Though I Walk Through (Fortitude) Valley, I Will Fear No Beggar

Written for Social Justice Sunday, 29^th of September, 2013 AD.[1]

I get off at the Valley railway station.

[i]It is a Thursday in the evening, as I walk through Brunswick Street to do some errands. People hailing from all parts of the world, particularly the neighbouring East Asian countries, bustle in the walkway going about their daily lives. The night brings people dressed in more expensive clothes, ready to partake in the Valley's night life. Some are wearing more formal dresses and suits, others seem to be going for sexual appeal - all seem to be getting ready for the entertainment the Valley brings.

Except not quite all. Looking a little more carefully at the people not rushing to get somewhere or huddling in large groups, some people are wearing rather inexpensive clothes indeed, perhaps sufficient for warmth in the upcoming months of Australian spring and summer, but barely enough to survive the ending winter. They seem to live on the streets, making surviving off the waste and generosity of others. Or perhaps they do have some accommodation – still, they barely scrape by the day.

One such person walks up to me now, a lady probably in her early-thirties, but looking closer to fifty years old. Her body looks fatigued, but her eyes dart rapidly around, as if she were paranoid about being attacked by someone behind me. We lock eyes and she, after looking at my chest for a split-second, approaches me with a little more energy.

“Spare a few bucks, mate?”

I stopped.

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Someone like me gets asked that sort of question around Brisbane daily and probably every other second somewhere in the world. I suspect that anyone reading this has been asked on the street for money – not just by someone busking, but by someone in financial woes.

When I talk to people about the issue of giving money to beggars, or giving alms in language that is more common in the Bible, what the saying that usually pops up is “give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.” That sort of logic seems to me to be correct: giving in a way that produces sustainability is better than giving in such a way that produces dependence.

When Caritas International says something to the same effect, I nod my head. Browsing the financial statement for Caritas Australia, I can see that every cent in produces a cent out in targeted and wise relief and humanitarian aid.[2] However, when I talk to the average person about giving to persons such as the lady that approached me on that Thursday evening, I am more than often talking to someone who justifies not giving fish by fooling themselves that they will teach them how to fish.

The brilliance of using that line is obvious upon a little reflection: one is able to justify to oneself one’s lack of kindness by pretending that one is being truly kind. After all, those darting eyes probably came from spending the last merciful soul’s money on drugs, right? One can rationalize the competing desires to give alms because it seems right, and keeping the money because we like money, by making out that keeping one’s money is actually right! With all one’s generosity, one can now abundantly not give.

The utilitarians can stop reading now. Considering only the outcomes of the action, and given that utilitarians are practically obliged to give away the money anyway, their not-giving is more like the targeted giving of Caritas.[3] Though I used to be a utilitarian, I must say I fell too often into the trap of self-deceit and selfishness. I should have known better than to conjure up a rule that justified my doing what I really wanted to do anyway.

The Christian perspective on giving is dramatically different. Of all the numerous parables, discourses and sayings of Jesus about judgement, caring for those in material need is one of the most prominent: be it caring for Christian brethren in need (such as in Matthew 25), or the poor person in the street (such as the parable of Lazarus and the rich man). In fact, Jesus gives us the very clear command to give to whoever begs from us, right after  talking about turning the other cheek, giving one’s cloak after having one’s coat taken and walking two miles when forced to walk one:

"Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you." (Matthew 5:42 – see comments here)

Anyone who refuses a beggar is, in a very real sense, sinning. But the reason we managed to convince ourselves that we were doing the right thing originally is that there was some truth in the fear that the money would just go towards making the lady’s eyes turn red, and it’s distinctly possible that this will be the case now.

Let me say a few words about people in material need who abuse drugs and alcohol: there may be very few people in the world who have more of an aversion to these two substances than me. For various cultural and personal reasons, substance abuse in all its forms is abnormally repugnant to me. It probably is to them, too. These people often abuse substances because forgetting their woes for a few hours, even a whole day, is often far more exciting a prospect than having some food. Particularly those involved in the sex industry, substance abuse can be the only way to get through the day. More generally to the question “what do you do with your pain?” that I heard asked to a group recently, the response was fairly quick: “get drunk.” Another said “Sex, drugs and rock and roll”. This is not a poor investment for many of them: it is an attempt to remedy something deeper, a reflection of the fact that “man does not live by bread alone.”

Suppose there’s a good chance any money given will be squandered on drugs – then is it OK to ignore the beggar? No. We followers of the Risen Lord have the example of Jesus to model our love on. Consider the recklessness with which Jesus graces us: imagine the angels giving counsel to God, saying “you shall give them the grace to do great things, and they shall squander it with sin!” I cannot speak for anyone else, but when God has given me much, too often I have used it all for my own gain. When, by the sheer love that Christ in his forgiveness has lavished upon me, I am pardoned of all my transgressions, when I am invited to dine with Jesus at the Supper of the Lamb, I frequently decline in favour of wrongdoing. So no, the chance, even a high chance, of misuse is not grounds for Christians to refuse alms.

I would go further and say that even the bank note in my wallet[4] is not mine by right, but instead mine by grace. St John Chrysostom famously said "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." The grace given to me in the form of wealth is in fact a chance to give it away to someone who needs it more. This grace of Jesus is the essence of the Gospel, and grace dies if it is not shared, that is, the Gospel withers in a person if it is not nourished by its proclamation by word and deed.

Money might produce temptation in a drug addict, so if we are fairly certain the person will misuse the funds, then are we justified in not giving? Almost, yet absolutely not. As I said, people in material need rarely take drugs because they are overflowing with cash. It is the rich-though-spiritually-needy who try to fill the holes in the soul with the extravagance of drugs, not the materially needy. So although giving money might produce the temptation which leads to sin – obviously a negative outcome – it is still the lack which ultimately produces the sin. We as Christians are not justified in not giving, now is the moment when we must give the most: now we must give instead our time, energy, mental strength, compassion, and not just our money. For instance, I have at times had the opportunity to go out for lunch and talk – or perhaps just listen – to people who usually get ignored because of the guilt they produce in us.

I, at least, must remember that the added energy that came to the lady after glancing down at my chest came from the hope she saw in the Cross of Christ which I wear around my neck. From there all my hopes come, from there her hope came. I should never disappoint, for I have never been disappointed by God.

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[1] My gratitude to Marc who wrote an inspiring piece that I have borrowed in large part and recast as my own here. See his version: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2013/09/giving-your-money-to-drug-addicts.html

[2] The Caritas Australia financial statement for the financial year ending 2012 can be found starting page 70 here: http://www.caritas.org.au/docs/publications-and-reports/annual-report-2011-2012.pdf

[3] For an understanding of why this is the case, see the "Demandingness Objection" - I would have said I was Singerian, though very poorly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demandingness_objection.

[4] I am, as a university student, not exactly rich anyway, though I have far more than many and my parents provide for all my basic needs. Every so often, though, I do have some spare money in my wallet.

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[i] Source for Image: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/your-brisbane/welcome-to-the-valley-australias-scariest-saturday-night-20091104-hy3p.html

The Third Creation Narrative (Genesis 5)

I wrote in late May about the supposedly dull genealogy at the beginning of Matthew's gospel (which can be found here), and it would seem that Genesis 5, entirely dedicated to genealogy, is another dull chapter. I think that appearance is misleading.

I had a look to see what some important Christian figures had said about this chapter to get a more rounded view, so I had a look at John Calvin's commentary on Genesis: nothing about the genealogy itself, just a little about the opening phrase and on the very ending, connecting it to the Flood, plus a paragraph or two on Enoch. This seems a general trend, though I only had a cursory glance. To remedy this, I would like to give a sketch of why I think Genesis 5 is a third creation account (after Genesis 1, Genesis 2) and why it is a fascinating story which sets the scene for the enigmatic verses at the beginning of chapter 6.

We must first ask a question: what does a creation narrative contain, and what issues does it seek to address? These accounts contain explanations of origins, of where the audience came from. Although the term is anachronistic if read back into the times of the ancient Israelites, they seem to set up a certain metaphysical perspective on the world, or more narrowly on humans' role in it. Thus, Genesis 1 presents a highly theocentric metaphysical view of the world, where everything is at a word away from God's command, everything is ordered and tidy, and humankind has a great dignity as well as the task to be fruitful and have dominion over the Earth. Genesis 2, on the other hand, which truly does stand alone in a sense (though is obviously made more rounded with Genesis 1) is a very anthropomorphic picture of God's hand in creation, with God hand-crafting humankind from the earth of the ground, and is said to "plant a garden in the east" (2:8). Combined we see God as entirely transcendent and beyond everything, and at the same time God as walking with us and bringing about growth in our midst - "imminently transcendent."

I propose that Genesis 5 is similarly a creation account: it begins with God once again being said to create man, in the likeness of God, male and female he created them, then he blessed them (v. 1). In this way, it echoes directly the similar statement in Genesis 1. Except unlike what we learn in Genesis 2, Adam is not said to father Cain, but Seth. Cain is completely forgotten, and interestingly, Eve is also forgotten - neither appears again in the Hebrew Bible, though they are both mentioned in the Christian New Testament.

In fact, there's not much mention of anything going wrong in Genesis 5 at all. The harshness of life suggested by the curse in Genesis 4 seems forgotten. The fratricide of Genesis 4 between Cain and Abel seems forgotten, as everyone seems to live peacefully. The line of Seth which came about almost as a fruit of that murder seems to be doing just fine. Calvin makes a long point about death, but I think for the original audience, un-immersed as they were in the eternal life and "death as the curse of sin" theology of centuries later after God's revelation in Christ, the long life and numerous children spelled peaceful success for the children of Adam in the line of Seth.

The line of Seth contrasts itself with the line of Cain directly as even the names resemble, or are even copied: Cain-Cainan, Enoch-Enosh, Irad-Iared, Mehujael-Mahalel, et cetera. Cain's Enoch had his name attached to a city, whereas Seth's Enoch walks with God. Lamech of Cain and Lamech of Seth also contrast similarly.

This would all be accomplished if the text said "lived a long life" after each patriarch, and left it at that. There seems to be no precedent for having details about when the first son (note the text has females but it is the first son which is mentioned in each case) was born or how old exactly the men were at their time of death. It indicates a great longevity - one I admit that I am unsure about - but it is nonetheless fairly superfluous.

What then are the numbers for? I dare say there is some of the typical symbolism in various of the numbers, such as the "perfect" 777 years of Lamech. These do not concern me presently, so I would instead like to point out three things which I find interesting which one discovers when one plots the lives of these men on a time-line:

I did not attempt to draw this entirely to scale, but the recorded events do occur in the correct order spatially.

First, note the green zone, where everyone in the line of Adam through Seth lives concurrently. Here the community of the line of Seth lives peacefully among each other, as far as we can tell, and coexist amicably with all their children. For about a century and a half, everyone from Adam through to Seth's Lamech coexist.

Then the red line, and this is the crucial second point: the curse of sin rears its ugly head, and death finally enters the world naturally. The murder of Abel was death at the hands of another human, and perhaps the curse was restricted to Cain's line, but suddenly this line is painfully aware of their own mortality. Close to a millennium since Adam came into the world, and now it is clear: humankind is destined to die.

I must stress this point of surprise, the jolt that comes from Adam's, and soon after Seth's death: it will be important to understand Genesis 6's cryptic starting verses, but it is even more important for understanding my third point: Noah is born into the mortal world. Note how the red line has everyone except Noah being born before the knowledge of humankind's mortality. Noah is the first person to be raised with the understanding that part of what it means for a person to live is that at some point they die. For everyone before him, death has been at most the consequence of active human violence. Once again, this will be crucial for understanding the figure of Noah throughout the Flood narrative.

To conclude, allow me to return to the idea of Genesis 5 as a creation narrative, and more importantly, how it answers the question that such an account raises: this genealogy presents humans as being first and foremost in the likeness of God, who created us and bestowed us with his blessing. Humans are fruitful creatures, who have children and live long lives. Except there's something horribly wrong - the reader knows full well that there was a curse pronounced on the first couple, Adam and Eve, and that life is therefore finite. This third and final creation account is practically an attempt at forgetting the weight of sin, at erasing all sin from history. This is why Eve, the woman who was tempted, is not mentioned, or Cain and Abel, or indeed anything evil. It thus foreshadows the Flood, where in a catastrophic way creation tries to renew itself by putting to death all the evil that has passed.

Yet it will not work. No amount of historical revisionism will suffice to change the fact that humans are mortal because of sin. With the Flood we shall see that even forcefully removing everything that has gone wrong in the past to try and start afresh will fail: sins must be forgiven, not simply forgotten. It will take the waters of baptism, not just of the Flood, gushing from the side of Christ on the Cross, to erase sin.


Note of gratitude: to the amazing work of Leon R. Kass that I discovered recently, many of whose comments are loosely paraphrased here. In particular, I refer to his commentaries in "The Beginning of Wisdom." He in turn claims to be indebted to Robert Sacks. Thanks to them both.

Your Father Who Sees You In Secret Will Reward You (Passages from Matthew 6)

After deepening the law to include the fullness of the moral law, Jesus turns now to three traditional forms of piety and condemns their misuse; they are almsgiving, praying and fasting. Chapter 6 thus begins:

Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them, for they will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. (v. 1)

The logic of Jesus’ statement, which he will reiterate for each of the forms of piety, is this: piety is not done for the sake of men, rather for the sake of God. Of what use are these acts if done before men? They bring praise and recognition on the person doing them, which is to completely pervert the true reason for doing them.

Now, what is the true reason for acts of piety? The superficial answer is to get a reward from “your Father who is in heaven,” yet such an answer can easily be misunderstood. One might think that works of piety are a form of coercion of God, as if God were some sort of game-master who gives prizes to good contestants and punishes bad ones – this is far from the truth! We must understand that the use of the term “Father,” prefixed even with the possessive “your” makes this statement a profoundly relational one. We come to our Father as children, glad to give to our fellow siblings, glad to talk to him and give things up for him. Our actions demonstrate a child-like joy in our Father, and the loving reward that he imparts unto us ought to be understood in the context of a relationship between a father and his child – it is not something sought, but something received once again out of joy, whereby the relationship grows once again.

This notion of reward for works may always be a red-light for me, immersed as I am in a profoundly “grace alone” soteriology.[1] I must therefore make even clearer how these works of piety are not done by the merely human will. God does not owe us if we pray, or fast or give alms – we have no right to any reward, for between God and us there is an enormous inequality, for we have received everything from our Creator. In the words of St Augustine of Hippo: “Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due… Our merits are God’s gifts.” Or the words of the Roman Missal: “You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your own gifts.”[2]

These two notes – that the reward should be understood in relational terms, and that the reward is simply the association God freely makes between the works done by God’s grace and us – serve as a solid foundation for continuing on the examine what Jesus says about alms, prayer and fasting.

Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (vv. 2-4)

The grace of God is freely given such that we may properly give alms – but we are only rewarded if we respond to that grace properly. Or more precisely, we must ponder: who do we want to receive the reward from? We may choose to notify hordes of people, and they might see how wonderfully good we have been, and when we are praised by them, we receive the fullness of our reward. Jesus asks us to instead to be God-centred, and so seek the fullness of treasure from God alone: thus, we must not parade our good works for the praise of others, but in secret give alms, almost not even knowing it ourselves, that we may not reward ourselves for our good deeds either. For our Father, who sees in secret, will only then reward us.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (vv. 5-6)

Once again, we ought not to display our goodness for the world, but instead be in secret with our Father in prayer. God alone must be the ultimate reason and recipient of prayer, and so to pray in public for the public’s approval is an absurdity of pride. This act showcases, moreover, the objective of piety, which is to build that relationship with God. It is an intimate thing, something to be done most often in private, in secret, much like two lovers that enjoy the secluded time of contemplation of each other. We shall examine the Lord’s prayer in another blog article, but it is important to make note of how prayer can take various forms: contemplative, petitionary, penitent,[3] laudatory, et cetera. Once again, all these must be understood in relational terms: God is the object of our highest love, the one to whom our lives must be orientated.

And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (vv. 16-18)

Fasting has a very interesting theology and history within the Jewish and Christian traditions, and it would be difficult to summarize very quickly all the different ways in which fasting is used as a form of piety. It can express dependence on God, penitence, exclusion to prayer, the conscious dethroning of our bellies as gods and idols…many things. Once again, fasting as a pious practice must be done for God and God alone,[4] not done to boost our vainglory.

Whereas almsgiving is intrinsically good, and meritorious when done with the right condition of heart, and as is praying, fasting is a means to an end and can be abused far more than the others. The prophet Isaiah, for instance, calls out the hypocrisy of some Israelites who are using fasting as a means to gain attention, and are displeased when they are unable to coerce God:

Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a rush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast
and a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58:5-7)

We may draw the threads together as so: God works in hiddenness often, yet sees all. We are to act always out of love for God, and recognize fasting, almsgiving and prayer in their proper place. God’s seeing in secret ensures that we ought not to parade our accomplishments in public, but allow the most important person to see them in secret. It also means that wrongdoing done in secret will also be seen – for those of us who are often deceived that sin done in private is barely sin at all, this commentary on where our good deeds ought to be done also issues a reminder that no place is secret from our heavenly Father, who sees all and judges in righteousness.

Such statements do not negate that we ought to be the light of the world, and not covered or hidden. As the Church of Christ, we are the manifestation of his glory – yet we as individuals ought not receive the praise due to God and God alone.

Before ending, I may also comment on how formulaic these phrases have been. Notice the deep structure in each of these statements – this is no accident. Undoubtedly, the Sermon on the Mount was first transmitted orally, and sentences like these serve as reminders of this – such statements are easily memorized and internalized, especially for heavily oral cultures like the ones that have existed up to fairly recently in human history. If I were attempting to apply historical criticism to these remarks, I think I ought to conclude that these refer to statements only slightly adapted – if at all – from Jesus’ original words. Stylistic differences between the original and that preserved here are most likely simply ones that would make the teaching easier to commit to memory.

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[1] Soteriology: the study of salvation. I wish to emphasize the alone – not that other orthodox soteriology is anything other than grace alone, but that for me, the free gift of God must be emphasized above all.
[2] See Catechism, section on merit, CCC 2006-2011. In particular, note the citation of St Thérèse of Lisieux, paragraph 2011.
[3] This is probably the one I have to do most frequently, unfortunately.
[4] Since probably the time of Gandhi, fasting has been used as a political tool for coercion as well as for spiritual and religious practices. Nowadays, “hunger strikes” are a form of protest, often separated for the spirituality that gave birth to the practice of fasting. These are fine in proper context, but I will not be addressing them presently.

Time in the Evangelical Church

This is part II of a four part series. The others are (in order): Road from Unbelief, The Road to Rome, The Road Ahead.

It seems the case to me that even the most rationally inclined people have some reasons for their religious or irreligious position which goes beyond the purely logical or rational. Individuals simply do not exist independent of emotional, cultural, existential or other extra-rational factors. As an atheist, my position was intellectual but also useful, simple and easy, in addition to a certain feeling of rational snobbery that underlies believing that I had freed myself from humankind's religious yoke. This post will hopefully give an overview of my experience after sixteen months in the Evangelical tradition and what meta-rational reasons I encountered for being a Christian.

I had finished the previous part with new-found belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and how that led me to think I could aptly be called a Christian. However being a Christian, as anyone well knows, is rarely defined by "belief in the resurrection" - it is a position that has far more labels than that, and indeed by some people, even belief in the resurrection is not crucial to Christianity. Yet I would find it very difficult to believe in the resurrection without calling myself a Christian of sorts. I set about finding an explanation of why God would perform this miracle that made me Christian.

I made two mistakes which I recognize in hindsight: the shock of this belief made me throw all my rationality into the air for a moment, and I became a young Earth creationist.I also became a believer in biblical inerrancy without any other reason than that Jesus (who I now believed to have been resurrected) seemed to be revealed in the Bible.

The first rash belief I left within a week - the week of Easter 2012 when I visited Beulah for a rock climbing festival. I dropped it not so much because I came to the conclusion that the relevant texts did not prescribe young Earth creationism - after reading some more of the Bible I will quickly come to hold the view that science is perfectly legitimate, in line with most Christian denominations (see here) - but because I went about my day and found too many facts that contradicted that belief. Though I had rashly come to this belief, the burst of "maybe everything I know is wrong!" was quickly put down by reality. I hope readers will be understanding with my blunder: revolutions in world-view tend to have the effect of producing bizarre beliefs, and I am grateful that my error was short lived in light of the mind-boggling senselessness of young Earth creationism when it comes to reality. For my Christian brethren who disagree with me on this point, it is important to note that when somebody like myself comes to believe a proposition - in this case, "Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead" - by empirical means, one would be denying the very foundation of one's belief in that proposition if one then went on to deny empirical means. So any believer who believes because of historical evidence must in turn believe the truths discovered through scientific evidence, lest an incoherence be brought about.

The second belief is one I still hold, in some form, but the problematic bit is the phrase "without any other reason." I believed in what I would find out to be called sola scriptura without any epistemological warrant other than the view that since the scriptura talked about Christ, it must be right; a clear fallacy. About eight months later I would write about what I had come to think the real foundation for knowledge in Christianity is in the blog posts here and here (a position which I kind of retain, but with much more sophistication and without certain elements).

Nonetheless, those two issues aside, I thought that the central idea of Christianity was the forgiveness of sins because of the penal substitution of Jesus on our behalf. I got this idea in primitive form from a Pentecostal-Charismatic church (called "Hope Church") that I attended for a few weeks, and in a more elaborate form from Unichurch, which I almost accidentally walked into, in a sermon on Romans 3. I raised a question to the pastor there which would become a prominent issue on my mind a few months later, but I let it rest with "wait for Romans 6" at the time.

A philosophical note before I continue: as an atheist, I had been convinced that the only basis for morality in a secular framework (I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to think of what a non-secular framework might bring) was utilitarianism, and I still think this is the case. So I was a utilitarian, and as a relatively reflective utilitarian, I had noticed a problem: if the morally right action, and hence the obligatory action, was that one which maximized the greatest happiness for the greatest number, then the biggest problem I had was not that some of the outcomes were against my moral sensibilities, but that I did not do those actions which I believed.

It is a classical "problem" in utilitarianism that the obligations placed upon the utilitarian to act morally are enormous and go beyond what most think to be reasonable demands. Consider this: if I like ice-cream, and the ice-cream costs two dollars, may I buy it? No, because two dollars could save a life, and if not a life, then contribute towards much more happiness elsewhere. It is immoral to do anything that would not maximize happiness, and it usually turned out that what I wanted to do did no such thing. Yet I bought the ice-cream anyway. As an atheist, this is an incongruence, but as someone who now believed in the existence of God who cares about each person, who cares what I do...well suddenly I am in a bit of a pickle. For I have done wrong, and that has consequences.

It is sometimes said that modernity and post-modernity had done away with the idea of universal sinfulness in humankind, but I was convinced, since I seemed to able to indulge in my own pleasure and not able enough to live out the weighty demands of doing everything for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (some include animals and other sentient beings), that I at least was sinful. Which means that one of the core tenets of the Christian faith, which is that Jesus Christ came to address that very issue of sin in me, was not only sensible but also my only hope. If I was to have any hope of being in good standing with this God I had discovered, then he was going to need to forgive me.

Within this utilitarian framework, I therefore understood grace: I cannot be good enough to deserve favour with God,  I cannot claim that I have rights before God - I cannot even say I satisfied the minimum requirements of the moral law! Now, God's moral precepts are not explicitly utilitarian, but the notion that the demands of the moral law are the very maximum one can give meant that I was necessarily incapable, had I sinned even once, of being in good favour with God. Had I done everything correctly, were it even possible to never err in my deeds, I could merely claim that God should not punish me.

Throughout the almost one and a half years in the Evangelical church that I have spent, there is one thing that I hold to be both self-evident, undeniable and irreplaceable: sola Gratia. The Evangelical church has taught me much theology, many Reformed doctrines, pointed me often to the Scriptures, and yet that phrase, "by Grace alone," necessarily remains at the core of my Christianity, the condition without which none may plead for the mercy of God. What may we say before the throne of God when he asks "why should I let you into my Kingdom"? Kyrie Eleison! Any other answer is futile.

To finish, having read enough of the Bible to figure out conclusively that baptism was highly important, I pushed to be baptized, which happened on October 28th, 2012, at the UQ swimming pool. By that time, I could approve of the bolded parts of the Nicene-Constantinople creed (which is an expanded version of the Apostle's creed - both have a distinctly high Christology in light of the battle against heretical Christology):

I believe in one God, the Father almighty,

    maker of heaven and earth,

    of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

        the Only Begotten Son of God,

        born of the Father before all ages.

    God from God, Light from Light,

        true God from true God,

    begotten, not made, consubstantial

       with the Father;

        Through him all things were made.

    For us men and for our salvation

        he came down from heaven,

        and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate

        of the Virgin Mary,

        and became man.

    For our sake he was crucified

      under Pontius Pilate,

        he suffered death and was buried,

        and rose again on the third day

        in accordance with the Scriptures.

    He ascended into heaven

        and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

    He will come again in glory

        to judge the living and the dead

        and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

        the Lord, the giver of life,

    who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

    who with the Father and the Son

        is adored and glorified,

        who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic,

     and apostolic Church.

    I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins

        and I look forward to the resurrection

        of the dead and the life of the world to come.

Thus Saith the Lord (Jesus Christ): The Mathean Antitheses in Matthew 5 as a Christological Clue

Comments on the individual passages making up Matthew's gospel, chapter 5, can be found here: Matthew 5:1-12, Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 5:21-26, Matthew 5:27-32, Matthew 5:33-37, Matthew 5:38-42, Matthew 5:43-48.

There is a tendency and trap that is easy to fall into which renders the sermon on the mount as merely a quaint lecture giving some good moral principles. The popular notion these days is hence that Jesus was a good moral teacher, who said some important ethical things whilst he was around on Earth, and for those who dislike the Church, that these moral teachings slipped under the radar because we have been far too concerned with theological nuances and fighting heresy. "We want 'blessed are the poor in spirit,' not that dreadful concern for orthodoxy," some say, and perhaps it is true that doctrine has taken up a lot of our time and efforts. It is important, of course, but that is not what I want to discuss presently.

The point remains that to a large extent, it is easy to forget what a startling sermon Jesus is giving. We have seen that the general structure to the antitheses is "You have heard that it was said...but I say to you...," but once we translate the culture into our modern context, it becomes clear how startling that it. Consider if instead it was rendered:

"God had told you...now I say to you..."

 This is, after all, exactly what the Jews of the time should have been thinking. This teaching that Jesus refers to merely as something that was said was none other than the words of the Torah, the Law, which God had given to Israel - this was the highest possible revelation, it was considered the word of God! So Jesus is not just saying "there's this moral teaching you've been hearing for a while - that's not quite enough, let me revise it," he is also assuming upon himself the authority to revise or to fulfil the very teaching of God!

In this context, when Jesus says "I have come to fulfil, not to abolish" takes on another meaning: it is also a statement of continuity between the God of Israel and himself. It is a sort of warning against thinking that Jesus is setting himself up and against the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" - certainly, he presumes the power to give a revised law, but it should not be understood in terms of rupture from the Israelites Mosaic Law.

For these reasons, I think that Jesus is effectively using the "thus says the Lord" that the prophets all used to make clear who they were speaking for. He is saying it, nonetheless, in a way none of the prophets ever did: "Thus says the Lord - me."