Sunday 30 June 2013

Cain and Abel (Genesis 4)

The story of Cain and Abel goes something like this: Adam and Eve have two children, Cain and Abel, who become a farmer of the land and a shepherd respectively. One day, Cain brought some of his harvest to God, and Abel took the firstborn of his flock as well as some of their fat. God was pleased with Abel, but showed no regard for Cain. He got angry and:
The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (vv. 6-7)

Cain goes out into the field with Abel and kills him. Then:
 
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (v. 9)

God gives Cain a curse for killing his brother which involves exile from the land where Abel was killed, hardship in labouring the land, and being a fugitive wandering the earth. Cain says the punishment is too great, that whoever sees him will kill him, and then God says that whoever kills Cain will suffer sevenfold, giving him a mark for such protection. Cain left then and settled in the land of Nod, where he had intercourse with his wife and conceived Enoch in whose name city was built. A string of generations later and Lamech comes along, this time with two gives, who each gave him children. Lamech says:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
    you wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say:
I have slain a man for wounding me,
    a young man for striking me. 
 If Cain is avenged sevenfold,    truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (vv. 23-24)

Finally, Adam and Eve have another child, Seth, and the chapter ends saying that around this time "people began to call upon the name of the LORD." (v. 26)

-----

Narrative is interesting but difficult to exegete, and stories such as this one are clear examples of the difficulties encountered. Stories do not necessarily have a point to make with everything that happens, their teachings are not explicit and what exactly the major thesis of the story is can be difficult to determine. Allow me, then to comment on the portions I have quoted above in particular.

Cain did a grievous wrong to Abel, that much is clear. This story is not so much about condemning a particular sinful act so much as it is about illustrating the effects of the sinfulness of humankind. God asks Cain a very simple question - Cain is angry, and in the context of the offering given God asks "will you not be accepted if you do the right thing?" This is obviously a rhetorical question to make the point that God is pleased when people do the right thing. Quite simple really. Is that easy to do?

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it. (v. 7)

Sin is always waiting to claim souls. It desires to claim the person, but we are called to master it. Who can truly master sin? Only Jesus, who on the cross conquered it. Yet regardless, Cain is told that he must master it. Is it possible to not sin? In each case one may avoid sin, yes, but I think that ultimately, if sin so crouches at one's door, it will finally get in, and it will finally conquer. It is absolutely crucial to recognize, however, that one struggles with sin on a case by case basis, and that sin is never truly inevitable. One may never complain "God, it was only possible that I sin!" because it is always possible not to sin.

Some mathematics might illustrate this point well: the probability of resisting some temptation is fairly good. How about two temptations? Still alright. But as the number of temptations faced add up, the probability of avoiding all sin becomes smaller and smaller, such that ultimately, it is practically impossible to never have sinned. That, at least, is the idea behind mastering sin. In practice, we are not even very good at resisting a single temptation, even though nonetheless it is strictly speaking possible. St Paul makes this point in the first letter to the Corinthians:

"
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Cor. 10:13b)

Therefore, no sin is inevitable.

----


He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (v. 9b)

I wish to make a comment on this, because Cain seems to think that the answer is no, hence the rhetorical question. In reality, the answer is yes, we are our brothers' keepers. We must therefore take due consideration to care for our brother - obviously not murder him - and look out for him. This is all very well and good, but how does this apply to us? Very simply - one must care for the sin of another. If one's brother indulges the flesh sinfully, why might ask, am I my brother's keeper? Well, yes. So the sin of another is one's own concern.

----
 
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,    truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold. (v. 24)

This is pride of a rather interesting sort. First, why is it pride? It is such because Lamech thinks of himself important enough to have eleven times as much "protective vengeance" than Cain, indeed, he boasts to his wives of his superior protection. Second, why is it interesting? The original protection was because Cain practically pleaded with God saying that he was not able to bear his punishment. Now Lamech is saying "if Cain got it, then I get it even more!" without pleading with God at all.

Lamech's logic seems to be that Cain killed his brother out of envy, but he killed out of self-defence (see v. 23). Therefore, he is more worthy of God's protection than Cain. Sadly, I think prides of this type are rampant and often subtle; "I deserve it" and "I'm not as bad as X" both come from this same root of pride. 

----

"At that time men began to call upon the name of the LORD." (v. 26)

Here is my closing remark: amidst the murder of Abel and the murders committed by Lamech, his pride as well as the wrongdoings that inevitably must have occurred, there is some hope from the line of Seth. He will be our focus when we see that his descendent, Noah, will find favour with God.

Concerning Retaliation (Matthew 5:38-42)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." (vv. 38-41)

Once again, Jesus deepens the national law of Israel, the Mosaic law, to be the fullness of the moral law. What is the most reasonable way of setting up punishments for actions? Well, the punishment should fit the crime, for one. This principle of punishment, known as the law of talion, can seem harsh today, and Gandhi is often invoked as saying "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

I think this misses the cultural context of the law of talion (sometimes referred to as lex talionis due probably to the large tradition of Latin in Christianity), which was actually asserting the equality of persons in justice. Surrounding legal codes had different punishments for different people of different classes, and the biblical text now says "no, all people have equal intrinsic worth regardless of class, gender, race, etc...so we must punish them all equally for their transgressions."

Still think it is not reflective of the highest standard of morality? Good, because it is not. It is simply the manner in which Israel would administer justice. Jesus gives the definitive moral way to act in situations where the law of talion might apply: "do not resist one who is evil." The context makes clear that it does not mean "tolerate evil" - but that one should not seek revenge for evil done to oneself. Indeed, if the wrongdoing is done to oneself alone, then meekness and compliance is the right response. What an utterly stupefying message! Still, is this not the basis for forgiveness? When we forgive, we do not simply accept the wrong we have received, but we relinquish the right to retaliate. In some sense, we take upon ourselves the punishment that the other deserves.

There is more to this than simply "forgive", as the last bit indicates:

"Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you." (v. 42) 

The other part of the principle that Jesus is expressing here seems to be that we should give what we have when it is demanded of us: when we are hit, we give the opportunity to hit more. When we have our coat stolen, we give also our cape. When we are demanded to walk a mile, we walk two. And now finally, when we are asked to give money, we give.

It is clear that no legal system can be founded on such principles of radical forgiveness and self-giving, since the world would dissolve into chaos. Nonetheless, we who would be followers of Jesus must abide not by the law of the land, but by the law of morality. Therefore, we are asked to forgive and to give whenever it concerns us.

Concerning Oaths (Matthew 5:33-37)

“Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil." (vv. 33-37)

Here, Jesus is condemning a practice that had become rampant and problematic: people would not swear by God's name and take it lightly, but they would swear by something else (the heavens, the earth, Jerusalem, their own head, and various others) and then consider it appropriate to take such an oath with breeze. His condemnation has one main point other than the obvious one of not swearing oaths lightly:  swearing an oath by something seems to indicate that one has control over and own, and this is false. If one did not have some control or ownership over it, what difference does it make to swear by it or by nothing at all? I would say the answer is no difference. So swearing by something to make it sound more powerful is a mirage of honesty. Swearing by things instead of God such as his created bodies also does not bypass the problem that taking the things of God in vain is wrong.

Saturday 29 June 2013

Concerning Adultery and Divorce (Matthew 5:27-32)

 The traditionally labelled second and third antitheses are closely related because they both deepen the Law such that certain behaviours are now considered adultery or precursors to adultery. The section begins:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (vv. 27-28)

Just as anger was in some sense equivalent to murder in the heart, so too lust is equivalent to adultery in the heart. There is a definite logic behind this idea: adultery is sex outside the marital bonds, and lust is desire for sex outside marital bonds.[1] Or to express it another way, adultery is an inordinate act of sex, and lust is the inordinate desire for sex.

Adultery, as I have said before, is necessarily a breaking of the marital bonds with sex outside of them, and lust-as-adultery-of-the-heart is therefore also in the context of marriage. Nonetheless, lust outside marriage is also sinful, but it becomes lust-as-fornication-in-the-heart, not adultery of the heart. That means that lust even after one's future wife is sinful.

How does one cope with something that seems as innate as a desire? Jesus continues:

"
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." (vv. 29-30)

 I think this is clearly hyperbole to make a point, but it is a forceful point nonetheless. Jesus' advice appeals to priorities: the eternal matters more than the temporal. It is worth gorging out an eye if it causes you to sin, because sin kills and condemns eternally, whereas it is only temporarily that one would be without an eye. If the problem were really solved by taking out the eye, then it would be worth it.

Now, a quick word on hell. It is interesting that people complain about God in the Old Testament scriptures being a good of anger and judgement, and Jesus the revelation of God as loving, kind and nice, because this is far from the case. One has to cherry-pick from the Old Testament to find God as solely angry, but one also has to cherry-pick from the New Testament to find God as solely nice. The fact is, Jesus speaks about hell more than the whole Old Testament, as far as I can tell. This is not surprising, since Jesus as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world," is keenly aware of the consequences involved with sin. Nonetheless, the use of the imagery of fire is not exactly literal, not exactly metaphorical - fires of hell refers to, in the Greek, the Valley of Gehenna, a place south of Jerusalem which served as a large dumb, where rubbish was burned continuously. It is a real place that Jesus refers to, but what we call hell is not literally that place south of Jerusalem, particularly because such a place no longer exists. Perhaps we should take this as indication that hell no longer exists! More seriously, this talk of hell is borrowing imagery to make a point, not speaking of a real pit of fire.

How does one apply this? One is meant to see how intensely important it is to avoid hell. If going to the bar with one's friends might cause drunkenness, then it is better to cut off those friendships (gathering in that particular context) than go to hell. If walking down certain streets makes on burn with lust, but it is the only way to get to work on time and avoid being fired, then it is better to lose one's job than one's soul.

Is that not too radical? Well, it depends on whether one thinks damnation is a big problem or something of relatively small dimension. Jesus' argument rests on this point: that no cost is too great for avoiding hell.

This little section is actually quite amusing, Jesus is not actually illustrating how to deal with lust and adultery as much as he is setting up the principle that things must be removed if they cause sin. The implication seems to be that, if one is tempted to commit adultery, one should cut off the parts involved in adultery. This is a crowd which is made up of mostly men, I suspect, so the idea is "cut off even your testes and penis before you would commit adultery." See how Jesus can also be funny, in his own dark way?

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (vv. 31-32)

 Here, I remind that the Law was a national law, which means that at times the morality was made more lax for the sake of the people's ability to function.[2] Now Jesus is revealing, or making explicit, the fullness of the moral law, where divorce is not permitted (except on the grounds of unchastity). There is actually some debate about whether the Greek is correctly understood as "unchastity," but I will have to trust the translators since I am not able to judge for myself.

From this section alone, Jesus explains the moral law as saying that no longer may it be deemed fine to divorce except under very particular circumstances. The companion passage on divorce in St Matthew's writings is Matthew 19, but let me not confuse teachings, and centre primarily on this text here.

Jesus' rationale is interesting, because it is not immediately obvious why divorce makes the wife an adulteress. Is it because she will be forced to re-marry, since at that time being a single woman was practically impossible? I think this is the most likely explanation. Why is it unchastity? Very simple: divorce does not really exist. Issuing a certificate of divorce cannot separate the man and woman united in marriage, because no such thing can annul a covenant. So when one attempts to remarry and begins marital relations, what happens? One is having sex outside true wedlock, and is therefore committing adultery. That is why whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery - she is the wife of another person.

The interesting consequence of this is that marrying a woman who was divorced, but whose husband has now died, is no longer adultery under that logic. The ending of the covenant of marriage at death was the idea that St Paul appeals to in Romans 7 - although with Jesus conquering death, it is not entirely obvious that now marriage can endure and conquer death too.   

How should this play out in the Church and in the world? Well, it is my opinion that the defenders of marriage as it has universally been understood (between members of opposite sex), throughout most cultures and times, lost their battle when they allowed divorce. What demeans the institution more, hitherto unheard of unions or complete freedom to break off at whim? It is my contention that secular legalization of divorce is a far greater evil, has and will continue to produce far more broken families, children without both parents, than same-sex marriage will. Does that mean same-sex marriage is just fine, since marriage is already broken? It does not follow in the slightest. Still, one's platform is backwards if one is pro-divorce but against same-sex marriage.

Amidst all the wordliness that has crept into Christendom, it is reassuring that the Church has stuck by her commitment to the truth, even though all of England went Anglican because she would not compromise and let a randy monarch have a divorce, and even though many hate her for it.


[1] If this is the correct analogy being made, then it follows that desire for sexuality after one's own husband or wife is not lust, and not sinful.
[2] Jesus will later say that divorce was permitted because of the hardness of heart of the Israelites - permitted in Deuteronomy, though, which is the second law.

Friday 28 June 2013

Baptismal Testimony to Grace

Whilst considering how to write "The Road from Unbelief", I trawled through some of my older discussions of the topic, and I found this, which I thought I should make public once again:



Only one person here knew me before I came to Christ, and even then, not very well. It may surprise you, then, that I can count my Christian time in months, not years. I don’t have very long now to tell of how I came to where I am today, but it is important nonetheless that I testify as to how God’s Gospel has worked in me.
The death of Jesus of Nazareth isn’t a trivial matter, but I never heard about it. So what, I would ask, if a man died on a cross two millennia ago? Many people did. Growing up in Spain, and as far as I was concerned, Christianity was useful for two things; the free periods the non-religious got at school and the frequent holidays in veneration of all the saints. Church was the building down the road with a bell-tower to chime on the hour and tell me what time it was. I was allegedly surrounded by 99.8% Christians, but funnily enough I only ever met one, and he complained about getting forced to go to mass on Sundays.
A few things happened, which I will later recount, that completely changed my world-view. There have been many times these past few months when the significance of grace has hit me – a power that reduced me to gasps and wowing. The universe is a rather large place, and I am rather small. So to have the same person who made all that existence has to offer care about me, was a laughable proposition. That the almighty God who powers the stars, upholds the world by His Word and keeps ever atom in place would care to know me? How silly!
Unless it’s true. I have a very hard time grappling with what it means to be forgiven by God sometimes. God actually knows me, and I thought that would be enough to put any sane person off! But instead of removing me, instead of deleting me from existence, that He would care so much for us that He would confine Himself to flesh, give us the everlasting truth and humble Himself further to hang helplessly and painfully on a cross? There are no words for that.
Well, that’s peachy. I think I’m great, and God thinks highly of me, too, right? By no means! Until I grasped that grace was required I am not worthy, I was not God’s own. And it has made all the difference. Grace sets the tone for everything I do. Grace properly understood, lights my day with the Lord, frees me from my transgressions, uncovers my wrongdoings and alleviates my worries. God’s gift in the death of Christ affects my life like no other event in history, because the death of God’s Son is not trivial.
And that would be enough. That would be more than enough. But it’s not all. Forgiveness bestowed upon me despite the blackness of my heart frees me from resentment against others too, for how could I hold their sin accountable if God does not consider mine? Brothers and sisters, if we would punish for a penny, why should God not punish us for the whole pound? I am forgiven, so I cannot help but forgive. I am loved, so I am to love. That is the Gospel in me.