myths

Golden Goose and Fabulous Failures

eejoseph

Gold is good, controversial, unpopular, demoted by legend and greed, and destined for street paving. It is one of the few acknowledged by all as a symbol of excellence and high quality. The people of new Testament times received a wake up call demonstrating how gold as a sacred commodity did not cut it.

The origins of God’s golden decor

  • Gold or golden appears on average 9 times per book in the Old Testament. The actual frequency is 383 times.
  • In the New Testament the terms appear 23 times. That makes an average of 1.3 per book.

Guess where it peaks. Exodus with 22%, and at the other end Deuteronomy showing less than 1% (.007). Pure gold and gold covered items dominate the Exodus tabernacle construction narrative.  Why does it matter?

Temple and fidelity

People used to swear by God’s life. They did not say “so help me God” but “As the Lord lives” and “by Yahweh’s life”, staking their promise or affirmation on God’s continuing existence. A person’s word should be reliable enough to take to the bank. In New Testament times the connection became quite transparent. They swore by the gold – the thing they supposed made the temple noble and majestic.

Matthew 23:16-22 has a set of warnings about common oath practices and the people developing policies regulating temple procedures increasingly swore – made vows – with respect to temple gold and not Yahweh’s life.

  • Oaths and temple gold
  • Oaths and the temple
  • Oaths and Yahweh’s name
  • Oaths and the altar

OUR LORD CLARIFIES THE ISSUE

  • Whoever shall swear by the altar, swears by it, and by all things on it.
  • Whoever shall swear by the temple, swears by it, and by him that dwells there.
  • He who swears by heaven, swears by God’s throne and by him that sits on it.

When gold is at the top of our value list we very well may keep asking for the wrong things, as did a lame man who saw Peter and John near the temple. He was probably certain that the disciples had cash, as are many who observe churchgoers.

Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

Acts 3:6

Having gold or swearing by it did not advance the oath. The practice showed how people kept imposing distance and corruptible things between themselves and God. Food, drink, clothing, marital status, and yes, gold (silver, cash, credit) keep showing up as the genuine markers of our relationship with God.

Forasmuch as all of you know that all of you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

1 Peter 1:18-21

The snare of legalism

eejoseph

The definitions of legalism have not always been helpful. There is always a “but” in the explanation usually to fill the perceived void that liberation from death, sin, and law seemed to create. The pressure towards law is immense and wicked. Jews who decided to follow the were rightly assumed to have discarded the Law. Theologians, fully displaying their cowardice and laziness, have applied the term antinomian to anyone who dared to cling to life and not death. When we say we are Christians we do not need to confess anything about Moses, prophets, law, or Judaism, If you feel guilty about receiving Yeshua as God’s Anointed you are a fly in the spider’s web of legalism, snared and probably still dead.

Paul had said so much that puts the law into a unattractive framework that he asks the question that his readers were bound to ask.

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

Rom. 7:7

Law is a hypocrite’s tool

  1. they believe in monogamy, but a man can yabam his way to as many wives as he has brothers who predecease their spouses
  2. the priests do the same work Sunday to Saturday and are guiltless
  3. people put patriarchal above the sabbath by performing circumcision
  4. they believe that gold and silver are currency for atonement
  5. they equate commandment keeping with righteousness even when it is clear that no-one gets saved by doing so
  6. they insist that saved people must commit adultery – remarrying the husband – the law – from whom they were set free by Christ
  7. they enrich themselves by devouring the money and property of God’s priestly people often by robbery and murder

We are pretty sure that law does not figure in Messianic lordship. He did not need it to save us and he does not need it to keep us safe and to enable our growth. By the time Yeshua is into his first tour of Israel the law and the prophets had been certified as weak, ineffective, and without authority.

What did Paul say? He said (ii) Jews were unfaithful/unbelieving even though God entrusted the oracles to them (ii) Jews were convicted of sin – did not keep the law (iii) Abraham was not in any position to brag about his performance of duty but rather his faith (iv) People (Romans or Jews) are not under law but under grace and (v) there was no fruit but death from the things they cherished.

Liberated

To be sure about what our behaviour should be the place to look is the Cross. To be sure about who is our authority the person to look to is Yeshua. To be sure about our identity we must believe and confess Yeshua’s death and resurrection.

Let’s have a myth dump-ling

eejoseph

 

Myth dump[ling] A

When Yeshua says “Keep commandments, he means subject yourself to the law.

Since the only way to please God is faith and the law does not belong with faith pride in the law of God is a dark cave.

But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them”. Galatians 3:12

This cannot fit under any rug.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, Galatians 3:23-25

From prison to liberty

Saying that the guardian law is only ceremonial (irrelevant food and drink and festivals) is an inconvenient cover for the condemning prohibitions of the covenant.

God’s righteousness does not come with  ties to the law. The law and the prophets affirm this fact.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— Romans 3:21

Spit that dumpling out