Tract 3 — The Basic Message of Scripture
Part 4 of “Let the Text Speak”
TRACT 3: The Basic Message of Scripture
One of the most notable controversies in Christian history has to do with soteriology and the mechanics of salvation. Most, if not all of these, miss the mark for the simple reason that they are highly individualized. Many Christian sects and denominations focus on the personal journey of the individual sinner, whereas the Bible is concerned with the wellbeing of the flock in its multitude. Even the famous parable of the lost sheep is framed in the gospel of Matthew, not as directed towards his immediate audience, but towards the little ones — ie those who are among the needy, not necessarily children alone per se but they are certainly included.
See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. — Matt. 18:10–14
In the gospel of Luke, the parable of the lost sheep is delivered in conjunction with a series of rebukes against the Pharisees’ inability to understand why Jesus is ministering to the sinners and tax collectors.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. — Luke 15:1–7
So even the text that is most often connected with an individualization of the gospel has more to do with the hearers’ neighbors, rather than the hearers themselves. In other words, the text is seeking not to inspire the hearer and boast of their importance in God’s eyes, but to smash their egos and proclaim to them that even the people they find the most despicable and insignificant are so important to God that he will search tirelessly for them to the ends of the earth. This diminishment of the hearer his personified in Jesus’ apostle par excellence, Paul. Unlike many characters in the New Testament, Paul’s name is neither Greek nor Hebrew, but Latin. The original, Paulus, means the little one and its usage is powerfully juxtaposed with the name Saul, which harkens back to the first king of Israel. It isn’t only the loftiness of regality that is juxtaposed here, but the fact that Saul was described as being tall in stature in 1 Samuel 9:2. In this sense, he can perhaps be identified as becoming one of the little ones who are the lost sheep in Matthew’s telling of the parable. That the little ones are also representative of the gentiles is powerfully reinforced when, in the book of Acts, Saul’s name change to Paul in the narrative occurs after evangelizing the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus.
He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” — Acts 13:7–11
In the act of evangelizing the proconsul, Paul becomes as Sergius Paulus is. Instead of Judaizing him as his opponents would do, he appeals to his Roman citizenship and his Roman name and presents himself as a fellow gentile.
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. — 1 Cor. 9:20–21
This is reinforced by the inverse of his circumcising Timothy, because of the Jews later in the book of Acts.
Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. — Acts 16:3
This is to demonstrate that neither the Jew nor the Greek have the upper hand in this new covenant, but that both are called to common table fellowship. This is to fulfill Isaiah 66 where God’s new covenant community is made up of peoples from among all of the nations.
For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. — Isa. 66:18–21
This new condition, or covenant, is available for full membership regardless of circumcision and other Jewish customs because this new law is written on the heart and thus the circumcision employed is on one’s heart as well. In Semitic cultures, the heart is the seat of intellect, so the act of having one’s heart circumcised is to do a holistic 180 turnaround. Paul did not invent this concept, but merely read and understood the scriptures correctly against his opponents who abused the covenant of circumcision and turned it into something they could boast outwardly in superiority against the gentiles. That the circumcision of one’s heart is the underlying goal of physical circumcision is clear in the Old Testament scriptures.
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. — Deut. 10:16–17
And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. — Deut. 30:6
Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts. — Jer. 4:4
The play on the circumcision of the heart is reinforced in Jeremiah’s exposition of the New Covenant.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. — Jer. 31:33
In the epistle to the Romans, Paul demonstrates this by putting the two pieces together.
For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. — Rom. 2:28–29
This principle, again, is not something that Paul made up out of the clear blue sky, but is deeply entrenched in the overall Biblical teaching. The crux of it is this: God, unlike human beings, is not concerned with the outward appearance. White wash on dung does not fool him, as it would a person. God sees the heart and judges it accordingly.
But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” — 1 Sam. 16:7
Fr. Marc Boulos captures this powerfully in his introduction to the book Torah to the Gentiles: St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.
The Pharisees presume the possibility of a pure or “good” person because they believe themselves — on the basis of appearance — better than those whose sins are outwardly visible. A well-dressed, tactful, middle class office worker who is privately arrogant is much harder to single out than a prostitute or a homeless drug addict. The latter is associated with uncleanness; the former with the eternal bliss of Middle America. In the Sermon the Mount, Jesus is explicit: a godly man who obeys in secret is outwardly indistinguishable from the godless. True purity, Jesus teaches, is not visible. The human being who sees purity is blind, because human eyes fool us into thinking that we can differentiate between pure and impure. — pp. 28–29
To add on to this point, it is also striking that even in the garden, it was Eve’s determination that the fruit was pleasing to the eye that compelled her to eat from it. This is precisely why the Bible warns us not to judge based on appearances, but to judge based on the outcome of behavior which is precisely understood as fruit. But even then, it is God who ultimately judges whether the fruit is substantially good.
The problem with judging is another feature of the New Testament which is precisely employed to quell any potential arrogance that may arise from Paul’s addressees. In Romans, the Jews are in trouble on judgment day because of their hypocrisy in following the law, but the gentiles are also in trouble on the basis of their own sense of morality and the judgment they levy against others as a result.
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things… For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. — Rom. 1:2, 14–16
Here Paul is teaching that when the gentiles judge, they are judging according to common sense, which is ultimately what the law is. Even though they do not possess the scriptures themselves, they are still culpable on judgment day, not according to the law written on the stone tablets on Mount Horeb, but on the law that is written in their hearts. This is why every man, both Jew and gentile, are without excuse in Paul’s gospel. The only way out of this impasse, then, is God’s grace.
This is where the debates about soteriology go completely off the rails. It is not a question about faith versus works. Salvation is not something that someone can achieve by bribing God with it, even belief in him is not going to help on its own. No, salvation comes not by faith nor works but by grace. This is only possible because God chooses to forgive. Faith then is the response to that grace by acting faithfully to that grace. In other words, the teaching is to bestow the same forgiveness to others that God showed you. This, and only this, is what each person will be judged on at the judgment seat of Christ.
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. — Matt. 25: 41–46
This is also reinforced in the parable of the unforgiving servant.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” — Matt. 18:32–35
Jesus’ death on the cross then is not to be understood in terms of complicated theological treatises, but as a beautiful testimony of God’s mercy. As is explained in the parable of the tenants of the vineyard, God sent prophets to warn humanity throughout time. Every one of these prophets was rejected, oftentimes violently so. In a final act of warning, God sent an heir who he was well pleased with (Mk. 1:11) and who perfectly walked in his statutes, presuming that his tenants, Israel, would finally obey him. Instead, the tenants killed the Son. While the parable ends with a sobering warning of judgment, God actually uses the death of Jesus as an instrument for salvation. Instead of showing wrath, he shows mercy by rendering Jesus’ death as a sacrifice initiating Jeremiah’s New Covenant. Not only that, but he raises Jesus from the dead, not only to life but to power. The force of this is demonstrated precisely by the manner of Jesus’ death, which was to be hanged in public shame, a mark of being cursed in the Old Testament.
His body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. — Deut. 21:23
In God raising his cursed Son from the dead, he is publicly proclaiming that the curse attached to his Son is now undone.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” — so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. — Gal. 3:13–14
In explaining this further in Romans, Paul explains that Jesus’ death as the initiation of the New Covenant signals a fulfillment of the conditions set in the Old Covenant.
Or do you not know, brothers — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. — Rom. 7:1–6
The Christian rite of baptism is a visceral demonstration of our death with Christ, and our being raised with him.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. — Rom. 6:3–5
Therefore, the one who is in Christ is free from the bondage of sin and death. There is no hope in the vain rituals, repetitions, and outward piety of the Pharisees. Jesus’ death and resurrection testifies to the hope in having a circumcised heart in order to bear fruits worthy of repentance. Our heart of stone is to be transformed into a heart of flesh, and our inclination to serve ourselves is to be changed to the concern of our needy neighbor. The gospel necessitates that we change, but that change can only happen when we submit to God’s instruction. Our freedom in Christ is to be free from the bondage of the idea that we can appease God by our religiosity and outward piety. But our freedom in Christ is not total freedom as in our Americanized understanding of that word. We were bought with a price. We are slaves to Christ instead of slaves to death. Therefore, we must do what Christ commands lest we prove unworthy on the day of judgment and find ourselves among the goats instead of the sheep.
The New Testament doubles down in its insistence, already firmly established in the Old Testament, that the scriptural deity is calling us to walk faithfully in his laws and statutes, and not in temple sacrifices. As the epistle to the Hebrews explains, Jesus Christ has become every function of the temple, being both the priest and the sacrifice.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. — Heb. 9:11–12
While this sacrifice is once-for-all, complacency is still not an option. Paul makes it very clear that the moment we fall back into sin is the moment that sacrifice becomes null for us.
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. — Heb. 10:26–27
In lieu of man made traditions and outward religiosity, Jesus is presented as the solution to the contemporaneous political issues of Roman Judea. The Jews were famously splintered into several sects, with the two prominent parties being the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Pharisees in particular were expecting a military leader, in the vein of King David, who would free them from the oppression of the Romans. Instead of one of these false messiahs who came and went with the times, Paul wrote of a crucified political dissident who did not model the David of 2 Samuel but modeled the David of 1 Samuel, who was a shepherd first and foremost. Instead of reflecting David’s impressive military conquest of Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 5, Jesus reflects the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. Paul presents a Christ who did not condemn his enemies, but forgave them, even after nailing him on a cross. In other words, he conquered his enemy by inviting them to open table fellowship under the aegis of his Father in heaven. Incredibly, by the fourth century, Christianity had conquered the Roman Empire, not by the blood of soldiers but by the blood of martyrs. There is a story about Constantine entering the church at Nicea for the famous ecumenical council, and becoming acquainted with those who had survived violent persecution. Some of these individuals were missing limbs, or eyes, or were otherwise disfigured. Without hesitation, Constantine did the unthinkable. He bowed down to them and received their blessing. The Emperor. Such a thing would have been unthinkable before. But in that moment, even Constantine knew that in the eyes of God, these Christian martyrs were greater in the kingdom of Heaven than even he.
It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. — Matt. 20:26–28
Thus, in relinquishing his lofty regal name Saul, the Apostle opted for his humiliating Roman name, Paul which made himself lower, so his message of Christ could be greater than him.
Continue to Conclusion: Orthopraxy…
