The LDS Church refers to the Book of Mormon as Another Testament of Jesus Christ. This is a helpful reminder to the rest of the world that Testament in Christian parlance means a text which is a witness (testis) to Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal life through Him. When Christians say Hebrew Scriptures, they could be saying "some stuff some Jews wrote down." When Christians say Old Testament they admit the sacred history of Israel as the first testimony to the Savior of the World.
Internet Monk in a fairly recent post reminds us that salvation through Christ is the fruition of the very ancient promise to Abraham even before his circumcision, "Go and I shall make of you a great nation." Paul, though cut off from his people, recognized intensely that the promise to Abraham was true for both Jews and Gentiles, for the latter through Christ and perhaps without Christ (if absolutely necessary) for the former. Jesus was a little more ambiguous. He really didn't like people going around doing whatever they felt like because they were children of Abraham. "From these stones, God can raise up children to Abraham." But this was a call for the Jews of his day to be worthy of the lineage of their father. We, Christians, are of that same lineage, either by the spirit or by both spirit and the flesh. And so we ought to be worthy of our lineage.
The Church sometimes has been greatly blessed by the witness of those in the latter category, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky is a notable recent example. A gifted rabbinical student in the Ukraine. Blessed Samuel discovered the New Testament and left his community to study in Germany, convinced that Jesus was the Christ. Eventually, he translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Chinese, apparently achieving great praise in Chinese literary circles.
When I look in the Old Testament for Christ, I go many places familiar to Christians down through the ages: to Isaiah and the Suffering Servant or to the Psalms etc. But I also go to the Book of Job. Job? There is much there which speaks to me of Christ as Savior but this above all:
Let not the earth cover my blood, and let my cry for justice find no rest! For now my witness is in heaven; there is One on high ready to answer for me. My appeal will come before God, while my eyes turn anxiously to him. If only there were arbitrate between man and God, as between a man and his neighbour. For there are but a few years to come before I take the road from which there is no return. My mind is distraught, my days are numbered, and the grave awaits me. Wherever I turn, I am taunted, and my eye meets nothing but sneers. Be my surety with yourself, for who else will pledge himself for me? [...] If I measure Sheol for my house, if I spread my couch in the darkness, if I call the grave my father and the worm my mother or my sister, where, then, will my hope be, and who will take account of my piety? I cannot take them with me down to Sheol, nor shall we descend together to the dust (Job 16:19-22, 17:1-3, 13-16).
In the other prophecies of Christ, I see Christ as liberator of Israel as community or nation, Christ as bearer of communal sins, Christ as the means to a salvation free to the world entire. These are joyful things. But sometimes we are like Job, we don't want messianic liberators. We are joyful that others will be saved. But we, in fear and trembling at our sins ("let not the earth cover my blood" has overtones of human sin as old as Genesis) want to know it will be all right. We know that God has the stuff on us, therefore we want our side of the story to be heard.
My favorite Epistle is that to the Hebrews in which Israel's entire sacred history is read as fulfilled in Christ and His Church with beautiful reasoning explaining how Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross is the fulfillment of the mystical and prophetic aspects of Jewish ritual worship in the Temple. It is beautiful and overpowering, especially when read on Maundy Thursday. But to the person first seeking Christ, it seems all too much. What does a lot of animal sacrifice have to do with this radical holy man? How is the New Testament really the fulfillment of the Old? Well, 500 years before Christ, some gifted writer expressed his longing for an advocate with God, a personal savior, not some great big cosmic and nationalistic figure. Through Israel, the human race in the Old Testament had many chances to tell God what they wanted, what they thought was just, what just plain annoyed them. Abraham and Moses showed God how much the righteous longed for mercy even for the wicked. At the crossing of the Red Sea, God saw how a show of force could stimulate thanksgiving from the most petulant of peoples. Did he already know these things? Of course, He's omniscient. But how many of us still want to hear our beloved's favorite color from his or her own lips, though we've known for twenty years? Or know what he or she really thinks about this or that, not just what they tell the rest of the world? And in Job, we hear the deepest longings of the human heart: What use is piety (and everything else we think makes us "good") if we are going to die anyway?
Then what does God's speech near the end of the Book tell us? Well to put it bluntly and uncharitably: You don't know anything, God does. But note how He says it, "Have you an arm like God's arm...Unleash the fury of your wrath, look on all who are proud, and humble them, look on all who are proud, and bring them low, crush the wicked where they stand; bury them in the earth together, and shroud them in an unknown grave. Then I in turn would acknowledge that your own right hand could save you" (Job 40:9, 11-14). God sounds like a jerk until I hear the strains of a young woman singing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord..." or the Psalm of Easter Sunday (118) chanted by the choir, "The Lord is my strength and my song and He has become my salvation. There is joy and exultation in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord hath triumphed, the right hand of the Lord has been exalted, the right hand of the Lord hath triumphed, I shall not die but live and proclaim all of the works of the Lord (see Job 38-41)." Surprise!, Job.
This is the beauty of the Old Testament that the Article emphasizes. Christ and salvation through Him are found everywhere. Once you know of Christ, the Old Testament stands unrolled and unraveled...or at least it is more clear and intelligible than before. Life first appears very easy when you know the right answer.
Yet also note that the view of the Tridentine Fathers on the importance of the Old Testament is based on a profession of faith: "God is the Author of both" and an invocation of aetiology and ontology: all Scriptures are the words of Christ or inspired by the Holy Ghost and preserved continuously in the Church Catholic as such. I prefer the Anglican version: both the Old and New Testaments proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ.
Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises.
I've looked everywhere for some idea of who was feigning anything of this kind. I've found very little, but what I've found (mainly in 19th century sources) implies that this part of the Article argues against the view that the entire covenant of Israel with God was for carnal (transitory, worldly) purposes as opposed to the New Covenant which was more spiritual. This is an attractive idea, since playing carnal Israel off the spiritual Church is one of the oldest jeux de verite of Christendom. In an age when American Christians sometimes feel a religious duty to support Zion, it is important to realize that the Abrahamic covenant need not be honored by possession of the land in this world. Another implication of this view might be the antinomianism seemingly condemned in the next part of the Article. If the Old Covenant concerned material promises and material actions, it is only spiritual actions that have any bearing on spiritual promises. This, of course, is a very common but erroneous view of the human creature and the moral order. One of my 19th century sources is led to refer to this Article in the context of the manna in the desert, "when mortals ate the bread of angels and found it food enough."
Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil Precepts thereof ought if necessity to be received in any commonwealth, yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.
This part of the Article refers to one of the most fluid doctrines in the history of the Church and the source of its earliest controversy. At least since the time of the Schoolmen, there has been an exhaustive theological literature that shows how the Old Covenant is abolished (is replaced/ is fulfilled /is superseded/ hangs out still for fun or to spur men to redemption by showing them their helplessness in the face of sin) by or with the New. This literature also explains how the Ten Commandments transition nicely from the Old to the New.
I noted on Thinking Anglicans in June:
"The more Protestant leaning Anglicans in 1571 may have been like their descendants who wrote the Westminster Confession etc. and believed that the moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments (proof-texting with Matthew 19:17-19. The more Catholic-leaning Anglicans would have agreed with the idea of summary comprehension if they followed Question 100 of Aquinas' Summa Theologica. But both sides probably would have disagreed about the exact content of the moral law, thus the Seventh Article contains the mutually inoffensive principle that all Christian men are bound by "the Commandments which are called Moral" (which are certainly the Ten Commandments and nothing else).
This is all very well and good until you read in Byzantine penitentials of the 8th century or so that the confessor was to ask if the penitent had eaten meat with the blood in it. One possibility for such a question is that a penitent who did so might be involved in pagan ritual practice. Another possibility is that the authors of the penitential were under the impression that the Noachian laws were binding on Christians. The particular commandment in question is certainly a dietary law. So apparently it took a while for the whole idea of the abolition of dietary laws to come into full acceptance. Moreover, some of those who say the Old Covenant is superseded in terms of rites and ceremonies will argue that it is improper to use musical instruments in worship etc.
Here's one case where "liberal" Episcopal theology really helps me out...wait...I mean Holy Eucharist I. When I was a little boy, I heard this every Sunday after the Collect for Purity:
Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
Before I begin my piece I would like to say that I regard myself and all other Christians as fully bound by the Ten Commandments understood narrowly, for they were understood narrowly when revealed at Sinai. But it is objected that they were merely elaborated by the Law. On the contrary, the very need for elaboration itself suggests that the commandments that elaborate are not contained within the Decalogue. I reply that it is the Summary of the Law in the New Covenant that should be read broadly, since it is the guiding principle of the Law and the Prophetic exhortations.
And here is what it says: the First Commandment strives for an inward affection toward God, not an outward affection of ritual and sacrifice. We regard all of the expressions of love of God in the First Commandment as inward affections, habits, or disciplines that condition outward actions. In the case of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Law, it was not that God could not see the inward emptiness of the Temple ritual performed by folks like those Jesus denounced as whitewashed tombs, He saw all and complained bitterly through the Prophets and as Emmanuel, begging like all lovers for deeply felt love, not candy, flowers, and burnt offerings. This is not to say that the ritual was merely carnal. Many Jews surely were greatly awed by God and loved Him deeply, but the Temple ritual also could be performed by those just going through the motions. It is hard for a just God to strike down a person obeying His commandments outwardly without inward affection (if only because it scares the genuine worshippers), but it surely stings.
Moreover, love of God without love of neighbor and vice versa is very difficult. This is an oft-repeated maxim in Episcopal churches these days, but it is of great truth. A just community cannot function without its members having a deep inner commitment to God who commands justice and mercy and deep love of justice and mercy inculcated by identification of one's neighbor with oneself. If anything else is included in the Ten Commandments or if they are to be read broadly, they will focus on the right ordering of that interiority that can be the source of many good and many dangerous external actions.
Finally, the New Covenant surpasses the ritual weaknesses of the Old sacramentally. Under the Old Law, the Samaritans are said by Jesus in the Gospel of John to worship what they know not and the Jews to worship what they know, for salvation (as we have said again and again) comes from the Jews. But Jesus says that the time has come for God to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, not by sacrifice on Zion and Gerizim. In the Eucharist, it is impossible that we can come without consequences to perform outward signs and remain vexingly pleasing to God, for in the Body and Blood of Christ we confront God Himself both carnally and spiritually. We know and are known in the company of the entire Church (these saints, these sinners, these our nearest neighbors, these our family). We obey the outward command through the innermost revelation of our being to God. We present ourselves as living offerings, allegedly holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. And so, we, too, become as Christ on the Cross, combining the Passover and Yom Kippur sacrifices in ourselves, as both victim and priest, somehow liberated and still desperately unworthy. The rites and ceremonies of the old Fathers were not transitory, for if we strive to be worthy heirs of Abraham, they likewise are fulfilled through us.
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Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that all you who have been led through the waters of the Red Sea may not test the Lord in your hearts as your fathers and mothers did at Meribah, nor go on sinning in the wilderness of these beauteous worlds. But instead may you brief that worthy Advocate in your cause who is your same Mighty Judge, even Jesus Christ, that He may give you a portion in the land of milk and honey and the world to come.
3 comments:
Caelius,
You give me so much to think about here, I may have to come back and respond some more. Here are some initial thoughts:
The Decalogue has always seemed very sensible to me (perhaps that surprises some?), sort of like St. Benedict's Rule. A fleshing out of loving God and one's neighbor as one'sself at a most basic level for the basic running of a just and common good society devoted to the worship of the Living G-d.
And of course, there are levels of meaning to say, "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me" or "Thou shalt not commit adultery". But taking them at face value is a good start--the "plain sense".
Indeed in both cases, the worship of God is at stake, as the prophets would later flesh out. One cannot love God with rituals and words and despise one's neighbor by lying with her/his spouse. To do so is to make someone else your god by covetousness and to muddy a sign in the flesh of G-d's own faithfulness to us. That is why the prophets so often equated idolatry and adultery in my opinion.
On the other hand, the Jewish (yes, Rabbinic Judaism is quite more loving than Christians have made out) and Christian response to such an action at best is communal censure and forgiveness, not stoning to death... .
I say censure, because such actions simply cannot be allowed to continue unabated (as St. Paul censured in the Church in Corinth)for the good society to be built up, muchless the danger presented by adultery to the other spouse in his or her formation as a person, and I say forgiveness because at best, just as G-d forgives our waywardness (and we are all wayward), our choice (and it is an active choosing, let me say from firsthand experience) to forgive our spouse is a sign of G-d's own forgiveness. And it's a lot of hard work--G-d loves us a great deal.
Luther's take on the 10 commandments is interesting. He held them to be authoritative but not because they're in the Bible...instead he regarded them to be the clearest explication of natural law. (Hey, remember he was arguing against both Catholics and the Radical Reformation which wanted to do all sorts of wacky things with the OT.)That having been said his work on them in the Sall Catechism is one I still hold dear.
I've been trouble lately by the whole ceremonial/civil/moral split of the Torah. It just doesn't fall down so neatly--these categories freely interpenetrate one another. I feel the need to go back and figure out where these hermeneutical lines were laid and how they developed. Who went through the Law and said, "Moral. Moral. Ceremonial. Civil. Moral. Civil..." ticking off all 613 of them? Where is this laid out? I'm sure that the Epistle of Barnabas is one of the earliest writings to head in this direction but it needs some serious tracing. (The EpBarn is worth the read if only for the weasel section...) Maybe one the diss is done. :-)
Caelius, I only just really gave your blog a good read for the first time this morning. It is outstanding. But I am intrigued about your identity. It is clear that we know one another in some context (based upon your comments on my sermon back on Aug 31), I cannot figure out who you are! Any chance you could email me and divulge the secret? I won't tell a soul, I promise! My email can be found on my blog. Keep up the good work.
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