Reading through my last blog: “The Law and the Christian”, I have chosen this week to make 3 comments on points I made – points which I felt needed further comment, to avoid misunderstanding.
1. To the statement that Christians have never believed they had to keep the whole Torah: This is true after the final break with Judaism. However, the first Christians did not think they had started a new religion, separate from their ancestral faith, Judaism. They believed Jesus to be the Messiah, and to be raised from the dead. This put them at odds with the Sadducees, who did not believe that the dead could rise, as did the Pharisees. But, it would have taken time for them to sort out the implications of their new faith for their practice of the law. In Acts ch. 3, they are still visiting the temple. Later, they would realise with Paul, that they themselves had become temples of the Holy Spirit. It would take Paul’s intellect and spiritual insight, to clearly perceive what the implications were for the practice of the Torah.
2. The issue in Galatians historically was broader than just the 10 commandments. In my last blog, I was concerned with the 10 commandments, and e.g. the Shema, Deut. 6,4-5 and Lev. 19,18 – see Mk. 12,29-31 – because they constitute the moral code of the Old Testament. That this also was central for Paul, is witnessed by Romans 7,7-12. But the Galatians were being asked by the Jewish infiltrators – most probably from Jerusalem, to practice circumcision, perhaps food laws (see Gal. 1), observe days (the Sabbath?) and months, see Gal. 4,8-11.
Galatians 4,8-11, together with other passages in Paul´s letters, warrant a separate blog post to explain what seems to be the background – see a blog I intend to write on Gnosticism later this year.
3. The Christian´s motivation
I wrote about the love of Christ in us, that motivates us to live our Christian lives (2 Cor. 5,14). I want to bring some more context to that statement. For although it is the love of Christ in us, it is also our love for Christ, which causes us to want to follow him, and to obey him.
But, this is because Jesus first loved us!
Thus, while Jesus says in John 14,15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” – that being that they love one another (Jn. 13,34) – John can say in his first letter: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins .” 1 Jn. 4,10. And again, “We love because he first loved us.” 1 Jn. 4,19.
In his letter to the Philippians, in chapter 3, Paul has “suffered the loss of all things in order that I may gain Christ” (v. 8), …and “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (v. 10-11).
Then in verse 12, in the NIV:
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” In Norwegian: “men jeg jager frem mot det, fordi jeg selv er grepet av Kristus Jesus.”
The point being, that Paul’s love and pursuit of Christ stems from his meeting him on the road to Damascus. Everything changed for Paul after that.
Paul, a learned and uncompromising Pharisee, persecuted Christians; arrested them, before Jesus took hold of his life!
Again, Peter, that good-hearted, man-of-the-moment fisherman, in his moment of weakness, denied knowing Jesus three times. Such was the love of Jesus for Peter, that after the Resurrection – instead of confronting him with recrimination – Jesus three times asks him: “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these”. After the third time, Peter answers: “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you!” Jn. 21,15-19.
So this is what we are saying:
It was these two wonderful, but flawed men, who became Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter, the Apostle to the Circumcision! The love of Jesus turned both their lives around.
And then there was John ….. see Jn. 21,21-25.
John, the Beloved disciple, who according to the early witness of the Church – for the love of Jesus – wrote his wonderful Gospel towards the end of the first century in Ephesus. Of this, I need to say more another time.
All these 3 men’s lives were touched and changed by the love of Jesus, before ever they started serving him!