|
| Is the Gospel Really in the Gospels? | | Date Created: Sep 17, 2005, 10:17 AM |
 The Gospel in the Gospels.
I believe the Gospel is clearly stated in the Gospels and that we are often in danger of misunderstanding Paul's teaching because we have marginalized the Gospels. Otherwise stated, the Gospels ought to constrain our reading of Paul. To reverse this is backwards. For example, Matthew tells us that Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matt. 4:23), then he gives the content of his preaching of the Gospel in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. If we don't like that, then we ought to change our narrow definition of the Gospels.
And there's more to say about this. I believe that some construals of the law/gospel dichotomy have blinded us to the Gospel dimension of Jesus' teaching in the Gospels. I've been preaching through Matthew for almost 2 years have tried to pay careful attention to the text itself, without importing unhelpful categories.
Here are a few notes I crabbed together from a lesson or two on the Sermon on the Mount.
We modern Christians have created a problem that first century Christians would have marveled at. I don't think they would have even understood the conundrum. What is it? We have a hard time finding the Good News in the first 3 books of the NT—Matthew, Mark, and Luke! We ask: where is the Gospel, the Good News in Matthew? In Mark? In Luke?
I have sat in graduate seminar classes at Concordia Seminary (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) where professors and students have debated about IF and WHERE the Gospel is found in these three books. Do you see the irony, the weirdness of this? Let me put it like this: Where can we find the Gospel in the Gospel According to Matthew? Or: where is the Good News in the Good News According to St. Matthew? Is it really there? Pretty weird, if you ask me.
This is partly because since the Reformation, when everything became polarized, we have tended to reduce the Gospel to something very narrow and specific—the message about how individuals get to heaven when they die? Our Gospel presentations perpetuate that reductionism. What's the big diagnostic question? If you were to die tonight, would God let you into his heaven? and why? and how?
Now let me be quick to say: preparation for dying is important. We will all stand before the Judgment seat of Christ! It is appointed for men to die once and after that comes the Judgment—Hebrews 9, etc.. So the Good News does indeed prepare one for death and judgment before the throne of God. We must know that trusting God's grace in Jesus, accepting his work on our behalf, is our only hope in death. So far so good.
But. . . the Gospel is also our hope in LIFE. And we live before we die, unless I've missed something.
The Good News has to do with how we live before God in the world, how we order our lives in God's world. How we live in Jesus' Kingdom—which is the entire world and life under Jesus' reign and rule.
So just where is the Good News, the Gospel, in the Gospel According to Matthew? Well, seriously? The early church would want us to read the entire story, including Jesus teaching on how to live as Good News, Wonderful News, the Announcement that brings Happiness, Blessing, Peace and power for living our lives! And nowhere is the Good News more clearly announced and explained than in the Sermon on the Mount! If I might be permitted to put it like this: The Gospel is about the Law.
The sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaching about the genuine meaning and significance of the Law and the Prophets, is Great News. Life in his kingdom is explained and clarified and purified of all of the misinterpretations and awful legalisms of the Scribes and Pharisees in first century Judaism.
Matthew tells us that Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matt. 4:23), then he gives the CONTENT of the Gospel in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. If we don't like that, then, like I said above, we ought to change our narrow definition of the Gospel.
This is a major challenge for us modern Reformation Christians as we read through the Gospel according to Matthew.
Recovering the Good News of life in the Kingdom means reading the Gospels in a new, refreshing way. Listen to Jesus in Matt. 5:17-20 as he introduces the wonderful news concerning life in his kingdom.
1. First, The Good News of the Kingdom is that Jesus fulfills everything revealed in the Law and Prophets. Read Matt. 5:17-18.
Matt. 5:17 is something of a thesis statement for everything that follows in chapter 5 and indeed in the rest of story of Jesus.
Jesus says, "Do not think. . . " But why would anyone think that? Well, remember what Jesus has said in vss. 14-16. Surely at this point people would have been scratching their heads in wonder. Well, what's the problem? Israel has teachers and we've gone all over the world with the Lord's torah. Our light is shining. Our seminaries pump out bright young rabbis regularly. We've been trumpeting the law of God around the known world. Surely the light shines in Israel! We are not hiding our righteousness! The nations see our good works? Are you suggesting our good works are not good works? What do you mean by this Jesus? A new law? Are you going to abolish the Torah?
And surely the scribes and Pharisees listening to Jesus teach so far would also wonder: what about the Law? All this talk about YOUR kingdom, Jesus, but not yet one word about the Law yet. So what about the Law, does it have a place, Jesus, or are you abolishing it?
Add to this the fact that Jesus was not living scrupulously according to accepted legal traditions and rituals—multiple washings, staying away from contact with Gentiles, multiple tithes, extreme Sabbath observances and the like— then it's not too hard to see that he might be mistakenly hailed as a radical, a revolutionary, one bent on overthrowing the Law and the Prophets. One who was bringing in something novel.
People listening to Jesus teach would have heard something different than what they were being taught. Maybe not altogether different, but different enough to wonder. People were curious: this is not what we have heard our teachers and theologians emphasize in their teaching. Most first-century Jews would have thought that the traditional instruction of the Rabbis, especially that of the conservative Scribes and Pharisees embodied the true interpretation of the Law and Prophets. The Pharisees taught that their traditions, the oral law, was the end, the goal, and uncovered the true meaning of the law and the prophets. Everything was fulfilled when people ordered their lives according to the tradition of the elders.
So if Jesus is not saying exactly what the scribes and Pharisees were saying, then what is he saying?
Jesus says, first of all: NO, not to abolish (smash, tear down, destroy, nullify, make useless) "the law or the prophets" = the entire older revelation of God—Pentatuech and Writing and Preaching Prophets (Joshua- Malachi). Not to abolish, but to fulfill.
We might put it like this: the Gospel is NOT that Jesus tears down everything in what we call the OT and replaces it with something novel and different, but that Jesus' life and teaching makes sense of it all, brings it all to completion, makes its meaning crystal clear, for those that have ears to hear and eyes to see!
Jesus is the "end" or "goal" of the Law and Prophets. He interprets it, and it is only interpreted rightly when done so in terms of him. The only legitimate way to understand the OT today is by means of Jesus' life and words. After all, the Law and the prophets always pointed to something, indeed, someone beyond themselves. To the future. The OT instruction could not stand on its own. The Pharisees belivieved that it pointed to their oral tradition, that everything was fulfilled in their way of living out the implications of the Torah. But Jesus didn't think so. The Law and Prophet's come to completion in me, he says.
So to read and interpret the OT as if Jesus wouldn't come or hasn't come is to miss it's divinely intended fullness of meaning.
This would be like trying to understand baseball by reading the rules, but never having played baseball or seen a baseball game. One might get some things right, but one really does need to see it played, lived out and embodied in the players. So also with the law and the prophets. Without Jesus' life the OT Law and Prophets are enigmatic. Israel knew that her Law as well as her existence pointed to something, someone greater, knew that she could not fully understand her own mission and character without reference to some future fulfilment. But until Jesus came, all she could do was grope around in faith or substitute faith in Yahweh's work in the future for something else—the oral law, for example.
2. Second, the Good News of the Kingdom is that those who teach and live according God's instruction as laid out in the Law and Prophets and embodied in Jesus' life will be called great. I'm only using the words that Jesus uses here: read Matt. 5:19. ". . . whoever does and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Okay. So how is THIS good news?
Whether anyone in this life recognizes it or not, those who seek to be scrupulous about their conformity to God's instruction are blessed by God.
This is NOT to say that they merit God's favor or that they earn their position of greatness by means of brownie points with God. Rather, remember, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, to the Israel of God who have been chosen by God, graciously redeemed by God, favored by God's unmerited love and grace, and made part of his kingdom.
Part of the problem here is the way we have used the words "commandment" and "law." We've reduced these to the "moral law," but the words refer to everything in the Pentateuch and Prophets. Including all the instruction about humility, promises of forgiveness, and the encouragement of the people to seek restoration and forgiveness from God by means of the sacrificial system. That's part of the Law. More than that, the sacrificial system is foundational in the Law.
In fact, MOST of the OT revelation is given over NOT to moral laws and commandments, but to instruction (Torah) about confessing one's sins and seeking regular restoration and renewal at the Tabernacle and Temple. Remember, the bulk of the "legal" instruction in the Pentateuch is about priesthood, Tabernacle, sacrifices, clean and unclean foods, etc. What did Moses receive on Mt. Sinai? What is most of the book of Exodus taken up with, moral law or instruction about priests, sacrifices, and tabernacle maintenance?
But Jesus point here is: God has not given us the right to pick and choose which commandments we will follow. You cast off a part of God's law and you throw off the Lord's yoke entirely. You reject his Lordship and authority over you. Some of us are really sticklers about certain commandments, especially when it comes to other people breaking them; but then we are very quick to excuse ourselves from obeying the commandments that don't apply to us.
If you seek to actively undermine someone's faith in any portion of the Bible, you are in serious trouble. If you help them find excuses for not submitting to a portion that they don't like, you are the least in the kingdom of God. This was what the scribes and pharisees were doing, as we shall see. And this happens all the time in our churches.
3. Third, the Good News of the Kingdom is that righteousness, true and genuine righteousness is NOT what the scribes and Pharisees say that it is. Read Matt. 5:20, "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
This statement is exceedingly provocative. It is hyperbole designed to make a memorable impression.
But the sentence is difficult to translate. Most translations suggest that Jesus is doing math. That one has to add something to what the scribes and Pharisees do in order to qualify. But it's not about mathematics—accountant ledgers and ticking off how much as been done.
The words Jesus uses here are notoriously difficult to translate: perisseuo, "to abound, to overflow. It's often used with reference to eating and food in the NT. Then, too, Jesus uses the word pleion here and we cannot help but hear echoes of pleireo in v. 17. Jesus life will fill out the Law and Prophets, and his disciples' lives will also abundantly fill out the instruction of God!
It's not that the Scribes and Pharisees needed to add this or that, but that there "righteousness" their covenant faithfulness was paltry, meager, anemic, slim pickins, not anything like the rich fare laid out as food for God's people in my kingdom, Jesus says. And you are about to see what that is, Jesus suggests, because my life will fulfill it all.
Unless your righteousness overflows the bounds set by the Scribe and Pharisees. . . Like mine, Jesus says. Watch me. Learn from me. Listen to me.
And Jesus is most certainly NOT talking about earning one's way into heaven. This is not a disguised hypothetical "covenant of works" theological pronouncement. These statements by Jesus are not really about priming people to hear about the grace of God by means of setting the bar so high that everyone will know how bad they are. Rather, these statements are the grace of God. Of course, of course, there's a place for meditating on the prefect standard of moral perfection given by God and evaluating our miserable, sinful lives in terms of it. But that's not Jesus's point here.
Entering the kingdom of heaven is about becoming a subject of Jesus' reign of his kingdom on earth, the one he is inaugurating at this point in history. He's talking about the way his subjects ought to live—not like the Scribes and Pharisees—but according to the true standard of righteousness. He's NOT trying to induce guilt and helplessness in order to teach people they need to be saved by God's grace. He does that in other places. Here he's making the point that the standards for life in his kingdom are different than what they are used to under teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees.
What Jesus means is that Pharisaical righteousness is only skin deep, superficial, ostentatious maybe, but it's not genuine conformity to the Law of God properly understood. Superficial. Jesus is saying here that the self-appointed guardians and teachers of Israel's tradition must be abandoned. They do not teach the true meaning of God's law. This is exactly what Jesus will do when he sets out his six "antitheses" at the end of this chapter: "You have heard that it was said. . . but I say to you."
Jesus' word is Good News only in relation to the horrible distortions of the Pharisees and Scribes.
And so too today! We have to wonder what Jesus would say if he were to show up on American Evangelical wonderland: You have heard that it was said. . . but I say to you.
We will have to think long and hard about this as we go through the sermon on the Mount. To do less would be to slip into the errors of the Scribes and Pharisees.
I believe people today need to be told something like this (v. 20). Don't think that the righteousness of this or that Christian church defines God's righteous requirements. Unless your behavior, your faithfulness, breaks out of the bounds of the Presbyterian tradition, for example, you shall be no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Each ecclesiastical tradition has developed distinctive behavioral expectations for church members—these can be healthy and helpful, but they can also obscure the depth of commitment and loyalty that Jesus expects of his disciples. This was the problem with the Pharisees.
The Good News is that you will know the true way in which to live in God's kingdom when you see and follow Jesus. In him we learn of the righteous requirements of the Law. We see God's righteousness, that is, his faithfulness to his covenant promises, enacted in his radical service to humanity. In Jesus we see God's purposes for Israel come to fruition - he truly serves the world as priest and king as Israel was called to do but never did. In him we learn to appreciate the radical nature of God's instruction (radical in the sense of getting at the root). And in him we discover that life in his kingdom, ordered according to the genuine meaning of God's law, is the way of true fulfillment, satisfaction, joy and peace. This is Good News.
[Dear reader: obviously I have not addressed all the issues and questions that may arise from the time of this post - "Is the Gospel in the Gospels?" My collection of ideas is just that - a loose collection of ideas. More, but not less, needs to be said on this subject.] |
|
