Christ and the Law in the Sermon on
the Mount
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the April 26, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“It is not as though God’s word had
failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. …In other words,
it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is
the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” Romans
9:6, 8, NIV
In the
Sermon on the Mount,[i]
Jesus expounded on the importance of a proper view of interpersonal
relationships, an understanding that went beyond a literal understanding of
commandment keeping. He laid out the idea that obedience was not a check list
activity where one could simply check off the Ten Commandments in order to
determine if they were righteous. Instead righteousness arose from within the
heart and mind and not from outward performance. However, He also said that
this did not do away with the law. Instead His teaching appears to have
magnified it beyond mere words in a book. Nonetheless, if His followers
expected this to end all controversy over the law, they were mistaken.
To a large
degree the problems to come in the war over grace and the law were created by
the wall of separation that existed between the Jews and the rest of the world.
The non-Jews, or Gentiles, were excluded from the Temple, and Jews could not
eat or socialize with them in order to remain pure. Some Christian
denominations continue in like manner to separate themselves from
non-Christians today. This is especially true in families with children when
the parents do not want their children exposed to non-Christian influences. This
may even extend to non-Christian belief systems, such as Eastern Religions or
Islam. Whether right or wrong, this practice may simply be a vestige of our
tribal past, couched in religious terminology. Those within the tribe are trustworthy;
those without are suspect.
In the case
of the early Christian church, this created a problem that could potentially
seriously limit the propagation of the Gospel. Some, who were Jews before they
accepted Christ and continued to consider themselves Jews after baptism, felt
that Gentiles who wished to be baptized as Christians should follow the same
path as Jewish Proselytes had always followed, including male circumcision.
While some did follow this path both before and after Christ,[ii]
many who might otherwise have accepted the Jewish faith remained on the outside
because of this onerous requirement.
The Jews did
not accept these individuals as Jews but instead considered them “God Fearers.”[iii]
They thus acknowledged that these individuals were disposed to worship God but
could not overcome the barrier they faced. They were considered outside the
Mosaic Law but the Jews still considered these “God Fearers” subject to the
Noahide Law,[iv]
which came before Abraham and circumcision and by interpretation applied to all
individuals whether Jewish or not. These may have constituted the majority of
attendees at some synagogues in the Diaspora. They were like cattle pressing
against the gates of their stall. Attracted by the Holy Spirit and eager to go
through but the barrier of circumcision prevented them. Since even Jesus was circumcised
and said He did not come to do away with the law, a view we find presented in
the Sermon on the Mount, there may have seemed little hope for those excluded
by circumcision. Christianity was in danger of becoming simply a sect within
Judaism. If it had, it might never have become the light of the Gentiles as
prophesied.[v]
While many
Jews, even among the priests, accepted Jesus as the Messiah,[vi]
the message may never have traveled beyond Judaism had it not been for a
singular incident outside the city of Damascus. According to Paul, AKA Saul,
this incident, followed by an encounter with a Christian Jew named Ananias,
served to set him apart for carrying the Gospel to the Gentiles.[vii]
In order to substantiate his authority as an Apostle, Paul apparently shared
this story wherever he went. No matter the basis for his office, he effectively
became the desperately needed bridge from Christian Judaism to the yearning
Gentiles.
We might have
thought because of the Peter’s vision[viii]
that he would be the bridge that Paul became, but because of Peter’s
vacillating nature (remember the cock crowing incident?), he continued to prove
unreliable.[ix]
His lack of leadership with the Gentiles created a vacuum that Paul readily
stepped into. Whether Paul sensed these Gentiles represented a force that could
propel Christianity to the next level, or he simply presented the message he
had and was carried along with the resulting flood of Gentile converts, the
result was the same. The gospel was now raging like a firestorm outside the
limited confines of Judaism. It was only to be expected perhaps that eventually
a conflict would arise between the obligations of believers to follow either
the Noahide laws or those of Moses.
Perhaps the
first step in dealing a serious blow to the Mosaic code was the First Jerusalem
Council.[x]
In spite of possibly intense debate about the issue, the council decided that
the Noahide law was the only law applicable to the Gentiles even though they
had accepted Jesus. While this provided authority for the gospel message to
continue to spread and grow among the Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire, it
was perhaps the first nail in the coffin regarding observance of the Mosaic Law
in the Christian church. Perhaps they were not too concerned as the Jewish
Christians considered themselves still very much in control of the Christian
message from Jerusalem, the holy city of David and the city where Christ died
and rose again.
However,
that would change after two bloody Jewish revolts against the Romans. By the
time of the Bar Kochba revolt, the Romans had had enough and banned all Jews
from Jerusalem. Since Gentiles were not Jews, this left them in sole control of
the Jerusalem church. Because of the failure of the Christians to join in the
revolts and because they had now become ascendant in Jerusalem, there was no
small amount of hostility by the Jews toward them. At this time, the Birkat ha-Minim became a component of
the daily prayers of many Jews. It contained curses on the Christians and as it
became known outside the circles of Judaism served to create no small amount of
hostility between the two groups.
This hostility
can be seen in the writings of Ignatius, third bishop of Antioch, in the early
second century. He was a staunch opponent of any practices that might be
identified as Jewish in nature. He wrote that these practices represented a
return to a pre-Christian state.[xi]
Among these forbidden practices he included honoring the Jewish Sabbath instead
of accepting the new Lord’s Day of Christianity.[xii]
This is a position that continued to grow in theological implication. It was
reflected more than two centuries later in the writings of John Chrysostom.
Having previously served as a deacon in the Antioch church prior to becoming
Archbishop of Constantinople, he may have been heavily influenced by the
conflicts there between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. His rise to power in
the capitol of the Byzantine Empire gave him an influence throughout the empire.
Perhaps it
is not surprising then that even in our day the controversy continues to rage
concerning the role of the law and obedience to it in the Christian church. Today,
the Roman Catholic Churches, The Orthodox communions, as well as many
Protestant denominations tend to favor mostly the non-Mosaic perspective
regarding what is required for membership and consequently the path to
salvation. Others, such as the several Seventh-day denominations (Adventists,
Baptists, Church of God, etc.) see at least some of the Mosaic provisions as
integral to a saving relationship with God.
This plays
out theologically as a demonstrated preference for certain parts of the Bible
Canon. Those more oriented toward the anti-Mosaic position tend to favor
Pauline Theology and consequentially favor his epistles to the Romans and
Galatians. Those who favor a more Mosaic perspective, tend to favor the
theology of James and gravitate toward his epistle. Naturally as a descendant
of those who favored the more limited Noahide call to obedience, Martin Luther
considered James an “epistle of straw” that should not even have been included
in the Bible.[xiii]
While this may be an extreme position, one which Luther removed from later
editions of his Bible, it serves to illustrate the depth of feeling that existed
on both sides of this issue.
It may be
astonishing to see the possible repercussions that pragmatic decisions that
seem to make perfect sense at the time can have centuries and even millennia after
the fact. Surely the First Jerusalem Council had no idea of the far flung results
of their simple desire to accommodate the Gentiles who had accepted Christ, and
as Peter had seen, Gentiles that had even received the Holy Spirit. If they had
known, would they have decided differently? We may never know this side of
heaven. But if they had, perhaps the church would not have grown to be what it
has become today.
We are faced
with several issues in modern times that may rise to the same level of significance.
Gender inclusive ordination, homosexuality, and biblical literalism regarding
the Creation story, among others are settling out parties on both sides of
their respective arguments. Eventually some denominations will commit to
positions on these issues. While we cannot always anticipate every possible
outcome of each doctrinal decision, perhaps we should be aware that making a
decision does not necessarily make the controversy disappear. It may instead
set both sides even harder in concrete so that the battle will continue for
centuries. Maybe sometimes an inclusivity that does not choose sides can be
better than an exclusivity that does.
