Ironic that I’m writing this on Sunday morning when most people are out at a building? Hmnnn … Oh, and I’ll try to write this one without quoting C.S. Lewis. I’ll try.
Anyway, this one was almost number 2, but there was more biblical evidence that using the grace of God for sin and disobedience was basis for not only sharp rebuke, but in some situations, fully justifiable reason for ceasing all fellowship with the Church. So that one won for #2. This one is just as close, though.
As Christianity became the worldwide inclusive movement it was prophesied to be, non-Jews had to be included. The problem became … what do we do with these Gentiles?
There were two main schools of thought. The official position of the apostles in Jerusalem, the first main council recorded, was that Gentiles were not required to become Jews in order to believe in Christ. This was a major issue in Acts. All of the old Law that they were to require of Gentile Christians was that they would abstain from food given to idols, from blood, and from sexual immorality. All the rest of the old Law was not important for Gentiles to worry about.
There were still many Jews in the early Church, however, that believed you must become a Jew in order to become a Christian. And while fellowship was never officially rejected over this issue, any who taught it were severely rebuked by Paul in his writings.
Paul wrote a whole letter rebuking this idea. It is called Galatians. Read in its entirety, as it was written and meant to be read, it is a clear argument against any idea that ceremonial acts have any power in and of themselves, and that teaching that they do goes against the very Gospel of Christ.
It gets kinda nasty in Galatians, to be honest. As Paul deals with these men who have come in to teach the Galatians that becoming a Jew was necessary, he says twice (the only one of three statements Paul repeats for emphasis – we dealt with the another one in the last post and with another one later) that “if anyone preaches a different gospel to you than what we preached, even an angel, let him be accursed.” That is pretty strong language.
Then Paul goes into how he rebuked Peter “to his face” and publicly over this issue, making the statement that “if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself a trangressor”, meaning that if he were to return to an idea that the Law had power to save, he would disprove Christ. Remember that this comes from a guy who at one point used the Law to kill Christians. He probably knows what he’s talking about.
Paul then says, “Who has bewitched (deceived) you, that what you acquired by faith you can now work out in your flesh?” Somewhat of a rhetorical question, since he knew exactly who, but his point that the Law is of the power of the flesh and bondage is continually made through the rest of the letter, equating the Old Covenant (and the Law) with Hagar (the slave) and Ishmael (the son of the slave and the flesh that persecuted the son of the promise, Isaac). He then shows how Sarah (the free woman) and Isaac (the supernaturally given son of the promise) symbolizes the promise and the freedom of the New Covenant. It is a brilliant argument, really.
One of the most heartbreaking statements comes in ch. 4: “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored in vain.”
In ch. 5 Paul says that “if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.” He is speaking not of circumcision itself, but of the idea that circumcision has some spiritual power, because Paul goes on to say, “you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” And also repeats the phrase twice “for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything”, once saying “but faith working through love” and the next saying “but the new creation”. He also says in 1 Corinthians, “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters.”
But wait, wasn’t circumcision a commandment of God? In his letters to the Gentiles, and the Jews, for that matter, Paul continually makes a distinction between the moral laws (the laws that deal with how you treat other people: greed, sexual immorality, etc.) and the ceremonial laws. The “new man”, as Paul describes in Ephesians, is the man who does not lie or get angry or steal.
Legalism, therefore, is not an emphasis on the righteousness of the believer, as some modern theologians and teachers would have you believe. Legalism is the idea that some external ceremonial act has spiritual power. And the main source of legalism in the New Testament came from the Jews.
To look at other scriptures, Paul deals with this again in Colossians 2, that subjecting yourself to regulations – “‘do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,’ which all concern things which perish with the using” – have “an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion … but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”
Which brings us back to Galatians, that they are “beggarly elements” and taking a gift of faith and attempting to work it out “in your own flesh”.
To give one last thought from Galatians, Paul wishes that those who believed in circumcision would cut the whole thing off, would castrate themselves. Makes sense, though, right? If cuting off a piece of the penis means something, why not cut the whole thing off? Then you’d be really spiritual!
To go more postitive, we could look at Hebrews, author technically unknown, where we see a beautiful argument not against the Old Covenant, necessarily, but for the absolute supremacy of Christ and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant is seen as the symbol, of which we now have the substance in Christ Himself. Why the need for the symbol any longer if we have the substance, Christ Himself? A nice summary could be found with “for that if the first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.”
So the tension does exist, even in Hebrews, with amazing statements like “the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices offered which cannot make him who perform the service perfect in regard to the conscience – concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.”
It was doctrine like this actually, that blinded the Jews of the time of the early Church, along with the mass inclusion of Gentiles, and separated Christianity from Judaism altogether within a century. The idea that the way – Christ Himself – was the substantive fulfillment of things that were only symbols and had no power was difficult for the Jews of the day.
Paul was intently protective of the early Church in this matter, as you can see from Galatians and his other letters.
Do we still have Judaizers in this day? We absolutely do. There are whole Christian denominations that raise money and set aside resources and times of intense prayer to do things like rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, they observe special days as if there were power to do so (whether the Sabbath or the pseudo-Sabbath, Sunday), and some even look forward to the finding of the Ark of the Covenant. These groups believe and teach that some restoration of the Old Covenant, usually through some Davidic prophecy, is part of the return of Christ and even teach that Jesus is somehow still Jewish.
I don’t have time here to go into why that’s silly … but it is.
We also have Christian versions of such legalistic ideas. The focus on a building (the need for one and the designation that a physical building is “the house of God”), the observance of Sunday as some new Christian Sabbath, and even the desire or need for a professional class of ministers all harken back to Old Covenant ideas. Again, not that you have a building or meet on a day or have leaders, but believe and hold these things sacred in and of themselves.
And we’ve made up our own, too. I was in a meeting with a fellowship once that was discussing their building plan and project, and I suggested that twenty grand might be a lot for a steeple and that maybe we could save that 20 thousand by just not having a steeple. I was told, in all seriousness, “it’s not a church without a steeple.” I didn’t argue. It wouldn’t have made a difference.
Believe it or not, we can even lift the Bible itself into a place of divinity it wasn’t even meant to have, or designed to have, and that can be the source of just bad biblical teaching and theology. In John 5:39-40 Jesus says, “you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” Life is the Person, not in a book. The book was designed to lead us to and teach us of that Person who is Life. To lift the Bible higher than that is dangerous.
What about baptism and communion? While I cannot and will not deny that Jesus told them to baptize as He sent them out, and that the early Church did just that, I cannot find any evidence, biblically, that someone’s theology or doctrine or lack of participation in baptism was a cause for rebuke or to cease from fellowship. And with all that Paul had to deal with, this never came up? He dealt with Judaizers and people who would sin at will while claiming Christ and widows and eldership and all kinds of things, but he never has to rebuke someone for teaching some weird idea about baptism or the fact that they weren’t water baptized at all? The only time he deals with some sort of rebuke about it is when it was used as a source of division in 1 Corinthians.
Actually, if you read in Acts, Paul was concerned about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, even though one group had been water baptized into repentance. Which is a whole different discussion.
Again, not that he didn’t teach anything about water baptism, only that it never came up as a problematic doctrine that necessitated rebuke or an end of fellowship.
Communion is in a similar boat. The early Church had some sort of “love feast”, but this seems rather far from the ceremonial beast it has become, especially in certain groups. And while there is the famous passage in 1 Corinthians dealing with the communion “love feast” and Paul’s rebuke, his rebuke was more about how others were treated and how they were using “communion” to get drunk and exclude some from eating. While there were consequences for such behavior (”some are getting sick and dying”), it wasn’t the requirement to participate in the event that Paul was concerned about, more how it was being used for ill and not for good.
I’m not telling anyone what to believe about these practices. That isn’t necessarily the point of this series. My point is that the scripture itself, while teaching about them, doesn’t see any doctrine on or particpation in baptism or communion as cause for rebuke or rejection of fellowship.
And for myself, while I do not deny the biblical tradition of baptism, or even its practice, my question has been this: if God, through Christ, put to death the Law and all its ordinances on the cross, did He really mean to institute completely new sacred acts with baptism and communion in a covenant where we are continually told that we have access to the holy of holies through Christ alone? Some would say yes, and I really do respect that.
But I do know this: that the New Testament repeatedly rebukes those that would equate a sacred nature to physical places, times, or ceremonial acts. And that seems to make my question valid.
Peace.
dude, on the money!!! Also, dig the new title!