Apologies. A hacker has introduced imperfections into this page as a little joke. Odd intrusions may be noticed on other pages as well, though such intrusions may or may not show up when you view a page. The best we can do is seek God's kindness for the hacker -- a suggestion which happens to fit the theme of the Sermon.
This commentator takes a spiritual yet rational – but not rationalist – view of Scripture. We are allowed to use our brains when examining Scripture, but we do not toss out Christ with disputed points.
Though sound doctrine is certainly an admirable and important objective of any evangelist, the primary goal of evangelism is to draw people to Jesus. I recall the testimony of a woman who said she came to Jesus while watching a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar. No matter that the musical play denies the divinity of Jesus. What mattered was that her heart was stirred by contemplation of the Son of God, bringing her to the realization of her sin and her need for pardon. The Holy Spirit reached her even though the performance was denying that Jesus could save her (see Philippians 1:18).
Once a person has given her life over to the care of Jesus, or to God in the name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will provide the inner light that will help the believer sift through points of doctrine while guiding the soul on the journey home.
So then, we always have the possibility that some evangelist or one of his helpers may lift up Jesus while holding an incorrect understanding of some possibly important points of doctrine. Even so, the evangelist has pointed the way so that the soul that hits rock bottom knows where to seek help. That's what counts here!
Likewise we have the possibility – even the likelihood – that early compilers and editors of the four gospel accounts made some "mistakes," just as a modern-day evangelist might make some factual errors in the midst of a powerful appeal to turn to Christ. But in many cases such details are unimportant insofar as the basic message goes. The evangelist strives -- then as now -- to get the hearer or reader to see what he is driving at. We don't worry that the evangelist mixes up, say, he protons and electrons. He is not writing a paper on physics. He wants you to get a spiritual truth.
I put mistakes within quotation marks because God is so very competent to correct human error, especially when the person is doing her best to serve him. They either are inconsequential or, if substantial, there turns out to be "more to it" than was first realized, meaning the supposed error might not be one at all. The most important point in this regard is this:
Isaiah 55:11
God's word can't fail, regardless of how human beings have here and there mangled it in transit.
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
And even though some preachers are among the false prophets whom Jesus will turn away on Judgment Day, Christ is still proclaimed! Even persons with wrong motives are helping, somehow, to advance the kingdom.
Even so, Paul, before setting off for Macedonia, urged Timothy at Ephesus to reprove some people that they cease from teaching any doctrine other than the saving grace of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the dead for our sakes. Tell those men to pay no heed to "fables and endless genealogies," which provoke doubt rather than godly education through faith (1 Timothy 1:4).
LAW IS FOR THE UNGODLY
Paul warns against those who have turned from his teaching only to engage in haggling over points of the Jewish Law, which in any case they don't understand. Moreover, he argues, the Law was made for ungodly persons, for abusers of parents, for killers. In contrast, Christ's teaching may be summarized as "love out of a pure heart, a good conscience and unfeigned faith" (1 Timothy 1:5).
One may even go so far as to wonder whether Paul's criticism was directed at the group that contributed to Matthew. The genealogy that attempts to "prove" that Jesus is a direct descendant of King David has nothing much to recommend it (and neither does Luke's genealogy) – though the scholar Raymond E. Brown [WS.1a*] has shown that Matthew's principal writer seems to have been at pains to avoid deliberate falsification. Similarly, one wonders about Matthew's infancy narratives, which seem to be another attempt to "prove" to Jews that Jesus is a son of David.
Such concerns are far from implying that Matthew doesn't have a great deal of material that reflects the truth of Jesus. And certainly God is able to have caused to happen everything in the nativity stories. Yet, are these among the "fables" to which Paul was referring? So we have the possibility that some Matthean materials are open to question, even among devoted Christians.
Even so, the most important feature of the four gospels is that they vigorously uphold Jesus, the crucified Savior who rose from the dead, and his teaching of meekness and love. That is, in their main messages, they are consistent with Paul's teaching. Yes, we may on occasion wonder what "really" or "exactly" occurred in some of the scenes described in the four gospel accounts. In a number of cases we get the impression that authors knew of specific miracles, but felt that a certain amount of "poetic license" was permissible in describing them. Remember, the writers did not know they were writing Holy Writ! This observation applies even to Mark, which was apparently the first of the four canonical gospels to be written down. Many scholars believe that Matthew incorporates Mark, which supposedly is a collection of materials drawn from Peter's sermons in Rome.
Matthew's writer apparently polished Mark's account, taking care to hold the disciples in due reverence, as opposed to the Mark writer, who saw their human frailties. The Matthean group also wove in a collection of sayings of Jesus, which some scholars class under the heading Q, a collection that evidently was in possession of early congregations. A number of those sayings are preserved in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. The principal writer of Matthew was probably taken with the mountain imagery, contrasting it with Moses on Mount Sinai. But, in any case, scholars say the Greek could mean "in the hills." Some try to reconcile Luke's parallel "Sermon on the Plateau" by speculating that the plateau was up in the hills.
We declare that the important thing here is not exactness of geographic detail, but the sayings themselves! When people first heard these sayings, they were astonished. Why? Because their power jumps out at the attentive listener. Early Christians had collected sayings that they remembered personally or that were relayed to them. They were kept because Christians, illuminated by the Spirit, could "hear the Master's voice" in them.
NO NEWSPAPER REPORTERS ON HAND
Conservative analysts say that all of Jesus' sayings are authentic but that Matthew brought them together in their present form. The introduction and concluding notes framing each of Matthew 's discourses are seen as artistic, compositional devices.
Yet one conservative writer regards the Sermon as "condensed notes" of an actual discourse (I suppose akin to how a news reporter jots down key quotations), arguing that there was no literary genre in that period that would justify the fictive framework idea. My response is that the main Matthew writer wanted to get across the teachings collected from Q, and putting them right up front was a way to ensure that congregants heard the essentials right off the bat. I do not deny that disciple witnesses may have told of an early initial discourse, but the idea seems implausible that a news-reporter-type of scribe was on hand to write down the sayings.
It has been shown that the Old Testament quotations and allusions that Matthew and Mark have in common come principally from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of Hebrew (and some Aramaic) Scriptures, whereas those found only in Matthew are drawn from a variety of sources and textual traditions.
Though the identity of the main Matthew writer is unknown, a number of experts believe that the author must have been a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian with some rabbinic knowledge. This author depended on a form of the Jesus tradition which, potentially, accommodated the sayings of Jesus to a first century Jewish viewpoint.[WS.1a*]
On the other hand, several redaction-critical studies have denied that the author was a Jew, arguing that the antipathy expressed toward (some) Jews in Matthew and the ignorance of Judean Jewish life are so deep that the writer must have been a Gentile Christian. Yet, a strong case has been made that the Matthean community was a beleaguered Jewish group which was in an ideological fight with other Jewish groups. If, at some points, an ignorance of Judaism shows through, we would have to guess that this was a result of redactions and glosses that occurred between the first and third centuries, when Christians were altering manuscripts in order to incorporate important doctrinal ideas that may be at variance with the principal composer's assumptions or in order to deny schismatics ("heretics") proof texts.
As the Bible scholar Donald Guthrie [WS.2*] explains, the Jewish perspective of the Matthew writer is seen in his many Old Testament citations as well as his awareness of everyday matters of concern to Jews. On the writer of Matthew, Guthrie insists:
¶ His Gospel often reflects the more restricted outlook of Jewish Christianity. Not one jot or tittle of the law will become invalid (5:18 f.); the scribes and Pharisees occupy the seat of Moses and their instructions are to be observed (23:2 f.); Jesus enjoins the fulfillment of the commandments (19:17 ff.; 23:23); the Jewish temple tax is paid (17:24 ff.); the disciples are expected to fast, keep the sabbath; and bring offerings as in the Jewish tradition (6:16 ff., 24:20, 5:23 f.); Jesus himself declares that he is sent only to the 'lost sheep of the house of Israel' (15:24); the genealogy of Jesus is traced from Abraham and is arranged in three groups of 14 in rabbinic style (1:1 ff.); and Jewish customs and phrases are included without elucidation (15:2, where the phrase 'tradition of the elders' occurs in the phrase about handwashing scruples; 23:5, where phylacteries are mentioned; and 23:27, where allusion is made to whited sepulchres). In addition, the recurrent theme of Jesus as the Son of David and the triumphant entry into Jerusalem focus attention on the Jewish Christian regard for Jesus as the Fulfiller of their national hopes.
¶ But the significant thing about [the main Matthew writer's] gospel is that universalism appears alongside this particularism. If Christianity is seen as the ideal Israel it is also seen as the New Israel, unbounded by the restricted environment out of which it emerged... At the conclusion of the gospel [Matthew's writer] records the great commission which extends to all nations (28:18 ff.)... In the parable of the vineyard (21:33 ff.), Jesus suggests that another nation will supplant the original husbandmen, who clearly represent the Jewish people.
We ought take note of the discipleship system of Jesus' day. The students were expected to listen to every word of the rabbi and watch his every action. They were expected to pay very close attention. Hence, we may feel quite confident that many of the sayings of Jesus found in the gospels are authentic recollections of his words and intent. Similarly, a rabbi's students were to soak up the meaning of his actions and to take note of specific actions. They were not to fabricate recollections. These were honorable Jewish men. Those observations should not be taken to mean that, as recollections were passed on, variants did not occur; they obviously did. But the important point is that, in the main, Jesus as he was comes through the patchy gospel accounts – loud and clear.
Please see
He opened his mouth
https://zioncallingyou.blogspot.com/2020/01/mt-51-2-draft-2.html
and use Control f Cohen to see Shaye D. Cohen's remarks on this matter.
DISPELLING MYSTERIES
Mark, which is widely believed to have been the earliest of the four now-canonical gospels, makes the point that, despite the miracles he effected during his earthly work, people generally did not realize who Jesus really was. The books of the other three evangelists, written later, do not pick up on this point, or, if they do, are not quite so blunt.
Mark's Jesus was, during his earthly sojourn, the hidden Messiah, whose true nature would not begin to shine forth until after he prevailed on the cross over death, the world and Satan. The Mark writer seems to have thought the truth was veiled in order to prevent the many from repenting and being saved. Only a few were chosen. Though the call goes out to many, few really hear it. One can understand this in light of the fact that, if someone had not repented at the urging of the baptizer John, then how could Jesus' message be heard?
Still, Mark makes very clear that not even Jesus' closest disciples had much comprehension of what was really going on. And this makes sense. How could they receive much illumination before each had received the Holy Spirit, which could only be given to sinful humans once Jesus had washed away their sin by his sacrifice? They were bound to be pretty much in the dark prior to the Resurrection.
All that is to say that many of the teachings recalled by his followers make more sense after his Resurrection than they would have prior to it. This is especially so for a person who has received Christ's Spirit. Before the Resurrection, Jesus was putting out ideas that could only be seeds – seeds that would mature only later, once people began receiving the Spirit.
So the Sermon, in this respect, makes a lot more sense to someone who has been born again, and even to one who is on the verge of rebirth, than to another who has not received that Gift or is not near to receiving it. Unless one knows Jesus, one will see only poorly, if at all, what Jesus is driving at. Yet even so the word is so powerful that it can be of great value even to the unregenerate (see salt of the earth [Matthew 5:13]).
WE OFTEN READ PAST 'NOISE'
Some will object: if we can't trust every word of the Bible as absolutely accurate and true, why should we accept any of it?
We are all aware of the problem of noise in communications. Static, if it is not too awful, will not hinder us from getting most of the content of a broadcast talk. Similarly, note that Google's predictor algorithm can sniff out the probable meaning of "bttotherlu llve." Perhaps you read the intended meaning immediately.
Google reads:
Showing results for brotherly love
Search instead for bttotherlu llve
Yet, historians and those journalists with the time and resources often can put together a realistic picture of a disputed major event.
As for born-again Christians, they have the Spirit to help them see past the "noise" and get to the heart of the matter.
In my opinion, an excellent way to understand the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke, so called because they share much parallel material) is via the Spirit-filled Book of John. Much that is disjoint in the Synoptics becomes clear in the light of John. For all we know, the author of John could indeed have been the Apostle John, who may have had the help of an amanuensis (scribal secretary). In any case, though John is plainly not a court-reporter-type transcription, it seems evident that the author permitted Jesus to speak through him via the the Holy Spirit. A discerning reader will see that John's main writer had a much more holistic understanding of the spiritual aspect of the Good News than did the Synoptic writers, which is not to imply that their work was not highly valuable.
John gives us the lowdown. To see Matthew and the other synoptic accounts more clearly, we may benefit from putting them in the context of John's notions of being born again and of worshiping God as new spirit beings.
Please see The key to understanding the Sermon, which contains John 3 and 4.
NOT ALL 'BORN AGAIN' ARE BORN AGAIN
The early Christian communities in and around Judea had people of various levels of insight and understanding of the good news of salvation. As he does today, God spoke to these Christians in different ways, each according to her needs. So we may accept that these communities may well have had some doctrinal differences, as we see from Paul's disagreement with Peter over whether Gentile Christians needed to follow Jewish practices (Galatians 2:11-14).
Though this dispute was amicably settled later on, some find reasonable the idea that the Matthean community, which was very cognizant of its Jewish congregants, wished to remain true to the Jewish customs of the day, insofar as it was able.
In any case, I find reasonable the notion that not everything was revealed all at once. Time was required for some insights to reach many of the early Christians, as we see from John, which was written decades after the other three gospels. While the three earlier gospels draw together a collection of sayings and actions that people had remembered as a means of recounting the highlights of Jesus' ministry, John is more focused on the inner meaning of the believer's relationship to Christ.
Though John tells a story of what happened before Jesus' crucifixion, I suggest that the book nevertheless is relaying insights from a writer who has spent many years as a Spirit-filled person. This writer permits Jesus to speak through him in those wonderful Johannine discourses.
With regard to doctrinal variation, I find interesting that fairly early on the custom of the Eucharist (Greek for "thanksgiving" and also called "Holy Communion") became a replacement – rather than a reminder – of the communion with Christ that a Spirit-endued person has.[WS.9*]
Yet the church, I suppose, would not object too much, because of the prospect that these congregants might one day get a real experience with Jesus. Even so we ought to see that the true church, those who have been born from above into God's kingdom, is cloaked in a mantle made up of nominal Christians who are by no means born again, no matter what they have been told.[WS.3*] Hence, a major task of Christ is the continual renewal of his church, so that the sea of unbelief does not overcome it.
Romans 10:9
Paul gives us a very simple formula to obtain salvation. If you tell people you have accepted Jesus as Lord – meaning lord of your life – then you are placing yourself in God's camp by letting others know where you stand. If you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, then the implication is that you know that you ought to do what he says. That is, you really trust him.That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Now, not to quibble with Paul, but we have the possibility of a person with a sort of passive belief that Jesus was raised from death and who tells others of being a Christian and yet who doesn't have a saving knowledge of Christ. That is, such a person has a rather tepid form of "background" belief that has been absorbed via parents or socially – without knowing Jesus personally.
James 2:19
This sort of "believer" has not been born of the Spirit even though technically he may be said to fulfill the criteria of Romans 10:9. This, by the way, tells us that to rightly divide Scripture, we may need to look at more than one verse.You believe that there is one God; you do well. The devils also believe, and tremble.
Acts 16:30-31
Here the author of Acts (who also wrote Luke) quotes Paul and Silas as telling the frightened jailer that belief in Jesus as Lord was imperative for salvation. Belief in this sense doesn't mean merely belief in the existence of the risen Jesus, but the act of trusting him with your soul, of putting "all your marbles" in his hands. This act of belief was followed by water baptism, which is meant as a sign of spirit baptism – that is, of having the Spirit pour into you.
30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
When you sincerely put your trust in Jesus to forgive you all your misdeeds and to save you, then you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit. Some people think "baptism in the Spirit" only comes to a few people who are members of the right congregation. This is only true in the sense that not all who claim to be Christians have in fact been born again.
The writer of the Sermon is introducing his readers to these marvels by degrees, since those who have not yet been born again are still somewhat in the dark as to the meaning of the idea of obtaining the pearl of great price: salvation.
In any case, every born-again person is sent the Spirit, and that Spirit is like an internal fire, burning up the old nature that is so resistant to God and God's work. Though, according to Acts, people saw literal tongues of fire light onto the apostles as the Lord kick-started his church, there is no necessity for such a miraculous apparition. What everyone wants is assurance of salvation and fellowship with God and Jesus, which is what the Spirit brings.
Of course, we always have the possibility that a believer is having trouble being sufficiently yielded to the Lord and thus his old nature is, up to a point, quenching the Spirit within him. To do better, he can pray (and fast), seeking to be more yielded. Possibly he is having a hard time letting go of some relationship, circumstance, thing or habit that he finds important. Yet, if he casts that issue onto God's shoulders, he will get the help he needs, though the help may not be something he initially welcomes.
Now there was a problem in early Christian gatherings in which some people had received "the baptism of John" and needed to receive the baptism of the Spirit, which manifested in remarkable gifts given to those who had been so baptized (Acts 18:24-28;19:1-6). We can see that issue reflected in modern Christianity, in which people are discouraged from thinking that the Spirit gives people power in the here and now. Yet, they are believers – of a sort. But many have not put their full self into the hands of Jesus and sincerely asked him to take full responsibility for them. They have not connected with Jesus personally. They go through a form of religion, but have not yet got the real message!
Still, we must be wary of judging. Some people don't come across as evangelicals, and may even look somewhat worldly, but deep within their hearts, they are banking on Jesus to care for them. They may or may not be weak brothers and sisters, but we have no right to count them out. Jesus saves all kinds of people – including ones who seem to have only a little flicker of the Spirit.
Interestingly, some Samaritans, who had been baptized in water in the name of Jesus, were indeed saved! Once they trusted in his name, God made sure to send people to them to add to them the blessing of the Spirit. One can speculate that the Samaritans at first did not receive this blessing because the Spirit first had to be poured out on all sorts of Jews in the "land of Israel." To the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16). Once that task had been accomplished, the Samaritans could receive the Spirit.
Observe, by the way, that as Jesus received his human baptism publicly, he also received a baptism of the Spirit. Now some have said that Jesus only became God's son at this time. Previously, he had only been a son of man, in their view. Yet, was it not necessary for Jesus to receive a special blessing of the Spirit as a sign from God that Jesus was being anointed as the Messiah, the king of the Jews? And, to my mind, what Jesus was doing was leading the way. God's son was humble enough to accept a baptism for sins that he never committed. Surely you can be humble enough to repent – and show your repentance with a public act – for sins that you have committed. When you do turn around (repent), you turn toward Jesus, and he has power to send you the Spirit, thus transforming you into a son of God, with whom the Father is well pleased – even though you may have a hard time seeing that. When you become born anew you become like Jesus, God's precious son, to whom he is devoted.
That is, once you have turned your will and your life over to Jesus, the formerly Unknown God says, "Any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine." But you cannot enter the Father's house without having been properly introduced.
The phrase "son of God" means "angel" or "projection" of God, a being that has been directly created by God, without intervention of nature. If you are born again, then you have been directly created as a new person, being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Look out! God makes everything new!
You can tell a real Christian by her or his Spirit and deeds. Talk by itself is insufficient. You don't necessarily have to make a big fuss about being a Christian. Your compassion, friendliness and actions will say it all. At least some people will thank God for you. Even so, don't try to hide your faith in Jesus. Christ's light is supposed to reach people through you, once you are born anew.
I would say that for much of history neither the Roman Catholic nor Eastern rite churches (such as the Greek and Russian orthodox traditions, which originated in Byzantium) paid more than lip service to the Pauline view of salvation:
Ephesians 2:8-9
In fact, that
was a major criticism of Luther's. Still, we should remember that
the Catholic Church was a big tent, meaning that different orders and
subgroups could hold somewhat different theological positions (this
became less true with the rise of the counter-Reformation Jesuits). As
for the Byzantine and Eastern churches, I have insufficient background to comment on
varieties of viewpoint within it.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
In any case, these churches tended to emphasize the doctrine of salvation by works, along with "penance" (repetition of formulaic prayers) after confession to a priest. At one time, most Catholics feared that they might die before having had an opportunity to gain priestly absolution for their latest batch of sins, thus consigning them to hellfire.
Admittedly, a superficial reading of the Sermon on the Mount, bolstered by verses elsewhere, could give this impression. For example, Matthew 25:14-46 teaches that those who show compassion in their actions will be welcomed to paradise while those who don't will meet a bad end.
In fact, I find quite significant that neither Mark nor Matthew even use the word "grace" in any sense, and specifically not in the Pauline sense. Luke's writer, who does use the word frequently, doubtless had some sort of association with Paul. At the least, the gospel writer was someone who had been involved in one of the Pauline churches.
Up until fairly recently, the Catholic Church rigidly promoted the Ten Commandments given to the Jews. And this emphasis is still noticeable among a number of Protestant denominations. Yet Paul is clear that the Law is really a schoolteacher in helping us to identify our wrongdoings – which, I strongly urge – is just how Jesus intended some of those "impossible" sayings of his recorded in the Sermon. Granted, one may conceive that the Sermon's compiler was not fully aware of that intention at the time of writing. After all, everyone, including the authors of the gospels, has a right to grow in Christian understanding over time. But whatever Matthew's main writer understood at that point in his life, we must stress that NO legal code has power to save.
I think that there have been right from the beginning blocks of Christianity that have had a hard time getting past the legalistic idea about Jesus' teaching. The "Baptism of John" is all they really know, for they are not born again and have not been endued with the Spirit in power and in truth. This critique applies to large blocks of Catholicism, Orthodoxism and Protestantism. When we consider that even components of the New Testament may be construed as pointing to a new legal code, we can understand how this "false religion" gains wide currency. Yet, whom the Son sets free, is free indeed (John 8:36).
Over the years, theologians and scholars have argued about whether some books should be removed from the canon (books accepted by the church as authoritative for Christians) and others added. I tend to agree with ideas expressed by Herbert Braun and Willi Marxsen.[WS.7*] As Braun argues, the "canon within the canon" is located within the preaching of Jesus, in Paul and in John.[WS.7*] For Marxsen, the "canon within the canon" is what lies behind the New Testament writings. "But the real canon is prior to the New Testament, and we are nearer to it in the sources the Synoptists [Matthew, Mark and Luke] used than in the Synoptic Gospels themselves." [WS.8*]
Even so, I certainly would never recommend disregarding any part of today's New Testament canon. In particular, all four canonical gospels contain sayings of Jesus which – whether a bit out of context or not – remain very powerful. They also contain a set of recollections of his deeds in which Jesus' character shines through clearly. Anyone can tell that before that time no one like him had ever set foot on Earth. So I am saying that I favor using one's head when examining these writings, but let us be ready to "hear the Master's voice" through them (John 10:27).
'TRINITY' SLOW TO EMERGE
I agree that the doctrine of the Trinity was doubtless a concept that was foreign to very early Christians. They would have at first found it hard to grasp. After all, the shock of the Resurrection and post-Resurrection appearances was plenty for the nascent church to chew over.
I also agree that the Matthew writer, in particular, was trying to avoid offending Jews with any such implication. In addition, we may observe that today there are Christian groups that deny the Trinity on the ground that this concept violates the principle of monotheism. Still, I doubt whether the Father or the Son would be offended by any human blind spot on this point.
In my view, Jesus is the projection of God into the human arena, thus being not only a son of God, but, also, God the Son. The Father is then the source of this projection.
In any case, I daresay that such ideas were initially too much for people to deal with, especially Jews rooted in the traditions of monotheism. Yet, must we have an either/or binary choice here? Consider the modern physics concept of "superposed states" in which both, seemingly distinct and contradictory states, exist simultaneously until someone takes a look, at which point only one state is detected and the other one vanishes, so to speak.
Admittedly, this is an arcane point. Yet it provides a nice analogy to the idea that when one has seen the son, he has seen the father. Only one can be directly detected (granting that visions of Jesus, such as Paul had, count as observations).
The understanding of who Jesus really is evolved as people reflected on him and as some received knowledge via the Holy Spirit.
That there was an early composer of John (the posited writer of the so-called "signs gospel") who expressed no notion of the Trinity is quite plausible. The version in use today may have been an amplification by the later Johannine community. But even so, many born-again people – that is, people who have been imbued with the Spirit – attest the truth of the later material. In fact Jesus' teaching that one must be born again (or from "above") is reputedly a later addition. Yet anyone who has had the experience of Jesus and the Spirit coming to her knows for sure that John's "later" ideas are on target.
Why must God reveal everything of importance all at once? Cannot his people see in new ways over time. "Behold, I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5).
Rather interesting is the fact that a document known as the Didache has been tracked back to a period contemporaneous with the four gospels, with part of it possibly written earlier. What we have is basic advice from, we think, early Jewish Christians to Gentile converts on personal conduct as well as on a few basics of church affairs. Though some theology is implicit, a great deal is missing. Jesus is referred to as Christ (God's anointed servant), but not as the son of God nor as an equivalent or stand-in for God.
Yet, there is quite a bit of support for the idea that the Didache was composed by churchmen not far removed from the original apostles. In fact, the church was still loosely organized, and had some difficulty with freeloaders posing as apostles.
Does this mean that what modern Christians believe or know about Jesus is not established by the earliest Christians? I maintain that some understandings took a while to come to fruition. But that doesn't make them false. The Didache strongly implies that these Christians had enough knowledge for their own salvation. Trust in Jesus was paramount – whatever the finer points of theology.
No doubt this document did not make it into the New Testament canon because the early churchmen saw its message as problematic, and they were right, because the document was intended to deal with temporary practical matters. Further, the moral code that it lays out may have been seen by later church fathers as lacking in the balance that would come from Christ's teachings on non-judgmentalism and Paul's doctrine of grace. [WS.kP29*]
When Jesus was anointed with Spirit at the time of his baptism in water, he was leading the way, as he always does. We, the born again, who have been baptized in the living water of the Spirit, are now sons of God.
One more observation: Just as the prism can be used as an analogy for the union of the born again with God, it can convey the idea of the union of the three persons of God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A white beam of light is divided by a prism into various colors. And, to be technical, one can add a polarizer in order to limit the light to a spectrum of three colors. When the three wavelengths (colors) pass through a reverse prism and polarizer, the light recombines into a beam of white light.
Yes, I am giving a metaphorical idea. One cannot possibly plumb the depths of this mystery with any number of words. Still, at least some people may get the point that monotheism is not necessarily mutually exclusive with the concepts of Trinity and the sons of God who are, in fact, God – though they throw down their crowns at the feet of God.
In my version of John 1:18, I use the term special son for what is generally rendered in English versions as only begotten son.
In Greek manuscripts, the words are monogenēs theos, which can be read as only begotten God. Some experts regard this as a probable mistranslation of the Aramaic phrase yehidh ‘elaha, which is taken to mean the only begotten of God.
In other words, the (presumed) Greek translator interpreted John 1:18 as saying that Jesus is the only God ever born as a natural man. Others then (rightly) interpreted this to mean that Jesus, as the Father's son, is God the Son. The original Aramaic phrase strongly implies that Jesus was the only human being that God had directly fathered -- also making Jesus God the Son.
Hence we see that either way a strong case can be made for the Trinity in John 1:18 [WS.4*].
Further, I add that the technical difficulties faced by Jerome and other translators reflects the mystery of the Trinity. We, the born again, become one with God by becoming one with his son. We become sons of God, being born directly from above, and are thence very special to him. We have been enfolded into the One God – "buried in baptism" with Christ, as Paul puts it (Colossians 2:12).
Granted, the idea that God gave his "only son" to serve as a ransom for many so that he could become one with all of us fallen humans strikes some as bizarre. But my mind asks, isn't that something God would do? Give his most precious son, the very extension of himself, in the most humiliating of circumstances in order to express his love for his disgraced children by turning the world on its head?
We can see in this question part of the Matthew writer's problem. He wished to avoid any such implication, as his community was already taking a great deal of heat from the Pharisees over charges of blasphemy, which was taken as implied if one accepts the idea that God's Messiah is more than a son in the sense of devoted servant, but an actual son. I daresay that Matthew's writer had some inkling of John's Christology, but prudence led him to play down those implications.
QUITE A 'SIGN'
In any case, though the Sermon doesn't deal directly with miracles, some people are skeptical of the biblical accounts because they cannot accept the notion of miraculous events. My take is that many who call themselves rationalists are in fact naive realists who still cling to the dreamworld of the so-called Enlightenment. A prime example is the atheist writer Ayn Rand. Her "objectivist" philosophy is nothing but naive realism with no admittance of the difficulties and contradictions inherent in that position. (I am not passing judgment on her literary efforts, as I have not the patience to read her books or, for that matter, many other books of literary merit. Nor do I object to the fact that many enjoy Rand's fiction and identify with the protagonists.)
Bolt from the blue
So I include this little story to underscore that I know firsthand
from this – and many other striking happenings – that the God of
Jesus does perform marvelous signs, even in modern times. Now you may
say this was a trivial matter, not to be compared with the
instantaneous healing of the sick or the raising of the dead. But I say
that if God can do something like that for one of his boys,
is not he able to heal the sick and raise the dead?
When I was fairly young and poor, I was driving along Route 22 one sunny day in New Jersey on my way to work. In that time before the global positioning system and smart phones, I was trying to pick out a sign for a particular auto dealer among a large jungle of signs on a stretch of road just outside Newark. I had strained to find the dealer on several previous commutes but my brain could not sort the data fast enough, even though I slowed some, though too much of a slowdown would have been dangerous.
I needed a gas cap for my fuel tank and reasoned that a dealer would be most likely to have one that fit.
Having been frustrated previously, I asked God to please help me find this place.
As my car neared the area:
Boom! A lightning bolt suddenly struck a sign amid the jumble. Yes, it was a sign for the dealer.
I do not know that anyone else saw the bolt or thought much of it.
Wheeling around, I located the establishment, which was hidden from the road behind a screen of buildings and signs for other businesses.
When I went to buy the cap – it wasn't in stock!
And so I wound up getting one the next day from an auto parts store, which is where I should have gone in the first place.
On reflection, I could only think that this was a bit of humor on God's part. After all, he did answer my prayer!
So in that case I have no argument with the claim in the gospel accounts that Jesus worked wonders. That understanding does not mean that I take the miracle stories in the Bible as verbatim transcripts. Neither do I reject the probability that at some points copyists and editors added or altered some material in order to deny certain passages to Gnostics, proto-Gnostics and others who were causing the early church much difficulty.
Many have a rather naive view of history as something well-known and more or less hard and fast. But as the British philosopher F.H. Bradley pointed out, these assumptions are open to challenge. [WS.gr1*] Works of history are written by individuals who must, perforce, select what they think relevant and true. Are these writers as reliable as they seem, even if they are trying to be honorable? Bradley cites the case of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus who remarked that he was inclined to disbelieve a story about an Egyptian king who sent some Phoenicians on an exploration voyage down the Red Sea and who eventually returned with Libya on their right. But that very detail supports the tale's authenticity, as the Phoenicians must have circumnavigated the continent of Africa.
All things considered, history, however defined, cannot be nearly as scientific as some would suggest. Everything past "now" is subject to error and varieties of interpretation. So, any search for a "historical Jesus" is a somewhat shaky endeavor [WS.g2*] in that it is hard to say what really happened in the past. We all agree that Julius Caesar was assassinated, but we are all taking the word of others who, for all we know, were given a false impression. Maybe he was fed up with being Caesar and retired to a Mediterranean island. Not likely, we think. But, then again, who really knows?
With history far more murky than most people suppose, does it make sense to assume that Nature rules out miracles in the past on ground that they are rarely noticed now? But miracles are, by definition, rare events, at least insofar as human observation goes.
POWER OF THE SAYINGS
Recapitulating, the Sermon on the Mount is likely a reconstruction of what Matthew's main writer (and perhaps a previous Sermon writer) considered to be some of the more important sayings of Jesus. We find parallel passages in Luke, though not all in one place.
The Sermon, as the writer saw it, was meant for new students of Jesus who had flocked to learn from this remarkable teacher, though it was also overheard by a large crowd of others straining to listen in.
In any case, we need not doubt that these sayings came from Christ. Their spiritual impact is far too strong to have emanated from an ordinary human teacher.
Few scholars regard Matthew 5 - 7 as thoroughly authentic in the transcriptional sense. I share the view of some experts that the Sermon compiler framed a collection of treasured sayings into a literary form as a means of imparting important teachings to congregants. That is, the Sermon had a liturgical purpose.
One has the impression that Matthew weaves the sayings together such that one often tends to flow from the other. This tapestry of association of ideas can be helpful. But it also means that we sometimes need to think over these teachings "out of context," as Matthew's context is only one possibility.
So the proposal that early Christians put words in Jesus' mouth seems unnecessary. The words, often surprising, carry great power. They are not the sort of ideas committees of theologians come up with. On the other hand, if one examines writings rejected by the early church elders, one sees that much of this material seems to have been tweaked in such a way as to diminish the message of salvation.
Of course, I do not claim that some sayings were not close paraphrases and that others have not got a bit fuzzy in translation – though my view is that in general a remarkable job of staying true to the surviving texts is evident.
Also, the notion that much of the Matthean material (as with the other three canonical evangelists) came from oral tradition should be seen in light of these points:
¶ Various congregations very likely wrote down important deeds and sayings of Jesus, as garnered from first-hand witnesses, early on. At some point, these writings were then collected and compiled by a few elders.
¶ The ability of the Holy Spirit to bring to mind important sayings and events should not be discounted. As God likes to let his people do things freely, come what may, we should not expect that he would have required a computer-like transcription service when the canon was being compiled and honed.
A number of scholars are confident that the writer of Matthew tailored Mark – 90 percent of which is subsumed by Matthew – for doctrinal reasons. So we have the likelihood that Matthew also tweaked some of the Q material, much of which is found in the Sermon. Likewise, we have the probability that Luke took some "poetic license" with some of the common material. For example, consider the teaching about pairs of people being split upon Jesus' return (two in bed: one taken away, the other remains). The writer very likely thought that the point of the teaching was the pairs, not their particular order, or even who was where (Matthew 24:40-41; Luke 17:33-36). That is, the writer was getting across the essence of what Jesus said without worrying about a verbatim transcript, just as news reporters often do today because for one reason or another verbatim accounts would hinder the reader.
In any case, when the books of the New Testament were written, the convention of quotation marks to set off a presumably verbatim statement had not been invented. In fact, the uncial script style eschewed spaces between words! Hence we very often have much uncertainty as to what is an exact quote and what is a close paraphrase, or perhaps a loose paraphrase.
No doubt the main writers of both Luke and Matthew (as with the other two gospel writers) knew that witnesses had contributed their recollections of Jesus' pithy sayings without necessarily recalling them verbatim, just as you may recall verbatim part of what someone says and, as for the rest, you recall, hopefully, the meaning. We can conjecture that a number of the sayings in Q had been reported by more than one witness and so matched and were fairly well verified. Also, the pithier the saying, the more likely it is to have been handed down word perfect.
Still, the Spirit ensured, through the eyes of a number of editors, that proper meaning was conserved. If a Spirit-filled person examines the Gospel of Thomas, for example, he should be able to discern very quickly that the aim is to undermine the saving grace of Jesus.
The Bible scholar Bruce M. Metzger [WS.6*] writes,
In this case the evaluation of modern readers will no doubt corroborate that of the early church, namely, that in the Gospel of Thomas the voice of the Good Shepherd is heard only in a muffled way, and that it is, in fact, often distorted beyond recognition by the presence of supplementary and even antagonistic voices.
WHAT IS MEANT BY 'INERRANCY'?
Interestingly, the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy that came out of the Reformation was not fully accepted by Martin Luther. For example, he was skeptical of the authenticity of the Book of Revelation (though I am not). On the other hand, the Roman Catholic notion of the primacy of tradition can also be challenged. As said above, the word of God appears when the Holy Spirit enlightens the mind. And though God can use anything as a match to illuminate the mind, he very often uses Scripture. So for a person to have proper understanding, she must have the Holy Spirit indwelling. That only happens when one, humbly, puts faith/trust in the son of God, Jesus.
Notable churchmen have over the centuries observed that Scripture is oriented toward serving limited human capacity. Origen (ca. 185-251) wrote in On First Principles that "we teach about God both what is true and what the multitude can understand" and so "the written revelation in inspired Scripture is a veil that must be penetrated" and "an accommodation to our present capacities" that "will one day be superseded." [WS.NK1*]
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) wrote, "The things of God should be revealed to mankind only in proportion to their capacity; otherwise they might despise what is beyond their grasp." He added, "It was therefore better for the divine mysteries to be conveyed to an uncultured people, as it were, veiled." [WS.NK1*]
Similarly, reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) argued that "God reveals himself to us according to our rudeness and infirmity." Calvin said that Moses taught the Hebrew tribesmen according to their capacity to understand. So those who question Moses' science are not comprehending the issue of communications with the common man, was Calvin's point. [WS.NK1*]
The Bible comes to life when the Spirit opens your eyes. Errors, infelicities and other matters of concern to scholars will pass away, as if they do not exist, as the Lord directs your mind to see in the Scripture what is good for you to receive. If a born-again Christian tests his motives and actions against Scripture, he will find a reliable guide, no matter the bits of static that occur here and there.
Of course, one may find solace in the belief that there is a true, inerrant meaning behind every Scriptural passage. That meaning is revealed by the Holy Spirit to those who are followers of Jesus. Yet we should, I think, be ready to admit that some Bible vignettes were intended as allegories for the conveyance of important theological ideas – just as Jesus used parables for that purpose. Most Christians today, for example, know that some Bible books are theological fiction. In particular, the Book of Job is not taken literally but as a theological/philosophical drama about the origin of suffering in the world. And several apocryphal books (Protestant: Aprocrypha; Roman Catholic: Deuterocanon) are seen as works of literature, not history.
Should we worry about the fact that two very different times are given in Mark and John for the crucifixion? According to Mark 15:25, Jesus was placed on the cross at the third hour (9 a.m.). But John 19:14 says the trial before Pilate was not quite over by the sixth hour (noon). There has been speculation that the John writer reckoned the hours of a day as stretching from midnight to noon, so that his "sixth hour" would become 6 a.m., thus eliminating the discrepancy. Yet this seems a contrived solution. No better are suggestions that, as no one had watches, at least one of the times given was just poor estimation.
A far more logical solution was suggested by Jerome in the fourth century. In the words of Metzger, we may join Jerome in presuming that an "error has crept into the transmission of the manuscripts of either John or Mark. Since the Greek letter which stands for 3 is the gamma ( Γ ) and the character which stands for 6 is the digamma ( Ϝ ), a sleepy copyist, early in the transmission of the New Testament, may have mistaken one for the other." [WS.5a*] To me, such a minor difference in the record makes no difference whatsoever in the fundamental message carried by the New Testament: Jesus saves! Throw in your lot with him and you will do all right. You can't go wrong with Jesus!
Metzger [WS.5*] also relates that, though primarily a theologian, Augustine (354-430) showed on occasion a keen critical judgment on textual problems. Thus when considering the difficulty that Matthew 27:9 incorrectly cites Jeremiah instead of Zechariah, Augustine suggests that one should first take notice of the fact that this citation does not appear in all manuscript versions, with some simply citing "the prophet."
Hence one could follow those manuscripts that do not contain the name "Jeremiah." Yet, notes Augustine, the majority of manuscripts seen by him have "Jeremiah," while a few have "Zechariah." As scribes would have been more likely to have corrected an error than to have introduced one, Augustine concludes that the template Matthew probably contained the error.
Matthew 27:9
While believers know that the Holy Spirit greatly improves the mind's cognitive powers, we should still grant the evangelists the right to ordinary human frailty. Somewhere in the New Testament, Paul says, "Somewhere in Scripture, it says..." So what if Paul's memory is imperfect!? That did not slow him down at all. No doubt the Matthew writer or some early editor misremembered his citation. Yet, the truth of the salvation message remains.
9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;
Metzger, in his study of the development of the New Testament, found that
when one compares [some] rather widely-used apocryphal gospels (along with the more widely divergent specimens that were found at Nag Hammadi...), one can appreciate the difference between the character of the canonical Gospels and the near banality of most of the gospels dating from the second and third centuries. Although some of these claimed apostolic authorship, whereas of the canonical four two were in fact not apostolically titled, yet it was these four, and these alone, which ultimately established themselves. The reason, apparently, was that these four came to be recognized as authentic – both authentic in the sense that the story told was, in essentials, adjudged sound by a remarkably unanimous consent, and also in the sense that their interpretation of its meaning was equally widely recognized as true to the apostles' faith and teaching. [WS.6*]
In addition, Metzger relates, some of the apocryphal works served the same purpose as the Christian novels of today. They were interesting yarns for the entertainment of Christians written rather like the Roman novels of the period, but with moralistic admonitions replacing the salacious material of the secular books. Even so, both then and in later years, many people were hoodwinked by these productions, taking them as "the gospel truth."
Metzger points out that early writers faced far more difficulty in concocting forged epistles than in producing interesting yarns of the Acts of the So-and-So type. While the New Testament is overwhelmingly composed of epistles (78%), the same cannot be said of the extant apocryphal writings, in which the epistles are "proportionately few in number." [WS.6*]
The Epistle to the Apostles, recovered in 1895 and dated to the second century, was purportedly sent out to churches everywhere by the 11 apostles after the Resurrection. The author shows a great deal of familiarity with a "surprising range of Biblical books," Metzger says. The "epistle" is an "aggressive attack by a catholic Christian upon Gnosticism, while making use of the literary genre of 'revelations' so beloved by Gnostics." [WS.6*]
Metzger also observes,
What is really remarkable ... is that, though the fringes of the New Testament canon remained unsettled for centuries, a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of the New Testament was attained within the first two centuries among the very diverse and scattered congregations not only throughout the Mediterranean world but also over an area extending from Britain to Mesopotamia. [WS.6].
When a newly born-again Christian I read quite a bit of post-Resurrection apocryphal material. Quickly I saw that a great deal of it was subversive of the good news of salvation. I could see it was poison. Yet, it took me a while to realize that there was a strong correlation between time spent on that material and my mucking about in the Slough of Despond. I did not at first relate my sense of depression and lethargy with the false gospel I was absorbing.
Yes, I suppose there was something to be gained from awareness of the sort of poison the early church was fighting. Yet, I breathed a sigh of relief when I ceased that line of study. Of course, I am not being critical of scholars whose job it is to analyze such materials. But again, the canonical gospels are very clearly much better reading, bringing spiritual refreshment, light and hope, unlike many of their early competitors.
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