Love On John's Terms (part 22)

Without rehearsing the history of attempted rebellions under Israel’s various oppressors, a simple acknowledgement that a long line of attempts at violent overthrow (most of which came to naught) backed by messianic claims and provided tenuous foundation by hopes concerning their God responding to rebellious actions by acting on behalf of His people to legitimize the activity and establish His kingdom will suffice.  That acknowledged, it is possible to confidently propose that when Jesus speaks of thieves and robbers that came before Him, He was making a reference to previous messianic claimants. 

Jesus was referring to all of those who had risen up in revolt in efforts to overthrow the nations that ruled over the land of Israel, grasping at that which was not theirs to take and attempting to set themselves up as kings and rulers of the Creator God’s land and people.  Not only could this be directed towards all of those that could be looked back upon as potential and failed messiah figures, but it could be rightly applied to Israel’s then current ruling and dynastic family, as Jesus adds “the sheep did not listen to them” (John 10:8b).  Certainly, there were very few in Israel who looked upon the Herods as legitimate rulers of the covenant people.  In many ways, they were as despised as the Romans. 

Jesus repeats Himself and says, “I am the door.  If anyone enters through Me, He will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture” (10:9).  Keeping in mind that the notion of being “saved” had everything to do with participating in the fullness of the Creator God’s covenant faithfulness by participating in the kingdom of God, the renewal of creation (by those living at the time of its expected in-breaking), or the resurrection of the righteous dead (by those who had died as people faithful to the covenant), the covenant people were in constant expectation of the re-establishment of national sovereignty and subsequent superiority to the surrounding nations, as in the halcyon days of David and Solomon. 

By and large, the covenant people were expecting their God to break in upon history and set up His kingdom in and through them.  This was a motivating force behind the repeated messianic movements and claimants, and the associated revolutionary activities.  Many looked to the long-held promise of a land of their own in which they ruled themselves, knowing that as long as the present situation of being ruled by foreign powers continued, that they were still in a state of exile from their God’s promises to them. 

It is in this context that Jesus informs the people that the way in which they were attempting to regain control of their land was not the way that their God had intended for them.  It was not the door, so to speak.  Jesus told them that He was the door, and that entrance into the kingdom of the Creator God was going to be provided through Him and through following on the path of love and self-sacrifice that He was forging.  The people would find their pasture, their land, through what it was that He was going to do, through their believing in Him as Lord and KIng, and through their loyally adhering to His instructions and examples concerning the way that He was presenting---which would ultimately be the way of the shame and suffering and the cross. 

Presumably turning His thoughts to the thieves and robbers who were the pretenders and presumptuous usurpers that had come before Him (in no way at all is the Satan in view here as the thief and robber), while also considering those that would have followed after Jesus and been known to the Johannine community (especially considering the fact of the destruction of the Jewish revolt of 66-70, the destruction of the Temple, and the burning of Jerusalem), Jesus offers commentary on their methods by saying that “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (10:10a).  This method was not the Creator God’s intention for His people and His kingdom.  Then, as it is now, it was not the Creator God’s design for His chosen people to establish and extend His kingdom by force of arms and violent revolution.  There was no need to steal and kill and destroy, as such would be quite counter-productive to His plans.  That is the method of the thieves and robbers.   

Love On John's Terms (part 16)

Continuing to observe the potential connection that the author is making with the event with the woman at the well, it is worth re-considering that the Samaritan woman had replied to Jesus by saying “How can you---a Jew---ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (John 4:9a)  How did Jesus respond to that questions?  He said “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (4:10).  The response of the woman at the well was “Sir…you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water?  Surely, you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you?  For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock” (4:11-12) 

Is this talk of Jacob and his “giving us this well” and its water not echoed by the people’s mentioning of Moses in the sixth chapter?  What was Jesus’ reply?  He said, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again.  But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life” (4:13-14).  What is it that Jesus says in the sixth chapter, after the bread-seeking response of the people to Jesus’ talk of bread from heaven and the connection to Moses (similar to Jacob and the well) implied by such words?  Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.  The one who comes to Me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never go thirsty” (6:35).  The connection practically jumps off the page. 

The Samaritan woman’s response was “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” (4:15).  With this, the comparison with the record of the sixth chapter does indeed become rather obvious.  A short while later, after Jesus is said to have told the woman something about herself that He could not possibly have known, the woman said “Sir, I see that you are a prophet” (4:19).  This again calls attention to the talk of Jesus as the Prophet like Moses that was to come, which seems to be an ongoing theme in this Gospel.  Jesus alluded to this in the encounter with the woman, as it closes with Him saying “I, the one speaking to you, am He” (4:26). 

In chapter six, Jesus speaks words that take much the same form, when He says “Everyone whom the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never send away” (6:37).  What happened in the fourth chapter?  The woman went and told people about Jesus, many came to see Him, and many believed in Him (4:39).  Continuing in the sixth chapter, Jesus said “For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of the One who sent Me…  For this is the will of My Father---for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (6:38,40). 

With the story of the Samaritan woman, it is a chorus of Samaritans (again, telling an observer something about the community for which this is written and the issue of Gentile inclusion in the church) that says “for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world” (4:42b).  Here, it is more than worth noting that this use of “Savior of the world” would not have been heard or even intended as a reference to people getting “saved” so that they might have the opportunity to go to heaven when they die, but is instead a subversive poke at Rome and its emperor, who carried the title, beginning with Augustus, of “savior of the world”.  Thus, the language here in use is intensely messianic/kingly.     

Hated (part 7 of 7)

Secondly, hate comes when Christians proclaim Jesus as their Lord and God and are thereby charged to exemplify divine blessing, subsequently presenting themselves as a chosen and rescued and delivered people, but then deny the blessings associated with that confession by not living their proclamation into the world.  If one names the name of Jesus, and revels in being a part of the chosen people of the covenant God, but then turns a back to this world to dismiss this creation in a way that Jesus never did; or if believers hold to the claim to be the transformative power of the Gospel to themselves within the walls of their churches without taking that power out to give cups of cold water and food and clothing (exemplifying divine blessing), then the world has every right to express hatred. 

Is this what happened to Israel in Egypt?  Was it these type of actions, or lack thereof, that caused the Creator God’s fruitful people to be hated?  Is this what Jesus had in mind when He spoke of the hatred to come?  Is it possible that followers of the Christ are hated when they proclaim allegiance to the name of Jesus, but then simply do not live according to that proclamation?  At the risk of redundancy, should they be hated when they live as if this world does not matter, looking to a rapture or a far-off realm, turning God’s blessing into that which is merely personal and spiritual under the cloak of a cultivation of personal holiness in supposed service to Jesus, and thereby showing contempt for the world in a way that is not to be found with Jesus?  With a historical grounding for the language of Jesus that is rooted in the experience of Egypt and the exodus, this would appear to be highly plausible. 

Finally, with Jesus’ speaking to enduring to the end and being saved, there comes a reminder that His disciples are most certainly in this world, but at the same time they are a part of the kingdom of the Creator God that was being proclaimed by Jesus and which was inaugurated at the Resurrection.  Believers live in anticipation of the age to come, which is already present with the power of the Gospel (Jesus is Lord) that began to be shed abroad by the Resurrection of Jesus, but the coming of which in its fullness (the restoration of the cosmos) is still awaited. 

Like Israel in Egypt following their enslavement to an oppressive power, believers are to know themselves as a people of promise.  Believers are to know themselves as people of the covenant, yet maintain the understanding that they will toil in bondage to the eventual coming of death, waiting for their final deliverance that has been promised in the Resurrection of the Christ, while compassionately sympathizing with a suffering world as did their Lord. 

Though they were oppressed in Egypt, Israel knew that they had a promise that had been given to Abraham---that a deliverer, bringing salvation, would come after a certain period of time.  That hope was never lost.  The believer holds on to that hope as well.  It sustained them even as they served the Egyptians, which they were forced to do unwillingly through hatred, rather than joyfully with divine blessing.  Though they experienced the effects of hatred at the hands of the Egyptians, for whatever reason that hatred came, those that endured were saved and they were led out into their God’s land of promise.

If one is to be hated in association with the Christ,  it is best to be hated for the right reasons.  The believer is to be hated because of a proclamation of the Lordship and the supreme rule of Jesus over all of mankind and over all of this creation as they await a resurrected entrance into their God’s restored creation.  Thus the believers will be hated for a cause, as the redeeming and resurrecting power of the Gospel is brought to bear.        

Hated (part 5)

This study then returns to what Jesus said in the thirteenth chapter of Mark (and elsewhere): “You will be hated by everyone because of My name.  But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (13:13).  It is appropriate to key in on the second part of that statement, in which Jesus speaks of enduring to the end and being saved.  This use of “saved” links Jesus’ words to Israel’s Egyptian exodus, as again, “salvation” expressions, for Israel, speak of their God’s rescue from enemies or their deliverance from oppressors. 

Though it can be easily missed by the modern reader, such language would be easily picked up on by His hearers.  It would have been readily discerned by the majority of first century readers of the Gospels, as they would also have been steeped in Israel’s history.  When that is understood, and once one picks up on the exodus context for the hatred of which Jesus speaks, while at the same time discarding the idea that Jesus is talking about some ethereal, other-worldly notion of a paradise somewhere off in the sky to be enjoyed after death (a thoroughly un-Jewish notion) when He speaks of being saved, readers will find themselves better positioned to identify the reason for the hate. 

So why in the world is this connected to Israel’s exodus?  What is the reason that the Creator God gives for rescuing Israel (His covenant people through Abraham) from their Egyptian bondage?  Essentially, it is the same reason He gives for rescuing the church (His covenant people through Jesus) from their bondage?  The answer is to be found in Deuteronomy, where one finds Moses’ report that “It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you---for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples.  Rather it is because of His love for you and His faithfulness to the promises He solemnly vowed to your ancestors that the Lord brought you out with great power, redeeming you from the place of slavery” (7:7-8)  Just before this, Moses reminds Israel that they “are a people holy to the Lord” (7:6a), and says that “He has chosen you to be His people, prized above all others on the face of the earth” (7:6b). 

One of the Psalmists picks up on this, making it possible to catch yet another glimpse of that historical self-understanding out of and into which Jesus spoke, when the Psalmist writes (in reference to Israel in Egypt): “The Lord made His people very fruitful, and made them more numerous than their enemies.  He caused them to hate His people, and to mistreat His servants” (105:24-25).  This should provide pause to consider a question that is never asked, which is “what was Israel doing for Egypt when their God made them fruitful in that land?”  Were they being a blessing as Abraham had understood to have been?  What was it that caused Egypt to turn against Israel and to hate the covenant people of the Creator God?  Were they serving those people well by sharing their God’s blessings and revealing their God to them, or were they hoarding the blessing? 

That goes to the question of why the Abrahamic covenant existed.  Presumably, it existed so that Abraham could exemplify divine blessing (as indicated in Genesis), so that his God could be recognized and glorified as the Creator God of the cosmos.  This is the covenant under which Israel went into Egypt, and it is also the covenant that comes to be fulfilled by Jesus through His church, with the message of the Gospel (Jesus is Lord) as the mark of that covenant.  

Justification, The Spirit & The Family Of God (part 1 of 3)

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. – Romans 5:5  (NET)

In the fifth chapter of Romans, it becomes clear that the pouring out of God’s love by the Holy Spirit has created a unified family of God that lacks any and all national distinctions.  The family of God is a new humanity, empowered to live and worship together by the very Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.  They are “spiritual people,” as opposed to being “fleshly” people, as the power of the new age and the new creation (spiritual) has overcome, in their lives and in the sacrificial demonstrations of the fellowshipping community, the power of the old age and the old creation (the flesh).  Paul unites all peoples together in Christ, and now, when speaking of the church, speaks of them as a people in which there are no longer any divisions or separations---Paul’s use of “we” in his letters to largely Gentile churches becoming increasingly prominent.  Thus we hear him say “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:6,8). 

The “we” and the “us” of Paul’s way of thinking is the result of justification.  We would not be mistaken then, to hear Paul referring to all, whether Jew or Gentile, in order to make his inclusive point, as “ungodly” and “sinners.”  As he has said, “Christ died for us”---the ungodly and sinners, with this encompassing the whole of humanity.  Though there is much to be gleaned from this profoundly loaded statement, the underlying message is that Jesus the Messiah is the focal point.  Indeed, “He was given over because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification” (4:25).  The death of Jesus, the Christ of God, which gains its full meaning by the Resurrection, is of fundamental import for the inclusion of all peoples under the covenant.  Therefore, revisiting the thought which began the fifth chapter (being declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ), Paul reiterates and adds “Much more then, because we have been now declared righteous by His blood, we will be saved through Him from God’s wrath” (5:9). 

We here resist any temptation to consider “righteousness” in detached, spiritual terms, keeping the concept within the realm of covenant inclusion (declared righteous=in covenant), and recognize Paul’s employing of historically rooted theological terminology and ideology that is drafted from Israel’s history, further demonstrating that Paul insists that Gentiles now share in the history of Israel just as they share in the history and lineage of Abraham via faith.  The historically tinged terminology is that of exile and exodus, and it is here subtly deployed.  According to the Scriptures, Israel, as the covenant people of God, was given instructions as to how to represent themselves and their God. 

If they represented Him correctly, adhering to a few basic principles, which were avoiding idolatry, keeping God’s Sabbaths, and reverencing God’s sanctuary---His Temple and His cosmic sanctuary, which is the creation, the place where God rested on the seventh day (in the ancient world, a temple was understood to be the resting place of a god), all would go well for them and they would be blessed.   If they failed in these areas, God would send His people into exile, the primary manifestation of which would be oppression by foreign rulers.  Sometimes this would be inside their promised land, but the ultimate exile would see the people removed from their land (primarily effected by the removal of the rulers, the nobility, and the priests, while the poor, which would make up the majority of the population, would be left in the land).