Turning the Other Cheek: the Background

Previously on Wascana Fellowship 2.0:

With the demise of the Sinai/Deuteronomic Covenant in 586 BC, there needed to be a New Exodus, led by a New Moses. Jesus’ ministry is described by the Gospel writers in terms and symbolism that would be understood in “New Exodus” terms. The Sermon on the Mount becomes, the “Ten Commandments” of Jesus. Jesus plays the role of both Moses, who gathers them, and God, who speaks the terms and conditions of the New Covenant to a people who, while freed from sin, have not yet entered the Promised Land of the Kingdom of God.

Like the previous covenant, the terms and conditions reflect both current circumstances and promises for the future. It reflects the reality that Jesus’ disciples, while soon to be freed from the ultimate penalty for sin, will remain physically captives in a world still under the thrall of Gentile empires. The lack of temporal power (and frequently literal servitude) of the majority of Jesus’ disciples conditions many of the requirements of this covenant.

Before I understood the above, I could make no sense of both the similarities and differences between Old and New Covenants. For instance, the lack of a Sabbath command in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount made no sense until I understood that He was addressing a physically enslaved people who did not control their own country. There could be no universal Sabbath (especially for the land-sabbath) without full territorial sovereignty. Besides this, many Gentile believers would come from the slave classes. Requiring a rest day for believers who were slaves of non-believing Gentiles would have imposed an impossible burden upon them.

Knowing that God tailors the covenant to its current circumstances enables us to see another dimension of His grace. He doesn’t make capricious requirements that automatically put our lives in jeopardy. While this does not completely rule out persecution that leads to death in an individual’s life, it does make sure that the deck is not stacked in favour of immediate and fatal confrontation.

What About “an Eye For an Eye?”

With this in mind, an examination of Jesus’ Ten Commandments proper displays this thread of avoidance of direct, fatal confrontation with the hated Roman authorities. I think this is in the background of Jesus’ instructions about retaliation and loving enemies in Matt. 5:38-48.

Jesus’ Fourth Commandment: Jesus’ reference to the Sinai Covenant’s “eye for an eye” principle is loaded with background that is rarely discussed. For instance, few of us notice that the principle was a civil regulation intended to limit the escalation of violence between unarmed civilians during normal, everyday disputes.

Zealots among the subjugated Jewish population seem to have been using that law to justify escalation of violence by civilians against an occupying army. That use was totally against the original intent of limiting violence by limited retaliation.

It is important to note that the Romans had no such limiting principles when it came to suppressing rebellion. Applying “an eye for an eye” to the occupying Romans was essentially an invitation for far more brutal retaliation by Rome. Jesus knew He was sending His disciples out as sheep among wolves, so there was no point in telling them to band together to provoke the wolves. Wolves are better armed and usually better organized than sheep.

Besides, protecting sheep from wolves is what shepherds are for.

So how does one resist the urge to retaliate? Jesus’ answer: love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Jesus shocks His audience by expanding the concept of “neighbour” to include not only Gentiles, but even enemies!

Jesus also shocks them by playing the “don’t be like the Gentiles” card when defining the difference between His teaching and the common misinterpretation of the command to love one’s neighbour. Jesus is telling them that they are exactly like their most hated foes if they love only their friends.

Showing love for one’s enemies is also a prophetic sign to the world. Jesus wants the world to know, through His disciples, that He will usher in a world in which there are no longer any enemies. Living now as though that were the case is a sign of our deeply-held belief in its future reality. A deep knowledge that today’s enemy may become, in God’s time, an eternal neighbour, may go a long way toward reducing the desire to retaliate.

Even better would be a complete transformation of the heart and mind, such as that predicted in Jeremiah 31:31.

The heart of God toward sinners is revealed in Jesus’ notion of becoming perfect sons of our perfect Father. Jesus uses the example of how God causes the sun to rise on the evil, and causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. In other words, God gives the non-believer even the breath he or she uses to curse Him. Retaliation is not the main motivation in God’s character. If that were the case, not a single human being would survive. A strong desire for doing good to all, including even our enemies, comes naturally to those who allow their minds to be transformed by the Holy Spirit.

This section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount will be a very good one to keep foremost in our minds if our Western society becomes, as some are predicting, increasingly hostile to expressions of Christianity.

Oaths and Vows

In this post we return to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:

With Jesus on the Mountain, surrounded by His disciples and a multitude, we have a picture of God once again giving His Ten Commandments. In a previous post, we covered how radically different these commandments are from the original Ten Commandments. We also covered the first two commandments: 1) murder/anger/put-downs and 2) adultery/divorce. In both cases, the solution to the problem is prevention of bitterness by proactive reconciliation and mutual respect.

Jesus’ Third Commandment is instruction about vows. In short, don’t bother with vows. If we are speaking the truth, God will back us up without the need to invoke His name. If the lie we are telling brings dishonour upon God, He will be our judge whether we have invoked His name or not.

It goes without saying that making an oath in the name of any other god is completely out of the question for a Christian. There are, however, areas involving oaths and truthfulness that are less black and white.

For instance, does Jesus’ statement about “letting your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no is commonly understood to require a standard of truthfulness for every occasion. Is this really the case? There may be circumstances in a dangerous world in which doing God’s will might involve, shall we say, less than full disclosure. For instance, was it wrong for believers in Nazi Germany to lie about whether they were harbouring Jews in their homes? Must believers be completely up-front about distributing Bibles in closed countries?

(There is a similar common understanding about the command against “false witness” in the original 10 Commandments. In that command, the key words are “against your neighbour.” This is a command against slander or false conviction in court. It is not a command requiring truthfulness for all occasions. Naturally, things work much more smoothly if truthfulness is generally adhered to, but that is not the purpose of this particular command. The purpose of the command is to prevent damage to a person’s reputation by slander or to prevent wrongful conviction of innocent persons by false accusation.)

Like its elder counterpart, the language of Jesus’ commandment seems to involve formal, legally binding promises rather than everyday truthfulness. Where possible, making a solemn declaration is to be preferred over making an oath in God’s name. In regular life, wisdom and discretion must prevail in decisions about disclosure and responses to questions. Once again, truth is almost always to be preferred over falsehood under normal circumstances. There may be, however, times when hiding or diverting the truth are the right thing to do. Obadiah’s hiding of 100 prophets of God during the reign of Ahab is one such instance. He could not have hidden and fed them without some sort of cover-up and a network of conspirators. He was apparently a trusted employee of the king who ordered their imprisonment. Leading such a double life undoubtedly involved some degree of duplicity in his dealings with the king, but God does not seem to be excessively troubled by this.

One thing that might not be familiar to the normal Bible reader is the fact that, with the exception of judicial matters, making vows was optional. Jesus seems to be referring to optional vows made regarding offerings to God. If this is the case, this optional vowing may often involve a sort of public boasting about what you intend to do for God. Jesus covers public piety in more detail in other portions of the sermon. Why get God’s name involved if you don’t have to?

If Jesus is referring to all forms of vows, including the judicial, one may ask whether Jesus’ words are intended as a total prohibition or as sage advice to cover most contingencies. For instance, would a Christian be prohibited from holding any job or office that required an oath of allegiance or secrecy in God’s name? Are Christians prohibited from any court testimony that requires an oath?

I’m not sure of the answer to the questions in the preceding paragraph. I think Jesus is referring to the optional vows in this case, rather than all forms of vows. There are probably times when you have no choice but to sign an oath of office or secrecy or allegiance. However, getting God’s name involved in backing up my word still makes me nervous. My understanding of the above could easily be wrong, so wherever possible I try to “solemnly declare” instead of swearing an oath.

God expelled His chosen people out of the Promised Land because they made a public mockery of His great name. Attaching His name to my promises opens me up to the possibility of publicly bringing disrepute upon Him if I fail to follow through. The last thing Jesus needs is yet another follower who brings Him public shame by being making promises he or she doesn’t follow through on.

The Story of Jesus’ Birth

The story of Jesus’ birth, as traditionally told, is a charming tale that warms the hearts of parents and children alike. This story brings together elements from the accounts of Matthew and Luke and attempts to blend them into a coherent account. This works if you don’t examine the accounts too carefully, but that is not the most important thing to notice about the accounts as written in the Gospels.

The story of Jesus’ birth has deep roots in the history of the people of Israel, the remnant of whom we now know as the Jewish people. Their first great leader, Moses, prophesied that there would be a prophet like him, who would lead the people of Israel in a similar manner to his own leadership (Deut. 18:14-19).

Moses was born in a time of slavery and oppression of the Israelite people in Egypt. The pharaoh was concerned that there might be an uprising of these people, so he began a program to eliminate Israelite newborn boys. When this did not succeed due to a lack of cooperation by Egyptian midwives, he ordered his troops to seek out and kill all Israelite by children.

When Moses was born, his mother had to take extreme measures to hide him until it became too dangerous. In desperation, she sent him up the Nile, hoping he would be discovered and saved. (His sister followed the basket as a backup, just in case anyone is wondering about child neglect.) Sheltered by an Egyptian princess, he eventually grew up to lead the people out of Egyptian captivity, and into a covenant with God at the base of Mount Sinai. From there, he led them (following God, of course) through the wilderness for 40 years and then to the edge of the Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 18:16, part of the prophecy about the prophet, specifically mentions Moses’ commission as spokesman for God at Mt. Sinai, when God thundered the 10 Commandments from the summit, beginning the Book of the Covenant in Exodus 20-23.

The birth narratives of Jesus were not so much intended to be a heart-warming story as to demonstrate that Jesus is the prophet who is most like Moses in all of Israel’s history.

Like Moses, Jesus is born in a time of Israel’s servitude to and oppression by a foreign nation, Rome. This is demonstrated by the ride to Bethlehem by a very pregnant Mary because of a Roman taxation decree. There is not a great deal of care and concern for conquered people in the Roman system.

Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children and Jesus’ escape from it show a likeness to conditions at Moses’ birth. His rescue by divinely sent dreams, both to the magi and to his parents, demonstrates that God intends world-changing things for this boy, just as He did for Moses.

The point of all of this is not just to add a dimension to the story of Jesus’ birth. The resemblance to Moses sets the stage for Jesus’ mission. Jesus is not just a “newborn king.” He is much, much more.

The history of Israel is defined by the turning point in their history: the Exodus from Egypt. They rebelled against God and were eventually exiled from their land. They had been warned of that possibility by Moses, who also gave them the hope of a new exodus in Deut. 30:1-6. Jeremiah, writing just before Israel’s captivity to Babylon, reminds them of that hope in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

The way the story of Jesus is told in the New Testament shows Jesus as the new Moses who is leading a new Exodus of the remnant of Israel out of captivity. Just as there were many Egyptians who tagged along in what the account calls a “mixed multitude,” Gentile Christians are riding on the coattails of a uniquely Israelite Exodus when they begin to follow Jesus.

With this in mind, the story of the Sermon on the Mount takes on aspects of the Mount Sinai gathering, except that this time, Jesus is on the mountain rather than at its base. He becomes both Moses and the voice of God as He utters the words of the New Covenant, Jesus’ Ten Commandments.

So, why an Exodus? Why not just a spiritual salvation that gets sins forgiven?

Canada is one of the very best countries in the world to live in. Reading the newspaper even once indicates that there are problems in our paradise. Even within our congregations, we see that all is not well with our world. We are affected by the results of our own sin and that of others around us. We are separated from our loved ones by death, whether by natural causes, accident or foul play. Families can be divided by greed and selfishness. Nations lie about other nations in order to gain advantage. There are civil (and uncivil!) wars all over the world.

Underneath it all, the game of empire-building goes on. Whether it is building a secure position in a bureaucracy or literally trying to rule over nations, the power-brokers of the world concentrate power in their hands at the expense of ordinary people who are just trying to get by. Their schemes to get rich and collect power leave many people broken and helpless in their wake. This is a very sick world.

This is not intended as a tirade against the rich and powerful, as such. It is more a comment about human nature as it now stands. The rich and powerful just happen to be better at gaining advantage than the rest of us. It is a quantitative rather than a qualitative difference.

Jesus’ mission is to lead an Exodus out of a broken and corrupt world into a “new heavens and a new earth.” This isn’t a move into a heavenly realm of harps and wings. It isn’t a move from a physical plane to a non-physical, spiritual realm.

Rather, it is a completely fresh start for humanity.

Jesus came to initiate a reboot of the universe, with the bad habits, sin, oppression and empire-building ideologies left behind.

His first coming was to start a harvest: a gathering of the “remnant of Israel” who are scattered around the whole world, along with all who wish to join them in a completely new life. It begins with a new heart now, and will culminate in a new world in which everyone lives by an entirely different motivation.

In summary: The story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospels introduces us to Him as a new, better Moses who has come to set His people free. His first coming initiates us with a new heart. His second coming will settle those with new hearts into a new “promised land,” where they can live forever, freed from destructive and self-destructive impulses, within God’s will.

A New Covenant With New “Rules”

We have just about wrapped up the prologue of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Last time we concluded that Jesus’ sacrifice and the giving of the Holy Spirit was the beginning of the fulfilment of the law and the prophets, which would continue until Jesus’ return to complete the gathering and restoration promised in Deut. 30:1-6.

The last verse of the prologue contains a puzzling statement that is often understood to mean that the Ten Commandments are still binding on Christians, and are included in the New Covenant. What are “the least of these commandments” that Jesus says are necessary to be “greatest in the kingdom?”

If this understanding is true, we should probably be keeping the seventh day holy and refusing to work on it. I held this way of viewing it for almost 20 years myself. While I no longer believe this to be the case, I continue to have a great deal of respect for those who do.

Do we understand the two covenants as overlapping or discontinuous?

The most popular argument for continuity is that Jesus seems to be taking categories from the Ten Commandments and deepening or spiritualizing them. One can see how deepening the understanding of murder or stealing or coveting or adultery in the way Jesus describes makes sense if the new covenant is a deeper version of the older one.

What is more difficult to explain is how you can expand the fourth commandment outside the boundaries of the seventh day without violating it. Can you keep the spirit while violating the letter? For instance, following Jesus’ advice about lusting after another woman also prevents sexual relations outside of your marriage. Should a spiritual understanding of the Sabbath allow a change of day or a relaxation of the requirement to rest? Many have so concluded.

I have never been happy with that contradictions inherent in this view. In fact, I went to Bible College and Seminary primarily to get my head around contradictory ideas about the Old and New Covenants.

One key to understanding why this is not just the reworking of the previous covenant is the fact that the previous covenant predicted that a new covenant “not like the covenant I made with your forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.” (Heb. 8:9-13 cf Jer. 31:31-34). According to the writer of Hebrews, Jeremiah is already aware that the covenant he was living under was on its way out. Why did he know that? Because the Babylonians were already about to sack Jerusalem and scatter the inhabitants all over their empire during Jeremiah’s day. Jeremiah had read about it in Deuteronomy 28-30 and knew what was coming.

There is a new covenant with a new historical prologue and new stipulations. It has a new form of circumcision: circumcision of the heart. (Remember that circumcision was how the Old Covenant was entered into.) This new circumcision enables believers to obey a new set of instructions that run so much deeper than the old set that they cannot be the same rules made more spiritual.

Worship is done differently, and the new required sacrifice was offered by Jesus Christ, who in return asks us (via the Apostle Paul) to present our bodies as a living sacrifice that brings glory to Him. The holiness required of several orders of magnitude higher: “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

With the description of Jesus on the mountain teaching His disciples and the gathered crowd, we see God talking to His gathered people around another Mt. Sinai. Jesus is not just giving an interpretation of the law God gave to the Israelites. He is telling His people how to make their righteousness greater than that of the most astute keepers of the ancient law: keep My new (and much better!) law!

His “first commandment,” for example, is light-years ahead of the old commandment against murder. Any activity that causes believers to lose confidence in God puts their souls at risk and is therefore against God’s will. Calling a brother or sister useless or irredeemable can cause a wound that leads to a fracture of Jesus’ community through bitterness. This is incalculable spiritual harm. A malicious put-down is not to be tolerated in the body of Christ. (I think the reader is intended to see that the judge and jailer in this case is Jesus Himself.)

While it bears a surface resemblance to the law against murder, it cuts much closer to God’s intent for a harmonious, creative and prolific humanity. It isn’t just damage-control. It is growth-encouraging. It is the embodied will of God. And yet this doesn’t explain all of the differences between the covenants.

There is another element to be understood about this covenant. This is not a covenant that is made with a people already physically released from Egypt. This covenant begins within the captivity of the people of Israel to the Gentile-ruled system of empire-building, featuring the continuing attempt to concentrate wealth and power. The people of God are the underdogs of the world-system, not its lords. Any believers in Jesus Christ who think we can be the system’s masters are falling right into the hands of the empire-builders in the long run.

There is no physical Sabbath required because there is not yet true physical freedom from the empire-builders. Most Christians are still employed by employers and do not have the freedom to choose when they have time off. (Those who have such freedom are certainly encouraged to use it for spiritual purposes.) Because not everybody is free from slavery to working for others for their livelihood, God does not require a physical rest for all of His people. The second exodus begins in the heart and will eventually find its way to the liberation of our bodies from being lorded over.

But until that great day, the New Covenant and its stipulations belong to a people who are still scattered and persecuted. Jesus’ instructions are marching orders for living in a God-hating world that reviles God’s will. Do not be surprised if you, as followers of Jesus, end up being reviled for your good deeds. Rules about living in the Promised Land are pointless and would be counterproductive for us at this time.

Instead, Jesus tells us to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world. We need to be living examples of His way of overcoming the world. This way includes putting away the greed inherent in empire-building ideaologies. It includes not trying to make a living off the backs of others. It includes avoiding the quick score or defrauding others for a quick profit. It runs completely counter to the “greed is good” ideology of the present world order.

That’s why His New Covenant is not just a spiritualizing of the Old Covenant. The demise of the previous covenant in disobedience and curse, combined with the scattered condition of the New Covenant believers makes it necessary for the New Covenant to have different stipulations, conditions and rewards than the previous covenant.

Streams of Living Water

[Note: This post is from a session that took place during the last day of our 2011 Feast of Tabernacles service, in honour of Jesus' sermon on the last day of that festival almost two millennia ago. The Scripture references below are from the New International Version]

Genesis 2 describes the first home of humanity as a garden watered by a river that is the headwater of all of the major rivers in the world. The picture here is that God’s river brings life-giving water to the whole world.

In Revelation 22 A river flows from the throne of God to bring life and water the tree of life (which appears for the first time since Genesis 3)

Zech 14:8 – On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter. The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.

These prophecies were memorialized yearly each morning of the Feast of Tabernacles during a priestly water-drawing ceremony. Priests would draw water from a well and carry it in a procession up to the Temple. At one corner of the Temple the High Priest would pour out the water, symbolizing the promise of a stream starting at God’s Temple as mentioned in Zech. 14 and other places. It was considered a Messianic prophecy.

John 7 depicts Jesus Christ preaching during the entire Feast of Tabernacles, amazing the crowd. We pick up the story in verse 37.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” Others said, “He is the Christ.” Still others asked, “How can the Christ come from Galilee?”

The imagery of streams of living water goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and is picked up in Ezekiel and Isaiah in passages like the following:

Ezek 47:1 The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side. As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in–a river that no one could cross. He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river.8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live.”

Is. 35:1 “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.”

Based on the descriptions above, living water seems to bring life to all the land it touches. Living water brings joy and gladness to the desolate places. It decorates the surroundings with lush growth by creating conditions for growth. Like the Nile, Tigris or Euphrates rivers, it overflows its banks at just the right time of the year, spreading fertile soil and moisture to ensure a marvellous, sustaining crop along its flood plain.

If Jesus provides us with streams of living waters coming out of our innermost being, how is that reflected in our lives and in the lives of those who touch our lives? Do we bring life, health and joy to those around us? Do we radiate the peace of Christ to those who are near us?

Or do we bring shame, condemnation and fear to those around us? Are we the downer in the lives of our neighbours? Are they afraid to talk to us because of what they know we’ll say about their way of living?

I think Jesus calls us to let His streams of living water flow out of our hearts and into the hearts and lives of others around us. He gives us living water to refresh and bring joy to others, not to hoard it for ourselves or even for the church. It overflows our banks, spreading hope, life and joy and growth wherever the water reaches.

Let’s let the streams flow unhindered in our lives.