Jesus and the Law

Rodney A. Whitacre reflects on the story of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus (now mostly at John 7:53–8:11):

‘We see Jesus upholding the law’s teaching that adultery is sin while also setting aside the specific regulations concerning the community’s enforcement of that law. The implication is that the law contains revelation of right and wrong, which is true throughout history, as well as commandments for embodying that revelation in the community of God’s people, which are not true for all times and places. To understand this distinction we must understand that the law as revelation of right and wrong is not an arbitrary set of rules that God made up to test our obedience. Rather, the law is the transposition into human society of patterns of relationship that reflect God’s won character. Adultery is wrong because it violates relationships of faithfulness, and such violation is wrong, ultimately, because God himself is characterized by faithfulness. The morality of Scripture is a pattern of life that reflects God’s own life. This aspect of the law is unchanging, but the law’s prescription for how the community is to embody and enforce the revealed vision of relationships may vary.’

Jesus Named and Circumcised

A sermon for the eight day of Christmas, 2023

After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

We are given an identity long before we shape and refashion it by our own decisions and habits.

We are born at a particular time and space which we did not choose, with a body we did not form.

We are born into families or households which we did not choose, into a particular culture that will shape us more than we will ever shape it.

Identity is something all of us are given.

This is true even in a culture like ours which puts so much emphasis on individual choice.

We may have greater freedom to choose a career and lifestyle than previous generations.

We even have a legal right to choose our gender – whatever it is that we mean by that.

But the fact is that in all the decisions we make, we are still at best sculptors of our identities,

sculptors who work with the material given to them.

What is given to us is like a massive granite block, already shaped by culture and circumstances before we put our chisel to it.

We can work with or against the grain of the material but not without it.

 

After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child.

Why?

Because Jesus was born a Jew and Jewish males are circumcised on the eighth day, long before they have any idea of what it might mean to be a boy or a girl, to be Jewish or non-Jewish.

Being born a Jew means, as the apostle Paul put it, being born under the law.

As the boy grows up, there will be decisions to be made whether to live under the law,

whether to receive God’s law joyfully or to accept it grudgingly or to disregard it altogether,

but the man cannot undo the fact that as a boy he was born under the law.

…and he was called Jesus.

Long before we make a conscious decision about the name (and nowadays pronoun) to which we will answer, others will have called us by a name not chosen by us.

For Jesus the name encapsulated the mission entrusted to him: God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

Baby Jesus was circumcised and was given the name Jesus without being asked what he thought about it – just like we were all given a name soon after we were born and were incorporated into a culture or subculture which we did not choose.

 

And yet it was all very different for the Son of God.

Before the first human children were born, God the Son had already  volunteered to come to the rescue of humanity.

Before the first human children were born, God the Son had already decided to be born to Mary and to be given the name of Jesus.

For many generations God the Son had shaped the culture into which He was going to be born.

Before Abraham was, I am, he once said.[1]

He was behind the call of Abraham out of Ur in Chaldea.

He determined and promised that in Abraham’s family all the earth should find blessing.

He met Moses in a fiery bush and called him to prefigure God’s great rescue operation.

He accompanied the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt through the wilderness to Mount Sinai.

While God’s promise is for all peoples and nations, God’s law was given to shape a particular nation.

Some of the commandments, e.g. about circumcision but also about what could and could not be eaten, were specifically given to separate between Jews as God’s covenant people, and non-Jews.

Jesus was born under the law, into a culture shaped by God’s law.

 

But he was born also into a culture shaped by alienation from God and disobedience to His will.

In fact, Paul wrote earlier in this letter to the Galatians that the law was added because of transgressions, namely to show us up as law-breakers and to put us under condemnation.

Because the law had been given to Israel, it was in Israel that sin was identified for what it is.

This does not mean that God’s people necessarily behaved worse than others.

But it was worse for bad things to have been committed by those who had God’s law.

What’s more Paul may be suggesting here that the Law, with the accumulation of sin, had itself become a malignant force, from which oppressed people needed rescuing.

But God’s law cannot undo God’s promise.

The law was a temporary measure until the offspring would come through whom the promise would be realised and who would form one people of God, consisting of both Jews and non-Jews.[2]

 

By being circumcised, Jesus received the mark of God’s covenant with Abraham, the seal of God’s promise. – He came into our world to bring the fulfilment of this promise for all nations.

By being circumcised, Jesus was identified with his people, Israel. – But he came into this world to break down the barrier between Jews and non-Jews.

This was done in accordance with the law so that now, when the fullness of time had come, the one born under the law would redeem those who were under the law.

This may sound a bit like someone being born in a collapsed building so that he could rescue those who were trapped in this building.

In what sense had the law become a trap for us from which we needed rescuing?

Probably in more than one way.

God is one and therefore God’s people should be one – from every tribe and language and nation.

God’s promise to Abraham implies as much but it also designates one family, one nation as the special carrier of God’s blessing.

The law given to Israel shaped Israel as a distinct nation. The trap was that the distinctiveness and separation fed an ethnic pride which drove a wedge between Jews and non-Jews.

The law also makes known God’s character and so reveals to us how to live as those who were created in the image of God, as those who bear God’s name.

But in pointing the way the law did not actually give the strength to live in God’s ways and even incited people to sin.

So we have all become trapped.

All of us who were created in the image of God but failed to live in God’s ways.

All of us who were meant to be children of God but lived as slaves to other forces.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.

God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

Some people use New Year’s Eve as an opportunity to look back and take stock.

• What have I achieved?
• Where have I fallen short?

These can be good questions to ask but above them all stands this:

He was born to rescue those who were under the law.

The redeemed are no longer under the law of reward and punishment,

no longer under any law that measures worth in accomplishments,

no longer under the law that condemns those who fall short of it.

We can be relaxed and therefore address the question of our failure quite honestly.

This is one aspect of our rescue: we can admit to have fallen short

and we can do so without being condemned for it

because he was born to rescue those who were under the law.

 

Some people, as they enter a new year, make new Year’s resolutions

or choose a word of the year as a motto, e.g., ‘persist’.

This can also be a useful practice to help us sculpt our identity further.

But above our plans and schemes let the name of Christ stand: Jesus, God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

Jesus has rescued us from the slavery to sin and death, from the bondage to the elements of this world, from being under the authority of the law

so that we might receive adoption as children.

This is the new identity he gives us: children of God.

By His Spirit we can now cry out to God, ‘Abba! Father!’

We do not read God’s law with the anxiety of those who will be punished if they do not obey

but as children who want to learn about their Father’s priorities and agendas.

He was born under the law so that we would no longer be captive under the law.

He shed his blood, for the first time at his circumcision, so that we would not need to pay for our sins with our own blood.

His name is Jesus, God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.

---

[1] John 8:58.

[2] Gal 3:19.

Mixing and Matching

President Josiah Bartlet:

Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

In another post I point out that there is nothing to suggest that the death penalty was ever applied or expected to be applied in the case of someone planting different crops side by side or wearing garments made from two different threads. The insinuation here that it might is a form of bearing false witness to the biblical text.

But what is the significance of YHWH’s instructions for holy living in Leviticus 19, sandwiched as they are between two chapters which stress that the Israelites must distinguish themselves as holy by following YHWH’s commands and not the nations’ sexual and religious practices? We learn that holiness is not only about abstaining from certain practices but about being discerning in every sphere of life (cf. A Jewish definition of holiness). It means, e.g., engaging in economic practices that are pro-actively helpful to the poor (19:9-10), not just refraining from stealing and defrauding people (19:11). It means not to do harm even when there is little risk of being detected (19:14) and it means judicial impartiality (19:15). It means not only refraining from slander (19:16a) but also being pro-active about helping someone discern the wrong in which they are engaged (19:17). It means not only that one does not jeopardize a neighbour’s life (or allow a neighbour to be victimised, 19:16b, the precise meaning is uncertain) but also not to bear a grudge (19:18, “but love your neighbour as yourself”). And then it also means

“You are to keep my statutes. Do not crossbreed two different kinds of your livestock, sow your fields with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment made of two kinds of material.” (19:19)

According to some Jewish interpreters, “statutes” are “those laws for which no rational justification was obvious. They are to be treated as ‘decrees of the king,’ to be obeyed simply because they come from God. This,” as Ephraim Radner observes, “represents, at best, a pure fellow following of God’s will, at worst a kind of blind obedience. Holiness here is a cleaving to God, but not one imbued with a coherent understanding.” (Leviticus [London: SCM Press, 2008], 213) It may be the equivalent of a football jersey or a school uniform – a marker of identity which is largely arbitrary but not therefore irrelevant. Keeping these statutes may also be a training ground for authentic and faithful performance where it really matters, cf. Hayim Donin’s comments on food laws.

Others, however, do find a rationale. They suggest that the instructions against cross-breeding and mixing different kinds of seeds in one field are about keeping separate what the Creator God had made distinct, “respecting the categories he has established” (Jay Sklar, Leviticus, TOTC [Nottingham: IVP, and Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013], 247, cf. Nahmanides [c.1194-c.1270], going further than the Rabbinic tradition of interpreting the mixing of different kinds of seeds as a prohibition against grafting). Understood in this way, the law could have implications for the ethics of genetic engineering. “But,” as Ephraim Radner notes, “God’s own love, which creates these in their discreet character, also seeks to bring them into the fullness of proximity with him” which leads him to a discussion of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds and Paul’s use of grafting imagery in Rom 11:17-24 (Leviticus, 214)

Sklar notes that the use of different kinds of fabric in making garments is not forbidden but wearing such clothing is. “The rationale may be that some priestly garments were made from mixed fabrics (woollen yarn and linen, Exod. 28:5). Since non-priestly Israelites were forbidden from doing priestly duties (Num. 3:10, 38), this prohibition would have prevented them from heading in that direction (cf. Josephus, Ant. 4.208 [4.8.11]), something the early Israelites were tempted to do (Num. 16:1-40).” (Sklar, Leviticus, 248). The more specific reference to wool and linen in Deut 22:11 supports this. The abrogation of this priesthood and its regulations would mean that this specific command is not directly applicable among the new covenant people although the principle of respecting the calling and ordination of some people to specific ministries remains. Radner suggests, again, that Christ’s passion brings together what had been kept distinct (Leviticus, 215-16). In a more beautiful world a Bishop in the Church of England with a PhD in Old Testament studies would help us explore this further rather than ape President Bartlet’s dismissive attitude to OT law.

Discrimination without Motive

The full transcript of the County Court judgement in the case Gareth Lee v Ashers Bakery illuminates an aspect of the Judge's reasoning which had eluded me when I reflected on the summary statement in my previous post.

The defendants argued that they did not discriminate against Gareth Lee because of his sexual orientation or political beliefs by pointing out that

• regardless of his sexual orientation or political beliefs they would have served Gareth Lee if he had ordered the cake without the message
• they would have refused to fulfill the order for a "Support Gay Marriage" cake, even if the order had been made by "a heterosexual customer".

The Judge did not consdier these fair comparisons "for the reason that it oversimplifies the enquiry" in that it does not take sufficiently into account that discrimination "may be subtle, insidiuous or hidden," even to the discriminator.

Asking for the grounds, the why of discrimination is ambiguous. The question may be about "what caused the treatment in question" or about what was "its motive and purpose." Citing an earlier case, the Judge observes that "the former is important, the latter is not." 

In other words, the question is not whether the bakers were and are happy to serve people of a particular "sexual orientation" or people holding particular political beliefs - we may grant that they are entirely happy to do so - but whether people like Gareth Lee are given unfavourable treatment. 

The comparison must therefore be between a heterosexual customer ordering a "Support Marriage" cake and a homosexual customer ordering a "Support Gay Marriage" cake. The former gets served, the latter does not. This constitutes discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The Judge then cites from Bull and another v Hall and another [2013] UKSC 73

"[37] To permit someone to discriminate on the ground that he did not believe that persons of homosexual orientation should be treated equally with persons of heterosexual orientation would be to create a class of people who were exempt from the discrimination legislation. We would not normally allow people to behave in a way which the law prohibits because they disagree with the law. But to allow discrimination against persons of homosexual orientation (or indeed heterosexual orientation) because of a belief, however sincerely held, and however based on the biblical text, would be to do just that."

The relevance of this is not immediately clear to me. Does this imply and allege that the people at Ashers Bakery do in fact "not believe that persons of homosexual orientation should be treated equally with persons of heterosexual orientation"? Up to this point, I thought the argument was that the claim that the bakers do not hold such a belief was granted but declared irrelevant because in spite of their best intentions "gay customers" (who can be assumed to be in favour of "gay marriage" and willing to promote this with cakes?) are in fact disadvantaged over "heterosexual customers" (who may be presumed to order cakes which say "Support Marriage"?) and hence indirectly discriminated against.

PS: In the second part the QC for the Plaintiff claims that it is possible to discriminate against someone on the grounds of their religious belief or political opinion even without knowing what these are. The Judge rejected the Defendant's claim that they did not know the customer's political opinion but agreed that even if this had been the case, the refusal to bake a cake with the message "Support Gay Marriage" would still have been a case of discrimination on the grounds of politic belief.

Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration

Did Moses and Elijah appear at the transfiguration to represent Law and Prophecy?

"Moses is more than the lawgiver; for he is also prophet prefiguring Him to whom the people will hearken (Deut. xviii, 15), and he is one whose converse with God was mouth to mouth (Num. xii, 8) and face to face (Deut. xxxiv, 10). Elijah is more than the prophet: he is the final precursor of the Messiah, with a unique mission of restoration. Thus by appearing together Moses and Elijah sum up the entire drama of the old order from its beginning to its end: the one is the predecessor, the other is the precursor of the Messiah...But 'mere representativeness is not enough', as Miss Maisie Spens has said. Moses and Elijah were men alive unto God; they had conversed with Him on a mountain; they had served Him and suffered with Him on a mountain; they had served Him and suffered for Him in history, and they had not ceased to be His servants. So now 'they come not as dumb apparitions, but are with Jesus in living intercourse and speak with Him; their presence shews His communion with the heavenly world' (Schlatter)."

Arthur Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (1949; Eugene: Wipf & Stock reprint), pages 114-115.

Later on (pages 130-131) Ramsey points out that a "constantly recurring theme" in patristic homilies and expositions is "the unity of the scriptures."