Faith That Works
Stephen Terry
Commentary on the November 8, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“Come to me, all you who are weary
and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in
heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light.” Matthew 11:28-30, NIV
It sometimes
seems that everyone is broken in some way. While some do better than others at
hiding the pain of this brokenness from the world, it is still there,
smoldering beneath the surface. Should something scrape through the thin veneer
of civil behavior that covers the pain, it can easily erupt like a volcano,
burning and injuring others in the immediate vicinity. Thanks to the dubious
blessing of modern day media and the internet, it can now reach out and touch
those we have never met as well. Trolls, who themselves have probably been
overloaded to the point of explosion, take it upon themselves to pass on the
pain by loading stones of aggravation onto the burdens others are already
carrying. In the end, many end up carrying far more pain than they were ever
meant to.
For
centuries before the birth of Jesus, the Jews had been piling up these burdens
on one another. They first laid a foundation of unquestioning obedience, then,
they constructed upon that foundation intricate edifices of interpretation
regarding how that obedience should be manifested. While much of this
interpretation was passed on orally, it eventually was codified and redacted
into the Mishnah and Tosefta around the end of the second century, CE. Perhaps this was necessitated by the
increasing dislocation of the Jews from their traditional homeland and the
pressures of alien cultures on the Jewish diaspora to assimilate. The Pharisees
of Jesus’ day were particularly well-trained in these oral interpretations. These
perspectives had developed over time into codes of behavior that could
distinguish between those who were truly Jews and those simply born Jewish. As
such they became determinative of who was righteous and who was not, who was
saved and who was not. Jesus challenged the Pharisees over this, urging them to
recognize that what they were teaching was not God’s will but traditional
interpretations developed by men.[i]
Pharisees, both ancient and modern, use these interpretations to bind burdens
on the backs of others, burdens that they themselves don’t even bear.[ii]
Jesus, on the other hand, came to lift our burdens as the text at the top of
this commentary suggests.
So why then
do so many still seek to lay heavy burdens of obedience on the backs of their
brothers and sisters in the church? Perhaps the seeds of this were sprouted in
the rebellion which began in heaven. Apparently Satan sought to seize the
heavenly throne from God. According to the account in Revelation, chapter 12,[iii]
he seems to have succeeded in getting a third of the angels of heaven to follow
him in his revolt. However, it was not enough force to prevail, as he and his
followers ended up being cast from heaven. We all know how such revolts take
place. They have risen up many, many times on planet Earth. Someone challenges
the existing authority and then by portraying the ruler as cruel and vindictive,
they start to gather a following from those who feel themselves slighted and
injured, whether real or imagined. In commiserating, their grievances can grow
to bear bitter fruit if they do not follow the counsel Jesus shared in Matthew,
chapter 18.[iv]
Perhaps instead of following this counsel, those who were eventually cast out
of heaven persevered in grumbling among themselves over perceived injustices.
Perhaps Satan, like Absalom, King David’s son, assured them that if he were
ruling, things would be different and justice would prevail.[v]
The implication in such a position is that you cannot trust God.
We see this
in the serpent’s approach to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The serpent tells Eve
to trust him, even though it appears that God has given clear instructions
about the dangers of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve, faced with
the decision about whom to trust, chooses the serpent. Adam soon joins her in
switching his allegiance. As a result, the peaceful, sylvan fellowship they
previously enjoyed was replaced with a hard-scrabble one of farms and fields
where everything now hinged on mankind’s efforts to wrestle a living from the
ground.[vi]
This has become such a part of whom we are that we have a hard time imagining
anything that does not require effort on our part, including salvation. We tend
to apply the philosophy that “there is no free lunch” to every aspect of our
lives, and view suspiciously anything that is a gift instead of a quid pro quo transaction. Yet, we are
assured that salvation is indeed a gift.[vii]
When we look
at the creation story of Genesis, chapter one, we discover a poem of ascents,
point and counterpoint spiraling upward to completion. Day one is filled out in
day four, day two in day five, and day three in day six. Then as a grand climax
to this double helix of emerging life, the seventh day is the fullness of
completion and is a gift given to a humanity that so far has had little chance
to earn anything. As such, it is perhaps the greatest illustration of salvation
outside of the cross. Just as mankind could do nothing to deserve the Sabbath
of the seventh day, so he could also do nothing to deserve the sacrifice of the
cross. We can see from this that God’s desire is not to give us the toil of a
never ending list of requirements for obedience, something that came after the
fall, but rather to set us free by gifting us rest from that toil.
However, the
war that began in heaven is still raging even though the cross settled its
eventual outcome. The temptation is to believe that nothing is a gift. There
must be strings attached. Better we earn our way by obedience. Otherwise, what
we receive comes at too cheap a price. Some have even referred to this as “cheap
grace.” However, it is hard to imagine anything that caused the Son of God to
die upon the cross could be in any way considered cheap.
The problem
with focusing on our works as opposed to this gift is since there can be no
perfect obedience[viii]
we tend to multiply more and more requirements in a vain attempt to make it
happen. God wants us to have rest from this ever increasing burden that we
create for ourselves and others. In the book of Hebrews we read that the writer
considers the Sabbath as a metaphor for grace and laments that so few are
willing to enter into that rest from their works.[ix]
That he would write this to the early church, and specifically to the Jews
(Hebrews) is indicative of how much resistance to the idea of salvation by
faith alone existed in the early church. It might be fair to say that this
contributed to no small degree to schism within the early church. This controversy
over works versus faith is a defining element of the different schools of
theology that began to emerge.
The Pauline
school, although at times dealing with behavioral issues among the saints,
nonetheless emphasized that salvation was completely a work of grace and not
works of obedience.[x]
However, the Jacobine and Petrine schools were more inclined to emphasize
obedience as a pathway to salvation. It is interesting to note the distinct
conflict in interpretation of the life of Abraham between Paul’s statement in
Romans, chapter 4, and the epistle of James, chapter 2.[xi]
Interestingly, they began with the same passage in the Old Testament,[xii]
yet arrived at opposite conclusions.
Pauline
theology eventually became ascendant in the early church, perhaps helped along
by the destruction that ensued from the two Jewish revolts and the Roman suppression
of the practice of Judaism. The Jacobine viewpoint was diminished in value and
the inclusion of James in the canon was opposed for several centuries. Some,
such as Martin Luther, even challenged its inclusion 1500 years later because of
its dependence on works of obedience as formulaic for salvation. The primacy of
Paul’s gospel of righteousness by faith can be seen in the preservation of so much
of his writing in the New Testament. Of the twenty-seven books found there,
fourteen are commonly attributed to him. This is far more than any other
writer. Even John, the second most published, has only five. James and Peter
have only a total of three between them. It is little wonder that Pauline
thought continues to dominate Christian theology today. However, there is still
the desire to pick up those burdens of obedience and fasten them upon one
another. Adam readily blamed Eve and even God for his failure, and Eve blamed
the serpent. In doing so, they focused on what had been done and not on the
betrayal of trust. In the curse that resulted, working and doing for survival became
far more important than simply trusting God. Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect
this perspective on work and survival, so deeply rooted in the Fall, to pass away
without a fight as long as that curse continues.
