To Make Holy, Part 3

Posted on November 2, 2017 by admin

When I began to study the Bible I thought Paul wrote Hebrews.^[1] The more I studied, the more I began to know Paul’s other writings, the more I began to suspect that Paul did not write Hebrews. Someone who knew Paul and his writings must have written it. But I thought that Romans was the literary parent and Hebrews the literary child until Andrew Schlafly’s entry on Conservapedia—“Mystery: Did Jesus Write the Epistle to the Hebrews?”—flipped me out of the rut I was in.

It’s probably more prudent to say that the Holy Spirit flipped me out of my rut with Mr. Schlafly’s writing, but I want to be sure to share my gratitude with him since I reject his main point: “Jesus spent 40 days on Earth between the Resurrection and the Ascension, and it is implausible that He did not continue His ministry in an effective way. Writing (or distributing) an Epistle is most plausible activity, given what had transpired.”^[2] After God spoke long ago in various portions and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets, the writer of Hebrews began, in these last days he has spoken to us in a son…^[3]

The words to us aren’t an artifact of translating Greek to English. It is ἡμῖν penned by the author. Did Jesus write that God spoke to Jesus in a son? The Son [who] is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and [who] sustains all things by his powerful word?^[4] The writer of Hebrews continued, so when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.^[5] Did Jesus write that He was on earth writing Hebrews and sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high simultaneously? Or did He mean that He was someone distinct from this mysterious Son? “Sit on my right” the Septuagint reads. The author of Hebrews changed κάθου (a form of κάθημαι; second person present tense) to ἐκάθισεν (a form of καθίζω; third person past tense).

All in all it seems simpler to conclude that Jesus did not write Hebrews personally and that it was written after his ascension (Acts 1:9-11). But what has grabbed me and won’t let go is Mr. Schlafly’s insight: “this sermon appears identical to the sermon given by Jesus on the road to Emmaus…”^[6] I have carped at Cleopas and the other disciple^[7] almost every time I’ve read their story, “Don’t tell me how you felt. Who cares how you felt!? Tell me what He said!” I was utterly unable to hear Hebrews as Jesus’ teaching on the Emmaus road because I was stuck thinking it was a late development dependent upon Paul’s theology in Romans.

This “Epistle was written before any physical persecution of the disciples: ‘In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.’ (12:4) Stephen was martyred around A.D. 37, merely a few years after the Crucifixion of Jesus, so this Epistle was written before then.”^[8] Was Hebrews one of the scrolls or parchments Paul prized? Was it the literary parent of Romans?

I’ll approach the next occurrence of ἁγιάσῃ (a form of ἁγιάζω) with this possibility in mind, not hearing the scratching of Jesus’ pen perhaps, but listening for the teaching that was foremost in his mind during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension (Hebrews 13:9-16 NET):

Do not be carried away by all sorts of strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not ritual meals, which have never benefited those who participated in them. We have an altar that those who serve in the tabernacle have no right to eat from. For the bodies of those animals whose blood the high priest brings into the sanctuary as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, to sanctify (ἁγιάσῃ, a form of ἁγιάζω) the people by his own blood, Jesus also suffered outside the camp (πύλης; literally, gate). We must go out to him, then, outside the camp, bearing the abuse he experienced. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come (Revelation 21:9-27). Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, acknowledging his name. And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.

To sanctify the people by his own blood, Jesus also suffered outside the camp. We must go out to him, then, outside (ἔξω) the camp (παρεμβολῆς, a form of παρεμβολή)… The anonymous author of “Sacrifice Outside the Camp” concluded: “So just as Christ went outside the camp, the readers are also to go outside the camp and thus bear reproach by abandoning the established fellowship and ordinances of Judaism.” That’s what I thought, too. In fact, I thought that would be the point of this essay when I thought Hebrews was a late development from the mind of some unknown disciple. Considering Hebrews as Jesus’ teaching during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension pushes me harder.

I assume that going out to Jesus, outside the camp, is a result of being sanctified by his own blood as opposed to its cause, though the NET translation (We must go out) of ἐξερχώμεθα (a form of ἐξέρχομαι; KJV: Let us go forth) sounds more like a prerequisite. Are we to go outside the Israelite camp only to join the Roman Catholic camp, the Greek Orthodox camp, the Lutheran camp, the Baptist camp, the Presbyterian camp, the Pentecostal camp or the name-your-favorite-religion camp? It got me thinking about y^ehôvâh.

He wasn’t a big fan of law or religion, at least it wasn’t his first choice. Yet, when he got down to it He spent a good deal of verbiage establishing a legal/religious category called outside (chûts, מחוץ) the camp (machăneh, למחנה), ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς in the Septuagint. It caused me to wonder if going outside the camp (see table below) meant anything more than trading in one legal/religious system for another.

I thought outside the camp was equivalent to not the camp. But outside the camp was as much a part of the Israelite camp as the Holy of Holies. It moved with Israel in total (or in part with its army). It was a place of execution (Leviticus 24:14, 23; Numbers 15:36). Or do you not know, Paul wrote the Romans, that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.^[9]

It was a place for the unclean (Leviticus 13:46; 14:3), including every leper, everyone who has a discharge (Deuteronomy 23:10), and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse^[10] (Numbers 5:3, 4). Those who are well don’t need a physician, Jesus answered the Pharisees, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.^[11]

Latrines were there outside the camp (Deuteronomy 23:12). If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials (σαρκί, a form of σάρξ), I have more, Paul wrote believers in Philippi: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ. More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things – indeed, I regard them as dung! – that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness – a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness. My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.^[12]

The bodies of Nadab and Abihu were carried off there (Leviticus 10:4, 5). In him you also were circumcised, Paul wrote the Colossians, not, however, with a circumcision performed by human hands, but by the removal of the fleshly body, that is, through the circumcision done by Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism, you also have been raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. And even though you were dead in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he nevertheless made you alive with him, having forgiven all your transgressions. He has destroyed what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.^[13]

But it was not a lawless place (Leviticus 17:3-5 NET).

Blood guilt will be accounted to any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat inside the camp or outside the camp, but has not brought it to the entrance of the Meeting Tent to present it as an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord. He has shed blood, so that man will be cut off from the midst of his people. This is so that the Israelites will bring their sacrifices that they are sacrificing in the open field to the Lord at the entrance of the Meeting Tent to the priest and sacrifice them there as peace offering sacrifices to the Lord.

Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold the law.^[14] For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.^[15] Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” (and if there is any other commandment) are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.^[16]

It was a place of purification. The red heifer was slaughtered outside the camp (Numbers 19:3) and its ashes were kept there (Numbers 19:9). They must be kept for the community of the Israelites for use in the water of purification – it is a purification for sin.^[17] It was a way station for soldiers returning from battle (Numbers 31:19), the spoils of war (Numbers 31:11-13) and Rahab, her father, mother, brothers, and all who belonged to her^[18] (Joshua 6:23). Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, her father’s family, and all who belonged to her. She lives in Israel (NET note 46 Heb “in the midst of Israel”) to this very day because she hid the messengers Joshua sent to spy on Jericho.^[19]

For the grace of God has appeared, Paul wrote Titus, bringing salvation to all people. It trains us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, who are eager to do good.^[20]

It was above all else the place where the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, the way a person speaks to a friend^[21] and where Joshua lived (Exodus 33:7-11 NET):

Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, at a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. Anyone seeking the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting that was outside the camp.

And when Moses went out to the tent, all the people would get up and stand at the entrance to their tents and watch Moses until he entered the tent. And whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people would see the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people, each one at the entrance of his own tent, would rise and worship. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, the way a person speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his servant, Joshua son of Nun, a young man, did not leave the tent.

Just as the Father has loved me, Jesus said, I have also loved you; remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. This I command you – to love one another.^[22]

More than a geographical location or an institutional affiliation to go to Jesus outside the camp seems like a state of the believing heart and mind. The Spirit is the one who gives life, Jesus said, human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.^[23] To go to Jesus outside the camp is integrally associated with sanctification, but doesn’t appear to be something one does once, rather continually, maybe even progressively until like Joshua one resides there permanently. Jesus said (John 14:23-26 NET):

If anyone loves me, he will obey (τηρήσει, a form of τηρέω) my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. The person who does not love me does not obey (τηρεῖ, another form of τηρέω) my words. And the word you hear (ἀκούετε, a form of ἀκούω) is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. I have spoken these things while staying with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.

Reference	NET	Hebrew – outside	Hebrew – the camp	Septuagint
Exodus 29:14	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Exodus 33:7	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Exodus 33:7	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 4:12	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 4:21	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 6:11	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 8:17	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 9:11	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 10:4	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 10:5	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 13:46	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 14:3	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 16:27	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 17:3	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 24:14	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Leviticus 24:23	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 5:3	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 5:4	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 15:35	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	Both are in verse 36
Numbers 15:36	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 19:3	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 19:9	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 31:13	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Numbers 31:19	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Deuteronomy 23:10	he must leave the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Deuteronomy 23:12	outside the camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Joshua 6:23	outside the…camp	מחוץ	למחנה	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς

To Make Holy, Part 4

Back to Romans, Part 89

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 12

Back to Atonement, Part 6

Back to Atonement, Part 7

Back to Atonement, Part 8

Back to Atonement, Part 10

Back to Hannah’s Prayer, Part 4

Back to Father, Forgive Them – Part 6

Back to A Shadow of the Good Things, Part 4

Back to Isaiah 53:10-12, Part 1

Back to Psalm 22, Part 8

Back to Romans, Part 16

Back to A Shadow of the Good Things, Part 7

^[1] “As early as the second century, this treatise, which is of great rhetorical power and force in its admonition to faithful pilgrimage under Christ’s leadership, bore the title ‘To the Hebrews.’ It was assumed to be directed to Jewish Christians. Usually Hebrews was attached in Greek manuscripts to the collection of letters by Paul… As early as the end of the second century, the church of Alexandria in Egypt accepted Hebrews as a letter of Paul, and that became the view commonly held in the East. Pauline authorship was contested in the West into the fourth century, but then accepted. In the sixteenth century, doubts about that position were again raised, and the modern consensus is that the letter was not written by Paul.” THE LETTER TO THE HEBREWS

^[2] Andrew Schlafly, “Mystery: Did Jesus Write the Epistle to the Hebrews?,” Conservapedia

^[3] Hebrews 1:1, 2a (NET)

^[4] Hebrews 1:3a (NET)

^[5] Hebrews 1:3b (NET)

^[6] Andrew Schlafly, “Mystery: Did Jesus Write the Epistle to the Hebrews?,” Conservapedia

^[7] His wife, my mother speculates, as do others. “Would Cleopas leave her in Jerusalem?”

^[8] Andrew Schlafly, “Mystery: Did Jesus Write the Epistle to the Hebrews?,” Conservapedia

^[9] Romans 6:3, 4 (NET)

^[10] Numbers 5:2 (NET)

^[11] Luke 5:31, 32 (NET)

^[12] Philippians 3:4b-11 (NET)

^[13] Colossians 2:11-14 (NET)

^[14] Romans 3:31 (NET)

^[15] Romans 8:3, 4 (NET)

^[16] Romans 13:8-10 (NET)

^[17] Numbers 19:9b (NET)

^[18] Joshua 6:23a (NET)

^[19] Joshua 6:25 (NET)

^[20] Titus 2:11-14 (NET)

^[21] Exodus 33:11a (NET)

^[22] John 15:9-17 (NET)

^[23] John 6:63 (NET)

Who Am I? Part 4

Posted on December 29, 2016 by admin

I spend a large portion of my Christmas holiday with three post-Christian women I’ll call Grandmother, Mother and Daughter because of their relationship to one another. I call them post-Christian because they were all professing Christians at one time. Grandmother still calls herself a Christian. She means a non-Buddhist, non-Hindu, non-Jew, non-Muslim who believes in Jesus. Her ex-husband was a Baptist Sunday school teacher who abused her, and Mother as a child. Daughter is the most non-Christian, vocally pagan of the three with Mother falling somewhere between. Their transformation began with a desire for a more feminine God. I regret now not taking Mother’s question more seriously. I didn’t understand at the time that this desire would lead through Mother Earth to a Mother Goddess and on to full-fledged paganism.

I pointed out that y^ehôvâh (יהוה) created male and female: God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהים) created humankind in his own image, in the image of God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהים) he created them, male and female he created them.^[1] I talked about the meaning of El Shaddai (ʼêl, אל; shadday, שדי) and a few other references to God as feminine. But I emphasized that the general understanding of God as masculine was due primarily to the fact that we are all feminine in relation to the operation of his grace through Jesus Christ.

I am accepted among them as the kindly, odd, somewhat benighted, old man who studies the Bible in his spare time, so ordinary conversation—what’ve you been up to?—offers many opportunities. A recent conversation with Grandmother and Daughter turned naturally to Jesus’ dying thoughts on the cross. I read Psalm 22 aloud. Daughter was visibly, tearfully moved and vocally overwhelmed that David could write such exact knowledge so many centuries before Jesus was born.

I spoke of God having mercy on whoever he chooses to have mercy and hardening whoever he chooses to harden. I said I had been considering how, and told them the story of two prophets, Nathan and John the Baptist. When Pharisees and Sadduccees, religious leaders, came to be baptized for repentance (Matthew 3:11, 12; Mark 1:4-8; Luke 3:15-17) John said, You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?^[2] And he challenged them to put their works religion to the test: Therefore produce fruit that proves your repentance…^[3]

What I didn’t say but will record here for my own memory’s sake, whether these particular Pharisees and Sadduccees were directly responsible or not, John’s words were not secret and would have tended to harden the resolve of the religious elite to kill Jesus: the Lord (y^ehôvâh, ויהוה) desired to crush him (e.g., Jesus). On the other hand y^ehôvâh desired David’s repentance and sent Nathan to that effect.

He was sent after King David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed to cover it up. Nathan told David a story (2 Samuel 12:1-6) about a rich man who had entertained a traveler with a meal. The rich man hadn’t served up any of his own sheep or cattle, but the one ewe lamb he took from a poor man. Then David became very angry at this man.^[4] You are that man!^[5] Nathan said to him.

“Did he kill him?” Daughter asked. I was actually surprised that she had forgotten the story.

No, I answered, I have sinned against the Lord!^[6] David said and then he wrote the 51^st Psalm. I got to read Psalm 51 aloud to them. When I finished Grandmother responded to a look on Daughter’s face at the line—Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.^[7]

“I don’t believe that either,” Grandmother said.

This is a point to concede by the way. If it offends or hurts your feelings, welcome to the human race. Being guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me is equivalent to being born of the flesh of Adam (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:42-58). You do not want a relentless God who will pursue you with goodness and mercy all the days of your life to spend that time convincing you the hard way that you are a sinner instead (John 16:7-11).

Goodness and mercy, by the way is the NKJV translation of Psalm 23:6a. In the NET it was translated goodness and faithfulness (chêsêd , וחסד).

chêsêd	Hebrew	KJV	NET	Tanakh	Septuagint
Psalm 23:6a	וחסד	mercy	faithfulness	mercy	ἔλεός^[8]

Daughter informed me that my religion has a lot of guilt in it as she praised me for my adherence to it, and insisted that we, she and her pagan friends, desperately need a canon (i.e., of written scripture).

On Yule I learned that Mother had been taking drugs. I wasn’t personally that aware of the winter solstice. Daughter and Mother wished one another happy Yule in the car as I drove them to rehab. It’s probably the only reason I knew anything at all.

I hadn’t known the night before that Mother had informed Daughter she was abusing drugs. Daughter called me the next morning when Mother hesitated to actually commit herself to rehab. In the car on the way Daughter was jubilant and excited that Mother was doing the right thing. Yes, rehab is better than sitting home alone shooting dope, but I was much more somber and subdued.

At her home I had sat with her, held her and listened to her enough to convince myself that Mother had no interest in repentance. Daughter was right. My presence alone persuaded Mother to shower, dress and leave with us for the rehab facility. But in the car I felt like I was delivering her up for more hardening. In my admittedly limited experience I know no one who has returned to faith in Christ from the higher power mysticism of a twelve-step program. I watched sadly the full realization of incarceration creep across her face as she was taken from us. No matter what I say or how much I protest, Mother and Daughter believe I live a life of rules, while they are free.

I gave them My statutes, y^ehôvâh explained in the philosopher’s dream chapter of Ezekiel the prophet, and informed them of My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live.^[9] I call it the philosopher’s dream chapter because y^ehôvâh explained so much of his own understanding of Israel’s history there. Then the twelve-year-old Jesus had this chapter at his disposal to renew and refresh his now human mind.

The Hebrew word translated My statutes was chûqqâh (חקותי). It was translated προστάγματά in the Septuagint. The Hebrew word translated My ordinances was mishpâṭ (משפטי), and δικαιώματά, a form of δικαίωμα, in the Septuagint. This was translated the righteous requirements in: Therefore if the uncircumcised man obeys the righteous requirements (δικαιώματα, a form of δικαίωμα) of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?^[10]

In the same chapter y^ehôvâh explained: I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.^[11] Here the Hebrew word translated statutes was chôq (חקים); chûqqâh is the feminine of chôq according to Strong’s Concordance. It was still translated προστάγματα in the Septuagint. And again, the word translated ordinances was mishpâṭ (ומשפטים) in Hebrew and δικαιώματα in the Septuagint. I don’t think these are different statutes or different ordinances.

The commandment…was intended to bring life.^[12] The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.^[13] But if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.^[14] God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh.^[15] For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died.^[16] For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate.^[17]

Also I gave them My Sabbaths, y^ehôvâh said in the philosopher’s dream chapter, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord (y^ehôvâh, יהוה) who sanctifies them.^[18]

In practice many professing faith in Jesus do not believe that y^ehôvâh/Jesus sanctifies^[19] them. We trust Him for justification only, primarily forgiveness. We believe our sanctification is a measure of our own good works, obedience accomplished in our own strength for our own glory. We do not believe that here and now a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God. For the one who enters God’s rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from his own works.^[20] I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.^[21] Thus we must make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by following the same pattern of disobedience^[22] (ἀπειθείας, a form of ἀπείθεια; literally, disbelief) Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold the law.^[23]

I want to consider the movie The Host as a Holy Spirit metaphor for one who does not yet experience Him. There are many spoilers here and as a metaphor the film is fatally flawed. But in the hope of communicating some small portion of the Ineffable, here goes.

“The earth is at peace,” a resistance leader named Jebediah (William Hurt) narrates the beginning of the film. “There is no hunger. There is no violence. The environment is healed. Honesty, courtesy and kindness are practiced by all. Our world has never been more perfect. Only it is no longer our world. We’ve been invaded by an alien race. They occupy the bodies of almost all human beings on the planet. The few humans who have survived are on the run.”

Then we are introduced to Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) fleeing her enemies: honesty, courtesy and kindness. Following her earthly father’s example, she attempts suicide but lives, despite her best efforts, only to be possessed by Wanderer (also Saoirse Ronan). Melanie’s old human survives to fight Wanderer for control of their body.

The Seeker (Diane Kruger) interviews Wanderer to glean Melanie’s memories for knowledge of other old humans in the resistance underground. When she decides that Melanie’s old human is too strong for Wanderer, she plans to put Wanderer in a more compliant host, search Melanie’s memories herself and then let Melanie die the death she wanted. But Wanderer has begun to love Melanie. They flee The Seeker together.

Melanie tricks Wanderer into the desert and leads her to Uncle Jebediah and the underground resistance. Uncle Jeb uses all of his authority as a leader to keep others in the resistance from killing the obviously possessed Melanie/Wanderer. Even Melanie’s lover Jared (Max Irons) has no sympathy for her at first. In a get-to-know-you walk-and-talk Uncle Jeb shortens Wanderer’s name to Wanda.

Melanie begins to love Wanda as she witnesses Wanda’s concern for the people Melanie loves, even some she hates or is indifferent toward. The metaphor breaks down, of course. The holy spirits, called souls in the film, are many and varied, and some or not as holy as Wanda. The Seeker ironically becomes almost human in her fears that she personally is losing control to her host Lacey (also Diane Kruger) and that the holy spirits may ultimately lose their possession of the humans. In the end The Host becomes Satan’s wet dream as The Seeker’s fears become flesh: holy spirits collaborate with the resistance to rid humans of the holy spirits.

Mother is on the verge of bankruptcy. I helped her in a similar position nearly twenty years ago. She called me before I left for Christmas. I offered to help again. She accepted. As I drove the hundred miles or so to my own mother’s house the evening after Mother committed herself to rehab I understood why we hadn’t met to review her finances yet. I recalled the things I’ve said and done with Grandmother, Mother and Daughter, fretted over some things I hadn’t said or done and heard Darth Vader echoing in my head, saying, “Now his failure is complete.”

As far as I know I am the believer of record in their lives. I will give an account of this stewardship before Jesus. As the enormity of my failure to live a life that commends others to Jesus inundated me in crushing waves, the image of my mother scrubbing the basement floor on her hands and knees popped into my mind. Of all the things she had said or done, of all the things I might have complained that she hadn’t said or done, this simple image stuck with me.

I had overdosed on some hallucinogen. I had thrown up all night long on her basement floor. My mother cleaning up after me became a living metaphor of my life. I had returned to drugs because a simple taste a few days earlier brought back the feeling I had lost since my early days of trusting Jesus again. I made many more bad decisions along the way. But my mother never gave up on me.

As I drove through the dark hills thinking perhaps I had been spared from helping Mother again financially, the admonition of my penny-pinching father came to mind:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

The words weren’t his but Rudyard Kipling’s.^[24] A man like me would be a fool to attempt Kipling’s vision of manhood apart from the Holy Spirit. But the image of my mother’s loving persistence and my father’s words of counsel gave me some hope that I was there, the right person at the right place and time. And that image and those words carried me through that dark night until the continuous infusion of the Holy Spirit’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and control took over again the next morning.

Who Am I? Part 5

Back to Romans, Part 85

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 5

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 11

Back to Atonement, Part 5

Back to Who Am I? Part 12

^[1] Genesis 1:27 (NET)

^[2] Matthew 3:7 (NET)

^[3] Matthew 3:8 (NET)

^[4] 2 Samuel 12:5a (NET) Table

^[5] 2 Samuel 12:7a (NET) Table

^[6] 2 Samuel 12:13a (NET) Table

^[7] Psalm 51:5 (NET) Table

^[8] In the Septuagint both chêsêd (וחסד) and ṭôb (טוב) were translated by the one Greek word ἔλεός.

^[9] Ezekiel 20:11 (NASB)

^[10] Romans 2:26 (NET) Table

^[11] Ezekiel 20:25 (NASB)

^[12] Romans 7:10 (NET)

^[13] Romans 7:12 (NET)

^[14] Galatians 3:21b (NET)

^[15] Romans 8:3a (NET)

^[16] Romans 7:11 (NET)

^[17] Romans 7:14, 15 (NET)

^[18] Ezekiel 20:12 (NASB)

^[19] When I struggled the most with this concept my Pastor was from the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Today, as I scanned their webpage titled “Sanctification,” nothing jumps out at me as problematic except my own spiritual tic. My flesh and my religious mind hear obedience in step 3 “to A Spirit-Filled Life”—“We maintain a continuous relationship with Jesus through obedience to His Word”—as a trigger word, calling me back to a DIY works religion. But now I just translate obedience back into Greek, ὑπακοή, attentive hearkening, and the trigger obey disappears. I remain (μείνατε, a form of μένω) in Jesus through faith instead (which is the actual word used in John 15:1-11 the Scriptural source of step 3).

[Addendum 1/26/2017] I’m not so sure Paul would agree that 1 Corinthians 3:1-4 “clearly teaches that there are two kinds of Christians.”

^[20] Hebrews 4:9, 10 (NET)

^[21] Galatians 2:20 (NET)

^[22] Hebrews 4:11 (NET)

^[23] Romans 3:31 (NET)

^[24] If, by Rudyard Kipling

Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 2

Posted on November 18, 2016 by admin

The exercise of revisiting Paul’s Religious Mind and the meaning of Sexual Immorality has clarified a few things that were right in front of me all along. I considered again the list of sins that described the former lives of some who were called to faith in Corinth:

1 Corinthians 6:9b, 10 (NET) Table	Parallel Greek
The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God.	οὔτε πόρνοι (another form of πόρνος) οὔτε εἰδωλολάτραι οὔτε μοιχοὶ οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται οὔτε κλέπται οὔτε πλεονέκται, οὐ μέθυσοι, οὐ λοίδοροι, οὐχ ἅρπαγες βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν

Each word preceded by οὔτε, οὐ or οὐχ (a form of οὐ) gives a strong indication that Paul did not consider πόρνοι the one word that included all of the others. In other words the list is not to be understood as, The πόρνοι: idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers. I’ve considered this option, by the way, given the shorter list in Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:5 (NET)	Parallel Greek
For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.	τοῦτο γὰρ ἴστε γινώσκοντες, ὅτι πᾶς πόρνος ἢ ἀκάθαρτος ἢ πλεονέκτης οὐκ ἔχει κληρονομίαν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ

So I began a subtractive process, trying to determine what πόρνοι did not mean. As I studied ἀρσενοκοῖται (a form of ἀρσενοκοίτης; translated, practicing homosexuals) the obvious became more clear. The Greek word ἀρσενοκοίτης is a compound of two words: 1) αρσην, male, and 2) κοίτη, couch, bed.

Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male (ἄρσεν, a form of αρσην) and female,^[1] Jesus answered the Pharisees who asked Him about divorce. The men (ἄρσενες, another form of αρσην) also abandoned natural relations with women, Paul wrote the Roman believers, and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men (ἄρσενες, another form of αρσην) committed shameless acts with men (ἄρσεσιν, another form of αρσην) and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.^[2] The Greek is a bit more graphic: ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην κατεργαζόμενοι (literally, “male in male this unseemliness performing”). The writer of Hebrews penned: Marriage must be honored among all and the marriage bed (κοίτη) kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people (πόρνους, another form of πόρνος) and adulterers (μοιχοὺς, a form of μοιχός).^[3] I can’t imagine one word better than ἀρσενοκοίτης (male marriage bed) to describe You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman.^[4]

I combined this with the fact that Paul’s particular usage of πορνεία in 1 Corinthians 5:1 is a fairly clear reference to You must not have sexual intercourse with your father’s wife; she is your father’s nakedness.^[5] And I came to one inescapable conclusion irrespective of whether Paul used πορνεία because he thought it meant anything and everything that was not sex between one man and one woman or because it was the only word he had had to use when he arrived in Corinth, constrained by his reliance on James’ abbreviated version of the law:

James’ abbreviated version of the law

…to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood…

Acts 15:20 (NET) Table

ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν ἀλισγημάτων τῶν εἰδώλων καὶ τῆς πορνείας (a form of πορνεία) καὶ |τοῦ| πνικτοῦ καὶ τοῦ αἵματος

…that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality…

Acts 15:29a (NET) Table

ἀπέχεσθαι εἰδωλοθύτων καὶ αἵματος καὶ πνικτῶν καὶ πορνείας (a form of πορνεία)

The inescapable conclusion is: in the letter called 1 Corinthians Paul taught Levitical law (as knowledge of sin not as a path of salvation) to Gentiles (1 Timothy 1:8-10 NET).

But we know that the law is good if someone uses it legitimately, realizing that law is not intended for a righteous person, but for lawless and rebellious people, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, sexually immoral people (πόρνοις, another form of πόρνος), practicing homosexuals (ἀρσενοκοίταις, another form of ἀρσενοκοίτης), kidnappers, liars, perjurers – in fact, for any who live contrary to sound teaching.

Gone was any pretense to be concerned about nothing among [them] except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.^[6] More importantly, perhaps, the pretense of not placing on the neck of the [Gentile] disciples a yoke that neither [Peter’s] ancestors nor [his contemporaries had] been able to bear^[7] was utterly gone from Paul’s thinking. That yoke would not be borne by the works of the flesh. That is true. But it would not be shirked either. The yoke would be borne by the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe,^[8] the fruit of the Spirit, the love [that] is the fulfillment of the law.^[9] Jesus said (Matthew 11:28-30; 5:17-20 NET):

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place. So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Do we then nullify the law through faith? Paul asked rhetorically. Absolutely not! Instead we uphold the law.^[10] Have I just made the case for πορνεία as a violation of Leviticus 18 or 20? But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful [πορνείας, a form of πορνεία]) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.^[11] I don’t think so.

I might have made that case. I have a philosophical bent to my mind; I am a legalist in theory and in practice. Why not see Matthew 5:32 as Jesus’ instruction to governor-priests and as vindication or exoneration of Ezra the priest? Ancient Roman legislators had articulated concepts of lawful connubium. The priests and bishops Constantine left to govern Rome when he abandoned it for Byzantium heard Jesus’ words as Roman law. Wouldn’t Jesus follow Roman law? It’s certainly more in line with the way my mind works. Until, that is, I heard y^ehôvâh in the prophet Malachi (2:14b, 15a, 16 NET):

The Lord (y^ehôvâh, יהוה) is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law [Table]. No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this [Table]…

“I hate divorce,” says the Lord (y^ehôvâh, יהוה) God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהי) of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord (y^ehôvâh, יהוה) who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful” [Table].

This is the intellectual and spiritual equivalent of a ratchet, and I cannot go back. Now I hear, For God has consigned (συνέκλεισεν, a form of συγκλείω) all people to disobedience (ἀπείθειαν, a form of ἀπείθεια; literally, disbelief) so that he may show mercy to them all.^[12] We are all like fish caught in a net of disobedience. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under (ἐν; literally, in) the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable (ὑπόδικος; literally, under sentence, under judgment) to God.^[13]

Ezra was exactly where y^ehôvâh wanted him to be when he said: O Lord (y^ehôvâh, יהוה) God of Israel, you are righteous, for we are left as a remnant this day. Indeed, we stand before you in our guilt. However, because of this guilt no one can really stand before you.^[14] Who knows what would have happened if Ezra had stayed there, waiting on y^ehôvâh, instead of chasing after Shecaniah’s get-righteous-quick scheme (Ezra 10:2-4 NET).

Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, from the descendants of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the local peoples. Nonetheless, there is still hope for Israel in this regard [Table]. Therefore let us enact a covenant with our God to send away all these women and their offspring, in keeping with your counsel, my lord, and that of those who respect the commandments of our God. And let it be done according to the law [Table]. Get up, for this matter concerns you. We are with you, so be strong and act decisively [Table]!”

I want to make this as clear as I possibly can. If a man has married the wrong sort of woman he cannot redeem himself in God’s eyes, he cannot make himself righteous again, by divorcing her and sending their children away. The religious mind encourages us to change our own behavior, to conform us to some image of righteousness derived from the law (or some lesser doctrine) by that religious mind. The mind of Christ speaks to the wriggling soul caught in a net of disbelief, saying, Stop your striving (râphâh, הרפו) and recognize (yâdaʽ, ודעו) that I am God! I will be exalted over the nations! I will be exalted over the earth!^[15] Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’^[16]

I don’t live in Rome in the first half of the fourth century. I don’t hear Jesus speaking to Roman legislators about external controls. I hear Him speaking to the ἐκκλησία, those called by God the Father through Jesus Christ to be led by his Holy Spirit. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.^[17] For this and other reasons I still hear Jesus’ use of πορνείας (a form of πορνεία) in Matthew 5:32 and πορνείᾳ in Matthew 19:9 as a reference to the same πορνεῦσαι (a form of πορνεύω, e.g., sexualized worship) He condemned in Revelation 2:20 (NET):

But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and by her teaching deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality (πορνεῦσαι) and to eat food sacrificed to idols (εἰδωλόθυτα, a form of εἰδωλόθυτον).

Such sexualized worship was the bane of Israel’s descendents from the beginning of their existence as a nation: So do not be idolaters (εἰδωλολάτραι, a form of εἰδωλολάτρης), as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” And let us not be immoral (πορνεύωμεν, another form of πορνεύω), as some of them were (ἐπόρνευσαν, another form of πορνεύω), and twenty-three thousand died in a single day.^[18] Rather than thinking of it as an abbreviated version of the law it would be far more charitable to assume that sexualized worship was what James had in mind at the Jerusalem Council:

Jesus (NET)

Parallel Greek

James (NET)

Parallel Greek

…to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols…

Revelation 2:20b

πορνεῦσαι καὶ φαγεῖν εἰδωλόθυτα

…to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood…

Acts 15:20 Table

ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν ἀλισγημάτων τῶν εἰδώλων καὶ τῆς πορνείας (a form of πορνεία) καὶ |τοῦ| πνικτοῦ καὶ τοῦ αἵματος

…that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality…

Acts 15:29a

ἀπέχεσθαι εἰδωλοθύτων (another form of εἰδωλόθυτον) καὶ αἵματος καὶ πνικτῶν καὶ πορνείας (a form of πορνεία)

I want to substitute a more literal understanding of ὁμολογεῖ (a form of ὁμολογέω) translated confesses and confess respectively in 1 John 4:1-3 (NET):

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that [speaks the same as] Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not [speak the same as] Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.

To that extent that the religious mind encourages us to reform our own behavior rather than to rely on the fruit of the Holy Spirit, it is the spirit of antichrist no matter how well-intentioned the mouthpiece. Suspicious of the Gospel I tried to be good first to prove that I was, failing that, I tried because “God will get you if you don’t watch out.” My fear was flight from rather than toward God. And yet, in that dark foreboding I became most aware of His forgiveness and patience. Paul put it this way for Timothy (1 Timothy 1:15, 16 NET):

This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” – and I am the worst of them! But here is why I was treated with mercy: so that in me as the worst, Christ Jesus could demonstrate his utmost patience, as an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life [Table].

Amanda Bynes delivers one of the funniest and most poignant lines in the movie Easy A: “Jesus tells us to love everyone. I mean, even the whores and the homosexuals, but it’s just so hard. It’s so hard because they keep doing it over and over again.” An attitude of forgiveness toward others flows from the love that comes from the Holy Spirit. Still, Jesus said, the one who is forgiven little loves little.^[19] One who is forgiven much is forgiven often for the same offense, sometimes many more than seven times a day. And that experience is far more persuasive than any threat (Matthew 18:34, 35 NET):

And in anger his lord turned him over to the prison guards to torture [the unforgiving slave] until he repaid all he owed. So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.

In that sacred space of loving forgiveness the truth began to dawn on me that not only the desire and effort were God’s but the fulfillment of his desire and his effort was his as well, the kingdom, the power and the glory. I’ll substitute the same literal understanding I used above for ὁμολογήσῃς (another form of ὁμολογέω) translated confess, and ὁμολογεῖται (another form of ὁμολογέω) translated confesses in Romans 10:9, 10 (NET):

…if you [speak the same as Jesus] with your mouth that Jesus is Lord^[20] [e.g., y^ehôvâh as opposed to a Lord or Sir] and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness [πιστεύεται εἰς δικαιοσύνην; literally, “believes unto righteousness”] and with the mouth one [speaks the same as Jesus] and thus has salvation [ὁμολογεῖται εἰς σωτηρίαν; literally, “speaks the same as Jesus unto salvation”].

Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 3

Back to Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited, Part 6

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 11

Back to Who Am I? Part 8

Back to Romans, Part 90

Back to A Door of Hope, Part 1

Back to Christianity, Part 13

^[1] Matthew 19:4 (NET) Table

^[2] Romans 1:27 (NET) Table

^[3] Hebrews 13:4 (NET)

^[4] Leviticus 18:22a (NET) Table

^[5] Leviticus 18:8 (NET) Table

^[6] 1 Corinthians 2:2 (NET) Table

^[7] Acts 15:10 (NET)

^[8] Romans 3:22 (NET)

^[9] Romans 13:10b (NET)

^[10] Romans 3:31 (NET)

^[11] Matthew 5:32b (NAB) Table

^[12] Romans 11:32 (NET)

^[13] Romans 3:19 (NET)

^[14] Ezra 9:15 (NET)

^[15] Psalm 46:10 (NET)

^[16] John 3:7 (NET)

^[17] Romans 8:14 (NET)

^[18] 1 Corinthians 10:7, 8 (NET)

^[19] Luke 7:47b (NET)

^[20] NET note 10: Or “the Lord.” The Greek construction, along with the quotation from Joel 2:32 in v. 13 (in which the same “Lord” seems to be in view) suggests that κύριον (kurion) is to be taken as “the Lord,” that is, Yahweh. Cf. D. B. Wallace, “The Semantics and Exegetical Significance of the Object-Complement Construction in the New Testament,” GTJ 6 (1985): 91-112.

Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited, Part 3

Posted on October 7, 2016 by admin

The movie Spotlight is named after a team of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe. They pierce a smokescreen of secrecy—fueled by police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, businessmen, civil servants, their own bosses and colleagues, even their own subconscious desires to protect the reputation of the Catholic Church—to shine a spotlight on priests’ abuse of children, both sexual and spiritual, in articles published in 2002. There are spoilers here. Though the film is based on actual events and people, I’m writing about characters in a movie, including the Catholic Church.

The scope of investigative journalist Mike Rezendes’ (Mark Ruffalo) research is broadened by phone conversations with Richard Sipe (Richard Jenkins – voice only), a psychiatrist and former priest, who treated pedophile priests during the last half of the 1960’s. I quote one of their conversations, more personal than professional.

“Richard, do you still go to mass?” Mike asks.

“No. No, I haven’t been to church for some time now. But I still consider myself a Catholic.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, the church is an institution, Mike, made of men. It’s passing. My faith is in the eternal. I try to separate the two.”

“Sounds tricky.”

“It is,” Richard agrees.

Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) presides over a shell game in the Boston Archdiocese, moving pedophile priests from parish to parish. A super at the end of Spotlight reads, “In December 2002, Cardinal Law resigned from the Boston Archdiocese. He was reassigned to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, one of the highest ranking Roman Catholic churches in the world.”

The producers expect us to feel a certain way about that fact. I want to use it to distinguish church—a not-for-profit business—from what I’ll call ἐκκλησία, those called by God through Jesus Christ to be led by his Holy Spirit. Cardinal Law was promoted by the church. He was a company man defending it from scandal. Richard says: “the secretary-canonist for the papal nuncio…co-authored a report warning pedophile priests were a billion-dollar liability” sixteen years earlier than the present in the film. But this faithfulness to the church doesn’t work out so well for the ἐκκλησία, especially the little ones Jesus mentioned (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:1, 2).

Spotlight editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) threatens attorney Eric Macleish (Billy Crudup)—who profited settling child abuse cases against the Church privately—for information and confirmation: “We’ve got two stories here. We’ve got a story about degenerate clergy, and we’ve got a story about a bunch of lawyers turning child abuse into a cottage industry. Now, which story do you want us to write?” Later however Robby admits regretfully:

“We had all the pieces. Why didn’t we get it sooner?…Macleish sent us a letter on 20 priests, years ago…We buried the story in Metro. No folo.”

“That was you,” Robby’s boss Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery) says. “You were Metro.”

“Yeah. That was me. I’d just taken over. I don’t remember it at all. But yeah…”

Paul was concerned with both, the church and the ἐκκλησία, without distinguishing between the two.

church

ἐκκλησία

When any of you has a legal dispute with another, does he dare go to court before the unrighteous rather than before the saints?….So if you have ordinary lawsuits, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame! Is there no one among you wise enough to settle disputes between fellow Christians? Instead, does a Christian sue a Christian, and do this before unbelievers?

1 Corinthians 6:1, 4-6 (NET)

The fact that you have lawsuits among yourselves demonstrates that you have already been defeated. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? But you yourselves wrong and cheat, and you do this to your brothers and sisters!

1 Corinthians 6:7, 8 (NET)

His most beautiful words to the ἐκκλησία and to the church are his words on love. In his letter to the Corinthians love was presented as one way, albeit, a way that is beyond comparison,^[1] a more excellent way (KJV), a still more excellent way (ESV), a way of life that is best of all (NLV), the most excellent way (NIV), the same way Jesus preached in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5:13-48 NET). In his letter to the Romans Paul presented love as the only way (Romans 13:8-10 NET):

Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” (and if there is any other commandment) are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Cleary, the love of natural humans will not fulfill the law. We must all be born from above^[2] through faith in Jesus Christ, dependent instead on the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe,^[3] the love that is an aspect of the fruit of his Holy Spirit. I’ll continue contrasting Paul’s regime in 1 Corinthians 5 to Jesus’ regime in Revelation 2:18-29.

Paul’s Regime

Jesus’ Regime

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast (ζύμη) affects the whole batch of dough?

1 Corinthians 5:6 (NET)

But to the rest of you in Thyatira, all who do not hold to this teaching (who have not learned the so-called “deep secrets of Satan”), to you I say: I do not put any additional burden on you. However, hold on to what you have until I come.

Revelation 2:24, 25 (NET)

Clean out the old yeast (ζύμην, another form of ζύμη) so that you may be a new batch of dough – you are, in fact, without yeast (ἄζυμοι, a form of ἄζυμος). For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. So then, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast (ζύμῃ, another form of ζύμη), the yeast (ζύμῃ, another form of ζύμη) of vice and evil, but with the bread without yeast (ἀζύμοις, another form of ἄζυμος), the bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:7, 8 (NET)

Not good your boasting (or, glorying, KJV, NKJV), Paul wrote. The Greek word translated good is καλὸν (a form of καλός). This is the beautiful good of Jesus’ works. What follows is a quote from an article by George Long in William Smith’s “A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,” defining incestum in Roman law:

If a man married a woman whom it was forbidden for him to marry by positive morality (moribus), he was said to commit incestum (Dig. 23 tit. 2 s39). Such a marriage was in fact no marriage, for the necessary connubium between the parties was wanting. Accordingly, incestum is the sexual connection of a male and a female, whether under the form of marriage or not, if such persons cannot marry by reason of consanguinity.

There was no connubium between persons related by blood in the direct line, as parents and children. If such persons contracted a marriage it was Nefariae et Incestae nuptiae. There was no connubium between persons who stood in the relation of parent and child by adoption, not even after the adopted child was emancipated.

With this in mind I would say it was the most likely meaning of the kind of immorality that is not permitted even among the Gentiles.^[4] A man cohabiting with his father’s wife, was against the law, Roman law as well as y^ehôvâh’s law. In other words, it was a circumstance not unlike those in the movie Spotlight. Would anyone consider the conspiratorial cover-up revealed in Spotlight a beautiful good?

Of course, now I need to consider whether turn this man over to Satan (σατανᾷ, a form of Σατανᾶς; adversary) was simply an instruction to turn him over to Roman authorities in the city of Corinth. But I reject that notion just as quickly. Roman authorities had no interest in the blasphemy of Hymenaeus and Alexander. I find no guilt in him,^[5] Pilate said of Jesus, while the Jewish authorities had Him dead to rights for blasphemy (Matthew 26:25, Mark 14:63, Luke 22:71 NET) if He is not y^ehôvâh, the Son of God the Father.

Don’t you know that a little yeast (ζύμη) affects the whole batch of dough?^[6] Paul continued. Yes, that is exactly how Jesus expected his teaching to work in and through those who are called according to his purpose:^[7] He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast (ζύμῃ) that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen.”^[8] To be fair Paul wasn’t writing about Jesus’ teaching. He wrote about the yeast (ζύμῃ, another form of ζύμη) of vice and evil. He’d already been-there-done-that as far as Jesus’ teaching was concerned. In 1 Corinthians he was scrambling to put the toothpaste^[9] back in the tube.

I need to pause to spell out what I’m actually thinking. That is the main purpose of these essays, after all, to remind me what I was thinking as I did a particular word study. As I worked on this one I stumbled across a website by Sherry Shriner. She uses many of the Scriptures I use to assert that “The Apostle Paul Was A Deceiver! He was Satan In The Flesh! An Antichrist!”^[10] I’m not asserting that at all, only that Paul is a human being, born from above, led by the Holy Spirit, struggling at times with the sinfulness of his own flesh or with overcoming his own religion, which he characterized as my own righteousness derived from the law.^[11]

More to the point here in 1 Corinthians 5 I think he struggled with 1) the repercussions of changing^[12] his manner of teaching—When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come with superior eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony of God. For I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified^[13]—and, 2) his allegiance to James’ abbreviated version of the law (Acts 15:19, 20 NET) from the Jerusalem Council—As [Paul, Silas and Timothy] went through the towns, they passed on the decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the Gentile believers to obey.^[14] I think what the NET translators called a Corinthian slogan—All things are lawful for me^[15]—was the logical consequence of this teaching. I also think the Corinthians may have been the most sinful people (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NET) to be called to that time—but called they were (Acts 18:9-11 NET):

The Lord said to Paul by a vision in the night, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent, because I am with you, and no one will assault you to harm you, because I have many people in this city” [Table]. So he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

According to Kyle Harper: “Prostitution [πορνεία; sex with “slaves, prostitutes, and concubines”] was considered a social necessity, an alternative to the violation of respectable women [μοιχεία], in the Roman Empire no less than in classical Greece.” But “πορνεία was not a common term before Judaism and Christianity infused it with new meaning.”^[16] “Πορνεία in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs functions,” Mr. Harper continued, “as a catchall vice for any sexual transgression….Reuben was guilty of πορνεία for sleeping with Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, because his father had been in the same bed….”^[17] The thought that Paul derived his understanding of πορνεία from a book of fiction sent me to bed for a time.

When I got back to work I realized that the language of popular fiction^[18] might well reflect the common word usage of a people and a time. I realized we are not told whether the man who had his father’s wife was a Jew or proselyte who might be familiar with a usage of πορνεία that would include incestum, or a pagan more familiar with πορνεία as sex with slaves, prostitutes or concubines. I don’t know whether Paul assumed his hearers understood the breadth of πορνεία that may have been common in Second Temple Judaism or taught it explicitly in Corinth. I know Paul wrote a sin list in his letter to the Galatians (5:19-21a NET):

NET

Parallel Greek

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things.

φανερὰ δέ ἐστιν τὰ ἔργα τῆς σαρκός, ἅτινα ἐστιν πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, ἀσέλγεια, εἰδωλολατρία, φαρμακεία, ἔχθραι, ἔρις, ζῆλος, θυμοί, ἐριθεῖαι, διχοστασίαι, αἱρέσεις, φθόνοι, |φόνοι,| μέθαι, κῶμοι καὶ τὰ ὅμοια τούτοις

In the Textus Receptus this list begins with μοιχεία (adultery). But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, Jesus said, and these things defile a person. For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality (πορνεῖαι, another form of πορνεία), theft, false testimony, slander.^[19] And, For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality (πορνεῖαι, another form of πορνεία), theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly.^[20]

Jesus’ Sin Lists in Greek
Matthew 5:19	Mark 7:21, 22
διαλογισμοὶ πονηροί, φόνοι, μοιχεῖαι, πορνεῖαι, κλοπαί, ψευδομαρτυρίαι, βλασφημίαι	διαλογισμοὶ οἱ κακοὶ ἐκπορεύονται, πορνεῖαι, κλοπαί, φόνοι, μοιχεῖαι, πλεονεξίαι, πονηρίαι, δόλος, ἀσέλγεια, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός, βλασφημία, ὑπερηφανία, ἀφροσύνη

These sin lists alter the landscape considerably. It is not possible for the words πορνείας^[21] (another form of πορνεία) or πορνείαν^[22] (another form of πορνεία) from James’ abbreviated version of the law to stand for every defilement that comes from the human heart, every work of the flesh. Frankly, I think all of this happened in space and time to push Paul, the human author of so much of the New Testament commentary on the Gospel, to abandon his allegiance to this decision of the Jerusalem Council and to hear better words and gain a better understanding. And I think these events are recorded in Scripture so that we would see how much better these words and this understanding actually are (Romans 7:7, 12; 3:19-24, 31 NET):

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold the law.

Confronted with a Corinthian man who had his father’s wife, Paul turned to Satan for help. Confronted with pedophile priests, the Catholic Church turned to psychologists and psychiatrists.^[23] Spotlight, perhaps it is unnecessary to say, is not a movie about the amazing power of psychologists and psychiatrists to take away the sin of pedophile priests.

On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away (αἴρων, a form of αἴρω) the sin of the world!”^[24]

For far too long I believed that meant forgiveness only. I didn’t believe that, Everyone who has been fathered by God does not practice sin, because God’s seed resides in him, and thus he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God.^[25] I didn’t believe that all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.^[26] I thought it was all up to me: my faith, my obedience, my love, my joy, my peace, my patience, my kindness, my goodness, my faithfulness, my gentleness, and my self-control.

Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited, Part 4

Back to Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 2

Back to Sowing to the Flesh, Part 2

^[1] 1 Corinthians 12:31b (NET)

^[2] John 3:7b (NET)

^[3] Romans 3:22 (NET)

^[4] 1 Corinthians 5:1b (NET) Table

^[5] John 19:6b (ESV)

^[6] 1 Corinthians 5:6b (NET)

^[7] Romans 8:28b (NET)

^[8] Matthew 13:33 (NET)

^[9] Romans, Part 66; Romans, Part 68

^[10] http://www.justgivemethetruth.com/paul_was_a_deceiver.htm

^[11] Philippians 3:9 (NET)

^[12] Paul in Corinth; Romans, Part 2; Paul in Athens

^[13] 1 Corinthians 2:1, 2 (NET) Table

^[14] Acts 16:4 (NET) Table

^[15] 1 Corinthians 6:12a (NET)

^[16] Kyle Harper: “Porneia—The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm;” Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 2 (2012); p. 369; “For all the importance of prostitution in Greek and Roman societies, πορνεία was not a common word. Πορνεία occurs in only four classical authors (by contrast, the word occurs nearly four hundred times in Jewish and Christian literature before 200 c.e., and over eighteen hundred times between 200 and 600 c.e.).” (I cannot link to this article directly, but was able to download it at academia.edu.)

^[17] ibid, p. 372

^[18] What lover of the Old Testament Scriptures wouldn’t want to hear the patriarchs confess their sexual sins according to the law y^ehôvâh delivered at Sinai so many years after the patriarchs themselves died?

^[19] Matthew 15:18, 19 (NET)

^[20] Mark 7:21, 22 (NET)

^[21] Acts 15:20, 29 (NET)

^[22] Acts 21:25 (NET)

^[23] http://www.themediareport.com/2015/11/30/cardinal-law-spotlight-movie/ (I am not the “Dan” who commented on this article, by the way. I just discovered this site researching the current essay.)

^[24] John 1:29 (NET)

^[25] 1 John 3:9 (NET)

^[26] Romans 8:14 (NET)

Romans, Part 41

Posted on February 28, 2013 by admin

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles, Paul continued. Seeing that I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I could provoke my people to jealousy (παραζηλώσω, a form of παραζηλόω)^[1] and save some of them.^[2] Here Paul referred back to the Lord’s prophesy through Moses, I will make you jealous (παραζηλώσω, a form of παραζηλόω) by those who are not a nation; with a senseless nation I will provoke you to anger.^[3]

The complete verse reads, They have made me jealous (Septuagint: παρεζήλωσάν, another form of παραζηλόω) with false gods, enraging me with their worthless gods; so I will make them jealous (Septuagint: παραζηλώσω, a form of παραζηλόω) with a people they do not recognize, with a nation slow to learn I will enrage them.^[4] And so I have the karmic reason: Israel made God jealous with false gods, so He made them jealous with senseless, slow to learn or foolish people. But Paul alluded to a grace reason as well: I ask then, [Israel] did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression [e.g., making God jealous with false gods] salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous (παραζηλῶσαι, another form of παραζηλόω).^[5] And so Paul hoped to provoke [his] people to jealousy (παραζηλώσω, a form of παραζηλόω) and save some of them.

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, Paul continued, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?^[6] Then he said something odd: If the first portion of the dough offered is holy, then the whole batch is holy…^[7] The phrase the first portion of the dough offered is one word in Greek, ἀπαρχὴ,^[8] firstfruits. At first I thought Paul was referencing the firstfruits offering from the law.

You must offer up a cake of the first (rêʼshı̂yth)^[9] of your finely ground flour as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up. You must give to the Lord some of the first (rêʼshı̂yth) of your finely ground flour as a raised offering in your future generations.^[10] But the firstfruits belonged to the priests and their immediate families: All the best of the olive oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat, the first fruits (rêʼshı̂yth) of these things that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. And whatever first ripe fruit in their land they bring to the Lord will be yours; everyone who is ceremonially clean in your household may eat of it.^[11]

So if the whole batch became holy because of the offering of the firstfruits, the people would have starved, because the whole batch would have belonged to the priests and their immediate families. Paul used the word ἀπαρχὴ in another context in 1 Corinthians. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits (ἀπαρχὴ)^[12] of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits (ἀπαρχὴ); then when Christ comes, those who belong to him.^[13]

So I think Christ was the fristfruits (ἀπαρχὴ) Paul wrote about, and making the whole batch… holy was not something true of, or done by, the law. It is accomplished through Christ. Later in Romans Paul wrote that the people of Israel are dearly loved for the sake of the fathers.^[14] I don’t think he meant that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were of such special merit that their merit would be extended to their descendants. I think he referenced the promises the Lord Jesus made to them, about their descendents, as Yahweh. As Paul wrote earlier, Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: “so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged.”^[15]

And Paul continued, if the root is holy, so too are the branches.^[16] Here again the Lord Jesus is the root: At that time a root from Jesse will stand like a signal flag for the nations. Nations will look to him for guidance, and his residence will be majestic. At that time the sovereign master will again lift his hand to reclaim the remnant of his people…^[17] The Lord Jesus is holy and all who spring forth from him are holy, too.

Then Paul began to describe the attitude Gentile believers should have toward the people of Israel. Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and participated in the richness of the olive root, do not boast over the branches.^[18] “I am part of a senseless nation grafted in to make Israel jealous!” is not much to brag about anyway. But if you boast, Paul continued, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. Then you will say, “The branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”^[19] Here is a good place to review why the branches were broken off (Jeremiah 11:15-17 NET).

The Lord says to the people of Judah, “What right do you have to be in my temple, my beloved people? Many of you have done wicked things. Can your acts of treachery be so easily canceled by sacred offerings that you take joy in doing evil even while you make them? I, the Lord, once called you a thriving olive tree, one that produced beautiful fruit. But I will set you on fire, fire that will blaze with a mighty roar. Then all your branches will be good for nothing. For though I, the Lord who rules over all, planted you in the land, I now decree that disaster will come on you because the nations of Israel and Judah have done evil and have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal.”

Granted! Paul continued. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but fear (φοβοῦ, a form of φοβέω)!^[20] This word φοβοῦ in this form occurs most often in the New Testament as the divine greeting to the fearful flesh of Adam: Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ)!^[21] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ), Zechariah…^[22] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ), Mary…^[23] Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ)…”^[24] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ), little flock…^[25] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ), people of Zion…^[26] The Lord said to Paul by a vision in the night, “Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ)…”^[27] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ), Paul!^[28] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ) of the things you are about to suffer.^[29] But Paul used it twice in Romans to say, But if you do wrong, be in fear (φοβοῦ)…^[30] For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you.^[31]

I must be an adulteress ^[32] at heart. I can’t count how many times I came to this place in Paul’s letter to the Romans, ignored everything I had heard thus far, and ran back to the law. It was like an all-consuming lust that blinded me and made me deaf to everything Paul had said about the law: For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous.^[33]

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe.^[34]

For we consider that a person is declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law.^[35] Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold the law.^[36] For the law brings wrath…^[37] Now the law came in so that the transgression may increase…^[38] For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not!^[39]

Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.^[40]

Despite all this when Paul said, Do not be arrogant, but fear (φοβοῦ), I fled in terror from Jesus my Savior back to the law. A Baal worshiper may have thought that he was worshipping the true God. I’m sure I did at the time. A Baal worshiper may have thought that he had found a better god. But I was worshiping myself and my own ability to keep the law, even after years of practical experience and empirical proofs that I could not keep it. Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ); just believe.^[41] Do not be afraid (φοβοῦ); just believe…^[42]

Notice therefore the kindness and harshness of God, Paul continued, harshness toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And even they – if they do not continue in their unbelief – will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?^[43]

Romans, Part 42

^[2] Romans 11:13, 14 (NET)

^[3] Romans 10:19 (NET) Table

^[4] Deuteronomy 32:21 (NET) Table

^[5] Romans 11:11 (NET)

^[6] Romans 11:15 (NET)

^[7] Romans 11:16a (NET)

^[10] Numbers 15:20, 21 (NET)

^[11] Numbers 18:12, 13 (NET)

^[13] 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 (NET)

^[14] Romans 11:28b (NET)

^[15] Romans 3:4 (NET)

^[16] Romans 11:16b (NET)

^[17] Isaiah 11:10, 11a (NET)

^[18] Romans 11:17, 18a (NET)

^[19] Romans 11:18b, 19 (NET)

^[20] Romans 11:20 (NET)

^[21] Revelation 1:17 (NET)

^[22] Luke 1:13 (NET)

^[23] Luke 1:30 (NET)

^[24] Luke 5:10 (NET)

^[25] Luke 12:32 (NET)

^[26] John 12:15 (NET)

^[27] Acts 18:9 (NET)

^[28] Acts 27:24 (NET)

^[29] Revelation 2:10 (NET)

^[30] Romans 13:4 (NET)

^[31] Romans 11:21 (NET)

^[32] Is Sin Less Than Sin? Part 4

^[33] Romans 2:13 (NET)

^[34] Romans 3:19-22a (NET)

^[35] Romans 3:28 (NET) Table

^[36] Romans 3:31 (NET)

^[37] Romans 4:15a (NET)

^[38] Romans 5:20a (NET)

^[39] Romans 6:14, 15 (NET)

^[40] Romans 7:1-6 (NET)

^[41] Mark 5:36 (NET)

^[42] Luke 8:50 (NET)

^[43] Romans 11:22-24 (NET)

Romans, Part 37

Posted on January 26, 2013 by admin

Brothers and sisters, Paul continued, my heart’s desire (εὐδοκία)^[1] and prayer to God on behalf of my fellow Israelites is for their salvation.^[2] This sounds to me like the justice Paul nagged the Lord about, something he would always pray and not lose heart^[3] over. But the Greek word translated desire leads rather inexorably to Jesus’ strange prayer of praise and the revelation of his Father’s gracious will: I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed (ἀπεκάλυψας, a form of ἀποκαλύπτω)^[4] them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will (εὐδοκία).^[5] I recognize the pattern:

MERCY

WRATH

So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy…

Romans 9:18 (NET)

…and he hardens whom he chooses to harden.

Romans 9:18 (NET)

[God] is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory

Romans 9:23 (NET)

God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction

Romans 9:22 (NET)

[Those] who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith

Romans 9:30 (NET)

[Those] even though pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it….Because they pursued it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works

Romans 9:31, 32 (NET)

[The] Lord of heaven and earth…[has] revealed [these things] to little children [KJV, babes]

Matthew 11:25 (NET)

[The] Lord of heaven and earth…[has] hidden these things from the wise and intelligent

Matthew 11:25 (NET)

So Jesus praised his Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, because his followers were neither wise nor intelligent, but like little children. And little children might be overstating the case. The Greek word νηπίοις^[6] is a compound of νη (not) and ἔπος^[7] (a word), not speaking, an infant. But with that I begin to understand. The wise and intelligent believe they know how, and expect, to do it for themselves. Infants trust and expect someone who loves them to provide for them and, in fact, do it for them.

For I can testify that they are zealous for God, Paul continued, but their zeal is not in line with the truth (ἐπίγνωσιν, a form of ἐπίγνωσις).^[8] The word translated truth here was translated knowledge in, For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge (ἐπίγνωσιν) of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…^[9] This truth or knowledge is the noun form of the verb ἐπιγινώσκω.^[10] All things have been handed over to me by my Father, Jesus continued. No one knows (ἐπιγινώσκει, a form of ἐπιγινώσκω) the Son except the Father, and no one knows (ἐπιγινώσκει, a form of ἐπιγινώσκω) the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides (βούληται, a form of βούλομαι)^[11] to reveal (ἀποκαλύψαι, another form of ἀποκαλύπτω) him.^[12]

For ignoring (ἀγνοοῦντες, a form of ἀγνοέω;^[13] literally being ignorant of, not knowing, misunderstanding) the righteousness that comes from God, Paul continued, and seeking instead to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.^[14] Even after saying that no one knows his Father except those to whom the Son decides to reveal him, Jesus offered to teach the wise and intelligent, the hardened objects of wrath prepared for destruction, saying: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened (πεφορτισμένοι, a form of φορτίζω),^[15] and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.^[16]

I’m reminded of an old hymn^[17] that begins, “Would you be free from the burden of sin?” But I think in this case Jesus was addressing those who were weary and burdened pursuing a law of righteousness, seeking instead to establish their own righteousness. They didn’t tend to think of themselves as having a burden of sin. That was for others who didn’t work as hard as they did pursuing a law of righteousness. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load (φορτίον)^[18] is not hard to carry,^[19] Jesus concluded, relative to the load they were already carrying.

They tie up heavy loads (φορτία, a form of φορτίον), hard to carry, He said of the experts in the law and the Pharisees,^[20] and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move (κινῆσαι, a form of κινέω) [or, remove]^[21]) them.^[22] Woe to you experts in religious law, Jesus said. You load (φορτίζετε, another form of φορτίζω) people down with burdens (phortion, φορτίον; specifically φορτία) difficult to bear, yet you yourselves refuse to touch the burdens (φορτίοις, another form of φορτίον) with even one of your fingers!”^[23]

For Christ is the end (τέλος)^[24] of the law, with the result that there is righteousness for everyone who believes,^[25] Paul concluded. I certainly don’t believe that it is necessary to interpret the word τέλος as a termination here, putting Paul into direct conflict with the Lord Jesus: I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place.^[26] To interpret τέλος in the sense of aim or purpose of the law is much more in keeping with Paul’s own understanding that 1) the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good;^[27] 2) he himself would not have known sin except through the law;^[28] 3) though no one is declared righteous before [God] by the works of the law, the law has an ongoing usefulness in that through the law comes the knowledge of sin;^[29] and 4) we do not nullify the law through faith; Instead we uphold the law.^[30]

Romans, Part 38

Back to Romans, Part 39

Back to Fear – Exodus, Part 1

Back to Son of God – John, Part 4

Back to Romans, Part 46

Back to Saving Demons, Part 2

^[2] Romans 10:1 (NET) Table

^[3] Luke 18:1 (NET)

^[5] Matthew 11:25, 26 (NET)

^[8] Romans 10:2 (NET)

^[9] Colossians 1:9 (NET)

^[12] Matthew 11:27 (NET)

^[14] Romans 10:3 (NET)

^[16] Matthew 11:28, 29 (NET)

^[17] “There Is Power in the Blood,” by Lewis E. Jones, 1899 http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/There_Is_Power_in_the_Blood/

^[19] Matthew 11:30 (NET)

^[20] Matthew 23:2 (NET)

^[21] Therefore, remember from what high state you have fallen and repent! Do the deeds you did at the first; if not, I will come to you and remove (κινήσω, another form of κινέω) your lampstand from its place – that is, if you do not repent. (Revelation 2:5 NET)

^[22] Matthew 23:4 (NET)

^[23] Luke 11:46 (NET)

^[25] Romans 10:4 (NET)

^[26] Matthew 5:18 (NET)

^[27] Romans 7:12 (NET)

^[28] Romans 7:7 (NET)

^[29] Romans 3:20 (NET)

^[30] Romans 3:31 (NET)

Romans, Part 22

Posted on October 6, 2012 by admin

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous (Δικαιωθέντες, a form of δικαιόω) by faith (πίστεως, a form of πίστις), we have peace (εἰρήνην, a form of εἰρήνη) with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,¹ Paul continued. Jesus said, When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his possessions are safe (ἐν εἰρήνῃ; literally, “in peace”).² I take that to mean that one aspect of εἰρήνην with God is security or safety. The word also meant the typical cessation of hostilities. Jesus described a king going to battle, realizing he will not succeed, he will send a representative while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace (εἰρήνην, a form of εἰρήνη).³ But Jesus took great pains to warn his followers what peace with God was not (Luke 12:51-53 NET).

Do you think I have come to bring peace (εἰρήνην, a form of εἰρήνη) on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! For from now on there will be five in one household divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against⁴ son and son against father, mother against daughter⁵ and daughter against mother,⁶ mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.⁷

Do not think that I have come to bring peace (εἰρήνην, a form of εἰρήνη) to the earth, Jesus said. I have not come to bring peace (εἰρήνην, a form of εἰρήνη) but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.⁸ It is hard to imagine anything more divisive than Jesus’ exclusive claim, I am the way, and the truth, and the life.⁹ He did not say to those of the East, I know the way. He did not say to those of the West, I know the truth. He did not say to Israel, I know the life. He said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.¹⁰

Jesus was not a good man. He was clearly insane or He was Yahweh come in human flesh just as He claimed: I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am!¹¹ He continued as recorded by Matthew to give his followers instruction in light of the division He had come to bring to families: Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life because of me will find it.¹²

I have told you these things, Jesus comforted his followers, so that in me you may have peace (εἰρήνην, a form of εἰρήνη). In the world you have trouble and suffering (θλῖψιν, a form of θλίψις), but take courage – I have conquered (νενίκηκα, a form of νικάω) the world.¹³ Peace is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, flowing from God through his Spirit to each and every believer. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace (εἰρήνη), patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law [Table].¹⁴

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, Paul wrote the Romans, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access by faith (πίστει, another form of πίστις) into this grace (χάριν, a form of χάρις) in which we stand (ἑστήκαμεν, a form of ἵστημι), and we rejoice (καυχώμεθα, a form of καυχάομαι) in the hope (ἐλπίδι, a form of ἐλπίς) of God’s glory (δόξης, a form of δόξα).¹⁵

Boasting or glorying (καύχησις) in ourselves is excluded…by the principle of faith.¹⁶ It is through Christ that believers have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand; namely, the righteousness of God [Table]¹⁷ by the fruit of his Spirit. So believers boast or rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. This is the glory which was withheld from God when people did not glorify (ἐδόξασαν, a form of δοξάζω) him as God or give him thanks.¹⁸ And believers rejoice in hope because they do not yet see the fullness of this glory in themselves, not merely that they do not praise themselves, nor that they praise God with mere words, but that they glorify Him with lives that are reflections of his gift of righteousness by the fruit of his Spirit.

This grace in which we stand (ἑστήκαμεν, a form of ἵστημι) was difficult for me to comprehend. It is the same word as uphold in the answer to Paul’s question, Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold (ἱστάνομεν, a form of ἱστάνω) the law.¹⁹ [Addendum March 7, 2024: According to the Koine Greek Lexicon online, ἱστάνομεν is a form of ἱστάνω.] The King James translation had it, we establish the law. I had trouble squaring grace and establishing the law because I thought establishing the law meant an evenhanded application of the punishments for sin listed in Leviticus 20, for instance. I thought the law could not or would not be established or upheld until those punishments were implemented on the whole planet, whether by believers or by Christ Himself I was never quite certain.

I was Abin Cooper from Kevin Smith’s “Red State” (played brilliantly by Michael Parks, by the way) in spirit if not in action (my “faith” was completely devoid of works, thankfully, in this particular case). Long before Kevin Smith penned “Red State” the Lord used Nietzsche’s hot wind to unmask me. “And again, there are those who hold it a virtue to say: ‘Virtue is necessary’: but fundamentally they believe only that the police are necessary.”²⁰ I argued for a time that Nietzsche had not aptly described me, but lost that argument in the end. “Sometimes when you lose, you win.”²¹ Once I acknowledged that I didn’t know what it meant to uphold or establish the law, I began to learn.

We who through Jesus Christ have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand do not glorify God or uphold his law by seeking to punish evildoers, but by demonstrating the love that is the fulfillment of the law.²²

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing [Table]. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit [Table]. Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside [Table]. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when what is perfect comes, the partial will be set aside [Table]. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But²³ when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.²⁴

And the fruit of the Spirit is love…²⁵

Addendum: March 7, 2024
According to a note (69) in the NET, Jesus alluded to Micah 7:6. A table comparing the Greek of Micah 7:6 with Matthew 10:35b, 36 follows.

Matthew 10:35b, 36 (NET Parallel Greek)	Micah 7:6 (BLB Septuagint)	Micah 7:6 (Elpenor Septuagint)
ἄνθρωπον κατὰ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ θυγατέρα κατὰ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτῆς καὶ νύμφην κατὰ τῆς πενθερᾶς αὐτῆς, (36) καὶ ἐχθροὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οἱ οἰκιακοὶ αὐτοῦ	διότι υἱὸς ἀτιμάζει πατέρα θυγάτηρ ἐπαναστήσεται ἐπὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτῆς νύμφη ἐπὶ τὴν πενθερὰν αὐτῆς ἐχθροὶ ἀνδρὸς πάντες οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ	διότι υἱὸς ἀτιμάζει πατέρα, θυγάτηρ ἐπαναστήσεται ἐπὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτῆς, νύμφη ἐπὶ τὴν πενθερὰν αὐτῆς, ἐχθροὶ πάντες ἀνδρὸς οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ
Matthew 10:35b, 36 (NET)	Micah 7:6 (NETS)	Micah 7:6 (English Elpenor)
a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, (36) and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.	for a son dishonors a father, a daughter shall rise up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; the enemies of a man are the men in his house.	For the son dishonours his father, the daughter will rise up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: those in his house [shall be] all a man’s enemies.

Tables comparing Micah 7:6 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and comparing Micah 7:6 in the BLB and Elpenor versions of the Septuagint with the English translations from Hebrew and Greek, and tables comparing the Greek of Luke 12:53; Matthew 10:36 and 1 Corinthians 13:11 the NET and KJV follow.

Micah 7:6 (Tanakh)	Micah 7:6 (KJV)	Micah 7:6 (NET)
For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.	For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.	For a son thinks his father is a fool, a daughter challenges her mother, and a daughter-in-law her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are his own family.

Micah 7:6 (BLB Septuagint)	Micah 7:6 (Elpenor Septuagint)
διότι υἱὸς ἀτιμάζει πατέρα θυγάτηρ ἐπαναστήσεται ἐπὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτῆς νύμφη ἐπὶ τὴν πενθερὰν αὐτῆς ἐχθροὶ ἀνδρὸς πάντες οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ	διότι υἱὸς ἀτιμάζει πατέρα, θυγάτηρ ἐπαναστήσεται ἐπὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτῆς, νύμφη ἐπὶ τὴν πενθερὰν αὐτῆς, ἐχθροὶ πάντες ἀνδρὸς οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ
Micah 7:6 (NETS)	Micah 7:6 (English Elpenor)
for a son dishonors a father, a daughter shall rise up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; the enemies of a man are the men in his house.	For the son dishonours his father, the daughter will rise up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: those in his house [shall be] all a man’s enemies.

Luke 12:53 (NET)	Luke 12:53 (KJV)
They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”	The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Luke 12:53 (NET Parallel Greek)	Luke 12:53 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	Luke 12:53 (Byzantine Majority Text)
διαμερισθήσονται πατὴρ ἐπὶ υἱῷ καὶ υἱὸς ἐπὶ πατρί, μήτηρ ἐπὶ \|τὴν\| θυγατέρα καὶ θυγάτηρ ἐπὶ τὴν μητέρα, πενθερὰ ἐπὶ τὴν νύμφην αὐτῆς καὶ νύμφη ἐπὶ τὴν πενθεράν	διαμερισθησεται πατηρ εφ υιω και υιος επι πατρι μητηρ επι θυγατρι και θυγατηρ επι μητρι πενθερα επι την νυμφην αυτης και νυμφη επι την πενθεραν αυτης	διαμερισθησεται πατηρ επι υιω και υιος επι πατρι μητηρ επι θυγατρι και θυγατηρ επι μητρι πενθερα επι την νυμφην αυτης και νυμφη επι την πενθεραν αυτης

Matthew 10:36 (NET)	Matthew 10:36 (KJV)
and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.	And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Matthew 10:36 (NET Parallel Greek)	Matthew 10:36 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	Matthew 10:36 (Byzantine Majority Text)
καὶ ἐχθροὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οἱ οἰκιακοὶ αὐτοῦ	και εχθροι του ανθρωπου οι οικιακοι αυτου	και εχθροι του ανθρωπου οι οικειακοι αυτου

1 Corinthians 13:11 (NET)	1 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways.	When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

1 Corinthians 13:11 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Corinthians 13:11 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Corinthians 13:11 (Byzantine Majority Text)
ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος, ἐλάλουν ὡς νήπιος, ἐφρόνουν ὡς νήπιος, ἐλογιζόμην ὡς νήπιος· ὅτε γέγονα ἀνήρ, κατήργηκα τὰ τοῦ νηπίου	οτε ημην νηπιος ως νηπιος ελαλουν ως νηπιος εφρονουν ως νηπιος ελογιζομην οτε δε γεγονα ανηρ κατηργηκα τα του νηπιου	οτε ημην νηπιος ως νηπιος ελαλουν ως νηπιος εφρονουν ως νηπιος ελογιζομην οτε δε γεγονα ανηρ κατηργηκα τα του νηπιου

Romans, Part 23

Back to The Life

Back to Antichrist, Part 1

Back to Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 13

Back to Forgiven or Passed Over? Part 6

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 6

¹ Romans 5:1 (NET)

² Luke 11:21 (NET)

³ Luke 14:32 (NET)

⁴ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had ἐπὶ here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had εφ.

⁵ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had |τὴν| θυγατέρα here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had θυγατρι (KJV: the daughter).

⁶ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had τὴν μητέρα here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had μητρι (KJV: the mother).

⁷ The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had αυτης (KJV: her) following mother-in-law. The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

⁸ Matthew 10:34-36 (NET) The NET parallel Greek text, NA²⁸ and Stephanus Textus Receptus had οἰκιακοὶ here, where the Byzantine Majority Text had οικειακοι.

⁹ John 14:6a (NET)

¹⁰ John 14:6 (NET)

¹¹ John 8:58 (NET) Table

¹² Matthew 10:37-39 (NET)

¹³ John 16:33 (NET)

¹⁴ Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

¹⁵ Romans 5:1, 2 (NET)

¹⁶ Romans 3:27 (NET)

¹⁷ Romans 3:21, 22 (NET)

¹⁸ Romans 1:21 (NET) Table

¹⁹ Romans 3:31 (NET) Table

²⁰ Friedrich Nietzsche, Of the Virtuous, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books, 1975, p. 119

²¹ From the film, “What Dreams May Come”

²² Romans 13:10 (NET)

²³ The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had δε here. The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

²⁴ 1 Corinthians 13 (NET)

²⁵ Galatians 5:22a (NET)

Romans, Part 17

Posted on September 18, 2012 by admin

Where, then, is boasting? Paul continued in Romans. It is excluded! By what principle (νόμου, a form of νόμος)? Of works (ἔργων, a form of ἔργον)? No, but by the principle (νόμου, a form of νόμος) of faith (πίστεως, a form of πίστις)! For¹ we consider (λογιζόμεθα, a form of λογίζομαι) that a person is declared righteous (δικαιοῦσθαι, a form of δικαιόω) by faith (πίστει, another form of πίστις) apart from the works (ἔργων, a form of ἔργον) of the law (νόμου, a form of νόμος).² The NET translators chose principle for the first two occurrences of νόμου (a form of νόμος) in this passage to help the reader distinguish between the “law of faith” that excludes boasting and the works of the law, one’s own efforts to keep God’s law.

It is virtually impossible for me to quote the above passage without recalling James’ letter, a person is justified (δικαιοῦται, another form of δικαιόω) by works (ἔργων, a form of ἔργον) and not by faith (πίστεως, a form of πίστις) alone (μόνον, a form of μόνος).³ I’ve often wondered if James intended to refute or correct Paul. But James didn’t write enough that I can know his intent. So I content myself with attempting to understand the Holy Spirit’s intent. He wrote quite a bit about this subject.

Or is God the God of the Jews only? Paul asked. Is he not the God of the Gentiles too?⁴ Yes, of the Gentiles too! Since God is one, he will justify (δικαιώσει, another form of δικαιόω) the circumcised by faith (πίστεως, a form of πίστις) and the uncircumcised through faith (πίστεως, a form of πίστις) [Table].⁵ It seemed to me that the Holy Spirit’s intent would of necessity be something that both Paul and James described truthfully and accurately. Paul continued to preach justification by and through faith, James stressed works and that one was not justified by faith alone (πιστεως μονον).

I recalled a story when Peter saw, what he thought was, a ghost walking on the water. Have courage! It is I. Do not be afraid,⁶ Jesus said. Peter said to him, “Lord, if it is you, order me to come to you on the water.”⁷ I had heard the story since childhood, but for some reason as I was striving to obey God’s law in my own strength it struck me what a dumb thing that was to say. Why would anyone in his right mind set himself up for that kind of failure? And just as I asked the question, the answer was right in front of me. Peter believed that Jesus’ command would come to pass. If Jesus ordered him to walk on water, he would walk on water. It was a wonderful insight. I could turn back to Exodus 20 and read The Ten Promises as opposed to the ten commandments I was trying so hard to obey on my own, not to mention all of Jesus’ other commandments.

I went off sure that I understood everything now, found out again that I didn’t, and then came back to this story. So [Jesus] said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came⁸ toward Jesus.⁹ Peter may have had that kind of faith, I thought, obviously I did not. But even Peter didn’t fare all that well, when he saw the strong wind he became afraid. And starting to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”¹⁰ So Peter, just like me, got all excited about faith and then made a fool out of himself.

Jesus wouldn’t let me get away with that for very long. I heard a sermon about this story, not a sermon browbeating me to have more faith and stop doubting, a good one. When the preacher read the text—Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”¹¹—this preacher’s attention wasn’t focused on Peter’s failure but on Jesus’ immediate help. Then he said the most revolutionary, life-changing thing I had heard to date, “Jesus had the faith to stand on the water and hold Peter up as well.”

The preacher kept talking but I didn’t hear any more that day. The sermon wasn’t over for me, however. It had only just begun. “You weren’t making fun of Peter, were you?” I prayed. Then Jesus’ question— why did you doubt?—became a real question, my question—Why do I doubt?—and it deserved a real answer. I don’t recall how long it took to get to the bottom of that question, but finally the answer was fairly simple and obvious. I doubted because I was depending on my faith. My faith was pretty good at changing what I thought, but not so good at changing what I did, much less having any effect on the world beyond my mind.

That sounded pretty much like James’ faith alone (πιστεως μονον). So also faith (πίστις), if it does not have works (ἔργα, another form of ἔργον), is dead (νεκρά, a form of νεκρός) being by itself.¹² But Paul didn’t write the Romans about that kind of faith, Do we then nullify (καταργοῦμεν, a form of καταργέω) the law (νόμον, another form of νόμος) through faith (πίστεως, a form of πίστις)? Absolutely not! Instead we uphold (ἱστάνομεν, a form of ἵστημι or ἱστάνω) [See Addendum below] the law (νόμον, another form of νόμος).¹³ Clearly, my faith was dead, being by itself alone. My efforts to obey the law, my works of the law, by my dead faith were meaningless.

I danced around that conclusion for a long time because my religious mind had me convinced that if I acknowledged its truth I would be condemned, rather than that I would have learned something extremely valuable. It is no idle word that Paul proclaimed, There is therefore now no condemnation (κατάκριμα) for those who are in Christ Jesus.¹⁴ I want to call this the absolute baseline of faith in Jesus Christ. Apart from this faith no one can be honest enough to learn anything from the Lord or the Bible.

So if I can’t depend on my faith, whose faith can I depend on? I hope the answer is obvious. I want to depend on Jesus’ faith. He has the faith to stand on the water and hold Peter up as well. How can I have Jesus’ faith? But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (πίστις)…¹⁵ And that is exactly what Paul wrote about in Romans, the righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) of God through the faithfulness (πίστεως, a form of πίστις) of Jesus Christ for all who believe (πιστεύοντας, a form of πιστεύω).¹⁶

Addendum: May 23, 2021
According to the NET ἱστάνομεν (NET: uphold) is a form of ἵστημι. According to the Koine Greek Lexicon online it is a form of ἱστάνω. The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had ιστωμεν (KJV: establish) here.

Tables comparing Romans 3:28; 3:29 and Matthew 14:29 in the NET and KJV follow.

Romans 3:28 (NET)	Romans 3:28 (KJV)
For we consider that a person is declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law.	Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου	λογιζομεθα ουν πιστει δικαιουσθαι ανθρωπον χωρις εργων νομου	λογιζομεθα ουν πιστει δικαιουσθαι ανθρωπον χωρις εργων νομου

Romans 3:29 (NET)	Romans 3:29 (KJV)
Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles too? Yes, of the Gentiles too!	Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ἢ Ἰουδαίων ὁ θεὸς μόνον; οὐχὶ καὶ ἐθνῶν; ναὶ καὶ ἐθνῶν	η ιουδαιων ο θεος μονον ουχι δε και εθνων ναι και εθνων	η ιουδαιων ο θεος μονον ουχι δε και εθνων ναι και εθνων

Matthew 14:29 (NET)	Matthew 14:29 (KJV)
So he said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus.	And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ὁ δὲ εἶπεν· ἐλθέ. καὶ καταβὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ πλοίου [ὁ] Πέτρος περιεπάτησεν ἐπὶ τὰ ὕδατα καὶ ἦλθεν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν	ο δε ειπεν ελθε και καταβας απο του πλοιου ο πετρος περιεπατησεν επι τα υδατα ελθειν προς τον ιησουν	ο δε ειπεν ελθε και καταβας απο του πλοιου ο πετρος περιεπατησεν επι τα υδατα ελθειν προς τον ιησουν