Saturday 19 January 2019

Jesus, Nonviolence and the Old Testament (Pt 4)






This is my final post in the four-part series on whether or not it is okay for Christian to resort to violence in certain circumstances. For anyone just joining in on the conversation, I recommend reading parts 1, 2 and 3 first. For everyone else, in this post I will focus on the violence of the Old Testament and how Jesus followers who believe we are not permitted to partake in similar actions to deal with it. Of course I can only speak for myself really as pacifism comes in many shapes and forms.

Having made a case thus far that Jesus never acted violently and never permitted us to partake in violence and also having looked at numerous New Testament passages to show that nowhere is just war, striking an enemy or killing ever condoned against flesh and blood we can now turn our attention to the prophets of old. What I am going to suggest here right from the start and try to validate is that the Bible is not a flat book where each scripture holds equal weight for Christians. This may seem obvious but this is at the very core of why so many people fall on the wrong side of the line on this issue. It needs to be understood that the Old Covenant and the book (Torah) detailing its formation and history was for a certain people group, at a certain time in history and written by people who were living under it and reveals how they understood God to be and what He expected from them. Is the Old Testament profitable to Christians for reading? Is it profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness? Yes and yes! The Old Testament is a collection of valuable books that reveal to us the woeful condition of man, weak to the flesh, perpetually violent and on a high speed path headed toward destruction. But it is more than that, it also is a collection of books with much hope in them - they accurately portray God's golden rule to us (love God and love others), they promise redemption in the form of God Himself come in the flesh to redeem not only us, but creation itself. In short, the Old Testament prepares us for the arrival of Jesus and points us to Him. But we are not obligated in any way to live by rules and regulations as the nation of Israel once did and even if you wanted to, it would be impossible to do so because the temple, sacrificial system and priesthood all came to a grinding halt in 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed. 

So what is my point in all of this? It’s rather simple really. People who use the Old Testament to condone violence against enemies, or killing for your country, or supporting the death penalty and more must do so by gathering support from the Law and the Prophets and applying it to life under the New Covenant. A Covenant inaugurated by Christ when He laid down His life for us - the same Christ who told us to love our enemies, to do good to those who seek to harm us, to turn the other cheek. The same Jesus called the Prince of Peace who said that the peacemakers would be called the sons of God and that His disciples “do not fight” (John 18:36). You see, if instead of forgiving my enemies I want them hanged I can appeal to Moses. If I want to kill them myself on the battlefield I can appeal to David and if I dream of holy war I can appeal to Samson. But I cannot look to Jesus and do the same because Jesus modeled something radically different to us.

This is a complicated issue which I am not going to be able to explain in a few lines on a single blog post and I am certainly not teaching Marcionism to you (a 2nd century fellow who completely rejected the OT). But let me make a few statements and back them up with some examples which help to validate my point. Here goes: The Bible is not our final authority but the Jesus revealed to us in the Bible is. Salvation is not found in the Bible but it will point us to the one who is called Yeshua (which means salvation in Hebrew). The Bible is not a rule book to follow but it introduces us to Jesus and the Spirit who guides us into all truth. We know all of this because the Bible tells us it is so. Jesus did not tell His disciples to follow the Bible - He told them to follow Him. A lot of people stumble over this because if the Old Testament was inspired by God then it cannot contradict itself in any way, can it? Wrong. Because just like my children ask for sweets practically every day my answer is not always the same because circumstances change all the time. So we find similar situations in the Bible. We find people getting stoned to death for failing to keep the Sabbath, a law most Christians do not feel obligated to keep anymore. We find Jesus sending His disciples out with supplies and sometimes without. More closer to the topic of this series, we see Elijah calling fire down from heaven to consume his enemies (2 Kings 1:10) but when Jesus' disciples want to do the same thing He rebukes them and says that they do not know what manner of spirit they are of (Luke 9:54-55). Now as a biblicist I can choose the way of Elijah or the way of Jesus as my heart desires and still say that I am living by biblical principles, but as a Christian I have to follow the way of Jesus and renounce the way of violence and enemy hate. It is no accident that what immediately follows in Luke 9 is about the cost of discipleship. Let’s move on now and look at other areas where Christians feel more compelled to follow Jesus than the Bible even if they are not aware of it.

Abortion

This is one of those unique topics that all Christians actually seem to agree upon. Human life is immeasurably valuable and abortion is one of the darkest stains on society. But the Bible never specifically says this. In fact, there is a biblical case that can be made for abortion. In Hosea 9:14 Hosea prays this prayer against Ephraim:

'Give them, O Lord— What will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts!'

Where did Hosea get this idea from? Because the context here is regarding harlotry and disobedience Hosea is likely drawing inspiration from the Law itself. I suspect that Hosea had Numbers 5:11-21 in mind where God Himself gives Moses instructions as to how to abort a pregnancy if a woman is suspected of adultery. It is a bizarre ritual forcing a woman to drink a deadly mixture of holy water and sand. Question – do we follow the Bible in this example or do we follow Jesus who taught that all life is precious (Matthew 6:26, 10:29-31) and to stand up for those who can not speak for themselves?

Polygamy

One can easily use the Bible to support the idea of polygamy or having multiple sexual partners. From Lamech in Genesis 4 onward, polygamy is everywhere in the Bible. 1 Kings 11:3 says that Solomon had 700 wives and because that clearly wasn’t enough another 300 concubines as well. 2 Samuel 5:13 states that David had several wives and concubines as well. Scripture only condemns the affair with Bathsheba because she was already married to another man. The Law of Moses even made provision for people who practiced polygamy (Exodus 21:10). You could get sentenced to death for a lot of things in the Bible - picking up sticks at the wrong time, being rebellious against your parents and more, but not once is a negative word even mentioned against what was seemingly the very common practice of having several wives. But Christians take Jesus’ idea of the ideal found in the initial creation (Matthew 19:3–6) to be greater than the concession for polygamy (and divorce) Moses made for people of hard hearts to be their yardstick. Because on some level, we know that we are to follow Jesus and not the Bible in everything that it teaches in every place. Likewise, we know that woman are not subhumans who only serve to satisfy our needs and give us children. Jesus broke all sorts of social norms in His interaction with woman and I can just imagine the apostle John washing Mary's feet after Jesus had ascended to heaven, such was the radical transformation His teachings would have left on His followers.

Slavery

Christianity’s history is a mixture of embarrassing failures to imitate Jesus (like the crusades) and glorious victories such as the abolishment of slavery. Yet slavery is found throughout the Bible. Who can forget Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery only for him to eventually enslave the whole of Egypt (Genesis 47:13-26) which eventually culminated in Egypt’s slavery of Israel. Slavery is one of those subjects that the Bible could have condemned but instead permitted. The Law of Moses had much to say about slavery and the verse below is probably as bad as it gets though.

“And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property. – Exodus 21:20-21

I hope that you find that verse appalling; if the world recognizes this as a gross violation of human rights how much more so should followers of Jesus? There is not a person that Jesus did not die for, there is not a person that He does not love and He was especially fond of sticking up for the outcasts, the downtrodden, the widows and the lepers. I love that the gospels contain stories of Jesus healing slaves and I do not for a second think that he thought of them as property to be fixed but rather as humans to be healed.

Of course, I have been emphasizing the worst parts of the Old Testament but there is much, so much good in there as well. Much of it was well ahead of its time and there is so much there that does reveal God's heart and ultimately leads us to Jesus. But here is the deal. The Bible itself repeatedly tells that in the past God spoke to His people through the prophets but now, He speaks to His people through Jesus. Christ is what God has to say (Hebrews 1:1-3). I love the story of Jesus' transfiguration in Luke 9:28-36. We read about Peter, James and John seeing Jesus, Moses and Elijah standing together and they want to build them three tabernacles to dwell in as though they were equals. Luke makes Peter look silly and says that he did not know what he was talking about (verse 33). After Peter says this a cloud appears and a voice speaks out of it saying, “this is my beloved Son, hear Him!”, and Moses and Elijah disappear and only Jesus remains. I’m not sure how much clearer it could have been. Luke makes it clear, "The Law AND the Prophets were until John, since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached (Luke 16:16)."   

Conclusion

For three hundred years the church faithfully followed the words and example of Jesus, it refused to participate in violence and embraced enemy love even to the point of death. It was not until Constantine that people started ‘conquering by the sign of the cross’ and it was not until Augustine that  just war became a theological concept that one could faithfully pick up both their cross and their sword. Used incorrectly, the Bible can be used to justify just about anything. So if something (like resorting to violence) in the Bible seems contrary to the way and teaching of Jesus, we don’t need to feel obligated to water down what Jesus said in order to harmonize the conflicting ideas. Rather we need to listen to Jesus, to follow Him and then wrestle with the conflicting idea on the side until we know what to do with it. Today, parts of the church are so confused that they can turn a blind eye to refugees, they can be pro the death penalty, pro war and still call themselves pro-life. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”, if the Sermon on the Mount means anything to us, if we are to proclaim the peace of Christ, we need to start faithfully live out and model His way of life and His kingdom principles.

Peace

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