"'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished"
I think that we should acknowledge that the interpretation of this verse is already structurally embedded into Christian church life and practice in many, many ways. Our practice tells us that we do not interpret it to mean that the law of Moses is still incumbant upon us: we do not observe the Sabbath [the seventh day, ie Saturday -as witnessed by the name for Saturday in various European languages -Syboty, Sabado etc] as a rest day. We do allow the charging of interest on loans [though only since the late middle ages], we allow people to eat Pork, black pudding, shellfish and so on. We do not circumcise our male children on their eighth day. We allow mixed fibres in clothing; and that's before we get onto the really controversial stuff. I do realise that some groups do observe Sabbath and Kosher food, but they are not mainstream and -well, I don't agree with 'em so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that set of views. The Sabbath law is interesting because a lot of people like to distinguish between the moral and the ceremonial law as a way to slip out of the challenges of interpreting these verses. However, I don't think that they realise that the ten commandments may have an item of ceremonial law in them. Either that or they have allowed us to reinterpret the moral law quite radically at that point -heck, we've changed the day!
So, most of us come to this with a vested interest in not having to observe the law of Moses, all 613 commandments of it. And yet Jesus says the law will not pass away 'until heaven and earth pass away' and the 'all is accomplished most naturally seems to refer to the end of the ages in this context. Jesus appears to be saying it still stands. But perhpas we need also to bear in mind how he himself dealt with the law. The keeping of Sabbath is a notable test case for the gospel writers and for us as readers. Jesus declared himself the Lord of the Sabbath [an implicit claim to deity I think since God is rightfully the lord of the sabbath by reason of his having created it -however you interpret that]. I think that adds up to claiming to fulfill the sabbath especially as the sabbath is made for man not the other way round and Jesus is The Man. All is accomplished in Christ and what is accomplished will last to the End. The prophets words still guide our thinking and our intepreting the meaning of Christ and the people of God, to guide and encourage us, to rebuke us and to call us. So does the law; just not in the same way as for the Pharisees, for example.
Not one little bit of the Law will pass away. However that isn't necessarily the same as saying 'it will all be binding on my followers ...'; it could simply be a recognition that it will continue in use, to be read and learnt from; to be scripture. Until earth and heaven pass away Jesus will continue telling us that it will all be fulfilled -in Himself. In Christ the Law is kept and fulfilled. In Christ it becomes our heritage but not our bondage. He carries the yoke of the law so that we may know rest ['sabbath' -see Matt.11.28-30] and enter into the end-of-time Rest even in the here-and-now. It doesn't excuse us from ethical behaviour for in Christ we are given an identity that includes living Christfully [see Romans 5-8] and a calling to live up to who we are.
Well, that's where I'm up to with it.
Crosswalk.com - MAtthew 5:17-18:
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I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything...
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from: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/online/2012/5/22/1337672561216/Annular-solar-eclipse--008.jpg -
I've just had an article published on emergingchurch.info. It's an adaptation of some of my book, but I thought I'd share it and...
34 comments:
Sheesh! My head hurts. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ that I'm a Baptist! We never were part of your "church" (we're not a Protestant denomination that "came out" of the Catholic "church" in the Reformation. Are you aware that all that catholic stuff about the "one true holy apostolic church" is a steaming pile? The "catholic" church originated in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine and is really just a continuation of the already-600-year-old pagan priesthood (pontifex maximus) of Dagon, the fish "god". They just gave all the Greek and Roman "gods" new names and called it "christian". Learn from history! I guess that might hurt your wallet, though.
Craig I really can't make much sense of what you are getting at here. I can't understand why being a baptist makes any difference to observing the law of Moses. I don't know why you seem to think I'm a Roman Catholic and I don't know why all that [inaccurate] stuff about Dagon is there. It'd be helpful to have some explanation of how what you write relates to what I wrote. It almost looks like you misposted to my blog a comment meant for somewhere else!
However assuming that no such miscarriage has taken place let me comment on some of your remarks in an attempt to reconstruct the links between your comment and my blog-posting.I am not sure why my wallet would be affected - is it because you assume that I'm employed by the Church and to question it would be to resign and so not be paid? News: I am not employed by the church currently [I have been in the past and might be in the future, that much is true].
Your history is a dubious interpretation. Even if it mattered to me whether the pope is an heir to the priesthood of Dagon, the church denomination I operate within took issue with the papacy and rejected it; so I really can't see the value of the history lesson for me.
Noting that you claim to be a baptist I have to say that I do not see how it lets you off the hook of how you do or don't relate to the law of Moses: Baptists are not reknown for observing the 613 commandments of the Torah; they do not celebrate a sabbath on the seventh day or keep kashrut, for example. And the relevance of Christian tradition to Baptists is that, as far as I know [as an ex-Baptist myself], baptists celebrate Easter and Christmas with the rest of us and use the same Bible that the early church passed on to us.
So I repeat; how does your comment relate to what I wrote?
I just posted an answer, and it got lost, so I have to do it all over, and it'll no doubt be totally different. Being a Baptist means I am to observe the 10 Commandments and to abstain from blood and fornication, according to the new Testament in His Blood. Forget the 613! In the OT, believers had a conditional covenant under which God would forgive their sin if they would do certain things, even though God had no legal basis (yet) to forgive their sin. The Price had not been paid. The blood of bulls and goats could not TAKE AWAY sin. Believers could not go to Heaven when they died, only to Paradise (Abraham's Bosom). As a Baptist, under the Blood of Jesus Christ, I have a circumcision not made with hands, meaning that my spirit does not get defiled and lose fellowship with God if I touch something unclean. I could eat pork and shellfish, but my health will be better if I don't.
Easter is easily traceable to Babylon, and Christmas is a pagan tradition brought to my country mostly by German immigrants. My ancestors came here before the American War for Independence and were not Catholic, Calvinist, or Anglican, although some were Presbyterian, thanks to John Knox. My studies indicate that Jesus was probably conceived around Christmas Eve and born about September 20. Baptists have been called by many epithets since the time of Christ, and Baptists are one of the most misrepresented groups in all of church history. That history is written in their own blood. According to one Catholic historian, were it not for the fact that about 50 million Baptists have been slaughtered by Catholics, they would outnumber all the reformers.
I can't see much point in discussing the 613 commandments unless you were an Old Testament bearded, pork-abstaining, Sabbath-observing Jew before the Incarnation.
In your personal information, you claimed to be a "priest" living in the British Isles. So I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that you were either Catholic, Anglican (yes, I am cognizant of the history of the Anglican church), Scots Presbyterian, or Calvinist. I am aware that every believer is part of a "priesthood of all believers", but we have "ministers" and "pastors" in the church, not priests. And I know that every husband and father is to be the priest of his own home. There is no Protestant denomination that got 100% straight on its doctrine after "coming out" of the catholic church in the reformation. The Anglicans are just catholics with a different hood ornament. My information on Dagon as it relates to Rome is right on, according to Hislop's book, The Two Babylons. Easter and Christmas are not part of my Baptist heritage or my belief system.
Christians do not traditionally keep the Jewish Sabbath, or the Sabbaths (high holy days, which were not necessarily on Saturday). It has become somewhat of a tradition to assemble together on the first day of the week (Sunday) for several reasons. 1. We are commanded to bring our offerings on the first day of the week, so it is convenient to assemble together on that day. 2. Sunday was the day the two disciples met the Lord on the road to Emmaus after the Resurrection, so it's as good a day as any to meet together. Since all the days of the week have pagan names, I suppose Sunday is as good as any, although I would prefer SONday after the Son of God rather than SUNday after the sungod. Catholicism's roots go back to worship of Tammuz, or Osiris, the Sungod... same dude, different cultures. The disciples were all Jews, so they taught in the synagogues on Saturday, and fellowshipped with their fellow believers on Sunday. No gentile was ever expected by God to keep the ceremonial law... and CERTAINLY not after the Resurrection.
What's that stuff about "this post has been removed by a blog administrator"? I didn't post anything in between there. I kept the text and checked it to make sure.
Craig
I don't think that I can deal with everything you siad without an over long answer so I've tried to pick out the most important issues for me. Thanks for getting back and explaining a bit further.
I think I should say that I was once a Baptist but clearly our church and version of being baptist was not as 'strict and particular' as the kind that you seem to represent. From my point of view, baptists of whatever kind are reformation churches representing a more radical second or third stage of the reformation. For further information it may help you to know that the Episcopal Church of the USA does not necessarily represent the Anglicanism of England where there are many more people who are Evangelical which is the end of the Church of England I'm at. While many may often prefer the term 'minister' or even 'pastor' some of us are not uncomfortable with 'priest' since it is derived from the Greek 'Presbyteros' which is often translated 'Elder'. I hazard a guess that in fact the word was, on the basis of use for Christian leadership, applied to the liturgical leaders of other faiths, thus it was applied to Jewish Levitical 'priests' and to Pagan ritual leaders. I use the term because it's quicker and because it resonates better for many of the people I deal with. I do believe in the priesthood of all believers because we are in baptism by faith given a share in Christ's priesthood and because each believer has access to God directly through Christ.
I can't leave your comment “ Anglicans are just catholics with a different hood ornament” without reply. It's too sweeping a comment. On the whole Anglicans don't accept the authority of the pope, transubstantiation, sacrifice of the mass, Mariolatry, cults of saints, sacraments working ex opere operato, purgatory, indulgences etc etc. Not very [Roman] Catholic then. In addition we do see the Scriptures as the definitive rule of faith and containing all things necessary for salvation. We don't claim to be the only Church or that only we have got things right; 'semper reformanda' is an Anglican principle.
However, the word 'catholic' is from the Greek word meaning 'universal' and in that sense Anglicans accept the term because it refers to our calling to take our part in going to make disciples of all nations.
That said, I can't agree that Catholicism's roots go back to paganism: they go back to the early church. Just because they have erred and strayed in various ways doesn't change that. I am willing to believe that Catholicism may have compromised with various aspects of pagan culture in the past but that's not the same thing.
The baptists I know and love all celebrate Christmas and Easter, as I do, as opportunities to honour Christ and to reflect together on the significance of the incarnation and his death and Resurrection. Easter has been part of Christian life from the very earliest days because it has grown out of Passover [hence the movable date because it ultimately derives from the Jewish calculating of the date of Passover]. The fact that many religions in the northern hemisphere have spring festivals is, at this point, not the issue. It only becomes an issue when as a mission strategy, Christians also took on board things from spring festivals that could be converted to speak of Christ. But that's another story. "Pascha" in its variant forms, [as non-Germanic Christians tend to call 'Easter'] comes from the Hebrew word 'Pesach' -Passover. Christmas is a bit more shrouded in mystery but you may want to check this out http://www.religionnewsblog.com/9755/Why-is-Dec—25-the-date-to-celebrate-Christmas . It was certainly being celebrated before Constantine and all that. The German input was mostly the Christmas tree bit which actually goes back to St.Boniface who was the missionary through whose ministry Germanic pagans began to be converted to Christ and it celebrates a contest with Pagan 'gods' rather similar to Elijah on Mount Carmel. The Christmas tree is actually a commemoration of that contest which was won for the gospel.
You write that you “can't see much point in discussing the 613 commandments unless you were an Old Testament bearded, pork-abstaining, Sabbath-observing Jew before the Incarnation. “ But I'm not sure how that helps you or me to interpret Matthew 5.18-20 since it was recorded for the churches in a Gospel for the likely purpose of instructing Christians in Christian discipleship [Mt.28.16ff], among other things. There's no hint in it that it applies only to Jews before the incarnation; quite the reverse it seems to imply that it is always going to be there. Otherwise what you write might be a fairly straightforward way to take things. What you haven't done in your reply, as far as I can tell, is show how to interpret those verses since they do seem to be aimed at Christ's disciples [remember: all nations are to be brought into discipleship] without qualification. It all reads, at first glance as if the Law is to continue in force until the second coming. How can that be? How do we square Christ's words with Paul's themes of freedom in Christ?
I am trying to wrestle with how that can be. And I haven't seen in what you write anything that deals with that, really. A lot of the usual 'answers' Christians give to this passage are not very good ways of dealing consistently with the issues raised by those verses. I can't see how the schema you offer makes sense of those verses or brackets them out of consideration. Your words imply that after the incarnation the Law doesn't apply to Jews, so how come, Matthew records these words after the incarnation in such a way as to seem to bind Jews, at least, if not gentile followers, to the Law? What was he thinking? There's no hint of Jesus saying, 'Hey guys, this only applies until after I'm physically gone' rather the verses imply until the end of time.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to make a case for Christians to take on the yoke of the Law. However, I am trying to clear in my own mind how we avoid doing so in the light of the verses I'm looking at. The posting for the following day explores a bit further and perhaps a bit more clearly the kind of line I think 'works'.
Acts is a book chronicling the transition from Jew to gentile. Hebrews is a transitional book detailing the transition from church age into the tribulation (for the Nation of Israel) and is in fact titled "The Epistle to the Hebrews". Once you get those transitions straight, things start to fall into a logical order. When Jesus was speaking in Matthew 5, it had not been worked out yet whether the Kingdom would be restored to Israel. The answer to that question (Acts 1:6 "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?) would depend on their response to the preaching of the "Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven". In a nutshell Israel could have their kingdom restored (lost in 606 B.C.) if they as a Nation would repent and turn to Jesus. Crucifying Jesus did not make the answer "no"... it was the stoning of Steven that was the turning point. From that point onward, there was no more healing in Jerusalem and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God as preached by Paul went out to the gentiles.
Wow! This could take a while, but I'll try to keep it straight-forward. Matthew is best understood as a transitional book from the Old to the New Testament, although it is considered part of the NT. The New Testament In His Blood did not actually go into effect until after the death, burial, and resurrection. When Jesus spoke these words in Matthew, he was addressing (for all practical purposes) OT Jews bound by the Law. Matthew 28 could be considered the point where the NT went into effect, except that the Promise didn't arrive until the 50th day, as promised by Jesus in John 15:26 and Acts 1:5. What happened on that day resulted in a relationship with God so radically different that I prefer not to refer to any believers before that point in time as "christians". Although many people before that day had the Spirit of God upon them, what happened here was different. The Holy Spirit became the permanent possession of the believer. Back to the main track.
Once that sinks in, things get a lot simpler. The Law was given as a necessary thing to bring us to repentance. Nobody can keep all the law. If we could, we could have eternal life without Jesus dying for our sins. The Law says "This is the standard of perfection. You're short, pal. You need a Saviour." Paul never said anything about gentiles needing to observe the Sabbaths, or dietary laws, or any of the rest of it. We're not under that covenant.
"Galatians 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." That should give you enough to digest for now.
Easter is pagan (from Oestre, Ishtar, and Astarte, the goddess mother in various cultures) and Passover is Jewish, the two being unrelated. When "Easter" is mentioned in the King James Bible, it means "Easter". Profound, huh? Passover was already past. The pagan Herod was an observer of Easter in Acts 12:4.
I am aware of a connection of Dec. 25 with the Jewish Festival of Lights (something to do with the Maccabees winning a military victory, I think) but I dislike Christmas trees because of the connection with the connotations of Northern European fire gods and yule logs and all that rubbish. 'Nuff said for now. Hope this clarifies the fog. :) :) ;->
I would like to reiterate one point. The "Baptists", though in the early days they were called by other names, are not a protestant denomination. Their line precedes the catholics, who began in the 4th century. For documentation of these facts, see: Baptist Succession: A Handbook of Baptist History by D.B. Ray, the two volumes by Armitage entitled A History of the Baptists (almost 2000 pages), The Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of the Piedmont and of the Albigenses by Peter Allix, and the two volumes by Dr. Peter S. Ruckman entitled The History of the New Testament Church.
OK, I understand where you're coming from with the "priest" stuff, but I prefer not to use that title for any church leader except our High Priest., since the title kind of identifies the user thereof with the black-robed Baalite priests who sewed the vail back up in the Holy Place and pretended that it was still business as usual, after the Crucifixion, if you get my drift.
First up Craig is briefest: I removed a reduplicated comment and the comment drawing attantion to the difficulty.
Thanks for the fairly clear explanation of the position. It is one of a variety of similar sorts of explanation with which I have a great deal of sympathy. All of them have their difficulties; one of those difficulties is usually making sense of the verses we're commenting on, ultimately, because the verses appear to say that the law remains in force until the End of time. Nothing you have written adresses that issue, as far as I can tell. It all has the effect of simply contradicting what Jesus, on the face of it, appears to be saying. I am very uncomfortable with that and my original post was an attempt to explore and deal with that discomfort. Comments directly addressing that issue would be helpful.
As to Baptist history; hmmm. You write "catholics, who began in the 4th century" and assert Baptists precede that. I must say that it sound unlikely from my knowledge of church history; I've never yet met those two views. Of course it would all depend on definitions and since I can't easily access the books you mention I wonder whether there are web resources dealing with that particular slant on history? I suspect that in order to assert that Catholics began in 4th century you have to define 'catholic' ina particular way, ditto Baptists. It all lokks rather anachfonistic to me: importing into the past terms and understandings that strictly speaking belong to later ages. There was just 'the church' -and debates about heresy. 'The church' defined itself as catholic, apostolic and so on to help explain to itself and others how it related to the apostles teaching and to the world.
Anyway it is clear that in Britain Baptists are second-wave reformation churches. There is no historical continuity for British Baptists to the church of the first 4 centuries except via catholicism and the reformers. It may even be that there were Church groups [part of the one catholic and apostolic church] who had 'baptist' characteristics, but that's not to say the 'denomination' was there.
Glad to get some understanding on 'priest'; I need only say further that I prefer to try to wrest the title back than to give it up. Abuse should be met with right use rather than no-use. Though at the end of the day they are only words and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
That goes for Easter, Pascha, pesach etc. I'm afraid that the facts appear to be that the early church -wanting to commenmorate yearly the momentous events of salvation in Christ chose to try to keep close to passover and yet also wanted to keep the days of the week straight [there was some discussion about this as some were content simply to keep the passover dates whatever day of the week they fell]. So various ways were tried to both use the passover dates and yet to modify them so that the crucifixion and Resurrection would be celebrated on a Friday and a Sunday respectively.As a result of using differnt calendare [Gregorian and Julian] the Eastern Chruches and the Western Churches have their dates differntly at the moment but the aim is the same; modified passover dating because the thing looks back to passover hsitorically.
Spring festivals happen at roughly the same time and it is arguable that passover is a spring festival also in the sense that God instituted for Israel an alternative festival in spring that commemorated a salvation act and in so doing gave an alternative for the Israelites, once in an agricultural social setting, to the fertility rites more usually associated with spring festicvals in such societies. -A tactic which churches have applied in other societies as part of a mission strategy.
I'm not sure how the translator's decision on how to name 'Easter' and Passover has much bearing on the matter except to tell us something of his theology and hsitorical perspective. Unless you're claiming divine inspiration for the KJV!
As for Christmas trees, as I say;the actual connotations are Christian. As far as I can tell it was always a Christian thing done 'Christianly'. The pagans, evidently, just saw a particular tree as dedicated to Odin or whoever and presumably went to it and made sacrifices there. No candles in the branches [a practice more suited to bringing it indoors especailly in windy northern Europe] just blood on the soil.
Hello Andii!
Bad case of cognitive dissonance there, eh? This might be more difficult than I thought. Hm-m-m... where to start? I see you're still wrestling over the problem of The Law of Moses. Yes, it IS still in effect. You'll find the answer to your dilemma in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 7. The Law has not passed away. There is a parallel of sorts here to the issue of when the New Testament "started". A "testament" is not in effect until the death of the testator.
Hebrews 9:15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were
under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. 9:16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. 9:17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. 9:18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. I strongly encourage you to read the entire chapter in context. The believer is "dead with Christ" and the law NO LONGER has dominion over him. If the Law was no longer in effect, he wouldn't have been under its condemnation.
He is freed to bring forth fruit unto God... not free to continue doing evil. To continue to fret over every minuscule facet of the 613 commandments is to "make the Gospel of none effect". As Jesus said, all of the law is summed up in the first and second commandments. As simple as that is, we still fall short of the mark. Righteousness does not come by the law. "Our Righteousness" is the person of Jesus Christ. When God looks at the believer, He sees a sinless man. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! Even when a believer sins, he is not "in sin". His sins are "on Christ" and gone forever. If we love Him, we "keep His commandments"... but the ceremonial law is done away in Christ. It was there to show us a picture of Christ, not to forever beat us to death. The unbeliever is a dead duck anyway, whether the 613 commandments are in effect or not. The believer is not under that jurisdiction. We are no longer married to the law. We're already dead! Profound, huh? It's kind of like being sentenced to a prison term (eternity in hell) but once the price has been paid , you're free... to do good, not to do evil. Well, I think I'll post this and add more later... I have a Fourth Grade Sunday School class to teach. "Bye for now.
Craig :@
Hello, Andii...
Just thought I'd add a few further comments. What was being preached before the stoning of Steven was the Gospel (good news) of the Kingdom of Heaven, which means that it was the acceptable time to establish the Kingdom of (not "in") Heaven on Earth IF certain conditions of repentance (!!!) were met. The Preacher came to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, which I believe had to do with the Jubilee system of timing. (My contracting business is named in honor of that.) The passages in Matthew to which you refer could best be described as the Constitution of the Kingdom. There are a lot of things in the Old Testament that represent a picture of the way things are done in Heaven, and I believe many if not all of these things will be practiced on the Earth during the reign of Jesus Christ on the Earth. However for practical purposes for the Christian in the Church Age, these things are on "hold" awaiting the return of Jesus Christ to set up that kingdom, just as the Hebrew people are "on hold." God has not cast them off forever, and the Law has not passed away. It will be reinstituted. I don't pretend to understand all of it, but I think this scheme of things is the only one that works. Think it over. I can provide resources if you want to investigate it further.
The Baptism of John the Baptist was different from New Testament believers' baptism in that it was a jewish ceremonial washing whereas believers' baptism is a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for those who have ALREADY RECEIVED the Holy Spirit. The Gospel that Peter preached up until Acts 2:38 was never preached again after that. Paul said that if any man preached any other gospel than the one that he preached, that man was to be accursed. The Gospel of the Kingdom of God was that Gospel. The Kingdom of God is an "invisible" kingdom in the sense that it is a spiritual kingdom, not to be established by military force. The militant catholics who pronounced all dissenters "accursed" were accursed themselves. They sought to establish the Kingdom without the inconvenience of having Jesus Christ around to tell them how to do things. Enough for now. I'll try to address your other concerns in the future.
Craig :]
I stand corrected on the doctrines of the Anglican Church. I know the story of its origin (Henry VIII), but not much of its evolution since that time. Thanks for the correction. :)
Thanks for all of that Craig. Having read what you say again, I think that we may, actually not be so far apart espacially as it was Paul's seeing of Christ as fuliffling the law that was lurking behind some of my thinking. However, I am concerned that we don't rush so quickly and 'easily' into that kind of approach that we start to deal with it in a way that makes a nonsense of Christ's words in Mt.5.17-18. I think that a good deal of what you say is actually in my origianl posting -perhaps not expresed in a way that made easy sense to you [probably due to my trying to get out on paper all the things that seemed to bug me and realte to it all i one big splurge].
As far as I can tell you are agreeing with me when I wrote: "In Christ the Law is kept and fulfilled. In Christ it becomes our heritage but not our bondage. He carries the yoke of the law so that we may know rest ['sabbath' -see Matt.11.28-30] and enter into the end-of-time Rest even in the here-and-now. It doesn't excuse us from ethical behaviour for in Christ we are given an identity that includes living Christfully [see Romans 5-8]"
Except I was alluding to Hebrews and relating it to Mathew 11.28ff. THe 'give you rest' passege. Here I was alluding to the fact that the Rabbis often talked about the 'yoke of the Law' meaning becoming a Rabbinic follower, one of the talmiddim. When someone became a disciple of a Rabbi, it could be referred to as 'taking on the Yoke of the Law'. In this way behind the text we can see Jesus making a comment about how his ministry is about releiveing people from the burden of the Law particularly as used by the Rabbis. And I couldn't resist linking up the 'give you rest' of that passage with the theme of entering rest in Hebrews. This is particularly interesting given that in Jewish thought, even today, it is expected that the Law will not apply in the Resurrection times ... I think you may see where that thought is going and linking.
Thanks Andii... you're a breath of fresh air. It's so nice to have an exchange with someone who isn't afraid of a little Bible study (II Timothy 2:15 "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.") and mental activity. Lately I've encountered a lot of people whose approach to disagreement on a doctrinal point is to stomp their little feet and scream "You just don't have the love of Jesus in your heart! Stop being so judgemental! And just SHUT UP!" in spite of Jesus' instructions to judge all things by the Word of God. I suppose it kind of proves the point I've been trying to make to them that it matters what you feed your mind and spirit with. As Plato said "...rhythm and melody, accompanied by dance are the barbarous expression of the soul. Barbarous, not animal. Music is the medium of the human soul in its most ecstatic condition of wonder and terror ... Music is the soul's primitive and primary speech and its alogon, without articulate speech or reason. It is not only not reasonable, it is hostile to reason. Even when articulate speech [lyrics] is added, it is utterly subordinate to and determined by the music and the passions it expresses. ... Armed with music, man can damn rational thought. Out of the music emerge the gods that suit it, and they educate men by their example and their commandments." (Emphasis added.)
I appreciate you sharing your insight.
Craig :]
Hi Andii,
Just thought I'd try to clarify a point or two. When I refer to "Baptists" and their predecessors, I'm referring to a long line of believers who can be traced and identified not necessarily by any particular label, but by by certain identifying "marks"... the things they believed and practiced, as recorded in their own writings and the historical records. As I said before, they have been called by many different names, mostly by their enemies. I have a handy booklet called "The Trail Of Blood" by Dr. J. M. Carroll. The author wrote it when he was about 70 years old, around 1928. It is as concise a tracing of Baptist history as you'll find anywhere. His bibliography of resources used in preparing the booklet runs into hundreds of thousands of pages. I bought 50 copies of it once, available from Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, 163 N. Ashland Ave., Lexington, Kentucky, USA 40502. I think I paid about 50 cents a copy.
The Catholic historian to whom I referred is Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council Of Trent, writing in 1524: "Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers." The 1200 years were the years preceding the Reformation during which Rome persecuted Baptists with the most cruel persecution thinkable.
Sir Isaac Newton said, "The Baptists are the only body of known christians that have never symbolized with Rome." Bishop Mosheim (Lutheran) said "Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of the modern Dutch Baptists". The Edinburg Cyclopedia (Presbyterian) says "It must already have occurred to our readers that the Baptists are the same sect of Christians that were formerly described as Anabaptists. Indeed this seems to have been their leading principle from the time of Tertullian to the present time." Tertullian was born just 50 years after the death of the Apostle John. The catholic church began under Emperor Constantine as an unholy union of the spiritual power of the christian churches with the temporal power of Rome. Only the erring churches joined that unholy union., consummated as a savvy political move by Constantine. Constantine was himself not a christian. He chose to wait until his dying moment to be sprinkled, believing that this would wash away all his sins at once. Over the next 1200 years, 50,000,000 christians died martyr deaths, mainly because of their adamant rejection of baptismal regeneration and infant baptism. The booklet is a condensed treasure trove of pertinent information about Baptist history. Baptist history is the line of FAITHFUL christianity from the time of Christ until today. The catholics have been wrong from the start. They adopted the errors of the erring churches that joined the unholy union with Rome. Well, end of rant for today. I hope this has been of some help?
Craig :]
P.S. I realize that some Baptist churches in my country have in recent years gone liberal, with the Southern Baptist Convention (unscriptural) and all, and I'm unfamiliar with the state of the Baptist churches in England to which you refer. I am an Independent Baptist, and I think our history is a noble one. Our history is written in blood... our own.
Craig
Thanks Craig for the compliment and for the further info on independent Baptists. I see where you're coming from and recognise a difference in labelling. I think that the issue is that in the Church universal and militant there has always been a tension between the 'holiness' tendency focussing on doctrine and purity on the one hand and the missionary tendency [and both labels are inadequate] most concerned to make bridges to people beyond the gospel.
The danger besetting the former is increasing introvertedness and inability to relate to non-Christians because 'church' culture becomes so spearated. The danger of the latter is syncretism -which usually produces a reaction of the holiness kind. Thus, in your adopted terms, Church history is a constant oscillation or tension between 'baptist' and 'catholic'.
I actually think that we have to try to embrace both poles of the tension with charity and a recognition of "what is in people", making room and time to work with people through the issues involved in faithfulness to Christ.
I'm interested in your reckoning of Southern Baptists as liberal: from where I stand they are pretty conservative -though not necessarily scripturally so!
I guess it may rest on how one defines scriptural. The Anglican approach has tended to be that 'what is not outlawed in Scripture is licit' while the more radical Reformation view has tended towards a 'whatever is not sanctioned explicitly by scripture is illicit' view. To me that is the key issue rather than liberal or conservative. So-called and self-declared conservatives are often to be found to be liberal against some indices and liberals conservative against others. It all depends on what your 'touchstone' issues are and what your blindspots are.
Andii,
My reckoning of the Southern Baptists as somewhat "liberal" is because of several pertinent facts. Many are members of the masonic-saturated Southern Baptist Convention (unscriptural in the sense that churches are to be local and independent) and many if not most take a neo-orthodox approach to the issue of the preservation and authority of Scripture. This view is promoted and propagated through christian colleges and seminaries (cemeteries) where the faculty "use" the King James Bible (in order to get students) but don't BELIEVE it. In the classrooms, they destroy the young man's faith in the Book he was called by God to preach. In a nutshell, what they believe is that the Scripture is the original autographs, not the book you hold in your hands. Therefore, you have only an approximation of what God actually said. Timothy read the Scripture, and that was not the original autographs. There is no verse in the Bible that says the "originals" were inspired. "All Scripture IS GIVEN by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." II Tim. 3:16, 17. "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. Psalm 12: 6, 7. I have covered this in more depth on my blog, and may go a bit further in the future. You can find all the info under the G. A. Riplinger section on the King James Bible site @ http://www.kjv1611.org/
Craig :]
Thanks for the clarification on what you mean by liberalism. Personally, I can't really find a lot to commend the retaining of the KJV particularly in the terms you describe as it seems to be way too Anglocentric. It seems to imply that the Bible in anything other than Greek, Hebrew or Tudor English is not really scripture. I guess I have difficulties with the idea that the Textus Receptus should be taken as THE scriptures; it seems to play too much into being a hostage to the vicissitudes of the development of the Roman church. And a text that has a clear later editting of a passage to say something different from the originals has got to be suspect [check out 1Jn5.7]. 2Tm3.16f refers to the Hebrew scriptures and says nothing about any NT books or letters, technically and the Psalm quotes about the word of YHWH are more likely to refer to prophetic utterances than what we now call scripture. What you say has the advantage of simplifying some things but at the expense of skating round some facts. I'd recommend looking at http://maggidawn.blogspot.com/2004/08/words-and-word-i-ive-had-few-requests.html as a good example of the kind of approach I broadly take.
Poor little seminary lads [and lasses?] having to deal with the very real questions that non-Christians [like Muslims and atheist] throw at Christian Scriptures out there in the real world of evangelism and debate where we have to deal square on with some very uncomfortable facts about the way that the scriptures came to be and were transmitted.
I'm afraid that some of the rather 'in-house' special pleading that goes on in some Christian circles just lacks credibility among many of the people we are trying to talk to about Truth. They actually see us dodging uncomfortable truths. If our faith can't take a bit of exposure to the honest and sometimes probing questions of non-Christians we are more to be pitied than all people. That goes for our theories about scripture and the word of God.
Andii,
First up will be briefest... I find your cavalier dismissal of the Psalm 12:6,7 quote to be disturbing. However it is not uncommon or unique. Most "scholars" take that approach with regard to the authority of the Word of God. If we cannot be certain what God said, then the supreme authority becomes "scholarship" or our own opinions, not God.
I should have been more clear on the King James issue. I believe the King James Bible to be THE BIBLE preserved perfect and without error in the universal language of the 17 th to 21 st centuries for the English-speaking people of the world. For other people there are other translations from the SAME TEXTUAL TREE which is not where catholic 'bibles" and most modern revisions come from. For instance there are Luther's Bible for the German-speaking people, and the Valera for Spanish-speaking people, both from the Textus Receptus tree of manuscripts, which have NEVER been used by the catholic "church".
Your comment on 1 John 5:7 is VERY ill-informed. Witnesses to the purity of the King James Bible's inclusion of these verses include:
A.D. 170 Old Syriac and Old Latin
A.D. 180 Tatian and Old Syriac
A.D. 200 Tertullian and Old Latin
A.D. 250 Cyprian and Old Latin
A.D. 350 Priscillian and Athanasius
A.D. 415 Council of Carthage
A.D. 450 Jerome's Vulgate
A.D. 510 Fulgentius
A.D. 750 Wianburgensis
A.D. 1150 Minuscule Manuscript 88
A.D. 12-1500 Four Waldensian Bibles
A.D. 1519 Greek Manuscript 61
A.D. 1520-1611 Erasmus T.R.
A.D. 1611 King James Authorized Version of the Holy Bible.
These verses are NOT FOUND IN CORRUPT "bibles" such as the RV, RSV, NRSV, CEV, ASV, NASV, and NIV. Satan has always sought to destroy the doctrine of the Trinity. Dean Burgon, E.F. Hills, David Otis Fuller, Dr. Peter S. Ruckman and others have nailed the case SHUT for the KJB. If you think that Aleph and B (Vaticanus and Siniaticus) represent the "originals", I have some beach-front property in Arizona for you. (Sorry... that's an American joke. Hint: Arizona is a desert.) They "originated" in the 4 th century at Alexandria in North Africa, using corrupt texts (primarily Origen's Hexapla) that were NOT used by the christian churches of the day. Their rotting carcasses were resurrected by Westcott and Hort in the late 19 th century and have been a blight on christianity ever since.
Craig I thank you for paying me the compliment of thinking that I am worth expending all this energy on converting.
It reminds me of an old and bad joke:
Two pastors walking down a narrow street in a city, as they pass between two blocks of falts they hear people arguing, and looking up see two neigbours each shouting at the other across the street from opposite buildings facing one another. The first pastor says to the other, "They'll never agree." "Why do you think that?" asks the other. "Well, it's obvious: they're arguing from different premises".
And so are we: in fact the issues and assumptions underlying this are so wide -ranging and would need so much unpicking that it would be a major project for either of us to do it. I'm counting the cost here. And for me the emotional energy and the time just isn't there given that for me it's a non-essential matter: which translation of the Bible you use is not really a matter of salvation or even of any major doctrine. I suspect you will want to tell me otherwise but it really doesn't look that way from the perspective of someone who hasn't got an a priori emotional stake in the KJV.
Personally I'm quite happy with my Nestle-Aland Greek NT. I also have a TR interlinear with KJV and with my NTGreek students I would be quite happy to use either since I've never really come across anything substantial in differences except the 1Jn5.7 bit -since we normally use 1Jn as a good beginners' intro to the NT text.
This line of comment really has strayed far from both the original post and the intent of the blog so I will suggest that, if you really want to take it further, we do so privately.
*IF* anyone else is following this and would like to see what I regard as a fairly sober and helpful and brief accounts of textual history matters, may I steer you to
http://www.bible-researcher.com/kutilek1.html
http://www.christiancourier.com/questions/textusReceptusQuestion.htm
The latter succintly puts the case for allowing us to move on from the TR
"# Thousands of manuscripts (substantial or in fragments), much older than those employed by the King James translators have been discovered and incorporated into modern texts.
# Ancient versions (early translations of the Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek texts), not used by the King James translators, have been referenced for the latest Greek texts.
# Thousands of comparative Patristic (early post-apostolic writers) quotations (containing virtually the whole of the New Testament record) have added tremendously to the knowledge of the restoration of a reliable text.
# Significant advances have been made in the study of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages during the past two hundred years."
Readers might also like to reference:
http://www.exchangedlife.com/QandA/kjv_only1.shtml
Apostasy is incurable. I see Doug Kutilek is still up to the same old rotten devilment. Of the 27 Editions of Nestle's, which do you look to as your final authority? You might take note that Nestle's 27 th Edition has been forced to make MANY changes to readings that will now agree with the King James text, which has NEVER been proven wrong. If you had a King James Bible, you had the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God from the start. But for the "scholars' union" it always has been and always will be about money, pride and prestige. Some things NEVER change. Sorry to hear that you have chosen to be in league with the bible critics rather than the Bible believers. The critics never had a problem with removing the blood of Jesus Christ from Colossians 1:14... I guess it just wasn't doctrinally important. 'Bye!
Craig the tenor of your writings makes it hard for me to believe that you are sorry to lump me in with the 'Bible critics'.I rather suspect anyone reading this conversation will see that you started out belligerently and finshed that way. You came looking for a fight. You knew that I wsa commenting on scripture and trying to wrestle with real issues so the charge that I don't beleive the Bible is one that won't stick.
I think that all of the issues are dealt with by the pages I referenced, either directly or by implication. My considered opinion is that your considered opinion is *probably* not right. And when we meet in heaven at the feet of our saviour we'll both discover how many things we've both been wrong about and rejoice in the merciful salvation of the one who shed his blood at calvary to bring us into the triune fellowship of grace.Not by works -not even the works of allegedly right opinion.
Andii,
The way in which the issues are dealt with on the sites you referenced can best be described in one word... LAME. I'll deal with that on my blog real SOON I promise. In the mean time, my post for today on my blog will be pertinent, @ craigintosh.blogspot.com
Craig
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