because my dad's business was selling and repairing televisions. I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons. If you have a truth about life you want to express, I can probably find an analogy in some cartoon situation. As I was reading the second chapter of Galatians my mind was drawn to the coyote and the road runner. Here's how it happened.Think about what we've read up to this point, in the broadest of terms. In Mark, we have the narrative of Jesus' life, ministry, teachings, death, and resurrection. God entered into history as a human being, to make sure that we could be restored to full relationship with Him. The message given was to enter into His Kingdom. In Acts we see that Kingdom in action on earth, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, birth of the church, and the message carried forth, first to the Jews and then the Gentiles. In the process, we saw how God made sure His salvation was understood to be available for everyone, in spite of the inevitable tension between Jewish culture and practices, and Gentile ones. He made sure, even to the point of dramatically calling one of the chief prosecutors of all Christians, Paul, to the work of taking the message to the Gentiles. In Hebrews we see the connection between the old covenant and its practices contrasted with the new covenant. The writer shows the need to sever the ties to the old covenant understanding and practices, except as precursor to the new covenant. And finally, in Galatians we see Paul having to combat the forces that are pressuring the Galatian Christians to return to old covenant practices and understanding.
After thirteen chapters of Hebrews, the idea that there's another book devoted, in part, to the combat of the influences to return to Judaism made me think of Wile E. Coyote. Wile E. is obsessed with the road runner. Long past any point of rational behavior where a real coyote would just find some other prey, Wile E. orders yet one more product from Acme in the hope that this time, he'll be successful. That's what makes the cartoon funny, even though at its foundation, it's about obsessive behavior. In fact it's one of the rules of the cartoon -- "the coyote could stop anytime -- if he wasn't a fanatic."
So... is Paul like Wile E. Coyote? Or flipping it around, were the judaizers? Sooner or later, all analogies break down, this one sooner than most. But even if, on the surface, we see an argument that has long since been decided and without relevance to our own lives, the coyote in pursuit of the road runner one more time, Paul's pursuit of this issue is an essential part of the development of the church. It also provides relevant teaching to us today. I think we all see how important it was in the early church, so I'd like to focus on a teaching for today.
Starting in verse 15, Paul writes:
We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16 NET)
What's the significance of this to us today? We certainly don't try to follow the Old Testament law. Seemingly, we understand that it's faith in Jesus and God's grace that clean us up from the dirt of sin. But do we? One thing that jumps out in what Paul wrote is that we are "justified", or made right in spite of our wrong, by Christ's faithfulness, not our own. When we put our faith in Jesus as the justifier, it's not our act of faith, but his faithfulness to accomplish the task that is important. Sometimes we get that backward. But also, it's inevitable that as humans we tend to tie our goodness, our justification, to following certain rules, having certain behaviors and attitudes, and generally translating what we read in the Bible and hear from the pulpit into a set of guidelines for life. Think not? Well, then, how about reading the Bible every day? (Jim says, don't stop doing it, that's not the point.) Reading the Bible is, in fact, a good principle to follow, a good practice to cultivate. But it's not about justification.
To Paul, it's critical that we get this straight. James will deal with the flip side of this tension between what Tenney calls, "the ethic of Christ" and "transformation of the individual by the grace of God." But for Paul, understanding that we have freedom in Christ is intrinsic to a correct understanding of the good news. If we don't realize that it is Jesus' death that took care of everything once for all, that we can't get to God any other way, then we still don't get it. In one sense, Paul's road runner, the goal he did fanatically pursue, was a correct understanding of the gospel. Thank God he did, and that he was successful, unlike Wile E.
And just to be clear that freedom doesn't imply we have license to act any way we want, I need to point out that in the midst of the discussion between Paul and the Jewish-Christian leaders, both groups agree that it's important to take care of the poor. That teaching alone is worth everything in the entire chapter as a setup to what is essential for us to know, be, and do, as followers of Jesus. Even though doing it doesn't get us justified.
Beep. Beep.
Image from original cartoon Copyright by Warner Bros. and used under Fair Use guidelines.
4 comments:
The NET translation of Gal 2:15-16 is quite interesting. "The faithfulness of Christ"; I've heard that before - it puts the focus where it ought to be: Christ is faithful, and we respond in faith. Of course, we also need to have the "faithful" kind of faith, not just the profession with our mouth or the assurance in our head.
Re the "ethic of Christ", etc. I don't think you need to wait for the book of James; you find it in Gal 5:19-23, and scattered all over the rest of Paul's writings. Note that Paul said you are "saved by faith ... and not by the works of the law". He never says " and not by the ethic of Christ" or anything like that. "Works of law" does not mean the same thing as "ethic of Christ" as far as I can tell. But what says the Epistle of Jim?
Robb has raised a couple of interesting points. It's true that the phrase translated as "faithfulness of Christ" is a less typical translation from the Greek. Many of the most recent discussion about this, and they can be really arcane, indicate that the translation used in the NET translation is the preferred way of reading what Paul says. Your NIV translation will say "faith in Christ." Interestingly enough, the King James Version uses a phrase that could ambiguously mean either -- "faith of Christ."
As we said in class, we don't want to hang a doctrine on a single passage, and there's plenty of evidence that both things are true -- we must place our faith in Christ, and we can trust that He is faithful to do as He promised. As Robb said, the proper focus, what I would call our best act of worship, is to focus on Christ's faithfulness.
Before leaving this topic, this seems like a good place to talk about the underlying Greek word, pistis, one more time. This is the word that is translated as faith, and which carries three ideas with it: belief, trust, and loyalty or faithfulness. Here we see the translator's decision to place the emphasis on loyalty, or faithfulness, because of the rest of the context of the sentence.
For those of you who aren't aware of it, there's a long-lived debate in Christianity, that I'll pose in a practical fashion: Are you a Christian because of what you believe, or because of how you act?
A question like this arises because of what appears to be contradictory teaching between Paul and James. It also arises because of certain historical practices in the church. But I think it also arises out of our own experiences in life -- we do see people who profess to be Christians who don't act in a way one would expect a Christian to act based on the teachings of the Bible. And vice versa -- people who don't profess to be Christians but act in charitable and loving ways.
To the question of waiting for James to see the ethic of Christ, I'll just say it is absolutely the case that Paul writes about ideas and actions that are the ethic of Christ all the time, and they're usually found at the end of his letters, as he gets to the practical implications of what he's been writing about. This is true in the letter of Galatians, and we'll read what Paul wrote next week if we're following the schedule.
But in James, this is a primary theme, one that does seem in contrast at first read, with what we're currently reading in Galatians. I don't want to be premature in talking about this, so we'll wait until we're into James to look at the contrast, but I'll simply re-emphasize that Paul's primary theme in Galatians is that justification, being "made right" in God's sight, is an act of His, not ours.
Robb, you're correct in pointing out that "the ethic of Christ" is not the same as "works of law." That's the reason I chose the Tenney quote. His characterization of what James wrote is that it's about the ethic of Christ, not about what we have to do to earn our salvation. Some people argue that Tenney's characterization of what James was writing about is incorrect. We'll get a chance to debate that when we get there.
However, from the epistle of Jim, I believe that Paul would agree that when he speaks of the works of law to the Galatians, he would extend that characterization to include any works on our part. Likewise, he would insist like James, that faith is not some abstract concept operating in a vacuum, but that it's something that's lived out every day.
Jim, I appreciate that well thought out chapter; are you going to write another four like the other Jim (there are lots of James's in the Bible, aren't there?)
Actually I'm looking forward to James (the canonical one), not because he is hard to understand - he's quite straightforward - but I'd like to figure out who it was who was opposing him: who was saying "You have faith; I have deeds.", etc.?
In Galatians it seems clear that the opposition was the Judaizers, and that the "works of law" referred to circumcision and other Jewish practices. Ok, Calvin makes a big point about 3:10 ("everything written in the Book of the Law"), so yes, the issue is a bit more complicated. But Paul does not relax the moral issues (per Gal 5:19, etc.); he agrees that Christians need to keep those standards in order to inherit the kingdom of God. I see no reason to think he had those things in mind when he wrote Gal 2:16, etc. where the entire focus was on the point that you don't need to be a Jew to be right with God; what matters is "faith in Christ". His point is that it is perfectly valid to have "faith in Christ" and not be circumcised; he is not saying it is valid (or even meaningful) to have "faith in Christ" and do the things in 5:19-21.
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