation from the wrath of God when law (principles/obedience) are used as the way to obtain God’s blessings and avoid the curse of the law. This hamster wheel feels almost like becoming schizophrenic – God is gracious but you better work your butt off or else. I wonder if this is the point of Galatians? They were told grace was not enough. They needed to fulfill the law (circumcision) in order to be right with God or have his blessings?
If the circumcision in Galatians = the 80 gazillion principles that are taught by churches on how to use the law have ‘success’ in life (marriage, kids, etc) or how to please God by works of the law, or how to get God to bless your life, or etc… then I need to repent of using works of the law as a substitute for the righteousness, forgiveness, blessings, and etc. that only come from simple trusting in Christ’s person and work for salvation from my sin and the wrath of God.
I’m not sure if my comment is clear, but I think it ties into the seeker-sensitive junk. We need to see that we cannot keep the law and we cannot please God with works (following principles) or avoid his wrath by trying to keep the law (principles). Our principles will not save us and do not please God (but bring his wrath). Only repentance of our works (both good and bad) and faith in Christ daily is the answer. Our good works are filthy rags and bring wrath when we try to clothe ourselves with them or earn God’s blessing by them. That is the problem with moralisms and principles of living? They point us to ourselves keeping the law and not to Christ who kept/fulfilled the law for us and saves us from the wrath of God against all who do not keep the law?
Whew, sorry to be so wordy. I find it very hard to try to explain this kind of stuff and to clearly understand it too.
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“How we present this, however, is another question.”
Powerpoint?
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I appreciate what you are getting at Michael. So often we hear about Jesus, but only about Jesus. We do not show how he was a result of all that God had done through his people previously.
I have often struggled with the idea that Jesus has paid our ‘ransom’. Ransom to who? Ransom to the Devil, as if the devil had a legitimate claim on us?
No, the ransom would have to go to God himself, after all it is God who became our enemy when we refused to continue to be on his side.
He did not choose to be our enemy, we did, and he has treated us with the love and grace that he expects us to show his enemies.
I agree, we cannot understand Jesus as Saviour without understanding what he came to set us free from; from our own rebellion to God. He took the punishment we deserved for insubordination so that we could return to the Father’s ‘side’ (sorry for all the military metaphors, couldn’t think of anything else at the moment).
Jesus came to save us from the wrath of God the Father, that we justly deserved; deserve.
How we present this, however, is another question.
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I have a small tent Mr. Spencer, you are always welcome.
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We are saved by faith, through grace. How much doctrine you need to have faith could be an individual thing.
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There was a 50ish woman who began coming to our church approximately two years ago. She would always cry. She cried during the music, the sermon, communion, while praying. When she came into the building, she would take a box of tissues to place at her seat.
She joined a small group and would cry there as well. She went on a short-term missions trip and worked really hard. When there were quiet times, she would cry.
When you spoke to her, she would tell you how she was so glad to be back in church. She had walked away from God years ago and she was happy to be back. She would say she realized how much she had disobeyed God and she was happy to finally be back. God was healing her, she said, of all the crap in her past.
Then, a 30ish man came and joined us for about 6 months. The two of them became romantically involved and soon he moved in with her. She never cried anymore. This man was God’s gift to her in her life. As soon as the two of them were living together, they both stopped attending the church, small group, etc.
I tell this story to make this point. I do think it is an innate part of the human condition to “know”, even if we do not verbally acknowledge, that there is a problem in our relationship with God. At different times in our lives we are willing to acknowledge this problem depending on the circumstances occurring in our lives.
As a believer, I attempt to live in reality as much as humanly possible and rely on the Holy Spirit to lead me the rest of the way. I am always praying, “God, please save me from myself” because I know that I can rationalize my behaviors and attitudes as I am in the midst of the circumstances of life. I do not want to separate the personhood of Christ, always remembering that, though He came as a lamb for the slaughter, He is the King, the Judge and will be returning as the lion, the King. I do not want to become oblivious to the holiness of God because circumstances in my life change, which make acknowledging His holiness inconvenient.
I am not a pastor and I do not control how things get presented from the pulpit at our congregation. Something is obviously lacking as two people from our midst have left us. When I consider the loss of their company, I can not help but think, “but for the grace of God go I.”
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Frank:
Thanks for admitting that you are the guy who knows who’s in and who’s out. It’s always useful to have the names of important people underlined.
I’ve been pressing this issue at this blog for most of a decade.
ms
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Er – just to clarify, I don’t mean by “grappling with the same problems” that Michael is turning into another Marcion. 🙂
I mean that he’s seeing the same kind of impulse at work; we’ve been set free from the curse of the law, we live now by grace, all is love and mercy, Christ is our Lord who asks us only to follow Him.
But if He is redeemer, from what are we redeemed? If Saviour, saving us from what? That’s where we butt our heads up against the Old Testament, and that’s where we either decide to dump it as no longer applicable – since all has been made new – or we have to understand what it means.
And if we seriously do mean that we believe in one God of Three Persons, and that the Second Person is the Son is Jesus, then we have to accept that Yahweh and Christ are the same God. That justice is also a part of the nature of God, as well as mercy. That underneath the delicious creamy chocolate, there’s a hard chewy centre we have to get our teeth into 😉
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Michael, it sounds like you are grappling with the same problem that resulted in Marcion, back in the day: how to reconcile the justice and the mercy of God.
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion#cite_note-7
He propounded a Christianity free from Jewish doctrines with Paul as the reliable source of authentic doctrine. Paul was, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ.
Marcion affirmed Jesus Christ as the saviour sent by God and Paul as his chief apostle. Marcion declared that Christianity was distinct from and in opposition to Judaism. He rejected the entire Hebrew Bible, and declared that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a lesser demiurge, who had created the earth, and whose law, the Mosaic covenant, represented bare natural justice i.e. eye for an eye.
The premise of Marcionism is that many of the teachings of Christ are incompatible with the actions of Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Tertullian claimed Marcion was the first to separate the New Testament from the Old Testament. Focusing on the Pauline traditions of the Gospel, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel were opposed to the truth. He regarded Paul’s arguments of law and gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness and death and life as the essence of religious truth. He ascribed these aspects and characteristics as two principles: the righteous and wrathful God of the Old Testament, the creator of the world, and a second God of the Gospel who is purely love and mercy and who was revealed by Jesus.”
There are always those who think they have the answer, and the answer is to dump the Old Testament and live purely by the New – but a selective New Testament.
“His canon consisted of eleven books: his own version of the Gospel of Luke, and ten of Paul’s epistles. All other epistles and gospels of the New Testament were rejected.”
Your instincts are right; start with over-emphasising “We are free from the Law!” and naturally there is the risk of concluding “We never needed the Law in the first place!” and “God is all love and mercy so the old rules were wrong, and not just wrong, but evil!” and then we wander off into the same place that got Marcion in trouble – eventually we construct our own Christ to fit our views.
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It seems that there remains some confusion as to what the “curse” of the law is. Is it the law itself, or the way religion abused the law as a means of control? Was it really “doing away” with law, or simply realigning it, as Christ followed and fulfilled even the smallest detail of the law?
And finally does fulfillment mean abolishment?
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Jesus primary call to people was to leave all behind in order to follow him. He made it clear in a multitude of ways that following him would be costly. The securities of life valued and sought for would be taken off the table if one chose to follow Christ. Death of self was demanded. Physical death became a serious possibility. Certainly sufferings of various kinds would be common. But he said too that something far greater would be gained, and it would far surpass all that was to be left behind.
I appreciate and even crave a gospel clearly taught. But I wonder if the call to follow Christ should not be normative, and all the details of salvation and life with God filled in later as we walk the trails with Jesus. Perhaps I’m off track in this, but it seems that Christ demanded discipleship before he did understanding. The two finger together of course. But the emphasis I see is first to follow, and later to understand. Understanding grows as we come to know the one we follow.
What is certain is that Christ comes to us on his own terms, not ours. “You want to go bury a family member before returning to follow me? Sorry. Follow me now or forget it!” “I can see you are a serious, thoughtful, and zealous young man. Just go give all your stuff away and then come follow me………… Why the sad look? You’re going away? I thought you said you wanted to be perfect.”
It doesn’t seem we do anyone any favors when we try to make the gospel more tasty and bite sized.
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Yeah, I always like N.T. Wright’s question to motivate the relevance of the OT to the NT: Why wasn’t Jesus born a Viking, who then redeemed us by dying in a fishing accident? I’ve appreciated his emphasis that the NT, and particularly the Gospels, aren’t really choke full of timeless ethical truths, but rather are driven by the particularities in which Israel found herself at the time Jesus lived.
This is not at all to say that the Gospels or the NT more generally are irrelevant to life today. Far from it. But they are relevant in pretty much the same way that the OT is relevant today: we need to think hard about what they meant in their time, and then translate them, sensitively and conditionally, into the contexts we face today.
And this does not primarily mean deriving “life lessons” from the moral examples provided there. It means understanding our sin problem and how Jesus Christ remedies that problem — i.e., we must always and everywhere read the New Testament Christologically. (That may seem like a stupidly obvious thing to say, but it amazes me how many sermons I hear in which the pastor derives lots of “life lessons” from the text but nothing about Christ, even when the text is patently Christological.)
I might add that, IMO, this is the same way we are to read the Old Testament. To wit, the Old Testament doesn’t make any more than the New Testament if it is read only with an eye to learning what “timeless ethical truths” we can glean from it — even if we think that our failure to obey timeless ethical truths motivates the universal need for a redeemer. We must always and everywhere read the Old Testament Christologically. And I’d include the law of Moses in that – including the “moral laws.”
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Michael,
When I find myself thinking about things along the lines of how much knowledge must someone know to be rightly related to the real God, I often go back to when Jesus wash washing the feet of the disciples and with the exception of Judas, call them clean.
It seems to me that while the disciples would have a much better understanding of God’s demands upon them and the consequences of their sin, it seems that they were pretty clueless in many ways aboutr who Jesus was and what He was to accomplish.
It seems to me that they were “clean” due to their relationship/commitment (that’s the human perspective; don’t want to go down the bunny trail of discussing regeneration/order of salvation stuff) to Jesus even though they were pretty blind.
As far as teaching that does not cut to the chase of God saving us from Himself; I just think of all the people that came to Jesus simply to be healed from their physical woes and yet received forgiveness.
It may very well be that Paul was teaching that angle of things to the Galations for the first time and that the only reason he saw a need to bring that in was because of the Jew that were trying to put them under the Law again.
My own story is that at some point I realized that God had a right to be Lord over me and I caved in. I don’t even know that I really saw myself as cursed or saw sin as a “barrier” to God until I read the 4 Spiritual Laws months later and it was probably years later before I really had any understanding besides the generics of the 4 spiritual laws.
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iMonk,
“Does Jesus “work†as savior if you don’t believe in the God of the Bible?”
This hits the nail on the head. If Jesus isn’t the God of the Bible then who is he? He said he is one with that very God, so I think it is problematic to say that it is possible to not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and still acknowledge Jesus as Lord. I like the way Ray handles the issue with people who say things like “my god would never send someone to hell” and the like. That person is violating the commandments yet again and creating a god in their own image.
The church has done a dangerous thing in removing Jesus from His full background. It is amazing to think that some people are surprised to find out that Jesus was Jewish. In the last year, I have been determined, much like you have, to find the real Jesus. The Jewish carpenter’s son who was also the Son of the Living God of the whole Bible. It is amazing how much more sense the NT makes in light of the OT.
Sorry if I strayed from topic, but Jesus is either God of the whole Bible or he is no god at all.
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The cross is an offense to the world.
Church groups that are primarily interested in growth (money) or self fulfillment or dozens of other tenets will be and are offended by the cross.
they fear the cross will drive away tithers and those who would swell the ranks.
I have asked before, isn’t amazing that you almost never hear of pastors being called from giant “successful” ministries to small unheard of ones?
Galatians may have been written to a specific group for a specific reason but it is in canon for a reason.
Are we so sophistitcated now that we cannot have the unvarnished gospel preached amoung us.
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Willoh,
How good does your doctrine have to be to be saved?
I love this question! I wish people would be more humble about the answer. The older I get the more grace I have in this area. Bottom line-I dont know.
His Monkness,
I was thinking about how the gospel is presented in the NT and its audience. Much (not all by far) of that audience was familiar with the God and law of the OT. When we read portions of the NT where that is the case, the gospel presentation is probably easier in relation to what you are saying.
But then when relating to the Gentiles less familiar with the law, (Mars Hill for example) the narratives dont seem to start out with that angle.
I’m just thinking. WHich is why I like your blog.
dm
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Welcome back to the actual Big Tent, Michael — the God-centered Big Tent.
You look like you belong here. You should come more often.
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While redemption of the individual (and humanity) is the de facto underpinning of the entire scriptural story, I think I understand it poorly. I now know more of what it is not, than maybe what it is.
I know it is not saying a prayer at the end of a tract. I know it is not going forward in a church service. I know it isn’t a birthright, even among Focus on the Family and Christian college protégées. I know it is not simple repentance . . . turning from a life of addiction to a life of sobriety. There’s plenty examples of repentance in non-Christian narratives, even atheists repent when it benefits their quality of life.
From observing how Jesus related to people, salvation must be simpler than any of us (especially religious people) believe . . . at the same time, I know it is not universal and doesn’t fall on us freely like the rain.
Certainly what and how we, Christians, believe has always been greatly influenced by the culture in which we are immersed. Therefore, our current perspective of redemption must be skewed too far in the direction of being a personal experience or tied with some type of personal prosperity, a boost in our self-esteem, or tied to a very safe, warm and fuzzy god (small “g†intended).
So I think you are right. Somehow, redemption must be understood in the conflicting lights of a scary-exclusive God Almighty and a simplicity that escapes us.
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The problem , as I see it, is that Paul wrote his letters to specific people to answer specific questions about Jesus’ mission. You can only learn from these letters by putting them in this historical/religious context. The only things Biblical that can be taken absolutely out of context are in the Gospels, because they tell the story of God Incarnate — the Absolute Eternal One. All else — ALL else on earth is in relation to Him.
In general, the “Law” that brings on the “curse” is that Life is a free gift that none of us can earn by our own efforts. Our own willful desires and striving to gain the free gift come out of and lead to the seven deadly sins with which we wound ourselves and our neighbors. For all this we need healing and forgiveness. When we’ve come to the end of our own respective ropes, we give in and give up, ask for help and believe — and receive and begin to learn to live Life as the free Gift that it is.
If you know Jesus — if He lives within you, check this out with Him. Why would go back into the OT to ask Moses …?
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This is why it is not only good but necessary to preach the First Testament. Also, to present the Gospel as part of the whole Biblical narrative.
I, on the other hand, am part of a generation that has been to use “techniques” rather than tell the story (4 Laws, Bridge, EE, etc). This leads to a Gospel that is divorced from history and put into the realm of “principles”.
Tell the Story!
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I believe first and foremost that His commandments demonstrate His love for us by revealing Himself to us and His plan of how we should live. It is by our obedience and delight of His commandments, knowing that they are the words of life, that Jesus is that Word incarnate, that we see the way to abundant life. I am thinking of the sermon on the mount, making God’s ways our ways, loving our neighbor, etc. When we do these things don’t we feel the joy of the Lord, the sense of goodness and sweet fulness of life that only come from Him and trusting in His word? Although I don’t claim to fully understand the atonement I know that Jesus is the Christ, God incarnate, who came to show us the Father and teach us how to find life in Him.
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Got you 5×5, but isn’t Jesus the redemption from man’s rebellion to God? I mean God is not our enemy, the unredeemed heart and that born of flesh is God’s enemy. He didn’t start it, but He’s going to fix it. Is this a small point? sounds kinda big.
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Let me put it this way: The inherent risk in saying “Jesus is the answer to MY problem as I perceive it” (rather than Jesus is redemption from God by God) is that your Christ may be significantly removed from the context of the New Testament, significantly increasing the risk that it is another Christ/another Gospel entirely.
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amen.
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Son of Adam:
Are you saying we are restored to peace with God by obeying all that he’s commanded?
Isn’t that the very curse of the law that Christ rescues us from?
All: My point isn’t that we can’t get to Christ and the Gospel through the side door. It’s that when we do- and especially when seeker churches do- we may be talking about another God and a defective Christ. I’d assume this to be part of the strength of Paul’s anathema in Gal 1 regarding another Gospel.
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Could not salvation be more fully understood or explained if we were to point out the benefit of our redemption or justification in terms other, and only, than having been freed from the curse of the law? Cannot we also draw out how by our redemption through Jesus AND our repentance we are agreeing with God that we are lost, our ways are futile, His ways are just, and that only through honoring and loving Him as our Lord, and indeed, obeying all that He has commanded us, we can be restored to peace with Him, our neighbors, and ourselves? Our meaning, identity, and purpose can be restored, reset to how we were created and meant to live, and to be, and to do, as we take each moment captive and walk with Him – rescued from the curse of the law, oppression of our enemies, and from ourselves. This is a larger definition of salvation that I see in the NT, and indeed, all of scripture.
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Being taught that there was “an Old Testament God” and a “new testament God” even though He is the unchanging Alpha and Omega, is what made me rebel against the mainstream church I was in at 13 and left me wild for years. I have come to trust Him even when I do not understand Him. If a couple tribes had to go to insure a Savior to the world, I trust it was good, somehow.
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MS, you wrote:
… but if we aren’t talking about Christ in reference to a redemption from God as well as by God, we aren’t talking about the New Testament gospel. (emphasis mine)
ISTM that this is the beginning of the context within which we can ever understand the genocidal God of the OT. This is such a huge thing, it’s very hard for me to get my head around. But the OT only makes sense through the lens of Jesus. Redemption from God is just a glimpse of that.
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All I am saying is I think we are living in a day when the direct theological approach doesn’t work as well as it once did, but that God can and does reach people in many other ways.
Most of the conversions even in the Gospels and the book of Acts came about only after the curiosity or desperate need of the people had been touched through some event. Only after they said “what must we do?”, or “what does this mean?” did they hear the message they really needed to hear. Until they are eager to receive, we sound irrelevant to them.
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Well, I get what you are saying, but the term “Christ” and the entire story of Jesus are part of the larger Biblical narrative. There’s a context to everything, and I don’t believe you can completely remove Jesus Christ from the Biblical context and still have the same Jesus.
It’s not a matter of how much you have to know as it is basic correlation of word with reality.
peace
ms
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Does Jesus “work†as savior if you don’t believe in the God of the Bible?
How good does your doctrine have to be to be saved? Do you need to believe in anything other than Christ as Savior and Lord?
Does the process of sanctification include a course in doctrine and Dogma?
How smart do you need to be to be saved? How literate? Can you be saved if you do not own an Old Testament? Can you be saved if you don’t own a Bible?
Is it too old fashioned to think that your Savior’s promise of a Comforter and Teacher to come to be with you and never leave would cover those questions?
30 plus years on the path and I am just barely getting to know the God of the bible, Old and New Testament, He does not change, but He sure has changed me. and it is still quite the work in progress.
I ran from people who claimed you had to know not only God, but earth age and pre versus post flood geography. I wasn’t smart enough to get saved there.
It is good to work with the poor,druggies and drunks and criminals. The understand the curse really well.
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The other problem is that Christians don’t believe that Jesus is Yahweh. Too many have this bizarre, schizophrenic idea that God is all about commands and justice, but Jesus is all about love and forgiveness, and Jesus is trying to stop God from exacting His angry righteous wrath upon sinful humanity.
If they’d read their bibles, they’d notice that Jesus goes a lot further in the Sermon on the Mount than He did on Mt. Sinai, and that He says a lot of things that indicate that under His judgment—and His alone—we’re royally screwed at the End.
This “love and forgiveness” Jesus? He is that; but He is just as much about commands and justice. Take away the commands and justice, and what you really have is an anything-goes look-the-other-way Jesus who winks at sin and doesn’t really mean it when He warns against hell.
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God of the Old testament:
1: asks people to murder their own children
2: Obliterates all life on earth, save for a few
3: Authorizes wholesale slaughter of entire civilizations
4: Ruins a man’s life over a bet with the devil
yet…
1: Shows Himself faithful to a faithless people
2: Defends the weak
3: Relents and shows mercy when asked for it
4: Offers the ultimate hope for final reconciliation
He’s not safe, but He’s good…
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>…I believe that you have overlooked the wonderful work of grace that is often done by His spirit.
I haven’t overlooked it. I just haven’t mentioned it, because I really don’t want to debate Calvinism and limited atonement 🙂
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But they have to make redemption generic. The New Testament, on the other hand, understands redemption within the narrative of the Biblical God and in specific terms from Leviticus, etc.
When most people say “redemption,” you can’t assume they have more than a tangential belief in Biblical redemption.
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I believe that you are right in being concerned with the (initial) lack of concern to relate to God on His terms. The primary reason He came was not to fix our marriages or our finances or any of these other things. But I believe that you have overlooked the wonderful work of grace that is often done by His spirit. So many times I have seen people come in, initially attracted by more unworthy motives, but then after they hang around a while God begins to talk to them about their real needs and their sin and their guilt before the law of God, and their need for redemption and justification.
On the other hand, there are preachers who immediately jump to these matters, and in so doing they come across as condemning and judgemental, and people are turned off and scared away.
Sometimes it is good to just plant, or water, until God gives the increase in His own time.
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iMonk,
Two things at work here…
1. People never like to be told when they’re wrong. Being under a curse is about as ‘wrong’ as you can get.
2. Except for psychopaths, people generally know that they are broken inside. That’s why they’re receptive to the Christ as redeemer, but not to God as Judge.
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As I said, I think people will agree that “God” exists, but I don’t think they believe that God is Yahweh, esp as portrayed in the OT.
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Great post. I have two thougts it conjurs up for me.
1) I have a hard time convincing my brethren that we are not still bound by that law as believers. We keep trying so hard to go back to it even though we say we are “new testament” believers. But “…the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’†We are FREED from the law.
I can hear it now. But does that mean _______? It means as believers we are freed from the law.
2) More in touch with your post, I think a harder challenge in reaching the “seekers” is convincing them that they are under a curse. You have to start way back with the idea that a) God exists (b) the Bible is true and reliable (c) there is original sin (d) they have sinned and are condemned to hell.
Then you can start preaching the good news. It’s one thing to preach a,b & c. It’s another thing to convince a seeker that it is true.
On this we have to rely on the Holy Spirit.
dm
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Jeff M:
I talked about WOM this morning, but my take was that you can get people to agree that they are lawbreakers, but they still don’t believe in the God of the Bible.
Does Jesus “work” as savior if you don’t believe in the God of the Bible?
ms
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I agree that the NT seems to have a strong sense that it is our relationship with God that is being restored. We have to deal with the issue of our Creator and our alienation from Him.
But it does also deal with our redemption from the fall and the restoration of our selves with other human beings. Jesus said that our relationship with God is strongly related to our relationship with others (As you have done it to the least, you have done it to me).
I think both parts of the gospel are needed: Love God and love neighbors and our alienation from both. But to emphasize our neighbor is to loose our bite, to emphasize God is to loose relevance. Either alone is not the Gospel but a distortion of it. When we cease to love God, we kill our brother. When we cease to love our neighbor, we deny God in His creation.
Enough of the preaching (and not that good at that)
I really enjoyed the idea that you expressed: “I like nothing better than to go down one direction and then suddenly make the relevance of the Gospel apparent when most of my hearers least suspect that it’s coming.” I’d love to hear that. Keep up the good work.
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This post made me think of the Way of the Master program. The first time I heard about it, I was really surprised. Mostly I was surprised to find something good on TBN! But seriously, here were these guys telling strangers that they were guilty of breaking God’s law and needed to repent. They weren’t mean about it and you hardly ever saw anyone get angry. It was a visual demonstration of God’s law at work. I was surprised even more when I tried it myself and saw the same results. I think Chad is on to something when he says that maybe it is Christians who have a harder time with the idea. When people are lovingly confronted with God’s standard, they tend to know that it is right. And in that light, there is no place to hide from the fact that we are not alright with God apart from Christ.
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You know, I often wonder if it is not the seeker who is turned of by talking about God’s law but the Christian. So many Christians find it hard to think about themselves as people in need of a Saviour.
Well, I guess I should say, those who call themselves Christians but really want a self-help support group with a really good consultant they can confer with every now and again; taking his advice whenever is seems appropriate (read never).
I agree, however, with Michael. I find it hard to tell people that they are ‘cursed’, perhaps because I find that those who are truly seeking salvation are usually trying to find someone to love them no matter what.
It is not that they see themselves as good enough, its that they see themselves as good for nothing.
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Interesting. Over the last several years, of all the faith-related issues I’ve struggled with and explored, this is generally _not_ one of them. Meaning: ever since my initial conversion to Christianity, I’ve never needed convincing or constant reminders of my unworthiness before God.
I actually struggle with the opposite: telling others, or even _thinking_ others as so fallen or “cursed”, to use the language of this post, so as to need the sacrificial and atoning death and resurrection of Christ. Once you cull out the “obvious” targets for mercy and grace (rapists, murderers, drug dealers, etc.), I just really struggle with the idea of telling someone to their face that they’re going to be separated eternally from God without…well, the classic evangelical formula.
So, in answer…yes, _I_ feel cursed, and am humbled and grateful for Jesus’ work for me on the cross. But once it gets beyond me, I just don’t know.
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