Eucharistic Meditation: Genesis ii.2

In Genesis ii.2 we read:

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

This is the reason God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Unlike all the other creation days, this does not end with the formula: “And the evening and morning were the nth day.” Adam and Eve’s life in the Garden of Eden was meant to be life within God’s rest. When they sinned by disobeying God’s word and eating what he had forbidden them, they were expelled from the Garden, and from God’s rest.

As we read the rest of the Bible’s story, we see that salvation means being brought back into God’s rest. So the people of Israel entering Canaan were entering God’s rest. When the people of Israel were on the verge of Canaan, of rest, the spies brought back a branch with a single cluster of grapes and it had to be carried on a pole between two of them. The people saw it, but they also heard the reports of giants in the land, and they did not believe in God, that he would give them the land. Therefore, as we read in Hebrews 3, quoting Psalm 95, God said, “I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.”

Hebrews goes on to explain that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, which we enjoy today and every Lord’s Day, a day of blessing. Like Canaan, this Sabbath rest is salvation. Here, God spreads before us a table with bread and with wine, the produce of grapes. This, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, is a participation in the body and blood of Christ, who, as we read in Hebrews 4, entered God’s rest when he rose again after his work of remaking the heavens and the earth through his death on the cross for our sins: “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his”. Indeed, his resurrection-rest on the first day of the week after his work of new creation is the reason our Sabbath rest is on the first day of the week. As we eat this bread and drink this cup, let us draw near to Christ, to rest, with faith.

Eucharistic Meditation: Psalm 24

As part of the Greyfriars’ Hall programme I am doing this year, I am required to produce each week an exhortation, which can be a communion meditation, a sermon introduction, an invitation to confession &c. Below is the first, for your edification or otherwise.

In the first two verses of Psalm twenty-four, we sing:

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that therein is,
the compass of the world and they that dwell therein,
for he hath founded it upon the seas
and prepared it upon the floods.”

In 1 Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul takes this truth and applies it to food sold in the pagan meat markets, which could well have been offered in sacrifice to idols. If a Christian has been invited to dinner by an unbeliever and it comes to light that the food has been offered in sacrifice to idols, then Paul commands him or her to refrain from eating for the sake of the conscience of others, but if not, then he or she is at liberty to give thanks for and partake of it, and to eat and drink to the glory of God, because it is all his, for he made it.

Psalm 24 continues:

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord,
or who shall rise up in his holy place?
Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart,
and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity,
nor sworn to deceive his neighbour.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him,
even of them that seek thy face, O Jacob.”

We are that generation. Through the Lord Jesus Christ who shed his blood for us on the cross, our hands have been washed clean and our hearts have been made pure. We are therefore qualified to ascend the hill of the Lord and rise up in his holy place, where we receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of our salvation. This blessing comes in the form of a table: this cup, says Paul in the same chapter of 1 Corinthians, is the cup of blessing. It is a participation in the blood of Christ and the bread that we break is a participation in the body of Christ. So how much more at the Lord’s Table than at the dinner table, should we partake with thankfulness. The church calls the Lord’s Supper ‘the Eucharist’, which means thanksgiving. Let us eat and drink, therefore, and give thanks.

Guess the expositor

I imagine this extract, commenting on Psalm 96.13 would go into Christopher Ash’s ‘Exegetical Horror Stories’ drawer.

For Adam himself (this I had said before) signifieth in Greek the whole world; for there are four letters, A, D, A, and M. But as the Greeks speak, the four quarters of the world have these initial letters, ’Ανατολὴ, they call the East; Δύσις, the West; ῎Αρκτος, the North; Μεσημβρία, the South: thou hast the word Adam. Adam therefore hath been scattered over the whole world.

Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future: A Reflexion

I have rather belatedly come across the Archbishop of Canterbury’s piece, dated Monday 27 July 2009 (I was away on honeymoon, after all), entitled Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future. You can read it for yourself HERE.

Archbishop Rowan’s response to the resolutions of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, which expressed a desire to lift the moratoria on consecrating as bishops those who were in same-sex partnerships and on establishing liturgies for the blessings of same-sex unions, is impressive. He graciously acknowledges the concern of Episcopal Church (TEC) for the developing world, their expressed desire to remain part of the Anglican Communion and to engage with the wider Communion on particular issues. However he also recognises and was not afraid to point out that in what TEC resolved, the fruits of which were seen in that a few days later, the nominations for various bishops included multiple individuals in same-sex partnerships, it would not be rebuilding broken bridges with other provinces.

Archbishop Rowan reflects on the arguments used by those who would seek to lift these moratoria which tend to focus on human rights issues. He rightly states, in no uncertain terms that no Anglican has any business in reinforcing prejudice, questioning human dignity and civil liberties or the place within the body of Christ of those he describes as LGBT people (as I think it becomes clear later in his response, he does distinguish between people who have homosexual attraction and those who on the basis of that attraction choose to enter into homosexual unions). But he also makes it clear that the real question isn’t about civil liberties or human dignity or pastoral sensitivity. Rather, “it is about whether the Church is free to recognise same-sex unions by means of public blessings that are seen as being, at the very least, analogous to Christian marriage”. Archbishop Rowan writes that to answer in the affirmative, given that the consistent answer of the church for the past two thousand years on the basis of the way it has read the Bible has been in the negative, painstaking Biblical exegesis would be required, along with wide consensus in the Communion and amongst ecumenical partners, which is not the case at the moment. He concludes that blessings of same-sex unions therefore do not have the authority of the church catholic, or even the more limited sphere of the Anglican Communion, so that same-sex unions are equivalent to a heterosexual union outside the bond of marriage, and, while there should be human respect and pastoral sensitivity, they fall outside what the church teaches is permissible and it is hard to reconcile that with the ordination of those in such unions, especially the ordained who are consecrated bishops.

A blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires.

In other words, the question is not a simple one of human rights or human dignity. It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences. So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.

This has angered liberals, who complain that this represents a change from Archbishop Rowan’s published writings, and is at odds with their view of the gospel. Even if the Archbishop’s personal views have not changed (it is not actually apparent from this article whether he has or not), he regards his own scholarship as one voice among many contributing to the discussion. To change practice in this area requires, he believes, the discernment of the wider Communion. In this, he displays profound humility, a deep concern for the unity of the communion, and a desire to use his office in the service of the ongoing life and unity of the Anglican Communion.

Archbishop Rowan goes on to say that on the one hand, while the church must not simply echo in its teaching the prejudice of the society in which it lives, on the other, neither must it change its teaching simply because society is changing:

This is not a matter that can be wholly determined by what society at large considers usual or acceptable or determines to be legal. Prejudice and violence against LGBT people are sinful and disgraceful when society at large is intolerant of such people; if the Church has echoed the harshness of the law and of popular bigotry – as it so often has done – and justified itself by pointing to what society took for granted, it has been wrong to do so. But on the same basis, if society changes its attitudes, that change does not of itself count as a reason for the Church to change its discipline.

Archibishop Rowan identifies the issue as being of a local church responding to new questions, challenges and practices and insists that there must be some thought to the discernment of the wider church (which has been the conviction of the church since its earliest days), warning of the danger of becoming unrecognisable to other churches throughout the world, and being imprisoned in its own culture. We cannot just assume that it is the local agenda which is the Holy Spirit’s leading; there needs to be an acceptance that what is decided together may be more likely to be in step with the Spirit.

When a local church seeks to respond to a new question, to the challenge of possible change in its practice or discipline in the light of new facts, new pressures, or new contexts, as local churches have repeatedly sought to do, it needs some way of including in its discernment the judgement of the wider Church. Without this, it risks becoming unrecognisable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe…

It takes time and a willingness to believe that what we determine together is more likely, in a New Testament framework, to be in tune with the Holy Spirit than what any one community decides locally…

Sometimes in Christian history, of course, that wider discernment has been very fallible, as with the history of the Chinese missions in the seventeenth century. But this should not lead us to ignore or minimise the opposite danger of so responding to local pressure or change that a local church simply becomes isolated and imprisoned in its own cultural environment.

The Archibishop turns his attention to the future of the Anglican Communion. He sees the Covenant process as one which will hopefully intensify relationships between those who want mutual recognisability and consultation, with a shared vision of what the church should be like and how she should behave, maintaining the Anglican Communion as just that – a communion – rather than a loose alliance of locally autonomous churches. Nevertheless, he recognises the possibility that there may be those who do not want to intensify relationships in that way and envisages that this may lead to a two-track model, with a covenanted Anglican body alongside which are other local churches more loosely associated and varying partnership. Archbishop Rowan has come under criticism for proposing an inadequate model, I believe unfairly: his aim here, I think, it not so much to propose ways forward for the Anglican Communion, but to prognosticate on what the future might look like, namely ‘two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage’, ‘two styles of being Anglican’, one of which has decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value. That said, I think Archbishop Rowan vastly understates the case: there is decidedly more than a ‘possibility’ that such a divergence may occur, and for all his desire to avoid talk of schism, that is what is emerging, particularly given that the more liberal voices are talking quite clearly about having a different idea of what the gospel is to those who are more conservative (and it appears, to Rowan Williams). For that reason, the Archbishop’s hope for ongoing partnership between the two tracks in the mission of the church is overly optimistic.

Archbishop Rowan clearly wants us to be good stewards of the current circumstances, retains a clear focus on the mission of the church and the clear and faithful preaching of the good news of Christ, and expresses a desire that this would cause an increase in spiritual maturity and a deepening of our relationship with the Triune God and one another. He sees all that the church is going through at the moment as “to do with becoming the Church God wants us to be, for the better proclamation of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ” and wants us to see it as “an opportunity for clarity, renewal and deeper relation with one another – and so also with Our Lord and his Father, in the power of the Spirit”. To this end, he concludes:

“We must hope that, in spite of the difficulties, this may yet be the beginning of a new era of mission and spiritual growth for all who value the Anglican name and heritage.”

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Philippians 1

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” – Philippians 1.9-11

When we look at the consequences of what Christ achieved in the Bible, we see two strands: dealing with sin and its consequences for human beings, which is perhaps emphasised the most, and fulfilling God’s original plans for human beings as they reach their maturity. We see this in 1 Corinthians 15. Christ’s death for sins and resurrection means that by faith, Christians are no longer in their sins which bring death, which came into the world through Adam, but instead have the hope of resurrection:

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins… but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” – 1 Corinthians 15.17, 20-21

That is the first strand. But in the rest of the chapter, we see the second strand. While there is continuity between the body that dies and that is raised from the dead – the body that dies is the one that is raised – there is a difference, a difference in stage. The body that is raised is not exactly the same as the one that was buried. It is glorified. The resurrection of a body that has died and been buried is like the growing of a plant from a seed that was buried in the ground. It is the body in its maturity, the body grown to full strength. The body which dies is a natural body. The body which is raised, the body in its maturity, at full strength, is a spiritual body (which does not mean non-material). All this is through Christ, the second man from heaven, whose image we will bear, just as we who were in Adam, the first man, a man of dust, were also of dust and bore his image.

“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” – 1 Corinthians 15.42-49

All this is by way of preamble to say that it is this second strand of what Christ accomplished that appears to be in view in Philippians 1. Initially, in their immaturity, Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2.17), the tree which makes one wise (Genesis 3.6). It is not that this was always to be withheld from human beings. As human beings grew in their maturity, they would eat of it. Solomon asks God that he may be able to ‘discern between good and evil’ (1 Kings 3.9) to rule over his people, and it pleases the Lord that Solomon asks this, and he grants it to him (1 Kings 3.10-12). This is a reflection of the fact that the world which God made and declared to be very good (Genesis 1.31) was nevertheless a world which needed to be populated and ruled over and cultivated (Genesis 1.28, 2.15). In Philippians 1 we see that in Christ, we as human beings have entered into our maturity which was God’s original purpose for us, and so we are able to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the ‘fruit of righteousness’, the fruit that brings righteousness, perhaps) and be filled with it, in order that we can have knowledge and discernment (i.e. distinguish between good and evil) and thus approve what is excellent (i.e. the good) and pursue it and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Paul prays that the love of the Philippian Christians would abound more and more, along with the knowledge and discernment that comes from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is now made available to us in Christ, in whom we have come to maturity.

The Tithe and its Uses

“To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you” – Philippians 3.1b

As I have written previously, I believe that it is an aspect of Christian obedience to tithe, that is, to set aside ten percent of one’s earned income. I intend, as in part  I have done previously, to discuss for what purposes we are to tithe, but first, I want to explain again why I think tithing, is something that has not been abrogated with the coming of Christ.

Abram tithed to Melchizedek, the King of Salem, who blessed him who had the promises (Genesis 15.19-20, Hebrews 7.2, 6). Christ is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110.4), so it follows that we who are Abraham’s seed through our baptism into Christ (Galatians 3.29), should pay a tenth of what we have to Christ. Moreover, when Jacob sees a ladder reaching to heaven and God promises to bless him with offspring and through his offspring all the families of the earth, Jacob responds by promising to give a tenth of all that God gives him (Genesis 28.22). This is the same promise God made to Abraham (Genesis 12.3), the promise of which we are the heirs, which is nothing less than the gospel (Galatians 3.7-9, 29), and so in response to God’s gospel promise, we too should give God a tenth of all that he gives us. Tithing is not a ceremonial law that was instituted for Israel during the giving of the law and so arguably obsolete in the era of the new covenant: from the examples of Abraham and Jacob, tithing seems – like sabbath and marriage – to be a creation ordinance and this was the basis for its reiteration during the giving of the law.

In addition, when as a result of Christ’s coming an aspect of the Old Testament Law no longer has direct application to the Christian, we are explicitly told. For example, when Jesus says that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled, Mark adds, “Thus he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7.18-19). That is precisely not the case with tithing. When he rebukes the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy in tithing mint and dill and cumin but neglecting the weighter matters of the law of justice, mercy and faithfulness, he doesn’t say that the tithing even of the smallest amounts of produce is not necessary, but, “These [the weightier matters of the law] you ought to have done without neglecting the others” (Matthew 23.23-24).  Furthermore, the way the writers of the New Testament epistles handle tithing in the Old Testament makes inadmissible the suggestion that we no longer have to do it; rather, it finds renewed application in the church. One of the purposes of the tithe, which was either a tenth of the produce of the people of Israel, or its value in money, was to provide for the Levites who served in the tent of meeting (Numbers 18.21). The apostle Paul takes this law and argues on the basis of it that ministers of the gospel should be provided for out of what Christians give them.

“Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrifical offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.” – 1 Corinthians 9.13-14 (emphasis mine).

It is clear from the context that the minister getting his living by the gospel means receiving material provision from Christians, including those amongst whom he has laboured, who have benefited from the ministry of the gospel, such that he can refrain from working as a living.

“Is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?” – 1 Corinthians 9.6

“If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things form you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?” – 1 Corinthians 9.11-12

The fact that circumstances mean that for the sake of the gospel, Paul does not make use of this right doesn’t alter the fact that it is his right, and the right of everyone who proclaims the gospel, and therefore, it is required that the church which benefits from gospel ministry provide what its ministers would otherwise have obtained from working and that means the church should tithe, just as those who laboured in the temple received what they needed to live from the tithe under the old covenant.

It has emerged from our discussion of the ongoing place of the tithe in the new covenant era that one of the purposes of the tithe is to support those who have been set apart from ordinary work for the service of the Lord in the corporate life and worship of his people – the Levites in the Old Testament and ministers of the gospel in the New Testament.

“To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting.” – Numbers 18.21

However, while ordained ministers of God are to be provided for out of the tithe, that is not the only purpose of the tithe. The other passage in the Pentateuch that explains the purpose of the tithe is Deuteronomy 14.22-29. This passage teaches that the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow are to be provided for, alongside the Levite. Specifically, the triennial tithe has been set apart exclusively for them:

“At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.” – Deuteronomy 14.28-29

The Levites are also to be provided for out of the tithe of the other years, but the tithe of the other two years also has another purpose. The produce is either to be taken to where the temple will be – Jerusalem – and eaten by the one whose produce it is, along with his household, or sold and the money used to buy whatever the one who made the money desires in Jerusalem, and eaten there. God explicitly suggests beef and lamb, and wine or other alcoholic beverages as items which may be bought and consumed before him, and the purpose is for rejoicing. Moreover, tithing was intended for the spiritual growth of the people. By regularly and repeatedly setting aside a proportion of one’s produce, or what its monetary value could buy, to be consumed whilst conscious of the Lord who is the provider, one’s loyalty to the Lord would be maintained and strengthened, one’s trust in him and one’s obedience of him.

“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire – oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.” – Deuteronomy 14.22-27

We therefore have considerable freedom in how we spend the tenth of what we make and set aside for the Lord. It is not simply the case that it should all go to the church. These verses do indicate that no less than a third of our tithe should be going to support gospel ministry and the needy. Calculation of the exact proportions requires wisdom. We need to look at how the church as a whole is giving and what the situation is in our community. Are there needy people known to us to whom we should be giving or who are being neglected? The New Testament sets out the priorities of the claims on our resources: our family (1 Timothy 5.8) and then the church and finally the wider community (Galatians 6.10). Are those who proclaim the gospel, first in churches of which we are members, and then in other churches, being provided with an adequate living? Are we being disciplined about regularly feasting before the Lord? As Christians in the Western world whose wealth does not come from an agrarian economy, our income does not arrive once a year at harvest time in the form of produce and livestock, but throughout the year in the form of money. Our provision of a living for the needy and ministers of the gospel is therefore not their daily bread, but the money which they need (or things bought with that money), and when it comes to feasting before the Lord, which we must not neglect either, the verses that are particularly applicable for us are Deuteronomy 14.25 and 26: we spend the money on whatever we desire – and perhaps our meat should either be beef or lamb – including alcoholic drink of some description, whatever our appetite craves. In the New Testament era, every village, town or city in which there is a congregation of Christians is a place where God has set his name, for every Lord’s Day the congregants ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12.22-27), so we eat before the Lord in our homes. Eating before the Lord and rejoicing is appropriate on the Sabbath, the first of God’s appointed feast days (Leviticus 23.2-3), when we appear before the Lord in his holy city, and it is appropriate on other holidays (in the true sense of the word) – Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Ss Crispin and Crispinian, and whichever other days we esteem and observe in honour of the Lord, as we have freedom to do (Romans 14.5-6). We do this for the spiritual weal of ourselves and our households. As we eat consiously before the Lord out of the abundance he has given us with rejoicing every week, and at other intervals throughout the year, we will be reminded of his goodness to us and we will learn to fear him – we will be faithful to him, our trust in him will be strengthened and our commitment to obey him will grow.

Divers thoughts on Galatians

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5.1

Melodic line

In many ways, Galatians 5.1 expresses the melodic line running through the letter of Galatians. The apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians to exhort them to remain faithful to the gospel he preached to them and not turn aside after another gospel (see e.g. 1.6). There are those who see the freedom that Christians have and want to bring them back into slavery (2.4). The gospel brings freedom: to desert the gospel is to return to slavery.

Justification in Galatians

The issue in Galatia is the biggest controversy that runs through the New Testament epistles: the relationship between Jew and Gentile in the people of God now that Jesus Christ has come. Justification in Galatians means inclusion in the people of God who have the hope of being declared righteous at the Great Assize (5.1) a hope which is now enjoyed in the present. We see this in the way that Paul recalls the episode at Antioch in which Cephas, who had hitherto eaten with Gentiles, separates from them (2.11-14) and then proceeds to a discussion of how it is one is justified (2.15ff). Cephas’s separation from the Gentiles declares that they are not part of God’s people and Paul, reflecting on this, says that they are justified (e.g. 3.8). Justification is about being part of God’s people. This relates closely to the melodic line of freedom in Christ that runs through the letter. To pursue one way of being justified, being part of God’s people, is to find freedom. To pursue another is to go back into slavery. Moreover, this is a matter of redemptive history. The letter is a call to understand what time period we are living in and behave accordingly. One way of seeking justification is consistent with the age in which we are now living ushered in by Christ, corresponds to the people of God in their maturity and is the one that brings freedom: the other way of seeking justification is to go back to living in a previous era when the people of God were immature and is a return to slavery.

Works of the law

The contrast with which we are presented is between justification by works of the law and justification by faith. By works of the law, it appears Paul means those things which mark out the Jewish people and separate them from Gentiles and not, in the first instance, obedience to God’s standards in an attempt to accrue merit before him. Paul interprets Cephas’s action in separating from Gentiles with whom he previously ate as forcing the Gentiles to live like Jews (2.14) and then comments that a person is not justified by works of the law (2.15), implying that works of the law are Jewish boundary markers. When Paul contrasts the era of the law and the era in which we are now living, he begins by saying there is neither Jew nor Greek (3.28): the law is what separates Jew from Gentile. These works of the law are described as the elementary principles of the world: in 3.23-24, Paul refers to being held captive under the law and imprisoned, describing the law as a guardian, and then in 4.2-3 refers to being under guardians and enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. See also Hebrews 5.12-6.1-3). Subsequently, in 4.9, Paul expresses his disbelief that the Galatians want to turn back to the elementary principles of the world, and then in 4.10 describes how they “observe days and months and seasons and years”, speaking – it seems – of the Jewish ceremonial calendar. Repeatedly, when Paul talks about those who are leading the Galatians astray, he talks about circumcision and makes the point that circumcision does not count for anything (see, e.g., 5.3, 6, 11, 6.12-15). The alternative way of justification that is being presented to the Galatian church appears very much to be adopting those things which mark out the Jewish people. Works of the law are Jewish boundary markers.

Justification by faith, not by works of the law

We are not justified by works of the law nor must we pursue justification by works of the law, Paul says. We are justified through the faithfulness of Christ when we believe in him (2.16). This was always God’s plan. “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” (3.6) and it is those of faith who are Abraham’s sons, part of God’s people, recipients of God’s blessing, which includes the Holy Spirit (3.7-9, 14, 18). Christ is the offspring promised to Abraham and it is those who have faith in him who put on Christ and are thus sons of God and of Abraham and thus heirs (3.26, 27, 29). To pursue justification by the law is to rebuild what was torn down, namely the law, (2.18) because Paul as a Jewish Christian has died to the law that he might live to God in being crucified with Christ (2.19). Re-establishing the law as the marker of being one of God’s people proves one to be a transgressor in one’s failure to keep it and thus brings one under God’s curse (2.18, 3.10). If justification were possible through the law, then Christ died for no purpose, because he came to redeem us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us through his death in our place on the cross (2.21, 13). Seeking justification by the law treats the law as something that could give life, following the principle of Leviticus 18.5. This is to misunderstand the place of the law. The law was not given as something that could bring life and justification or righteousness. Rather, it was added “because of transgressions”, imprisoning God’s people, holding them captive, guarding them, containing them because of their sin, until Christ should come through whom God’s promise of life, justification and the spirit would be received (3.19-24). Israel was the people of God in their infancy and in need of such guardians (4.1-3). The time of waiting is now over: the object of our faith has come to redeem his people who were previously held captive by the law, imprisoned and guarded by it, that they might enter into their full inheritance as sons and heirs. God’s people, considered corporately, have grown up (4.4-6). The Galatians as Gentiles, prior to becoming Christians were also slaves of another kind through their idolatry (4.8)  but they were set free. To be taken in by those who say that they have to become like Jews in order to be God’s people is a step back into slavery: they are going back to how God’s people were prior to the coming of Christ, held captive, under guardians. Paul interprets Abraham’s two sons allegorically. One is by a slave woman – Hagar – according to the flesh, and correponds to Mount Sinai (the law), and represents the Jewish people still in slavery because they have not recognised their Messiah and responded to him in faith: they are still seeking to be God’s people by works of the law, by being Jewish. The son of the slave woman, the children of the earthly Jerusalem, will not inherit. Abraham’s other son, Isaac, was born to a free woman through promise, like Christians, and so they are to cast out the slave woman and her son – they are to have nothing to do with works of the law as marking them out as God’s people.

The faith that counts

What matters in terms of justification is not whether one is Jewish or not, but whether one has faith in Christ (5.6). The nature of the faith that Paul describes – particularly given how he emphasises that justification is not by works of the law – is striking. The only faith that counts is faith that works through love (5.6). Works and love are necessary for salvation. Faith that does not work through love is not faith that justifies. It doesn’t count for anything. This ‘working through love’ actually fulfils the whole law. Paul goes on to show what that looks like in 5.16-6.10: walking by the Spirit and therefore not by the flesh, i.e. not doing such things as sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like, but rather bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, not becoming conceited, provoking one another, envying one another, restoring the penitent, watching oneself lest one falls, bearing one another’s burdens, sharing all good things with those who teach the word, sowing to the Spirit not the flesh, not wearying of doing good to everyone, especially the church.

Apostasy

To get this wrong is serious. The church Paul is describing is one which has in some sense experienced the Holy Spirit, seen miracles, heard the gospel and responded with faith (3.2-5) in baptism put on Christ and can be described as children of God (3.26-27). There is some sort of real connection with Christ. To then be led astray by those who say that you have to become like Jews in order to be God’s people is to have Christ to be of no advantage to one and to lose the connection which one in some sense had with him. Something is actually lost. Paul can say that those who would be justified by the law are severed from Christ and have fallen from grace (5.2,4).

Is something lost by defining ‘works of the law’ in this way? No, because by way of implication, we can commit the same kind of error that the Galatians were committing in trying to go back to being like Jews in other ways, and so fall into slavery, even if not many of us are trying to go back to being Jews. Seeking justification by any means other than through believing in Christ will be to fall into slavery, including by trying to do good works or perform religious rituals to be part of God’s people who have a right standing before him in his law court, which approaches the sixteenth and seventeenth understanding of “works of the law” in the context of the errors of the Church of Rome.

Unity

Justification by faith is the ecumenical doctrine. Faith in Christ marks us out God’s people and so all who are baptised into Christ and profess faith him are part of the same family of sons and heirs (3.26-27) and have a place at the same table; to separate from people who profess faith in Christ is conduct that is not in step with the truth of the gospel (2.11-14). In terms of our standing as a member of God’s people, nothing else matters – ethnicity, gender, social class – nothing (3.28).

Post Scriptum: Sabbath-keeping

By way of postscript, it has often been used as an argument against Christian sabbath-keeping (and indeed the Christian calendar as a whole) that Paul points to the observation of days and months and seasons and years as evidence of turning back to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world (3.9-10). I do not think that charge sticks. Paul is talking about observation of the Jewish calender, which is precisely what Christians are not doing. Christians keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and they order their year around the events of Christ’s life. Moreover, they are not doing so in order to be marked out as God’s people. The sabbath principle, of one day in seven consecrated for rest and blessing is, like marriage, embedded in the creation before the giving of the law (Genesis 2.3). Just as the coming of Christ has not abolished marriage, even though the relationship between Christ and the church is the ultimate reality of which marriage was created as a picture, so too the sabbath day is not abolished though Christ brings the rest of which the sabbath is a picture. As for the Christian calendar as a whole, Paul expressly gives permission for us to observe days in honour of the Lord (Romans 14.6).

What bwings us togevah

My wife and I returned from our honeymoon yesterday afternoon after our wedding on Saturday 25th July. A link to the PDF of the order of service can be found HERE.

Below is the transcript of the homily Doug Wilson preached at our wedding on Hosea 2.14-23. He writes at Blog and Mablog.

The text from Hosea that was read for us is a rich text (Hos. 2:14-23), one that calls for more extensive treatment than can be offered in the brief words of exhortation in a wedding ceremony. But we have it on the authority of the apostle Paul that the prophet here was speaking of Christ and the Church (Rom. 9:23-24), and he tells us in another place that every marriage speaks in some fashion of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:23). There are therefore lessons here for us who called the Church, and there are lessons for every married couple in Hosea’s portrayal of the relationship of Christ and His bride.

The first thing to note is that the context of this portion of Hosea follows a section on judgment. The first half of this chapter deals with sin, and the consequences of sin. We live in a fallen and bent world, and this means that we marry in a fallen and bent world. This means that we need to listen. God judgment on sin is sharp and without compromise. If you were to read the first half of this chapter, and then closed your Bible asking if there was any hope at all, the answer you would offer would be no. But notice how God speaks here. He says, “Behold, I will allure her.” His words of forgiveness, His words of comfort, are attractive. Grace bestows, grace gives, grace comforts. God’s grace triumphs over His judgments. His judgments are right and true and necessary, but God’s purpose for His bride is that she be presented at the last day as Brooke is here—lovely and dressed in white.

Notice that God promises to take His bride into the wilderness—you should recall that the wilderness was where they had taken their first honeymoon. God had established His covenant with Israel at Sinai, and He had been her provider and protector in countless ways during their 40 years there. Where God is, the garden is. In the judgment passage that this follows (Hos. 2:3), many years later Israel had been made “as a wilderness.” She had been protected in the wilderness, was made as a wilderness, and now in the gospel the Lord returns as her husband, her provider and protector. He will protect her again. The garden will be restored. The vineyard would be established forever.

God does this by dealing with sin. The Valley of Achor mentioned here as a door of hope was the same valley in which the sin of Achan was dealt with (Josh. 7:26), and as a result God turned away from His fierce anger. But notice that God does not ignore sin—He deals with it, puts it away, and then He promises to allure His people with grace.

The names of the old gods will fade and be remembered no more. And even when their names are preserved in the etymologies of various words, no one remembers what they mean. Not one person in a million thinks of Thursday as Thor’s Day. Having dealt with sin, and having offered forgiveness through Christ, what sort of marriage does God propose? He says that through the gospel He will betroth His people to Himself in righteousness, judgment, lovingkindness, mercies, and faithfulness (vv. 19-20). The result of this will be that the land around God’s people will bloom. This is because God will use His people as seed, sowing them unto Himself in the earth, and the earth will therefore erupt in blessings. This is what the Church is called to; this is what the Church is promised.

And so what applications can we make by way of exhortation to Daniel and Brooke? The first is that every healthy marriage is built on the bedrock of forgiveness. This is not the same thing as letting things slide; it is not the same thing as growing apart to a distance where faults are less visible; it is not the same thing as stuffing issues and refusing to deal with them. God deals with sin as sin in our lives, and not so that He can have grounds for condemnation—He already had that. And of course, God deals with sin by means of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He deals with sin in our lives so that He might pour out His lovingkindness upon us. Our God is a God of forgiveness, and forgiveness presupposes the reality of sin.

If we think that forgiveness is only possible if what was done “wasn’t really sin,” then instead of a delightful and liberated life together, a man and a woman will drift into a realm of marital deceits and unrealities. The vineyard God is giving you here will become a wilderness. But if you see that selfishness is selfishness, pettiness is pettiness, a lack of love is a lack of love, and disrespect is disrespect, and you confess it for what it is in the presence of God, the wilderness around you will gradually turn green. The wilderness surrounding will become a lush vineyard, just like the vineyard that you have cultivated together. There is no truce between them, no middle way. Either the vineyard is being made into a wilderness, or the wilderness is being made into a vineyard.

Those who set themselves up as law deal with sin all the time. They do this to make the wilderness they inhabit into a bigger, drier, and craggier wilderness. Those who set themselves up to deal with grace all the time make a similar error, but with opposite results—they create a marsh of sentimentalism, a swamp of hurt feelings. But as we look at what God promises His people through Hosea, we see the right balance because we see the right order of law and gospel.

Now of course if you take this exhortation to be clear about sin as an exhortation to be clear about the other person’s sin, then you will create a perfect carnival of fault-finding. Don’t do that. Fault-finding is one of the sins you have to be clear about.

Daniel, in considering this theme of the transformation of a wilderness into a vineyard, you are happily named. You are a Newman, a new man, and the new man is placed in the wilderness, accompanied by Jesus Christ, the ultimate New Man, in order to be an instrument of transformation. Follow Jesus Christ. Love Him. Imitate Him. Sacrifice as He did. Our text says that God sows His seed into the ground, and Paul tells us elsewhere that a seed is not fruitful unless it dies.

Brooke, you are the bride of a new man, and you are called to participate in all that he is called to do. In just a few moments, you will be introduced for the first time as a Newman. As he cultivates the vineyard, he will need water—and so you must be a brook. Farmers need water. John the Baptist needed much water, as our text said. And husbands, given what they are called to be and do, need water. Christ is that water, but you are called under Him to minister refreshment to Daniel. So you also should follow Jesus Christ. Love Him. Imitate Him, and give as He did.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

And below is what I said at the reception.

My wife and I would like to thank you all for joining us today. Our particular thanks go to those who have travelled a long way to be here, my mother, my godmother, my aunt, Mark Wilson my best man (no relation to anyone else here by that name!), Nick and Bekah Moore, friends from England, and to all Brooke’s friends from the east coast. We would like to thank Doug Wilson: thank you for the counsel you gave us in during our engagement and for officiating at the wedding itself today. Your exposition of Hosea 2 has given us much to help shape what our married life together is going to look like. Our thanks go to Nancy Wilson for co-ordinating the food for the reception – satisfying four hundred people is no mean feat. Our thanks also go to Kelly Driscoll and Rachel Jankovic for decorating, Kelly in particular for setting up and Rachel for the flowers. We would like to thank the musicians who played so beautifully in the service: Corinne Reagan on the organ, Katie Grauke and Abby Gray on the violin, Christine Cavenaugh on the violoncello and Ashley and Stephanie Beauchamp who were singing. Our thanks also go to Michal Angela Wilson for serenading us during the reception. We would like to express our gratitude to the Nazarene Church for hosting us, and in particular to Mary Gregory for making today run so smoothly.

I would particularly like to take this opportunity to thank my mother. Thank you for the way you brought me up, the sacrifices you made for me and your hard work, your encouragement and support throughout my time at school and university, the freedom you gave me to go to church and grow in my Christian faith which has become so significant in my life. I am also very appreciative of the way you have always trusted me with big decisions I have made about the direction my future would take, and not least to get married.

I would also like to thank Gordon and Meredith. Thank you for the welcome you and your family have given me, and for your trust as I first began to court Brooke and then seek her hand in marriage. Meredith in particular you have laboured industriously in planning this day while Brooke has been in England, and I have seen first-hand how hard you have been working in the run-up today. Thank you both for the way you have faithfully raised Brooke to know and love the Lord and become the mature, godly, woman she now is.

Above all, thanks and praise are due to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is to be praised for his great love in coming into this world in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, dying on the cross in our place, bearing the punishment we deserve for our sins, our rebellion against him. He to be praised for his free gift which Brooke and I have come to know and enjoy of forgiveness of sins and eternal life through trusting in Jesus Christ. And I am so thankful to God for his gift of Brooke to me. God’s role for me in this particular subplot of his great story seems to be that of Benedick in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing:

I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

As those who know her will agree, Brooke is fair, virtuous and wise, and her virtues include her forbearance, patience, servant-heartedness, encouragement, hospitality, intelligence and beauty. I am very much looking forward to embarking upon a lifetime together serving God and growing  in our knowledge and love of him. So I’d like to propose a toast: “To Brooke”. In England it is also customary for the bridegroom to toast the bridesmaids. You have all done a wonderful job in helping and supporting Brooke today and in the build up: thank you. So I’d like to propose a second toast: “The bridesmaids”.

Finally, before Mark gets up to give his speech, you should bear in mind that he arrived in the early hours of the morning. It is customary at least in England for the best man to look after the bridegroom – to make sure he gets up, is fed and watered, turns up in the right place at the right time but our roles have been somewhat reversed. I made sure Mark woke up this morning at a sensible time, had a hearty breakfast and looked generally presentable, and knew what he was doing, and I hope you’ll agree I haven’t done a bad job with him. All this is by way of preamble to say that as a consequence of Mark’s extreme tiredness, what he is about to say is likely to be incoherent, full of errors, have very little bearing in reality, and should therefore not be believed.