For over two decades now, and closer to three, I have believed that the Jesus ethic requires his disciples to follow the path of nonviolence. I make no excuses for this belief and I do not think there are any exceptions. But I am faced with the reality that the bible contains a lot of violence. There are whole books, like Joshua and Judges, that are replete with stories of divinely sanctioned violence.
I am also faced with the reality that, right now a group claiming to be heirs of some promises in the bible are brutally attacking another people group with, most likely, an intention of erasing them from the earth. And to further complexify matters, some who claim to follow Jesus, either think that such genocidal acts are justified or turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the pleas of the Palestinians for relief from the horror inflicted on them by the Israelis.
As someone who insists on hermeneutical consistency, I cannot, in good faith, refuse to tackle these difficult passages and still claim that I am taking the bible seriously. So how do I deal with this disconnect?
Given how many passages in the bible are explicitly violent, it would be ridiculous for me to think I can deal with the matter adequately even in a series of posts. However, I can certainly start! Here I offer a novel approach to interpreting a particularly prickly passage. I have not seen this approach before, but that could be because I have not read as widely as I should have. Nevertheless, I offer this interpretation in the hope that the hermeneutical strategy will help myself and others to interpret other similarly prickly passages that contain copious amounts of violence.
The Chosen Passage
My annual journey through the bible had me read Deuteronomy 28 this past week. For those who do not know, this chapter deals with covenant blessings and covenant curses. With 68 verses in all, this chapter devotes the first 14 verses to the blessings and the next 54 verses to the curses. This drastic imbalance needs explanation. I mean, can we conclude, as many unfortunately have, that we are more likely to incur the covenant curses than receive the covenant blessings? Are we to conclude that Yahweh is actually more concerned about punishing people than praising them? A superficial reading, such as is all too common, will reach such unwarranted conclusions, leading us to be afraid of God and any potential curses that we may incur from his hand. It also makes us prone to having a heavy handed approach toward those who disagree with us. After all, if God himself is more concerned about cursing, and surely those who disagree with us are apostates deserving of curses, then why should we not join God in giving them the rough end of the stick?
In order to go below the surface and obtain a semblance of sanity from this violent chapter, we will first look at the explicit counterparts that exist between the blessings and curses. Second, we will look at the kinds of curses for which there are no counterparts in the first 14 verses. Third, we will attempt to classify those blessings and curses that have counterparts and those curses that do not. Fourth, this will hopefully give us some indication of what this chapter tells us about the character of Yahweh. Fifth, we will draw some conclusions about the current horror in Israel-Palestine.
Curses with Counterparts
The table below shows the counterparts that exist between the blessings in vv. 1-14 and the curses in vv. 15-68.
Blessing
Curse
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. (v. 3)
You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. (v. 16)
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. (v. 4)
The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. (v. 18)
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. (v. 5)
Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. (v. 17)
The LORD will grant the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. (v. 7a)
The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. (v. 25a)
They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. (v. 7b)
You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven. (v. 25b)
The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. (v. 8)
The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. (v. 20)
Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. (v. 10)
You will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.(v. 25c)
The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. (v. 11)
The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. (v. 21)
The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. (v. 12a)
The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. (vv. 23-24)
You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. (v. 12b)
They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. (v. 44a)
The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. (v. 13a)
They will be the head, but you will be the tail. (v. 44b)
If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. (v. 13b)
The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. (v. 43)
In some cases, the counterparts are exact even in wording. In other cases, there is a similarity of ideas, though the wording is inexact. However, in these twelve (coincidental?) counterparts we see Yahweh painting a picture of life characterized by blessings, contrasted with a life characterized by curses. The Israelites were being warned of a reversal of fortunes. What they would enjoy as a result of faithfulness is what their enemies would enjoy if they were unfaithful. The prosperity that would be theirs on account of their faithfulness would visit their enemies if they were unfaithful. In other words, through these twelve blessings Yahweh tells the Israelites that whatever blessing he has for them, he will give to them if they were faithful but would give to their enemies if they were unfaithful.
However, there are big chunks in the part on curses for which there are no counterparts in the part on blessings. These cannot be considered under the rubric of a reversal of fortunes or a redirection of blessings. And to these we now turn.
Curses without Counterparts
As expected, given the massive imbalance between blessings and curses in this chapter, there are many more curses for which there are no counterparts in the section on blessings. The curses for which there are no counterparts first appear in v. 22. There we read: “The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.” (vv. 21-22)
A little later, we read: “Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.” (vv. 26-29)
Verses 21-22 and 26-29 are clearly an expansion of the curses in vv. 23-24, where it seems the author intends to tell the Israelites that the plagues that had visited Egypt would visit them if they turned their backs on Yahweh. Here, we have direct allusions to diseased animals (5th plague), boils (6th plague), and darkness (9th plague). In other words, being chosen as the people of God does not exempt them from facing punishment from the hand of God when they disobeyed him.
But what about the rest of the verses? A whole 37 verses (vv. 30-42, 45-68) are devoted to distinct curses, which cannot be classified either as counterparts of blessings, as seen in the previous section, or expansions of curses, as seen earlier in this section. And these curses are bone-chilling, to say the least. Even a person with a stout heart would shudder at some of the things described in these verses. Since there is nothing to compare these with in the first part of the chapter, we cannot do a similar comparison. And since these are, as I have said, bone chilling, nothing would be gained by my reproducing them here.
However, we can attempt to understand the two groups of curses by contrasting the ones with counterparts and the ones without counterparts. In other words, we can ask ourselves what it is about the group that has counterparts that distinguishes it from the group that does not have counterparts. Since the text has been created with a purpose and intention, there must be something about the second group that does not allow for those aspects to have counterparts in the first group. In other words, we will be attempting to go behind the text to the intention of the author or final redactor to determine why he could not include counterparts to the second group.
Contrasting the Two Groups of Curses
If we look at the set of curses for which there are counterparts, we can see that, barring the 4th and 5th above, none of them has any hint of violence. The 4th one is written in passive voice throughout, indicating that the outcome of battles will be determined by Yahweh himself. Any violence done by the warring parties only serves the purpose of Yahweh’s blessing or cursing. The 5th one has no mention of violence. However, a fleeing army would probably imply the use of violence. I will deal with the matter of violence during wars in a later post since I cannot adequately deal with such a vast topic here.
However, what we observe from the curses for which there are no counterparts is that they are, for the most part, things that involve harsh, inhumane, and unspeakable violence on the part of the enemies of Israel. For example, having one’s wife raped (v. 30) or being forced to watch as one’s children are taken away as slaves (v. 32) are things for which there is no counterpart among the blessings. Similarly, being so deprived of food that one is forced to cannibalism (vv. 53-57) is something that is described in horrifying detail but which has no counterpart among the blessings. Further, being in a constant state of fearing for one’s life (vv. 66-67) is something that is caused by an ever present external threat that acts malevolently and unpredictably. Let us just consider these four curses briefly in order to understand what we can learn from their presence in this gut wrenching chapter.
The curse that soldiers of an invading nation would rape a woman is something that any woman would be terrified of and any husband would find impossible to stomach. But the curse says that this would happen to the Israelites. This is an action that an enemy combatant would engage in. However, there is no counterpart among the blessings. Clearly, Yahweh’s act of blessing his people does not include a license that they could violate any women. Other nations, in their depravity, may rape women as a part of a war strategy, but God’s people are not permitted to do this.
The curse that one would see one’s children taken en masse as slaves is something any parent would find unbearable. Quite obviously, this is something that an enemy nation would do after defeating Israel. However, there is no counterpart among the blessings. Clearly, while the Pentateuch does describe cases in which Israelites take foreigners to be slaves, the Israelites are not supposed to engage in mass displacement of populations since nothing of the sort is mentioned in the context of blessings. Other nations may include mass displacement of populations as part of their military strategy, as did the Assyrians and Babylonians, but God’s people have no recourse to such an identity destroying practice.
The curse that one would be so close to death by starvation that even cannibalism would seem acceptable is something that most humans would find horrific. Again, this would have been the result of a military siege that deprived the Israelites of food (v. 52), thereby starving them to death. This too has no counterpart among the blessings. Clearly, while the chapter describes this as something the Israelites would face at the hands of some foreign nation, this is something they were not supposed to engage in. The people of God are not to be involved in using starvation as a method of waging war. Other nations may rely on sieges in order to starve a population into submission, but God’s people are denied such an inhumane practice.
The curse that one would be constantly afraid of losing one’s life is something no one would want to contemplate. We are created to live in the security created by a loving God. When this is not realized, we live in a constant state of fear for which we were not designed. This fear is caused by an enemy that acts malevolently and capriciously. This too has no counterpart among the blessings. Clearly, while the chapter describes this ever fearful state into which they would be cursed to live, God’s people are not supposed to create a realm of fear for anyone within their borders. Other nations may resort to state sponsored terror practices in an attempt to subjugate a population, but God’s people are prohibited from resorting to such terror inducing practices.
Bearing God’s Name
What we have seen is that there is a massive imbalance in this chapter because there are some actions that most nations use that are not available for the people of God because they are the people of God. God’s people are entrusted with the job description of reflecting his character. Since they are the people who bear God’s name, God’s reputation is linked with their reputation. What people see God’s people doing is what they will think God allows his people to do. Because of this, God’s people may not engage in sexual violence. God’s people may not engage in forced displacement of populations. God’s people may not engage in siege activity that deprives people of food and pushes them closer to starvation. And God’s people may not form a society in which anyone fears for his or her life.
What we see is that this chapter, which, with a superficial reading, seems to endorse violence of all sorts, is actually describing the kinds of actions that those who call themselves God’s people may not engage in. By extending the section on curses to include abominable behavior, the text is telling us that, while other nations may not have any qualms about engaging in such reprehensible acts, there is no counterpart that would indicate God’s blessing for his people. In other words, God does not bless his people through such loathsome behavior. Hence, even through the explicit violence of a large chunk of this chapter, the imbalance exists to showcase God’s character. There are some acts, commonly done during war, that God will not tolerate among his people because they are designed to rob humans of their dignity and humanity.
In the course of this post so far, I have employed a different hermeneutical scheme than what I have seen elsewhere. I have considered seriously Paul’s claim that, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3.16-17) The purpose of the scriptures is not just to inform us, but primarily to form us. And since the people of God have been called to faithfully represent God, that is, to faithfully bear God’s name, I have used that as the lens through which to interpret the gross imbalance that we find in Deuteronomy 28.
The Inexorable Conclusion
So how would I apply what I have learned about Deuteronomy 28 in the current situation in Israel-Palestine? The case that South Africa has brought against Israel at the ICJ has found that Israel is likely guilty of acting in ways that are genocidal. While Israel’s claims that Hamas systematically used sexual violence on 7 October 2023 have been somewhat verified by an official UN report, another recent official UN report has found that the Israeli Army also engaged in sexual violence against Palestinian women and children. Moreover, forced displacement of the Palestinians has occurred even before the nakba of 1948 and continues to this date. The siege of Gaza that has existed since Israel’s withdrawal 2005 has included keeping the populace at a minimal nutritional level. This has become all the more severe since October 2023, with Israel not permitting even humanitarian aid to reach the residents of Gaza. In addition to this, Palestinians live in a constant state of fear (see here, here, and here). In other words, Israel has committed all four actions that are specifically not to be done by the people of God. What can we conclude from this?
Israel has acted in ways that Deuteronomy 28 indicates the nations that are not God’s people will act. In other words, there is no way to refuse to draw the conclusion that, by engaging in actions that God’s people were not supposed to engage in, Israel has declared itself not be the people of God. That is, this nation, by engaging in the four deplorable acts, has asked God and the world to treat it as though it were not the people of God. And I think we should comply with this tacit request.
Some people may say that this proves I am anti-Jewish.1 I am not. I am against the current nation that calls itself ‘Israel’ because it has co-opted a holy name from the bible and used it to oppress and kill people. There are other reasons, but this one is most pressing and is enough for this post.
What we have seen is that a careful study of Deuteronomy 28 reveals the line that distinguishes God’s people from the other nations. Those who cross the line by committing acts described within the realm of the curses have exempted themselves from being classified as those for whom such actions are prohibited. But since such an argument may still not be convincing, allow me the luxury of a couple of illustrations.
Suppose I am a particularly bad driver, who violates traffic rules left, right, and center. A policewoman is well within her rights to stop me and confiscate my license after a few run-ins with the traffic cops. My decision to not obey the traffic rules results in my exclusion from the community of people who are given the privilege to drive. I can no longer claim to be a person who is licensed to drive in India.
Or suppose I am a landlord and have rented an apartment to a family. I stipulate some rules that they must follow. I can do this because the apartment belongs to me, not to them. Now suppose the family violates some of my rules. I am then well within my rights to evict them from my apartment. They then can no longer say that their home is where my apartment is. Nor can they associate themselves with me any longer. They will no longer be my tenants.
Actually, this second illustration is not far from the truth. First, in Leviticus 25.23, Yahweh says, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.” In other words, contrary to the common assertion that the Jewish people were granted a piece of land in the Levant in perpetuity, Leviticus says that they are actually tenants in Yahweh’s land. Second, as part of the curses in Deuteronomy 28, v. 63 declares, “And just as the Lord took delight in making you prosperous and numerous, so the Lord will take delight in bringing you to ruin and destruction; you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to possess.” So on the one hand, Leviticus says that the Israelites were tenants. On the other hand, Deuteronomy says that if they disobey Yahweh, they will be ‘plucked off the land’. Only someone who refuses to see the logic of these two statements can avoid reaching the conclusion that the current state of Israel actually has no rights to the land since they are guilty of violating God’s laws, especially the four that we have dealt with in this post.
The current nation of Israel does not bear the name of Yahweh well among the nations and hence is not authorized to claim the blessings that Yahweh promised to the nation that would bear his name well. It has, in other words, excluded itself from being called a nation under Yahweh and is just like any other nation on this earth. It has no special status since it has wilfully committed precisely those acts that the people of Yahweh are prohibited from committing.
Does this mean that the Jewish people do not deserve a nation to call their own? I will turn to that question in the next post. But for now it seems clear that, given the actions of the current state of Israel, it has, like Esau, sold its birthright and has declared itself not to be the people of God by any accounting.
See my post Hoping for the Rubble, where, in footnote 1, I explain why I no longer use the term ‘anti-Semitic’. ↩︎
In recent weeks, especially following the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the ensuing genocidal response of Israel, Christians around the world seem to have awoken to the reality of a ‘Jewish’ people around the world. What with the scale of Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinians, many Christians are now wondering about the place of the modern state of Israel in God’s plans. There are some leaders among Christians who have an unhealthy and voyeuristic preoccupation with divine violence, often seeing themselves as being spectators from the clouds when Jesus returns to defeat his enemies. In the period before he returns, some of them believe that they are free to take violent action and they even laud those who do so. Now, the belief in a secret ‘Rapture’ is not only unbiblical but is, ironically, also one of the main doctrines that fuels modern anti-Jewish1 attitudes, even as its proponents vociferously and unthinkingly support the current apartheid state of Israel, while undermining all efforts to secure a lasting peace in the region. I have cited three articles that tell us about John Hagee’s positions because he is currently the leading proponent of all these odious views. Since, I have addressed the issue of the secret ‘Rapture’ elsewhere, I do not wish to address this issue here.
However, one additional belief that many who accept the doctrine of the secret ‘Rapture’ also accept is that a third temple2 will be constructed around the time when Jesus returns. The various schools of Dispensationalism differ in the sequence of events. Some believe that Jesus will return prior to the construction of the temple, others, once it is completed. But almost all of them link the two events in some way.
I do not wish to debate whether or not a third temple will be constructed. I wish to address whether or not the bible prophesies a third temple. For me the fact of a third temple is beside the point. The only thing that matters with respect to any temple is whether it is a temple that features in the purposes of God. And as we prepare for Palm Sunday in six days, it helps to understand what the temple was, what it was intended to accomplish, and how what Jesus did on Palm Sunday affects how we understand the future of any temple.
Honesty and Consistency with Scripture
Now, it is true that, following the destruction of the first temple, Ezekiel and Haggai predict that the temple will be rebuilt. Despite the fact that the second temple was a massive let down for the people of Israel, Jesus calls it God’s house when he predicts its destruction. In other words, we have it from Jesus himself that the second temple did qualify as a valid temple. Hence, it must follow that the second temple was the fulfillment of the prophecies in Ezekiel and Haggai. Indeed, it is disingenuous to think that either of the prophesies applies to a third temple, especially if that claim is made based on an idea that these prophecies need to be fulfilled in a literal manner. Let me explain.
I concede the point that the prophecies in Ezekiel and Haggai were not fulfilled to the letter. However, let us be consistent with what we read in the bible. By common consensus, the Babylonian exile started with the first deportation in 597 BC. The Persian emperor Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to the land in 538 BC. This equals a period of 59 years. However, Jeremiah said that the period would be 70 years! Even if we start counting from the first siege of Jerusalem in 607 BC or when Judah became a vassal state of Babylon after Jehoiakim began paying tribute in 605 BC, we do not get an exact 70 year period for the exile. Hence, it is duplicitous to expect a to-the-letter fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the temple when the prophecies surrounding the period of the exile, which, mind you, only involve one number, can evidently not be taken literally. This one instance itself should be convincing enough for anyone who is honest to agree that biblical prophecy is not intended to be taken literally. But then, some of us are married to our views. And we know that God hates divorce!
Recovering Biblical Symbolism
Moreover, the dimensions of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 48.30-35 are tiny compared to the dimensions in Revelation 21.16. Both of them cannot be literally correct since, with a literal hermeneutic at least one must be false! Actually, Ezekiel’s number is tiny by any measure since 18,000 long cubits is less than 10 km, making it less than 100 sq km in area! In contrast, the New Jerusalem in Revelation measures 12,000 stadia in length, which is around 2,200 km, giving an area of about 4,840,000 sq km. There is no way except through deceit that we can conclude that both of these are true literally. Now, since the New Jerusalem in Revelation clearly refers to some reality in the future, the Jerusalem in Ezekiel cannot refer to the same thing! Only someone with the express intention of misleading will ever claim that both are to be taken literally and that both refer to the same thing.
The only honest alternative is that one or both of the dimensions are to be taken as symbolic. In fact, Ezekiel’s Jerusalem is smaller even than today’s Jerusalem, which has an area of about 125 sq km! Moreover, Ezekiel’s Jerusalem is a square, which has never been true about the real Jerusalem. So it is clear that even the dimensions and shape of the city cannot be taken literally! In fact, only if we understand that both Ezekiel and Revelation are using numbers and shapes in a symbolic manner can we ever hope to understand what they were trying to say.
Indeed, the powerful symbol of how the city and the temple will be perfect, communicated through their dimensions and shape, is lost if we take the numbers literally. In that case, we fail to see that the cubic city in Revelation 21.16 is actually a symbol of how the entire city of the New Jerusalem replaces the only other cubic structure in the bible – the holy of holies! Revelation 21.1-2 makes it clear that the new heavens and the new earth is synonymous with the New Jerusalem. Hence, in v. 3 we read, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” Now God’s presence is no longer confined to a small space inside a physical temple. Rather, all of creation would now function as the holy of holies where creation can live alongside the living God. A desire for a third temple rejects this glorious vision and instead settles for another physical structure in which God’s presence is localized. This desire is a sign of a great apostasy in which some who claim to be God’s people would rather settle for a local presence of God rather than the prophetic vision of God’s glory filling the whole earth to overflowing.
Jesus and the Second Temple
If the period of the exile and the dimensions of the city are clearly not to be taken literally, on what basis do we say that the dimensions of the temple should be taken literally? But more crucial, if the dimensions are not to be taken literally, on what basis do we say that this prophecy was not fulfilled when the second temple was constructed? If Jesus himself accepted the second temple as the house of God, then saying that the Ezekiel prophecy is not about the second temple would be an argument from silence because there would have to be a second temple about which Ezekiel was not informed even though it was to him that the vision of the departing glory was given. It would mean that Haggai was given a vision of a third temple while almost all of his ministry was to encourage the Judeans to finish the construction of the second temple! Could there be anything more damaging to the vocation of the prophet? The more reasonable interpretation is that Ezekiel’s and Haggai’s visions are about the second temple and that it was fulfilled in a non-literal manner.
But someone may say that Ezekiel had prophesied that the glory of God would return to the temple. And there is no evidence that the post-exilic Jews ever saw the glory returning. Indeed, Ezekiel 43.4, Isaiah 40.5, and Haggai 2.7 predict the revelation of the glory of Yahweh, which clearly did not happen in a literal sense during the post-exilic period. And Malachi 3.1 says that Yahweh himself would come into the temple, another thing that did not happen in a literal sense in the post-exilic period. So would that not mean that a third temple is needed to fulfill both these prophecies?
Absolutely not! The New Testament presents Jesus as the person and presence and glory of Yahweh. Hence, when he comes to the temple on Palm Sunday, it is the fulfillment of the prophecy in Malachi. And when Jesus is crucified, this is the revelation of Yahweh’s glory. In other words, all the prophecies about the temple given to the Old Testament prophets were fulfilled in and through the person and work of Jesus.
Now, it is clear that the New Testament also presents Jesus, the fully divine and fully human person, as the place where heaven and earth full intersect and intermingle. And this was what a temple was supposed to achieve. Hence, the temples of the Old Testament were only pale shadows of the reality that would finally be revealed in Jesus. John makes this clear in his Gospel when he has Jesus speak of his body as the temple. And the Synoptic Gospels are clear that Jesus did announce the destruction of the second temple.
If Jesus is the temple that superseded the second temple and if he is the fulfillment of what the temple was supposed to achieve, namely, the unification of heaven and earth, then any future temple that’s build will be done as a repudiation of what and who Jesus actually is. In other words, anyone who hopes for a future temple, explicitly denies that Jesus is the true temple that the previous two temples pointed toward. What this means is that, from a properly oriented Christian perspective rather than one that takes prophecies as stand alone features pulled apart from the contexts of the biblical narrative, it is a denial of what Jesus has done to claim that there is any role for a future temple in God’s purposes.
Inconsistency and Special Pleading
Now, since the Jewish people, for the most part, do not accept Jesus as their Messiah, it stands to reason that they would reject his judgment of the temple. In other words, for them the destruction of the temple in AD 70 is an event that needs another explanation. However, there is no text in the Old Testament or in the extra-biblical second temple literature that promises the destruction of the second temple. In that case, without a promise of the destruction of the second temple no text in the Old Testament can be taken as promising a third temple because that would just be illogical to promise a third temple without the destruction of the second. The Jewish people, therefore, have no option but to think that the prophecies about the destruction of the temple had dual fulfillment and applied to the first and second temples, leading to them applying the prophecies of the rebuilding of the temple to the second and future third temples.
Since we Christians do see dual fulfillments (e.g. Isaiah 7.14 and 2 Samuel 7.12-13) we cannot deny the Jewish people the right to propose multiple fulfillments. However, we must be careful because any such view is based on a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and, hence, cannot be a properly Christian view. Just because the Jewish people share the Old Testament with us does not mean that we should be dictated to by their interpretation, especially when an interpretation denies what we believe Jesus has done.
Nevertheless, the view of Judaism is inconsistent and involves special pleading. The prophecies of the destruction of the first temple were given in specific contexts. The context was that Israel and/or Judah had Israelite kings ruling them. And these Israelite kings were held responsible for not being faithful to Yahweh. Their unfaithfulness, either through idolatry or through promoting injustice, was the reason for which the exile happened and the first temple destroyed. However, neither of this was true in the first century. In fact, if Jesus is to be taken seriously (and I hope Christians are willing to do that!), it was the Jewish rejection of their Messiah and their preference for violence that resulted in the destruction of the temple.
Therefore, to take the prophecies of the destruction of the first temple and blindly apply them to the second when the contexts were utterly different reveals a deep inconsistency and case of special pleading on the part of Judaism. In fact, Judaism cannot explain why the temple was destroyed in AD 70. They may claim that they were unfaithful to Yahweh but will be unable to point to anything specific that would qualify as supporting this claim of unfaithfulness. Indeed, there is nothing in the Old Testament that even suggests that, after the Judean exiles returned from Babylon, they would enter into another period of unfaithfulness that would require a second exile.
Some Jews today may argue that the second temple was destroyed because the Jews took up arms against the Romans. This would be consistent with what many of the prophets said, namely that Yahweh’s people are not to resort to military action. However, if you ask the Jewish people for any prophecy concerning this destruction in the context of the first century, they will not be able to do so. Ironically, it is the Christian tradition, which is an outgrowth of the Jewish tradition, that has a prophet who does announce the destruction of the second temple in the context of the first century – Jesus.
Anti-Messianic Jews?
Now, it is not only Judaism that looks forward to a third temple. I cannot skirt the fact that many Messianic Jews also believe that there will be a third temple and that it is crucial to God’s purposes. How is it that they have such a different perspective than the one I am presenting here. This article3 is revealing. It admits that the temple was destroyed about 40 years after Jesus’ death. However, it crucially (conveniently?) forgets that Jesus had announced the destruction of the temple, as we have seen earlier. In fact, given the role the article claims for the third temple, I must, with great despair, assert that, if Messianic Jews are driving or hoping for the reconstruction of the temple, then this is one of the greatest acts of idolatry the Jewish people have ever been engaged in, since they claim that the third temple will fulfill the purposes that the New Testament clearly declares have been fulfilled in Jesus. I would like to focus on two.
First, they claim that the third temple will “bring the Light back into the world,” which they clarify is a reversal of what happened when the glory departed the temple. Now, as mentioned earlier, there is no non-Christian Jewish text from the second temple period that claims that the glory of Yahweh returned to the second temple. However, the utter failure on the part of Messianic Jews to see that the Jesus’ Transfiguration, entry into the temple, and crucifixion are how the New Testament authors present Jesus as the revelation and incarnation of the divine glory is perplexing to say the least. I seriously wonder if such Messianic Jews are followers of Jesus or of some twisted and revivified version of Moses!
Second, they claim that the third temple will allow the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood. The article claims, “The Temple Institute’s School is training certified, DNA-tested Cohen (descendants of the High Priest Aaron) to perform the Temple duties.” This is one of the most mendacious and untruthful statements ever. Do we have the DNA of Aaron so we can verify someone actually is his descendent? The present day claim to be a descendant of Aaron is based on self-reporting of Jews. This is a circular argument. Without Aaron’s actual DNA to compare with, how can anyone be certified, especially for something as important as this? In fact, a recent study argues that those who self-certify as descendants of Aaron actually have multiple lineages! In no other area of life do we allow self-certification, but require documentary evidence, especially when the certification grants privileges. This is just certified madness, an ideology gone awry, with absolutely no controls to ensure that truth is pursued. But then perhaps truth is not what they are after!
However, even if we are, by some strange and miraculous twist of fate and statistically improbable occurrence, able to identify a descendent of Aaron, is the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood not a rejection of the priesthood of Jesus? If Jesus’ priesthood was needed because animal sacrifice could not procure the forgiveness of sin, is it not a return to what did not work to try to rejuvenate the Aaronic priesthood? According to Hebrews, this would be tantamount to saying that we need Jesus to be crucified again because we have failed to understand that and the ways in which his offer of himself is far superior to anything that existed under the Aaronic priesthood.
The Third Temple Apostasy
In other words, the only tradition in which the destruction of the second temple is explicitly announced is the Christian tradition. But in this tradition, the destruction of the temple is announced precisely because the temple was being replaced by Jesus. Moreover, any tradition based on multiple fulfillments of temple related prophecies must rest on a denial that Jesus is the true temple.
Despite this, there are quite a few Christian pastors who teach that there will be a third temple in the future. This is a great apostasy since this teaching can only hold water if we deny what Jesus has done. Such teachers, from the perspective of the Christian faith, are false teachers who are leading people astray with their misguided views and all too often abhorrent position that has Jesus return to inflict the very kind of violence he rejected at his first coming.
Unfortunately, one factor contributing to the popularity of such teachers is precisely their claim that, when he returns, Jesus will do so in a violent way, thereby catering to the bloodlust that has infected humans ever since Cain slew Abel and since his descendant Lamech glorified and institutionalized violence. Also, since these teachers cater to the almost universal human desire to think our group is special compared to other human groups and that, therefore, we must be given privileges that should be denied to those on the outside, they accumulate many followers who are led astray by their appealing but seductive and gospel-denying teachings. For, if the god we believe in is a god only for a select few and not for the whole world, then there is no good news that we can proclaim since a parochial god can never be concerned about the wellbeing of everyone.
Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount with the words, “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock…And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.” The rock on which to build is not the Dome of the Rock, but Jesus’ teachings! Any Christian teacher who has forgotten this and is focused on the building of something whose time is past is rejecting Jesus and his teachings and building not on something sturdy but on shifting and unsteady sand. When Jesus returns, they may find themselves saying, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” only to receive the response, “I never knew you; go away from me, you who behave lawlessly.” After all, if God has given his Son to and for the world out of his overflowing love, placing one’s hopes in the reconstruction of an inanimate and inorganic building is nothing less than rejecting the gift that has been given.
Recovering Sacred Space
To the contrary, Paul and Peter describe the people of Jesus as the new temple made not with lifeless stone but with living bodies and beating hearts. It is in us now, as God’s image bearers and extensions of Jesus on the earth, that the reunification of heaven and earth is being established. Each of us individually is and all of us as a group are the temple of the living God. It is to this task that Jesus has called us. We are to bring to life what we have seen in him – the perfect unity of heaven and earth, the divine and the human. We are to become persons in whom the Holy Spirit is gloriously welcomed to dwell, creating his sacred space within and around us.
But if we place our hopes in the rebuilding of the temple, that is a rejection of our vocation to be the new creation sacred space with which God is invading the earth to dispossess the forces of evil. When Jesus sent his disciples to go to all the earth with the message of the gospel, he was creating a mobile temple that could exist without the need for physical foundations because the foundation on which this new temple was built was his teachings. He was creating an enduring temple can cannot be destroyed because, as the nation of Israel is discovering, you can destroy all the buildings you want, but you cannot destroy an idea.
Unfortunately, the majority of the Christian Church only thinks that the purpose of the Christian faith is to provide passage out of hell and intro heaven. With such a truncated view of God’s purposes for his creation and creatures, it is no wonder that the majority of the Christian Church has failed to grasp how crucial the idea of being the temple of God is for the life of the Church. Instead, we too cling to our structures as though it is through them that we find salvation and in them that we receive our identity.
It is time we recovered the grand vision for the human race and for the Church as God’s representatives of the human race that we find in the bible. Humans were created to be the bridge between heaven and earth. We were created to be mobile outposts of God’s sacred space. It is time we recovered this rather than continue to abdicate responsibility and expect lifeless bricks and stone to achieve what can only be achieved in and through humans – individually and collectively – who have been renewed by the breath of God’s Spirit.
Am I saying that a third temple will never be constructed. No! I have no position about whether or not the temple will be rebuilt. What I am claiming is that, since God has now established his temple in Jesus and his body, the Church, there is no place for another temple in God’s plans. Hence, any temple that may be constructed in the future will be constructed against God’s will and will be a sign of deep apostasy on the part of those either directly or indirectly involved in the construction. Since Jesus announced the destruction of the temple with his image of no stone remaining on top of the other, any hope for a future third temple is a hoping for the rubble.
I have decided, against the common usage, that I will no longer allow my language to be co-opted by a virulent Zionism that does not represent the God I believe in. The term anti-Semitism should include hatred of any ethnic group that descends from Shem like Arabs, Jordanians, Palestinians, and Syrians, among others. The convention that uses anti-Semitism only to refer to hatred of Jews is itself anti-Semitic since it excludes non-Jewish Semitic people from the umbrella. ↩︎
Note the clear anti-Palestinian perspective of the article, which presents the conflict in the region as an ‘Arab-Israeli’ one, without any mention of Palestinians. These kinds of views seep in with their insidious vocabulary and do not allow us to see the current state of Israel as an occupying power whose existence should be questioned. ↩︎
Note the clear anti-Muslim nature of this article, which fails to recognize the injustice that the Israelis have forced on the Palestinians and exonerates them from all blame. ↩︎
Note: This post contains some strongly worded views. While I may disagree with people over their actions and/or policies, those who know me know that I am a proponent of nonviolence. I do not believe there is any situation in which violence is justified. In addition, the call of Jesus to love my enemies means that, no matter how strong my disagreements with someone may be, my approach to them is one of love. I will not harm them and will not support any action that harms them. Rather, my views are a result of my convictions that they have betrayed the call of Jesus to love our enemies and I hope to call them to repent of that betrayal. However, I pledge no loyalty to any human institution. Despite this, while I may advocate protesting policies of institutions, I will never advocate any violent protests. With that in mind, read on…
Preamble
We were there when it happened. And everything changed after that fateful day. Now, all discussions centered around the event and the responses to it. Every conversation was infused with the pain of the event and the anguish of those who had lost family members or friends, colleagues or acquaintances. It seemed that the horror had left no one unscathed. Indeed, the scars of that day are still unhealed for many, driving them to actions that I can only label ‘insane’ for it stems from the madness of a desire for revenge rather than reconciliation, fratricide rather than forgiveness.
I had woken up a little late that morning. Prayerna had had a restless night and I, being the stay-at-home dad, had the ‘night shift’ with her. Alice had to leave for work by around 7:15 AM (Pacific Daylight Time). After my ‘night shift’ I woke up around 8:00 AM, Prayerna snuggled against me, safe against my body. But though she was safe, everything around us felt quite eerie. I got out of bed and went to the balcony to check on this eeriness. As I opened the balcony door it hit me like a punch to the stomach. If ever it was true that silence could be deafening, it was on that day. The usual sounds of cars up and down the street were strangely absent. And while our apartment complex was normally a commotion in the morning, given the huge number of kids leaving for school, on that day you could hear the gentle rustling of the leaves in the trees with no human voices drowning it out.
Something was clearly wrong. My first instinct was to call Alice to ensure she was safe. Thankfully, she answered. I later understood that there were no customers at the bookstore. I asked her what had happened. She sounded shaken up and just told me to turn on the TV.
I was shocked at what I saw on the screen. Was that footage of a plane flying into a building? And another? And was that a third plane that crashed in a field? Yes! Yes! Yes! I was aghast while I watched. Right away my thoughts went to those who had died in the attacks. They had left their homes in the morning, kissing their wives or husbands, daughters and sons goodbye with the full intention and expectation of returning for the evening meal. But their lives had been snuffed out.
Fallout
And my next thought was, “Great! Now the wonderful Evangelical preachers will say that this is God’s punishment because America was tolerating homosexuals or because they were allowing the eroding of ‘family values’.” And my third thought was, “Now the ‘beast’ has been shaken awake. Its coat of scales had been shown not to be impenetrable. And it will retaliate with a vengeance never seen before this.”
I waited eagerly for Alice to return home. She came early. Everything had shut down around 10:00 AM. We sat in silence, drinking coffee, while Prayerna played in blissful ignorance, unaware that our world – and here I mean not our world as in ‘Earth’ but our world as a family – had changed.
You see, till then I had been the foremost candidate to become the Senior Pastor of our church, the then Senior Pastor having planned to relocate in 2002 to Thailand for ministry there. But now my skin color would prove to be an impediment to my candidacy. No one would want someone with dark skin color. Of course, we knew that the real reason they would give would not be my skin color. That would be discrimination! So instead they would give me the excuse that my views were too ‘liberal’ for the church.
Absolute hogwash! The church was composed of mostly students from the University of Southern California for whom my exploration of new ideas with faithfulness to Jesus was refreshing. During my one year there, during much of which the Senior Pastor had been in Thailand preparing for his future move, the congregation had grown so much that we had to relocate from within the campus to a significantly bigger facility just outside it. But, as we expected, I was told that my views were not conservative enough. When that happened, I knew something was festering not just within that church but also within the soul of America.
I drove back home after the meeting with the elders in which they said they were willing to keep me on as the Assistant Pastor, but had to look for a more conservative Senior Pastor. I called Alice from the car and gave her the news. She told me we would talk when I reached home.
Rumination
And talk we did. Well into the night. Since she had to work the next day, Alice went to bed, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the living room. Prayerna slept well that night. But I didn’t. I stayed awake for most of it ruminating over what had happened. I knew that, whether the elders would admit it or not, my theology was not the issue, it was my skin. Oh, who am I kidding! My theology gave them an excuse. So at some level my theology was an issue. And both reinforced each other quite well!
After all, with the warmongering that ensued in America you did not want a brown skinned pastor preaching a message of peace! Especially when he wasn’t even a proper green card holder, let alone a citizen! That would call into question the loyalties of the church. After all, he could very well be a plant of those hated ‘brownies’, charged with ensuring America did nothing but roll over passively! During those days any call to peace was seen as a rejection of American sovereignty, a denial of the hurt that ensued from the attacks, and an indication of a lack of loyalty to the nation.
And the ‘beast’ is not forgiving toward those who cannot give it their complete loyalty. Any appearance to the contrary could result in ostracism at best, or worse a smear campaign, or at worst the loss of life. Eventually, after a long search, the church capitulated to the ‘beast’ and chose a white man who had sons in the military. What better way to prove its allegiance.1
I would say, what better way than to reject the way of the Lamb and adopt the way of the Lion! What better way to assert our enslavement to the domination structures of the ‘beast’. I knew that I could not continue at that church anymore. Not with that warmongering ethos entering it. It was then that we decided it was time to plan our return to India.
Prophecy
But at the same time, I received a thought from the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Ever since 1999 I had been gripped by the last book of the bible and the figure of the slaughtered and victorious Lamb. And the result of the Lamb’s victory today resounds in the refrain: “Fallen is ‘Babylon’.” I pondered those words for many days before I revealed it to Alice along with what I thought was my ‘interpretation’ of it.
I told her that in about 15 years we would see the downfall of the USA. In the years that followed she often would joke to me about my ‘prophecy’. She knew that I was wary of prophecies but still had uttered one to her. Over the years, however, she stopped ribbing me about it and I actually forgot about it.
That was until Donald Trump became the Republican candidate in 2015! Alice asked me if I remembered the prophecy. And knowing how much I detest how Trump conducts himself, she asked me if I thought this was a fulfillment of the ‘prophecy’. I took a few days’ time and then answered in the affirmative.
When Biden was elected in 2019, Alice asked me what had happened to the ‘prophecy’. It was mostly in jest, but I think she really wanted to know what my take on it was almost four years after the supposed ‘downfall’. I really wish she were around now because I have ruminated over this for the past years and especially over the months since October 2023. So what is my take?
Interpretation
I believe that the downfall actually began with the lies of the George W. Bush administration regarding Afghanistan and Iraq. But I believe that the downfall was revealed when Trump was elected as President. That is, the downfall became evident as people, notably Evangelical Christians, were willing to overlook the man’s moral failing just to ensure that a woman and a Democrat would not come to power. Don’t get me wrong. I have no sympathies for Hillary Clinton. She is one of the worst kinds of white supremacists around, who speaks with a forked tongue every opportunity she gets.
However, if you are presented with a wolf and a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it does not help to exonerate the wolf! When Evangelical Christians elected Trump they sent a clear message to the world: “Even though we are short sighted and cannot really see that the gospel has political implications, we will not even ensure our truncated vision is upheld. Rather, we are willing to elect a misogynistic, hateful person who will ensure our white supremacist agenda moves forward.” That message was the final revelation of the turning away of the American Church. And it was when the downfall became evident.
Four years of Trump’s insanity made the Democrats wake up, go to the poll stations, and elect Biden. They hoped that Biden would undo the damage that Trump had initiated. However, Biden has proved to be ineffectual on most domestic fronts. But most damaging has been his willingness to support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. Now the people of the USA have two prime candidates both of whom will eagerly support Israel without question. And if it’s a question of choosing the lesser of two evils, however you define evil, it is just an assurance that evil will win. If this is not a downfall then I don’t know what is.
The reader may ask me whether my current interpretation aligns with what I originally thought. I have to confess that it does not. I thought of a political dismantling of the USA. I know that will come as all empires are doomed to implode because “fallen is ‘Babylon’.” However, just as Isaiah’s original prophecy about a ‘young woman’ was later interpreted as a reference to a ‘virgin’ so also I think the meaning of a prophecy could become more nuanced or clear as we get closer or past the fulfillment. Now I am not claiming the same status as Isaiah! I am not that deluded. However, the rot that has been growing within America over the past centuries, since its violent founding to its support of violence around the world, from its belief that might makes right to its willingness to force its will on others through violent means, was revealed without doubt in its elections of Trump in 2015 and Biden in 2019.
Two years after taking on the new Senior Pastor, the church shut its doors. In 2006 the elders wrote to me apologizing for what they had done and admitting that they had made the wrong choice for that church. ↩︎
On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2024, it is unfortunate to admit that the Church is still debating the ‘acceptable’ roles of women in the Church. About two years ago, on 5 February 2022, I presented talks in which I defended two of the most popular views concerning ‘Women in Ministry’. I attempted to present each as strongly as possible, even though I clearly hold the view that a woman should not be excluded from ministry based on her gender. Anyway, the video of the two talks is below following the text. Hope this enriches the viewer/listener/reader.
Introduction
Our scriptures open with a chapter that describes God’s grand work of creation. And toward the end of that account we read, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” The belief that women and men are equally and together the image of God is not disputed among Christians, though Christians of different stripes will understand what that means in differing ways, leading to confusion at the very least.
Today we are tackling the issue of ‘women in ministry’. Actually, we should be more specific, we are talking about women in leadership roles over men within the church for almost everyone will agree that women have ministries in the church. Women read the scriptures in most denominations. They sing in the church choirs and teach Sunday school. And they lead women’s ministries without anyone batting an eyelid. So we will restrict ourselves to women in ministries of leadership over men in the church.
We are also not going to be dealing with the roles of wife and husband within a marriage. That could be tackled on another day. But today we will restrict ourselves to the narrow question of whether or not it is acceptable for women to hold positions within the church where they would have authority over men in the congregation. There are many views on this matter and I will be presenting two such views only, because these are the more commonly held views.
The first one I will present is commonly known as complementarian. The second view I will present is commonly known as egalitarian. I do not like either of these names because they are quite misleading. I will clarify further when I present each view. In the interest of full disclosure right at the start I should let you know the position I hold. Neither! Well, the view I hold is very similar to the egalitarian view, according to which there are no restrictions placed on women leadership in the church.
However, the arguments I use to support the view I hold are different from those used in the more common kind of egalitarian perspective. Nevertheless, since I come to the same conclusions as the common egalitarian position, I think it would only be right for me to say that my view is also egalitarian. If any of you wish to press me on the arguments I would use, please do so during the Q&A time. But for now, in this introduction, let me lay down some ground rules that I will follow and hope that you would too.
First, when I present a view I will refrain from calling into question the faith or rigor of those who hold a different view. Too often we accuse those who disagree with us of believing ‘unbiblical’ things. Or we say that they are not taking the scriptures seriously. I will not do this. If any position cannot stand without demonizing the other positions, it does not deserve our attention. I will, therefore, assume that these are debates between Christians who earnestly desire to follow Jesus and to interpret the scriptures the best they can.
Second, I will not use ad hominem arguments where the name of someone is used to support or discredit arguments. The fact that Augustine is venerated by most Western Christians does not mean that everything he said was right. And the fact that his opponent, Pelagius, was denounced does not mean that everything he said was wrong. We need to take the contributions of any person on a case by case basis and not make sweeping generalizations.
Third, I will not use any strawman arguments when presenting the complementarian view. Even though I disagree with this view, I will present the best case that can be made for this view. And I will use arguments I have not found elsewhere but which I think are stronger than the ones normally presented. This is because I believe I cannot earn the right to hold a view unless I am able to make the case for the view I reject and also refute the arguments I make to support it.
Fourth, I will present both cases not as anticipating or answering the other, but as presenting evidence to support it. In other words, this is not going to be a debate format, where an attempt is made to refute the other position. However, there are some passages that both positions need to interpret and here there will naturally be some overlap and disagreement. But the intent is to interpret these passages in a manner that lends support to the position I will be presenting at the time.
Fifth, while some scholars may posit some passages or even whole books of the bible are inauthentic, I will be assuming that the sixty-six books of the Protestant bible are the canon of scripture. In other words, I will rely only on the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, as divided by the Christians, and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. However, where textual variants play a role in interpreting the passage, I will bring them in to support the position I am presenting.
Sixth, since the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament in Koine Greek, I will at times rely on the original languages, especially if I think that the English translations have not done a good job of rendering either a word or a phrase. Remember that any view of inspiration of the scriptures has to do with the original manuscripts and not even subsequent copies let alone translations. I do not claim to be infallible, but where I differ from the translations it is because I think neither can they.
Seventh, I will be using the New Revised Standard Version as the main English translation. In a debate about the role of women in Christian leadership ministry it seems wholly inappropriate to skew the matter by using a non-gender inclusive translation to begin with. I do this recognizing that the issue of gender inclusive language is almost entirely a peculiarity of English. However, though the NRSV has its own problems, at least it attempts to include women in the biblical text rather than exclude them from the outset.
Eighth, I will refrain from using words like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ because they are altogether unfruitful. To the Roman church of the sixteenth century, Martin Luther was a ‘liberal’ who taught things that drew people away from what the then ‘conservatives’ wanted to conserve. Today Luther’s teachings are what many who call themselves ‘conservative’ would support. These words are only emotional additions designed to tug at heartstrings rather than arguments that hold any water.
So I have laid down eight ground rules that I will adhere to during the two presentations to follow. I expect that there will be questions to follow. Please hold them off until you hear both presentations. And I would encourage you to adhere to these eight ground rules. And I would propose a ninth designed specifically for the case where you wish to question a particular position. And it is this: When refuting a view it is best to do so using the assumptions made to propose that position rather than other assumptions.
Otherwise, we will just talk past each other, thinking we have made our point when in fact we have not done so. This is what happens in most debates and this is why we normally get nowhere.
All of this was by way of introduction. We will now proceed to the case for the complementarian view after a short break.
The Complementarian View
The great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, once said, “It is the sign of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” When I began writing my defense of the complementarian view, I had to keep this in mind. It is all too easy to reject outright arguments that support a perspective you reject. But I decided to go a step further than Aristotle indicated. I wanted not only to entertain the idea of complementarianism, which is not too difficult, but to actively defend it.
More to the point, I knew how I would argue against the standard defenses for complementarianism. If I just proposed those arguments, it would hardly be fair since I already knew how to undermine those arguments. So I went back to the scriptures to see if there were other arguments that could be made to support this view that I reject. And I have found some that I will indicate along the way. Mind you, these are views I have not come across. But this does not mean others have not used them before.
However, the term complementarian is, as I claimed in the introduction, misleading. It is easy to think that complementary parts of a whole are necessarily unequal. For example, you cannot have a king without subjects, the former being given more importance than the latter. And you cannot have a boss without subordinates, the very term ‘subordinate’ indicating a hierarchy of unequals. Hence, in my view, the term ‘complementarian’ is inherently problematic.
However, rather than invent a new term that only adds to the confusion, it is best for us to set things straight. No serious defender of complementarianism would argue that men and women have a different status in the church. The way they complement each other is in the roles that are available to them with any ensuant hierarchy being one only of structure rather than status. So with these two points out of the way, allow me to begin my defense of the complementarian view.
In his remarkable first letter to the Christians at Corinth, Paul wrote, “Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
“But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body.”
By writing this, Paul was attempting to clarify that the Holy Spirit gives a whole variety of gifts to the church. And all are needed. Everyone cannot receive the same gift or the church would not function as a body. And no one receives all the gifts or he may decide he doesn’t need the others.
The church of Jesus is a multi-faceted, wonderful bouquet of gifts and we need to find ways to encourage this diversity. Later in the same letter, Paul writes, “God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” This is the same God, who, in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth, bringing order out of chaos, intent out of purposelessness, and structure out of formlessness. Having different roles within the church is only to be expected and the Holy Spirit decides how order in the church is established.
Toward the end of his life, with the intention of leaving a set of clear instructions for the next generations of Christians, Paul wrote a letter to his protege, Timothy, in which he clearly declared, “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” Paul goes on to base this restriction on the order of creation – man first, followed by the woman. Paul is clear here. Women are not to exercise authority over men in the church.
Note that Paul does not say that women are inferior to men. Rather, he says, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” The account of Genesis 3 makes it clear that the woman was the one who was having a conversation with the serpent and who was deceived during that conversation. It may be argued then that, though Eve was deceived, Adam willfully went along and ate the forbidden fruit. And that would be absolutely right.
However, Adam’s rejection of his God given authority over Eve does not mean that now women are allowed to exercise authority over men in the church. That was Adam’s failing and Paul makes it clear that this should not be replicated. So he insists that women should not exercise authority over men in the church.
Now it is important that we distinguish between authority and dignity. Saying that women are not permitted to exercise authority over men does not mean they have less dignity than men.
This should be quite self evident. In our nation, the Prime Minister has more authority than the common people. But he has no greater dignity than the common people, though sycophants may believe otherwise. And it is quite likely that sycophantic adoration of Church leaders has a big part to play in the belief that women are not to exercise authority over men because they are somewhat inferior. We have idolized our male leaders in the church and this is something we need to repent about.
But just because we have introduced artificial hierarchies of dignity does not mean the legitimate hierarchy of authority should also be discarded. One should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Having a hierarchy in the church just means that there is order and structure. And if, as it is clear that there is a line formed by the gender division, then we need to submit to the authority of scripture even if it is uncomfortable. For we do not sit in authority over scripture but it over us
But this is not the only place where Paul places some restrictions on women. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” Now it is widely recognised that Paul permits women to pray and prophesy in chapter 11. So how can he say that they are to remain silent later?
In 1 Corinthians 14.29, Paul writes, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.” So Paul is recognizing two kinds of roles in the church. One is a set of temporary roles, such as prophecy, speaking in tongues and speaking a word of knowledge. This gifting can come upon anyone in the church – man or woman. But this is not an office. Moreover, the exercise of these gifts are subject to verification by the church. The prophetic word is to be weighed. Speaking in tongues is to be interpreted.
So eventually, even if a woman prophesied, her prophecy would be weighed by the church leadership to see if it is something the church should accept or not. So the final authority is the church leadership, which would comprise only men since women could not exercise authority over men. What Paul says in chapter 11 is about decorum. What he says in chapter 14 is about authority. If we confuse the two purposes, we end up confusing ourselves and this has been the unfortunate problem with biblical interpretation.
The recognition that chapter 11 is about decorum and chapter 14 about authority is not something new and has a long-standing history. However, as I have often maintained, while the chapter and verse divisions help us to locate particular parts of scripture, they predispose us to split scripture in ways that are foreign to its purpose. To be more clear, if someone in Paul’s day asked him to explain what he meant in 1 Corinthians 14.29, he would be thoroughly perplexed.
For he would not have known what ‘1 Corinthians’ meant, nor what these chapter and verse references were. After all, he wrote this letter as one document, addressing different issues for sure, but not in such a way that he would contradict himself from one part to another. In other words, chapter 14 must be read in light of what he said in chapter 11, which is the first thing that I have not come across, namely the subjection of prophecy from men and women to the judgment of the male church leadership.
Now it is commonly contended that the passages in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 are restricted to the situations facing the Ephesian and Corinthian churches respectively. There is no denying that the scriptures do address specific historical and cultural situations. But if this were the case, why, when Paul spells out, in 1 Timothy 3, the qualifications that leaders should have in the church, does he not speak of women leaders in the church? This matter is somewhat obscured in the NRSV.
For in v. 2, the NRSV obscures the issue by translating the Greek phrase “μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα” as “married only once” when the literal meaning is “husband of one wife.” This is a skewing of scripture to suit a predetermined gender inclusive agenda that the NRSV explicitly declares it has when, in its introduction, it states that one of its distinctive features is “making it clear where the original texts intend to include all humans, male and female, and where they intend to refer only to the male or female gender.”
While the move toward gender inclusiveness is to be lauded, there is nothing in the context of 1 Timothy 3 that justifies thinking that Paul meant to include women bishops when he has, in the previous chapter itself, declared that women are not to have authority over men.
The restriction on women exercising authority appears in Paul’s letter to Titus when in Titus 2.3-5 he states that older women are to teach younger women.
It is quite clear, therefore, that Paul did not authorize women to teach men, for surely the older women would have had sufficient experience in the faith to actually be able to teach men. They would have had the knowledge and also the wisdom from age to actually be good teachers of the men. But here we are not talking about qualifications, but of a structure in the church, which God has instituted. I have had many good women teachers, but according to Paul, in the church, women are not to have authority over men.
So what we have seen are two things. On the one hand, when describing the qualifications of church leaders, Paul makes it clear that he recognises only male leadership over the whole church when he insists that a bishop is to be the husband of one wife. This cannot include women by definition. On the other hand, Paul does describe a legitimate role of women leadership but restricts it to leadership over younger women. Paul could have been clearer only if he wrote directly, “Women cannot have authority over men.”
But wait a minute! He has said this. As we have seen, he tells Timothy, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man.” And as we have seen, he bases his argument on the order of creation and the fact that Eve was the one who was deceived. Let us deal with these two elements in greater detail. But we will do so in reverse order, first addressing the matter of Eve’s deception and then, second, addressing the order of creation – the man first, followed by the woman.
When Paul speaks of the woman being deceived, he is referring back to Genesis 3 where the serpent approaches the woman and deceives her into eating the forbidden fruit. Why would the serpent go to the woman and not the man? Intellectually, there is no difference. The woman was, in every way, the man’s equal. The man had declared this in Genesis 2 when he said, “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” So the reason the serpent approached the woman was not because she was intellectually inferior.
Now the two Greek verbs ἀπατάω and ἐξαπατάω Paul uses in 1 Timothy 2.14 and the Hebrew verb נָשָׁא in Genesis 3.13 are normally translated as ‘deceive’. But because they have moral connotations, they can also mean ‘seduce’ and based on this some interpreters have argued that the serpent seduced the woman sexually, which he could not do with the man. However, there is nothing in the passage that suggests there is anything of a sexual nature in the Genesis 3 account. So the reason must lie elsewhere.
Some interpreters have, therefore, claimed that the serpent went to the woman because she was still immature, having been created after the man. So she was an easy target for the serpent. But according to Genesis 2, the time period separating the creation of the man and the woman was less than a day. Surely, the man could not have gained so much maturity in such a short period that it would make him immune to the wiles of the serpent while the woman remained vulnerable.
But the narrative actually gives us a hint about the serpent’s choice. When God issued the command forbidding the man to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the woman had not yet been formed. The command, in other words, was issued first to the man and it was his task to communicate this to the woman. We all know how difficult accurate communication can be and this was the source of the woman’s vulnerability. She was only as safe as her understanding of the commandment.
And her understanding of the commandment depended on the man’s ability to understand God’s command to him, his ability to explain it to her, and her ability to comprehend it. The risks involved with communicating knowledge made the woman vulnerable to the deception of the serpent. And we can see from her words to the serpent that the communication was not accurate. Whereas God had only prohibited eating from the tree, the woman adds the prohibition on touching the tree.
Also, while God tells the man the consequences of disobedience would be that he would be doomed to die, when the woman speaks to the serpent, she says that the consequences will be immediate death. So we can see that the message was twisted in the process of communication between the man and the woman, rendering the woman susceptible to the serpent’s devices. The reason the serpent was able to deceive the woman was because there was a gross miscommunication between the man and the woman.
Indeed, when Paul says that the man was not deceived, he is not intending to elevate the man above the woman. Rather, he is stating that the communication between God and the man was clear. The man knew exactly what God meant about the prohibition and the punishment. But he did not use this clarity to ensure that he communicated clearly to the woman. We might conclude then that, if communication between the man and the woman was so difficult or fraught with so many dangers, God would do away with it.
But this is not how Paul sees the event. What Paul sees is an order that God has established. To the man is given the commandment and it is his task to accurately communicate this to the woman in such a way that she does not become vulnerable. This is the man’s calling and God does not rescind his gifts or his calling. Even though he failed the woman greatly by not ensuring that she understood the command and its consequences, he still has to shoulder that responsibility and that honor. This is the second new idea.
The issue of communication, or rather, miscommunication, is not something that I have seen taken into account in discussing the roles of men and women in the church. We tend to want a proof text verse that can tell us directly whether or not women can have this or that role. However, the scriptures do not necessarily work in that way. At times they do give us direction with a clear statement. At other times, we have to use our God-given abilities to draw inferences to the best explanation.
The best explanation is that Paul’s insistence that women should not teach men stems from the fact that, according to God’s plan revealed through the order of creation, the man was created to teach the woman. Hence, for women to assume these roles of leadership over men within the church is to deny the order and structure that God has imbued his creation with. Indeed, to deny that there is a God given order and structure within the church is to reject the overarching scheme revealed in scripture.
Therefore, we see this in 1 Corinthians 14.33 where, just before stating the restriction on women in the church, Paul writes, “God is a God not of disorder but of peace.” From the first account of creation, where we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the seas, to the vision of the new creation, where we are told that there will be no sea, we witness a grand theme of scripture. In much of the Ancient Near East, the seas were a source of chaos and disorder, working against God in an attempt to undermine his rule.
And God’s decrees are seen as the way in which God establishes order, leading to peace and security for his creation. If, then, in 1 Corinthians 14.33, Paul speaks of this ordering purpose of God before writing of how women are to be silent in the churches, we need to take this seriously. This is one way in which God is establishing his peaceful order in the world as he subdues all the forces that are railing against him and challenging his rule, which only can provide us with peace.
Of course, this is not all we can say to support the complementarian view. We can look at some anecdotal evidence also. For example, while Jesus had many women followers, all the twelve apostles were men. If he had intended for women to lead men in the church, surely he could have chosen at least one female apostle. Granted that the twelve apostles symbolized the twelve sons, and therefore the twelve tribes, of Israel. But if Jesus were going to break the mold, surely he would have as he did on many Sabbaths.
We can think of the selection of the deacons in Acts 6. The issue that forced this selection was the perceived unequal distribution of provisions to Greek widows. In response to this, the church selected seven deacons, all Greek by name. In other words, they intentionally selected those who could most truly represent the disenfranchised widows. But why did they not select seven women or at least one woman? If Greek women were being discriminated against, why did they select Greek men and not Greek women to serve as deacons?
The failure of Jesus and the early church to include women in positions of leadership, especially in cases where they could so easily have made a clear statement, indicates that neither Jesus nor the early church leaders ever thought that women should have the opportunity to exercise authority over men in the church. But I wish to reiterate that, while this does indicate a hierarchy, this does not mean women are less able or less qualified. It is simply a matter of establishing order and structure within the church.
But someone may ask, “What about Galatians 3.28?” Galatians 3.28 reads, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” But is this talking about roles within the church? When referring to any particular verse of scripture, it is always good practice to look at the verses surrounding it so that we can place the verse in its correct context. So let’s read Galatians 3.23-29:
“Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
The context is about justification, that is, the conditions under which a person is included within the people of God. This is about belonging to Jesus, being in Christ. But does this mean that the church is a monolithic structure with no parts within it? Does this mean that, because there is no longer Jew or Greek, Jews are expected to give up their Jewishness and Gentiles their non-Jewishness? Absolutely not! That was the main reason why Paul wrote Galatians.
There were people who were saying that Gentiles had to get circumcised, that is, become like Jews, in order to be saved. And in response Paul rejects this view and says that Jews and Gentiles are saved only by grace through faith. Jews remain Jewish and Gentiles remain non-Jewish. So also we must conclude that men are to remain like men and women like women. In other words, with respect to justification, there is no distinction between men and women in the church.
However, when it comes to service in the church, men and women have different roles and having different roles does not mean one party is inferior to the other. As mentioned in the opening quote from 1 Corinthians 12, if we are to be like a body, then there are going to be different roles within the church. All the roles are important and crucial to the life of the body. But not all can be the same. And so also it is with the roles of men and women. They retain the roles they had at the beginning.
Which, of course, brings up the issue of what the roles were at the beginning. Here we come to a crucial element that is often neglected, even by those who support the complementarian view. If we want to know how things were at the beginning, we have to necessarily go to Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 focuses on the relationship of humans with the rest of creation and with respect to this both male and female are the image of God, given dominion over the rest of creation.
Once again, please note that just because both male and female were given dominion over the rest of creation does not mean that they all had the same role. Think about a government. There are many cabinet posts and there are non-cabinet posts. Each portfolio looks after a different aspect of governance. In rank, all the cabinet members are equal. But a glance at the roster will indicate that the Ministry of Home Affairs is more prestigious than the Ministry for Food Processing Industries.
That was just an analogy. I am not saying that roles in the church are linked to prestige. But it serves to illustrate the point. Men and women are God’s co-regents over the rest of creation, But there are going to be all sorts of different roles to play in exercising that co-regency. The church is not a monolithic structure with everyone serving in the same capacity. Rather, as in any vibrant organization, there are a variety of roles, all of which are essential to the proper functioning of the organization.
But Genesis 1 does not really delve into how humans relate with each other. For that we need to turn to the next chapter, Genesis 2. Here we see something remarkable if we look at the narrative carefully. So let us do that. After some introductory statements about no plants being on the earth due to the lack of rain, we read, “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
Now the Hebrew word אָדָם has multiple meanings. It can appear without the definite article, in which case it could either mean ‘humanity’ or be the man’s name, Adam. It can also appear with the definite article, in which case it refers to ‘the man’ that is, this particular human, this particular member of the class known as humanity. In Genesis 2.7, both occurrences of אָדָם are with the definite article, indicating that the text is referring to the individual human and not humanity in general.
Then we read, “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” So this one individual, whom God had created, is now placed by himself in the garden. Later in verse 15, this is reiterated when we read, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” And in all these instances, אָדָם appears with the definite article. And after placing the man in the garden, God issues the single command about the forbidden fruit.
Then God declares, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” And immediately we read about God creating the animals and bringing them before the man. And here, as has been recognized by most interpreters, the man demonstrates his authority over the animals by naming them. The issue of naming an entity is of huge importance in the scriptures and we probably do not recognize this. In the Ancient Near East, naming things took on great significance.
And we see this in the bible too. When Jesus goes around healing people, unclean spirits begin calling his name in an attempt to exercise authority over him. When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, he asks God for his name because no one whom God had not sanctioned could use the divine name. When Jacob wrestles with his adversary and recognizes that the adversary is superhuman, he asks him for his name because only God could use or authorize the use of the divine name.
We see this today too when parents name their children. Many names encapsulate the hopes and desires for the child. So even though some parents may call their son ‘Happy’, you will not find anyone being called ‘Morose’. Indeed, when parents name a daughter Anamika, they are declaring that they are not attempting to chart her destiny for her by giving her a name with meaning but are leaving her, as it were, to remain anonymous. In other words, naming a child is an exercise of authority over the child’s future.
So when the man names the animals, he is declaring their very nature. He is the one to whom God has given some manner of initiative over the destiny of the animals, which he exercises when he gives them appropriate names. It is important to observe again that the woman is nowhere in this picture. This authority is solely the man’s. This is the third new idea, namely that the woman was not involved in naming the animals. In other words, even in Genesis 2 there are different leadership roles for the man and the woman.
The narrative of Genesis 2 seems to be pointing in this direction in another aspect. Recall what we just said about the word אָדָם and the definite article. All through the first part of Genesis 2, אָדָם appears with the definite article, indicating that it should be taken to mean ‘the man’ and not ‘humanity’ or ‘Adam’. Indeed, it is only after the man has named the animals that we read, “But for Adam there was not found a helper as his partner,” where אָדָם appears without the definite article, indicating a name.
Note that there is nothing in the narrative that requires the flow from God recognizing the man is alone to God creating the animals to the man naming the animals followed by the creation of the woman. It is often contended that the matter of the animals is inserted before the creation of the woman just so that the narrative can conclude in v. 20, “But for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.” Rhetorically, this is absolutely correct. The scriptures would not want us to think any animal could fulfill that role.
However, as I have argued, there is a second rhetorical purpose, that of authority, for the text could certainly have preceded at least the naming of the animals, if not their creation, with the creation of the woman, thereby allowing the woman to participate in the task of naming the animals. That this option was available but not exploited can only mean that the skillful author has deliberately rejected this option. And this can only mean, as I have been arguing, that there are different kinds of authority for men and women.
So we can see that, right from the beginning, there were some roles, specifically, the one related to naming of the animals, which were available only to the man and not to the woman. But this does not stop here. Let us continue with the text in Genesis 2. After the man has named the animals, he is still found to be without a suitable companion. It is here that God puts the man into a sleep, takes a rib from his side, creates the woman from the man’s rib, and brings her to him.
Adam’s response is critical because he says, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” He recognizes that she is the companion he needed. But more importantly, Adam names her ‘Woman’. Later in Genesis 3.20 we read, “The man named his wife Eve.” In other words, on two occasions we see the man explicitly naming the woman. One was before their disobedience and the other one was after.
And if, as we have seen, naming is an exercise of authority, then there is only one conclusion we can draw, namely that, in the process of naming the woman, the man exercised some degree of authority over her. And since we have one episode from before their disobedience and another from after, we cannot but reach the conclusion that it is God’s plan that, in the church, men are given leadership authority over women and women can exercise authority only over other women.
This is the fourth new idea, namely that the man exercised authority over the woman by naming her twice, one before they disobeyed and once after. During this talk, I have brought up some arguments to support the case of complementarianism. Allow me to bring these ideas together in a summary. First, we saw that Paul would not have had any problems with women exercising the gift of prophecy in the church since prophecies made by both men and women would be subject to the discernment of the male leadership of the church.
Second, we saw that one main idea behind gender roles is communication. God gave the man the responsibility to accurately hear from God and communicate this to the woman. This role has not been taken away from men, who are still expected to be the ones who discern which words are words from God and which are not. And when they have decided which words are from God, it is the task of the male leadership to communicate this accurately to the rest of the church comprising both men and women.
Third, an example of this difference in gender roles is the naming of the animals, in which only the man was involved. Naming being an exercise of authority, it is clear that this was one kind of authority God did not give the woman. And since this was before their disobedience, we can conclude that this is a part of God’s overarching plan. Fourth, Adam names his wife twice, once before their disobedience and once after. Since naming is a sign of authority, it is clear that the man had authority over the woman.
It seems, therefore, that I have made a robust case for the complementarian view. Men and women are equal in the church with regard to status. However, God has designated some leadership roles to men and others to women. And specifically in the context of our discussion today, women are not to exercise authority over men in the church.
The Egalitarian View
The theologian D.A. Carson credits his father with the statement, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.” This is something that most Christians understand, at least in theory, if not in practice. However, ‘context’ is not a clearly defined word and how we understand context affects how we might interpret a given part of scripture. For example in 1 Corinthians 5.9 Paul tells the Corinthians, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons.”
Later, in 1 Corinthians 7.1, he says, “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote.” Both these verses tell us not only that there was a context to the letter, but also that we are, for the most part, clueless about the exact nature of the context. For it is clear that Paul had written at least one letter to them and that they had replied to it before the one we call 1 Corinthians. We can make some inferences about what these letters might have contained, but we cannot make claims with any level of certainty.
What we can say with confidence is that Paul did not just wake up one day and decide to write this letter. Rather, there was an ongoing correspondence between him and this church and the letter is just one piece of that correspondence. And when he finally wrote the letter it was when he felt he had enough wisdom to answer their questions and give them the guidance they sought from him. This letter, in other words, is Paul’s response to various issues raised by the Christians at Corinth.
Similarly, the opening verses of 1 Timothy indicate that Paul had a clear agenda in writing it, namely, to urge Timothy to stay on at Ephesus and to give him guidance on how to protect the Ephesian church from the false teachings that were spreading within it. In other words, 1 Timothy is addressed specifically to the situation Timothy faced as he led the church at Ephesus. What this means is that we need to be very careful while interpreting the scriptures for if we ignore a part of the context, we may misinterpret them.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 3.16, Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” and later in 1 Corinthians 16.5, he writes, “I will visit you after passing through Macedonia.” How do we know that the second passage does not relate to us while the first does. That is, what tells us that we should not expect Paul to visit us today on his way to Macedonia, but that we are indeed God’s temple? Both are addressed to the Corinthians, but we apply one to ourselves and not the other. Why?
What we recognize is that, while the scriptures are written for us, they are not written to us. In other words, not all of scripture is normative for us today. There are parts that are applicable only to the first recipients and other parts that are also applicable to us. So when we interpret any part of scripture, we have to also decide whether it is normative for us today or not. For example, while most Christians would say that the Ten Commandments are normative, we have no qualms about not keeping the Sabbath.
More than this, a lot of scripture is polemic in nature. For example, the opening chapter of Genesis has long been recognized as having been structured specifically to undermine the Babylonian creation myths which saw humans as the slaves of the gods, created from the dismembered remains of a defeated god or chaos creature. In addition to this, a lot of scripture is subversive. For example, the last book of the scriptures is clearly written to undermine Roman authority by portraying it as a beast.
The scriptures, unfortunately, do not explicitly tell us when something is literal or metaphorical, polemical or subversive. We have to draw that out the best we can by looking at the whole scope of scripture, which includes all the contexts that are relevant to the interpretation of that scripture passage. As mentioned in the introduction and the previous talk, I personally support the egalitarian position when it comes to the role of women in the church. The term ‘egalitarian’, however, is unfortunate.
To label a position ‘egalitarian’, however, implies that the opposing position is inegalitarian and holds that people are unequal. However, I do not think that complementarians think women are lesser than men. Nevertheless, to avoid the multiplication of terminology, I will use the term ‘egalitarian’ with the following definition. I believe that both men and women can and should exercise leadership within and over the whole church as the Holy Spirit gifts them.
One thing we need to decide while unraveling the issue of women in leadership roles is our understanding of Paul the theologian and Paul the practitioner. Do we believe that Paul practiced what he preached or do we believe that he said something and did exactly the opposite? If there is a disjunction between Paul’s teachings and his practice, then we have at best a schizophrenic apostle, who cannot be trusted to be rational, or at worst a deceitful apostle, who should not be trusted to have our best interests at heart.
What I am saying is that, if we can demonstrate that there is even one place where Paul does something that is against what he has taught elsewhere, then we would have called into question either his competence or his character. It is imperative, therefore, that, when we interpret Paul’s words, we do so with honesty. If we believe he was a man inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the letters ascribed to him, then it is crucial that our interpretation of his words align with his actions elsewhere in the New Testament.
So let us proceed with Paul’s practice before we address his teachings in depth. In the closing chapter of Romans, Paul writes, “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae.” From 1 Timothy 3.8-13, we know that deacons were office bearers within the church and had to have certain qualifications. So here we have a woman who was a deacon, in other words, a woman who was serving in an official leadership role in the church in Cenchreae.
Two verses later Paul says, “Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus.” Prisca is the short form for Priscilla, the wife of Aquila. Normally, in a couple, the man’s name would be mentioned first, unless the woman’s contribution overshadowed the man’s or she was of a higher social status than the man. But Paul nowhere gives any evidence of showing concern for any person’s social status. Hence, it would seem very strange if he placed Pricilla’s name first with that in mind.
But does that mean that Pricilla’s contribution was greater than that of her husband Aquila? Very much so, for in Acts 18.24-26 we read, “Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue;
“But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately.” It is clear here that Priscilla was one of those who taught Apollos and corrected his erroneous beliefs. And since, in this context, Paul puts her name before Aquila’s it seems necessary to conclude that she was the one who mainly taught Apollos. So we have an example of a woman teaching a man. And note that this was in the church at Ephesus, the same church at which Timothy was a prominent leader.
Later in Romans Paul says, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles.” So here we have a mention of Junia, a woman apostle. So far, from Paul’s practice we have encountered a deacon, a teacher, and an apostle. These are all positions of leadership within the church and in all three instances the woman concerned would have exercised authority over men. So now we have a decision to make that will determine how we read Paul’s letters.
Do we consider Paul to have been a person who practiced what he preached or did he say something but do the opposite? In other words, was there congruity between Paul’s words and deeds? This is not a trivial question, for if there was incongruity, then we really should not follow his example anywhere. For instance, how do we know that, though he says, “There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” he actually practiced a ministry of condemnation unknown to us?
If we are to accept Paul as trustworthy, it must mean that his teachings and his actions are not contradictory. Hence, since we have clearly seen that Paul accepted and promoted women in leadership roles in practice, it must mean that his teachings do not contradict this practice. And so now we have to address the two main passages from which some interpreters have rejected the egalitarian perspective, namely, 1 Timothy 2.11-15 and 1 Corinthians 14.34-35.
Concerning 1 Corinthians 14.34-35, many New Testament scholars recognize that these two verses actually disrupt the flow of Paul’s argument concerning how to exercise the gift of prophecy in the church. That this has been recognized over the centuries is also evident from the manuscripts we have today. Some manuscripts place these two verses after verse 40, in an attempt to make Paul conclude his instruction about prophecy before addressing something seemingly quite different.
Moreover, some manuscripts, like the codices D, F, G, K, and L, and the minuscule 0630 also add the word ‘your’ to ‘women’, which would then make verse 34 read, “Your women should be silent in the churches.” This indicates that there were early scribes who believed that Paul could not have meant these verses to be universally applicable to all women, but were applicable only to the Corinthian church founded by Paul. This does not, of course, settle the issue.
But it does indicate that there were Christians in early centuries who had a differing view of these verses than what we might believe from a plain reading of our translations. And this differing view calls into question the complementarian position. The earliest evidence for this scribal addition is in Codex D, from the early 6th century. Interestingly, this comes a few decades after Pope Gelasius I, in response to reports that in South Italy some women were officiating at Communion, wrote a letter condemning female officiants.
By the time of Pope Gelasius I, the clergy in the church was almost without exception male. Hence, for a scribe, some decades after the Pope’s letter, to amend the text of 1 Corinthians 14.34 so that it did not refer to a universal prohibition on women, but only a specific one is critical information that there were some in the church who rejected the Pope’s decree and wanted women to continue ministering as leaders in the church, and here specifically as those who ministered the holy sacrament, quite a high position.
Another point about 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 is the strange statement, “If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” What should the women ask their husbands at home? And why does Paul write about these women in relation to their having husbands? One possibility is that, since the women were normally restricted to the household, they knew only the local dialect of the region, in the case of Corinth, Doric Greek, an older form of Greek.
The men, however, would have known the more widely spoken and modern koine Greek, which was what would have been used in the churches. The two forms of Greek were quite different, more different than modern English is to the middle English of Chaucer. Hence, when a sermon was being preached, the women, who understood only a much older dialect of Greek, often had questions. Being eager to learn, the women would ask for the meaning of this or that word, this or that phrase, thereby disrupting the service.
Hence, in this section on maintaining order in the church, Paul has just told those who prophesy that they are to maintain discipline and take turns. He tells them, “The spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets,” meaning that true prophets know when to speak and when to remain quiet. And so, in a similar fashion, he tells the Corinthians that these women, who had a genuine and laudable desire to learn, should not disrupt the service, but should ask their husbands to explain things at home.
It seems that the passage in 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 refers to the women of first century Corinth rather than to all women down the ages. This we have supported from within the text by asking why the women had to ask their husbands about things at home. And we have also brought in some additional support in the form of a scribal addition that came at a time when women were beginning to be finally removed from positions of leadership in the late fifth century – an addition that seems to be in protest of this tendency.
So what about 1 Timothy 2.11-15? In that passage, Paul writes, “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.” Is this not a clear indication that women cannot exercise authority over men in the church?
As mentioned earlier, Paul wrote this letter to urge Timothy to stay on at Ephesus and to give him guidance on how to deal with the false teachings that were spreading in the Ephesian church. In other words, even if we did not study this passage in depth, we should be careful about making its teachings normative because of the historically situated nature of its context. It was written to provide guidance against false teachings. Hence, even this passage must serve that larger purpose and not be something universal.
However, if we still insist that this passage should be taken as normative, then we should also take Paul’s words, “I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands,” as normative. In other words, men clasping their hands to pray, or having their hands held close to their chests when praying would be prohibited because Paul wanted men to pray with hands raised. You see, we cannot claim one thing is normative while dismissing another just because it suits us. We need to be more consistent.
So what was happening in Ephesus at the time Paul wrote to Timothy? From 1 Timothy 1.4 it seems there were false teachers in Ephesus who were attempting to make the Ephesian Christians divert their attention to genealogies and myths and who encouraged all sorts of speculation. From v. 20 we learn that two of these false teachers were Hymenaeus and Alexander. In 1 Timothy 4.3, Paul refers to false teachers who forbid marriage. This is why, just before this, in chapter 3, Paul is clear that leaders should be married.
But to whom were these false teachers forbidding marriage? If we turned the page to chapter 5, we would read about young widows who “learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house; and they are not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say.” These false teachers were telling young widows that they should not get remarried, but should devote their time to fruitless speculations, the genealogies and myths referred to in chapter 1.
So you see, Paul was not issuing a blanket prohibition on women having authority over men. Rather, he was warning Timothy about these young widows who had too much time on their hands because they had accepted a prohibition on remarriage. Because they had too much time on their hands with no responsibilities, they were being deceived by the false teachers with all sorts of mythologies and genealogies and fruitless speculation. They were not to exercise authority over men but were to be encouraged to get remarried.
So we have dealt with the two texts that supposedly prohibit women from having leadership roles in the church where they exercise authority over men. And we have seen that, if we take the whole context of the letters, we actually reach quite different conclusions. In both cases, Paul’s words are given to the specific situations faced by his recipients. Of course, if we have similar situations in our churches today, we can and should resort to these restrictions because they will be directly applicable.
But is that all we can say about the egalitarian position? Is it all based on a realization that a couple of texts are context specific and, therefore, not universally applicable? Or is there some, more positive way of addressing the matter. Thankfully, there is. In Galatians 3.28, Paul writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” As mentioned in the talk on complementarianism, the context here is justification.
However, Paul does something very subtle here that is easy to miss if we do not pay close attention to what he says. He mentions three pairs of categories of humans. The first is ‘Jew or Greek’. While he uses the word ‘Greek’ it is evident from the context that he uses it with the meaning ‘non-Jew’ rather than just the ethnic Greeks. The second pair is ‘slave or free’. And the third pair is ‘male and female’. These three pairs constitute ways in which we can divide and have divided humanity – based on ethnicity , class, and gender.
The first distinction, ‘Jew or non-Jew’, is based on the calling of Abraham. In other words, it is based on God’s initiative to the situation caused by human sin. The second distinction, ‘slave or free’, is based on human sin for there would have been no such categories had humans not sinned. The third distinction, ‘male and female’, is based on creation and is the only distinction the scriptures clearly indicate is very good. Today, hardly anyone would argue for differences in the church based on ethnicity or class.
However, in the past, there have been people who considered people of different ethnicities or different classes to be inferior. And I am sure we have not seen the last of these dastardly attitudes. Nevertheless, these days it is less commonly witnessed overtly but remains a covert tendency or belief. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the third distinction, ‘male and female’. And that is probably because we believe, and rightly so, that the gender distinctions are based on a creative order instituted by God.
However, note how Paul challenges this with a very subtle literary device. He writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female.” By using the word ‘or’ to distinguish Jew from Greek and slave from free while using ‘and’ to distinguish male from female, Paul is referring back to the accounts of creation and saying that the normative distinction is the one between male and female, namely Genesis 1, not the one between husband and wife, namely Genesis 2.
Why would Paul say that the Genesis 1 account is normative and not the Genesis 2 account? You see, when telling a story in prose, the author necessarily has to sequence events one after the other. If I have to tell you about three characters, I necessarily have to put them in some order, which then can be misunderstood to carry meaning. This is especially true with Genesis 2, which is written in prose as opposed to Genesis 1, which has more poetic elements. But there is more.
The author of Genesis 2 was forced into the order written down. What do I mean? The Genesis 1 account is clear that both male and female are equally God’s image bearers. There is, therefore, no distinction on the basis of gender if we read Genesis 1. However, our normal experience indicates that all babies, male or female, derive their life from their mothers. This has been the reason behind many fertility religions, both past and present. And Genesis 2 is written in part to provide a response to these fertility religions.
If it is true that men derive their life from their mothers, then how can male and female be equal? Hence, Genesis 2 presents a narrative in which the lifegiver, Eve, herself derives her life from humanity, Adam. By doing this, Genesis 2 normalizes the equality between the genders and renders a blow to perspectives that lead to fertility religions. So Genesis 1 is normative in its claim that male and female are equally God’s image bearers. And Genesis 2 and the order explicit in it are to be taken polemically rather than normatively.
Paul’s subtle change in language carries so much meaning and, unfortunately, we fail to recognize this because we do not understand how vast the scope of God’s plan revealed in Jesus through the Spirit is. We make it about our own small agendas and, therefore, fail to see the larger picture. But once we see the larger picture, we can recognize that the hierarchies we thought were evident were actually narrative decisions that served the larger purpose of establishing mutual dependency rather than a hierarchy.
But so far we have restricted ourselves only to Paul. Is there anything we can learn from Jesus? Now it is true that, while Jesus had some female patrons, he did not name any woman as one of the twelve apostles. This could be interpreted to mean that Jesus did not think these roles could be held by women. On the other hand, it may simply be a reflection of a practical situation. Women, in those days, were linked to the primary men in their lives – their father, their husband, or their son – according to their stage of life.
They were not free to move about, unlike the men, who could travel without restriction. Because of this, traveling with a female companion involved dangers that traveling with a male companion just did not. Jesus’ choice of twelve men could have simply been a reflection of these realities. So the argument could go either way. But there are two episodes from Jesus’ life, one from before the resurrection and one from after, that shed considerable and revealing light on the situation. Let’s tackle them in reverse order.
All four canonical Gospels indicate that, on the first Easter, it was not the male disciples who went to the tomb, but some women. All four Gospels tell us that the women were the first humans to bear the news of the resurrection to others. And if, as Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain,” then the most important message of the resurrection on that first Easter was carried by women to men. Without those women, we would not be discussing the matter!
So if this most important message could be entrusted in the hands of women, how can it be that subsequent communication of the same message is denied them? That just does not make sense. And so it must be an incorrect tradition that should be relegated to the rubbish heap of false trails in our discovery of faith. Someone could say, “Jesus could have appeared to the eleven without help from the women.” Yes, indeed he could have. But surely there must be some really important reason why he chose not to do it that way!?
We must not think that Jesus was an unreflective person who just took life as it came to him. Rather, he was very intentional with what he said, how he healed people, and who he interacted with. So when we see Mary of Magdalene in John’s Gospel, mistaking Jesus for the gardener, we must conclude that this was exactly how he wanted things to pan out. He wanted to and needed to meet this bereft woman so that she would be the first to see the new gardener of the new garden that was coming to life through his resurrection.
The news of the resurrection was given first to the women with the precise intention that women would not be relegated to playing second fiddle to men in the church. Unfortunately, very soon, the supposedly unreliable testimony of the women became a source of embarrassment for the church and we dropped them from our official accounts of the resurrection so that, even as early as 1 Corinthians 15, Jesus’ appearance to the women had unfortunately been erased from the memory of the church.
But now that we know why Jesus specifically chose to appear first to Mary Magdalene and why it was the women to whom the message of the resurrection was given, it means we can no longer hide behind centuries of tradition that have deprived women of their God given, legitimate role of being apostles – literally, ‘sent ones’ – in the church. They were the apostles to the apostles! So from the episode after the resurrection we can see that women are expected to serve in leadership roles where they tell the good news even to men.
The episode from before Jesus’ resurrection appears in Luke 10.38-42. There, Luke tells us about Mary and Martha and when introducing Mary he says, “She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” What do we make of this? Do we think of some star struck teenager staring up dewy eyed at this charismatic teacher? If that is what we have in mind, we should get rid of such notions because it is quite and damagingly far from the truth.
Some interpreters have stated that Mary was worshiping Jesus. But this cannot be for two reasons. First, Luke does not use the language that we would expect for worship, which he uses, for example, during Jesus’ ascension. Why would he use such a roundabout way of implying worship, when he could use a direct and commonly available word? Second, from chapter 9 in Luke, we enter the period of conflict in Jesus’ ministry. If Jesus was accepting worship at this time, the Jewish leaders would have raised a hue and cry about it.
But we have no indication that anyone objected to Mary other than her sister Martha, who simply wanted her to help with the chores. It seems that many such interpreters just refuse to acknowledge what Luke is trying to tell us. For when an author uses a rare phrase, we must think that he is describing something rare. And when an author uses the same rare phrase twice, we need to open ourselves to the idea that the author is drawing parallels between the two situations in which he used the phrase.
You see, Luke uses an identical phrase in Acts 22, where, while defending himself in Jerusalem, Paul says, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel.” When we first encountered Paul in Acts 7, he was already recognized in Jewish circles as a teacher with authority. He did not attain this position by staring dewy eyed at Gamaliel! No, and that’s because to sit at the feet of a rabbi was to become his apprentice and learn how to become a rabbi.
So when Luke tells us that Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, this means that she was invading the male space of apprentices and offering herself as an apprentice to Jesus. This is what Martha found offensive. Women belong in the female, not male, space. But Mary wanted to become a teacher like Jesus and had decided to learn from him. So when Jesus did not turn her away but encouraged her, it can only mean that he had absolutely no problems with a woman learning from him how to become a teacher.
But as we did in the case with Paul, can we find a teaching from Jesus that addresses the matter of women in leadership? Unfortunately, Jesus never directly addresses the matter. However, he does raise some questions that point us in a quite definite direction. You will recall the occasion when the Sadducees approached Jesus in an attempt to stump him about the resurrection. They present a hypothetical case based on the practice of Levirate marriage – a woman marrying seven brothers in turn.
And they ask Jesus, “In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.” In response Jesus tells them, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” According to Jesus, in the new creation marriage will have no place. This will mean a complete overhauling of our understanding of gender and sexuality for there will be neither sexual intimacy nor procreation. What would this mean for us as currently gendered beings?
It is impossible for anyone to assert what it would be like. But if the main reasons for there being gender distinctions are going to be rendered obsolete in the new creation, then at the very least we can say that, in the new creation, any roles that we might presume exist today are also going to be rendered obsolete. And if the church is a signpost of the new creation in the midst of the old, then the church has a duty to make visible the realities that will define the new creation when it fully arrives when Jesus appears again.
What we have seen so far is that the scriptures do not prohibit women from exercising authority over men in the church. We began by asking ourselves if Paul had to be a person who practiced what he preached, recognizing that, if his theology and practice did not match, then we would not be able to trust him. And we looked at examples of practice from his life, specifically with reference to Phoebe, Junia and Pricilla, and discovered that Paul had no problems with women in positions of leadership.
We, therefore, concluded that his teachings must not contradict this practice. So we studied the two passages in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 which are normally used to prohibit women from serving in positions of leadership. We saw that there are contextual reasons for not considering these texts as normative for Christian practice. Paul’s words in these two passages were specifically to address the issues the churches at Corinth and Ephesus were facing. They were not intended to be blindly used by the church down the centuries.
After that, we looked at the two creation accounts and Paul’s allusion in Galatians 3.28 to the first account. And we concluded that the first account, in which male and female are equal, is the normative one, with the second one having a polemical purpose for undermining fertility religions, on account of which it cannot serve as normative. Then we turned to the episodes from Jesus’ life, looking first at the commission given to the women, and Mary Magdalene in particular, on the first Easter morning.
We saw that Jesus had no problems with entrusting the crucial message of his resurrection to these women. We then looked at the example of Mary, the sister of Martha, and discovered that Luke uses language similar to what Paul uses to describe his being an apprentice of Gamaliel and we concluded that Mary was learning to become a teacher herself and that Jesus encouraged her in this endeavor and defended her for it. And finally, we looked at Jesus’ response to the Sadducees about the resurrection.
There, we saw him state that gender and sexuality would look quite different in the new creation. And so I argued that we should adopt the visions of the new creation since the church is expected to be a signpost of the new creation in the midst of the old. Due to all these arguments, it seems, therefore, that a sea change is required within the church and that we should aim to restore the full equality that women have in Jesus by no longer prohibiting them from holding leadership roles within the church.
This final, eschatological argument in support of women’s ministry is something I have not encountered in my research, though it may have been proposed. The point is that all four Gospels and most of the rest of the New Testament present the reality of Jesus’ resurrection as something that not only informs our hope for the future but also directs our life in the present. If this is the case, then the reality of full gender equality needs to be something the church works toward today, not just hopes for in the future.
In case you are wondering about the title of this post, hold on to your horses. But please note as you read this that this is another experiment in theological imagination. Last Monday, I had posted the results of another such experiment. That post was in response to a question someone had asked me. This one has been spurred on by my continued reflection on the nature this life and the next. I can no longer do this in a very level-headed manner for, as you will see, the issue is so relevant that it cuts to the heart.
Now, I have admitted right from the start that this post involves speculation. Hence, the views that it contains will be heterodox in nature. I do not apologize for this. I think one main reason why Christian theology now fails to ignite the hearts is because we have stopped using and have proscribed the use of the imagination.
But let me give the reader two fair warnings. First, this post deals explicitly with the fate of those who have died. If you are comfortable with what you believe, especially concerning what your departed loved ones are experiencing right now, and do not wish that boat to be rocked, I suggest that you navigate away from this post. Second, this post deals with many abstract ideas. You may need to read it when you are not going to be disturbed or distracted. Or you may need to read it multiple times. Of course, if you have questions, please ask them in the comments.
What Happens At Death?
Anyway, I begin this speculation with the question, “Where do we go when we die?” The naturalist would say that we go nowhere but that our bodies just rot away. The ‘hard dualist‘, who believes that there is some immaterial part of us called a ‘soul’, would say that, while our body does indeed rot, our soul goes to reside with God. The ‘soft dualist’ may say that our soul sleeps until the resurrection and is right now dormant. But I am neither a naturalist nor a dualist!
Emergent Properties and Non-Reductive Physicalism
I am what is called a non-reductive physicalist. Unlike a naturalist, I do not deny the reality of the ‘spiritual’ realm. We do have genuine experiences with God. Our prayers are not vacuous whispers into the wind. But at the same time, unlike a dualist, I do not think we need to account for spiritual experiences by positing an immaterial aspect called the ‘soul’ that is included in the ‘recipe’ for making a human. Rather, the ability to have spiritual experiences is what is known as an emergent property of our constitution as physical beings.
Before I proceed, let us look at a couple of common examples of emergent properties as analogies. One water molecule cannot demonstrate the properties of wetness or of surface tension. For those properties we need trillions upon trillions of water molecules. Nothing was added to it. It is just that, when we have a lot of water molecules interacting with each other, some additional properties that were absent in smaller numbers emerge.
Similarly, we all experience the ethos of various organizations. You may have worked at two companies and found that the work ethos is quite different. I have worked in multiple schools and can testify that each school felt like it had a different set of priorities, which altered the way it functioned. The school may have been preparing students for the same exams. The students may have come from similar socio-economic backgrounds. The staff may have had similar demographic markers. But the schools would have been quite different organisms. No ‘immaterial’ substance was added to any organization. Rather, somehow, the collective of humans involved, including what each of them had experienced and were experiencing in their lives, produced different characteristics to emerge.
The emergent properties of water and of human groups are examples of how nothing ‘immaterial’ needs to be added to a physical system in order for new and unpredictable properties to emerge. Rather, something in the collective organization of the individual entities resulted in these properties. If this is true about both simple physical substances like water and complex psycho-social entities like human groups, there is no reason to think that, at the intermediate level of an individual, something ‘immaterial’ needs to be added to the physical composition of the human in order for ‘spiritual’ abilities to arise. Rather, without denying the reality of our ‘spiritual’ abilities, I posit that the complexity of the physical composition of the human is itself what gives rise to the ‘spiritual’ abilities.1
Most Christians would subscribe either to the dualist view or the non-reductive physicalism view. But what happens us when we die according to these views? Recall that the dualist view has two variations – what I have called ‘hard dualism’ where, upon death, the soul goes to be with God; and what I have called ‘soft dualism’ where, upon death, the soul enters a period of soul sleep. So let us consider what happens to us when we die in light of these three views.
Soul Wakefulness and Death
Right at the start, I should admit that I have not come upon the term ‘soul wakefulness’. However, I am using it to distinguish it from the view of ‘soul sleep’. Both views posit the existence of some immaterial part of the human that is added (probably) at conception, that is essential to our being human, and that is responsible for some of our higher abilities, including especially our ability to relate to God. However, ‘soul wakefulness’ proposes that, upon death, the soul goes to reside with God. During this period the soul is conscious and aware of what is happening.
If I think of Alice in terms of this view, her soul has gone to be with God and she is conscious and aware of what is happening. But is she conscious and aware of what I am going through? If not, then it is because God is somehow shielding her from this. Then she is not affected by what I am experiencing. My tears do not affect her because she does not know of their existence. But isn’t this just a hoax that God is foisting on her by keeping her blind to my tears? How can she still truly love me if she thinks that all is well with me when in fact all is not well? So if the soul is awake during this period, then it is capable of joy only if God shelters it with a shroud of deception. I cannot accept this. If Alice is able to experience joy only by being shielded from my pain, then I reject this view. And I know that, given the choice between knowing the truth that I am in pain and being shielded from it, she would choose the more difficult option and reject any existence based on a lie.
So then if her soul is with God now and is fully aware of what I am going through, will she be able to experience joy? I have known some people with sadistic tendencies who would find pleasure at least, if not joy, at the suffering of others. But Alice is not such a person. I know her to be empathetic and compassionate. I have seen her concern for me at the slightest pain that I experienced. There is no way on God’s good earth that she would be able to experience joy knowing that I am in pain. So perhaps it is possible that after death we are able to experience grief and suffering. I know that this may come as a surprise to most readers. I will explore this idea later in this post. So hold on. But there is a more pressing reason for which I would reject the idea of ‘soul wakefulness’. I will address this too later in this post.
Soul Sleep and Death
But what if our soul is not conscious between death and the resurrection? What if the doctrine of ‘soul sleep’ is correct? According to this view, when we die, our soul is separated from the body, but placed by God in some state of hibernation, during which it is not conscious of anything that is happening.
If I view Alice according to this perspective, then her soul has left her body and has been placed by God in a state of hibernation or suspended animation. She is not conscious of what am going through and she cannot be because God has placed her soul in such a state. At least here God is not deceiving her. After all, she is not conscious. It is indeed like a ‘sleep state’ in which we are not aware of the world around us.
But how much like a ‘sleep state’ is it? Is it like a complete cessation of consciousness according to which there is not even the slightest bit of awareness? Or is there still some kind of ‘dream like’ awareness? If there is some kind of ‘dream like’ awareness, then what kind of awareness is this? In my view, this would seem quite a strange state to be in. I mean, what would be the purpose of such a ‘dream like’ awareness? There is no body anymore to rejuvenate through the dreams. There is no brain anymore for short term memory to be transferred to long term memory. Without these functions associated with the body there really would be no reason for God to place anyone in such a state.
But what if all awareness is suppressed. In that case, God is actively keeping her in a state of unawareness, precisely because the alternative, discussed in the previous section is too horrendous. To avoid duping her by shielding her from the reality of my pain or to avoid her awareness of my pain to lead her to be unable to experience joy, God actively overrides the soul’s natural tendency of being ‘awake’ and forces it into a state of ‘dormancy’. Surely this cannot be construed as a loving act. How can it be loving when, in order to avoid a result you do not like, you overwhelm the beloved and force her soul into a state that is ‘unnatural’ for the soul?
Non-Reductive Physicalism and Death
We have seen that both dualistic views result in situations that are reprehensible and abhorrent if we think through them carefully. While the ‘soul wakefulness’ view still might be viable, we will see later that there is a compelling reason to reject it. But does the non-reductive physicalist view offer anything better? According to the conventional understanding of this view when we die, we die. There is no soul that lives on to either ascend to God or to be placed in a state of dormancy by God. So death means an immediate and complete cessation of any functions including especially those function that we most crave, for example, the ability to love and be loved and the ability to experience joy and sorrow.
Viewing Alice from this perspective, she is dead without any possibility of relating to me anymore until the resurrection. In that case, Paul was wrong to say that love remains (1 Corinthians 13.13) because, while I am still able to love her (even though this love is empty since she cannot receive it), Alice is incapable of loving me right now. Indeed, the cloud of witnesses that Hebrews tells us about then is comprised only of lifeless forerunners of the faith who provide no more than their dead testimony.
Of course in this case, since death is the normal outcome of our sin, cessation of activity is built into what it means to die. Then God cannot be said to force anyone’s soul as in the case of soul sleep since there is no soul to force. All that happens is that our bodies decay away.
But some may question this view asking that, if everything decays, how does God raise us? In the dualist picture, after all, the soul continues beyond death. But if the soul is some ‘immaterial’ aspect added to our bodies upon conception, then what it cannot have is precisely the pattern involved in the formation and development of our bodies. In other words, the belief in a soul actually undermines the belief in the resurrection. If what is ‘me’ is encapsulated in my soul, then there is no need for my body. This is probably why, after centuries of allowing Greek ideas of the soul to seep into Christian doctrine, the Church, for the most part, gave up on a belief in a fully physical new creation and settled instead for a disembodied belief in ‘going to heaven’ when we die. More on this later.
The belief in the resurrection, however, is based on God’s faithfulness. He has complete knowledge of who we are and can re-create us without needing a ‘soul’. Hence, even the belief in the resurrection does not provide justification for a belief in a ‘soul’.
However, I find that I am stuck. Paul says that love remains. Quite obviously, from the context he means that love endures beyond death as well. So how do I square this with the idea thrown up by the conventional non-reductive physicalist view that, since there is no immaterial soul, death automatically involves a cessation of all activity including particularly the ability to love?
Rescue from Mathematics!
Yes! You read that right. But before I can get to it, let me explain the problem I find myself in. Then I will look at what kind of solution to the problem might be needed. And then we will look to Mathematics to extricate us from this quagmire.
First, I have insisted that, whatever state we find ourselves in after death, it should be one in which God does not have to pull the wool over our eyes in order to shield us from some truth that we would find to be unbearable. I reached this decision after considering if what I called ‘soul wakefulness’ could be true. We realized that we could only experience joy in a state of ‘soul wakefulness’ if God shielded us from the pain that our loved ones still on earth continue to experience.
Second, I insisted that the state following death should not involve God having to overwhelm us and do something contrary to the nature of the soul. I reached this conclusion after considering the hypothesis of ‘soul sleep’. Given that the natural state of the ‘soul’ would be to remain awake and conscious, especially since tiredness and sleep are properties related to the body, any suppression of the soul’s inherent ‘wakefulness’ would be tantamount to God forcing the soul to exist in an ‘unnatural’ state.
Third, given Paul’s insistence that love endures beyond death, any view that disallowed the continuation of love would have to be rejected. I reached this conclusion when we considered the conventional view of ‘non-reductive physicalism’. According to this view, since we are composed only of physical substance, death involves the cessation of all activities, including the ability to love.
So what we need is a view of human nature and our state following death that permits God to be honest, while allowing us to experience joy, while also ensuring that God does not force himself on us, and while allowing for the continuation of love.
To solve this issue I reach for the property of orthogonality of vectors. According to the linked resource, “2 vectors are called orthogonal if they are perpendicular to each other.” Hence, if we consider one direction to be geographical North-South and the second to be East-West, then the two directions are perpendicular to each other and, hence, orthogonal. While the definition in the link and in most resources remains within the confines of spatial geometry, I wish to extend this idea beyond the realm of space and into the realm of time! But before I do this, let us consider a key takeaway of orthogonality.
If I travel in the North-South direction, I will not be traveling in the East-West direction. No matter how much I move in the North-South direction, I will not move an inch in the East-West direction. In other words, orthogonality ensures the independence of the two directions. Whatever happens in one direction does not affect and is not affected by what happens in the other direction.
Now consider two orthogonal axes of ‘time’. Note that these are not axes of space. The ‘motion’ along these axes is chronological rather than spatial in nature. What happens in one axis does not affect nor is affect by what happens in the other axis. In other words, a person who has access to both axes could move as she wished along one axis without limiting what she is capable of doing in the other axis. However, a person restricted to only one axis can only access that axis and cannot move along the other axis.
A brief note to those who have heard me explain a similar idea before: My view has changed considerably since I last explained it and is now much more nuanced. So read carefully as you go ahead.
Reimagining the Exile from Eden
Now we know the biblical story. God created humans to be his image. However, they rebelled. As a result of this, God banished them from the Garden and exiled them. In most bible translations this is taken to be a spatial move to the East. However, the Hebrew word qedem, most often translated as ‘East’ also has a temporal meaning of ‘before’ or ‘former’, which appears in a not insignificant 33 out of 87 occurrences of the word in the Old Testament. The merging of the spatial ‘East’ with the temporal ‘before/former’ is probably because ‘East’ is also the direction of the rising of the sun, which has a temporal significance. Hence, the use of qedem in Genesis 3.24 could include a temporal aspect of it. Perhaps the reason why all the efforts to locate the Garden of Eden have failed is because this is not merely a geographical quest, but also a temporal one. What I mean is that, when the humans sinned, perhaps the consequence was that they were thrown into another temporal axis, one that is most often isolated from the earlier one in which they existed.
So I ask you to imagine what is in the diagram below.
Allow me to explain. When God first created until the humans rebelled, everything moved along the green axis, which I have called ‘Initial Edenic time’. When humans rebelled, this brought an end to their existence in ‘Initial Edenic time’ indicated by the circle at the end of the green axis. Humans were then banished, not just from space, but especially also from time, into the vertical red axis that I have called ‘Banishment time’. This is the time we currently experience. People are born and die in this time axis as indicated by the two yellow lines depicting the birth and death of one person. Upon death, the person is transferred to the intersection of the three time axes, as indicated by the light blue line. Remember, the green axis has been terminated and there can be no progress along it. The person is raised and joins a kind of ‘holding pattern’ in which he/she becomes a part of the ‘cloud of witnesses’.
In the meantime, ‘Banishment time’ proceeds as we experience it until Jesus returns, at which time, everyone still alive is transformed and also transferred to the intersection of the three axes, as indicated by the dark blue line. Now ‘Banishment time’ is brought to a close as indicated by the circle at the end of the red axis. Now that the purposes of the old creation have been fulfilled, the ‘New creation time’ can begin along the orange axis.
You may be wondering about my statement at the end of the last but one paragraph that the person is raised. What am I saying? Has the general resurrection already happened? Yes and no. I am not trying to confuse or dissemble. So allow me to explain.
When the person dies, he/she is raised and is able to observe that everyone who died before him/her has been raised. From his/her perspective the raising of everyone who died prior to his/her death would happen when he/she is experiencing this raising. In other words, from the perspective of those who are in the ‘cloud of witnesses’, the resurrection has happened. At the same time, being part of the ‘cloud of witnesses’ means that they belong to the group about whom Hebrews 11.39-40 says, “Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.” Those who join the ‘cloud of witnesses’ are not made perfect until everything that has to be fulfilled in ‘Banishment time’ has been fulfilled. Because the ‘cloud of witnesses’ is waiting, a person who dies is able to witness what happens in ‘Banishment time’ beyond his/her death.2 Because they are able to witness what happens in ‘Banishment time’ they are able to derive both joy and sorrow.
Hence, I believe that Alice derives joy when she sees me do something that has a positive bearing for the new creation, something that will endure the purging fires through which the new creation is birthed. (see 1 Corinthians 3.10-15) However, when she sees me experience pain, especially on account of her death, she too will derive sorrow.
Wait, what? There is sorrow after death too? Then why did I reject the ‘soul wakefulness’ view? Let me address these two questions in reverse order.
I rejected the ‘soul wakefulness’ view for two reasons. First, a disembodied soul cannot experience anything like joy or sorrow because humans were designed to experience these in and through their bodies. Second, and probably more important, a disembodied soul does not see the ultimate promise for which we await – resurrection. In the view I have proposed, a person who dies, enters the ‘cloud of witnesses’ comprised of people who have been raised. Hence, he/she witnesses not just ‘Banishment time’ beyond his/her death but also especially the fact that God’s promise of the resurrection is a reality. Hence, from the perspective of the ‘cloud of witnesses’ the resurrection has happened, which is why their hope and joy outweigh the sorrow they may derive from what happens in ‘Banishment time’.
But am I saying there is sorrow even after death? Absolutely! Hear me out. When Paul tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4.30), is this just a rhetorical device or does he actually mean that the Holy Spirit can experience grief? All of Paul’s exhortations in the latter part of Ephesians 4 would be completely meaningless if he is just using rhetorical devices to move his readers. It is only if what he says has some validity that his exhortations could have the needed force to produce changed behavior in those who read his letters. So it must mean that the Holy Spirit can experience grief from what we do. But the Holy Spirit is not trapped in ‘Banishment time’! He inhabits ‘Banishment time’ and the holding pattern of the ‘cloud of witnesses’ and whatever other temporal realm is specifically the habitation of deity. Hence, the holding pattern can accommodate the grief of the Holy Spirit!
And if the Holy Spirit experiences grief, on what basis do we think that those in the cloud of witnesses do not? But you may say, the Revelation tells us that God “will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 21.4) Absolutely! In my view, the ‘cloud of witnesses’ have not been ushered into the new creation yet. And the promise of Revelation 21.4 relates to the new creation. So until God fully brings the new creation, there is no reason for us to think that we are exempt from pain and suffering and grief. After all, if God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, experiences grief now, and we are called to be God’s image, then those in the ‘cloud of witnesses’ must also experience grief at what is happening in the world right now. And they are engaged in their task of crying, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” (Revelation 6.10) In other words, the current job of the ‘cloud of witnesses’, as long as ‘Banishment time’ exists, is to pray to God to end the tyranny of sin and death and to beg for the full realization of the new creation. During this time, they experience joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, just as God, through the Holy Spirit, can be both pleased and grieved by what we do.
In other words, if we think that death ushers our loved ones into a state of utter bliss while the world here is in turmoil and ravaged by the effects of sin and death, then we are severing them from the body of Christ. Rather, since there is only one body, the Church, which transcends both time and space, those who have preceded us in death are not spared the suffering that binds us together in love.
Conclusion
So what happens when we die? If Paul is correct that love endures beyond death, then those who have died must still be in a state in which they can love us. But to love someone who is suffering is to enter into that suffering. This means that, if we believe that those who have died still love us, then our departed loved ones have not entered into some state of bliss but are full participants in our suffering right now. That is the demand of love. Moreover, they must be in a state in which this suffering is possible. As humans, this is possible only when we are embodied, meaning that they have already experienced a raising from the dead. However, since there will be no tears in the new creation, those who have departed are waiting for Jesus’ return to put an end to ‘Banishment time’, following which all of creation will be raised (if they were already dead) or transformed (if they were still alive) to inhabit God’s new creation, which will be without tears.
I would need an animation to depict this. I invite a reader who has good animation skills to help me replace the above static diagram with a dynamic animation. ↩︎
This is an experiment in theological imagination. I will of course not go against what the biblical text says. But I will fill the gaps with my imagination to hopefully synthesize something that might be fruitful and perhaps insightful as well. If you do not like experiments in theological imagination, I suggest you navigate away from this page. But of course, you would then not know what you have missed! So what’s going to win – your desire not to have the boat rocked or your God-given curiosity? Let’s see!
The Context
Recently, someone sent me a text on WhatsApp that read, “Deepak, I am wondering how in the transfiguration, God’s glory shone and the disciples lived. Moses couldn’t and so God didn’t show him.” The twin references are to God’s words to Moses in Exodus 33.17-23 and the accounts of the Transfiguration in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 9.2-8, Matthew 17.1-8, and Luke 9.28-36). Since the passage in Exodus is the quintessential passage dealing with our inability to see God’s glory, let us see what it actually says. In the NRSVUE we read, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘I will also do this thing that you have asked, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.’ Moses said, ‘Please show me your glory.’ And he said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name, “The Lord,” and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.’And the Lord continued, ‘See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.'”
We can link this to the Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5.8) Whatever we conclude about what it means to see God or see God’s glory, we can say that Jesus promises this vision to those who are pure in heart, whatever that means. Since this post is not about the beatitude, I will not deal with it here, though I have dealt with it elsewhere.
Some Initial Observations
Coming back to the passage in Exodus 33, let us make a few observations. First, Moses asks to see God’s glory. In response God tells him that God will ‘make all his goodness pass before’ Moses. However, this goodness passing before Moses is not to be taken as Moses seeing God’s glory because God says, “You cannot see my face” and “My face shall not be seen.” God also says, “I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.” From this I conclude that God’s ‘goodness’ is the same as his ‘glory’. But God obstructs Moses’ line of sight for a bit so he only sees God’s back rather than his face. Now we have to recognize the use of metaphor here. God does not have a face, nor a back!
Second, isn’t there a contradiction with Exodus 33.11a, where we read, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend”? What’s happening here? Within the span of less than ten verses the author of Exodus tells us first that Moses spoke with God face to face and then that Moses is not allowed to see God’s face! Is this a contradiction? Did the author forget what he had written a few verses earlier?
Now, we must allow the biblical authors to use the full gamut of linguistic conventions. In v. 11 the author uses an idiom and actually explains it. To speak to someone ‘face to face’ is to speak with that person ‘as to a friend’. However, to ‘see God’s face’ is to get a vision of God’s glory or goodness. So there is no contradiction or lapse in memory here. It’s just that the author, being a competent human, uses different linguistic conventions to convey different ideas. And what this means, pay close attention, is that the biblical author expected the reader to put in some effort, as much effort as would be needed, to understand what he had written. We must not read the scriptures in a lackadaisical manner.
The idea of seeing God’s face appears earlier in the biblical narrative. In Genesis 32.30, following his name-changing and joint-displacing wrestling match, Jacob names the place Peniel and declares, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” What gives? Is this a contradiction of what God told Moses about the impossibility of seeing God’s face? Absolutely not! We have just seen that the idiom of talking to someone ‘face to face’ is to speak to that person ‘as to a friend’. Hence, to see God ‘face to face’ is to see God ‘as one sees a friend’. Given that this ‘seeing’ involved a life altering wrestling match, this puts a wonderful spin on what true friendship involves. But that’s for another day.
Third, however, what if Jacob meant, “I have seen God’s face”? It is possible that language changed from the time of Jacob to the time of Moses. After all, we do not ‘suffer the little children’ anymore! And the time from the KJV to today is about the time between Jacob and Moses. So what if Jacob meant that he had seen God’s face? We must be careful while interpreting any text to see who is speaking and if that person is capable of making any truth claims he/she is making. In other words, does anything in Jacob’s life so far make him a reliable witness to the event of ‘seeing God’s face’? I would say, “No!” Till this moment, he has been cheating his brother, passing off a curse on his mother, deceiving his father, treating his first wife unjustly, treating his second wife as unworthy of his prayers for the reversal of her barrenness, and doing strange magic on his father-in-law’s flocks! His actual life of faith with God has only just started. Just as we would not rely on a new Christian to interpret the bible, so also Jacob is not a reliable witness at this stage. Hence, in either way of interpreting Genesis 32.30, I do not think that the wrestling match at Peniel is an example of a human seeing God’s face in the sense meant in Exodus 33.20.
Isaiah in the Temple
Another classic example of someone presumably having a vision of God is Isaiah’s call narrative in Isaiah 6.1-13. In v. 1 the prophet reports, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple.” What did Isaiah really see? He saw a very large figure sitting. He saw the hem of the robe that was filling the temple. In other words, Isaiah actually saw precious little apart from the hem of God’s robe! Specifically, Isaiah did not see God’s face! But there are other creatures in the vision, who are described with the words, “Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.And one called to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.'” (v. 2-3) These creatures had six wings, certainly a strange number of wings. Two wings, as we might expect, were used to fly. But why did they cover their feet and eyes?
In many cultures, including in India, one does not display the soles of one’s feet to a person of higher status. This is why, when an elderly person enters the room, the younger people will either stand up, ensuring the soles are in contact with the ground and, therefore, unseen, or will sit upright with the feet flat on the ground, accomplishing the same. Since the Seraphs were flying there was a possibility that they would fly in a way that God would see the soles of their feet. To avoid this, they covered their feet.
But why did they cover their eyes? The words of their song are, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” They saw the glory of God and were compelled to sing that he is thrice holy. But note that for something or someone to be holy does not mean that it is pure or perfect or morally upright. Those may be consequences of holiness. However, holiness itself refers to that which sets something or someone apart from other things or persons. The Seraphs saw something that made them cover their eyes and sing that Yahweh was utterly different, utterly holy. What was it that they saw? Let’s hold on to that thought for a bit.
Ezekiel and the Chariot
The prophet Ezekiel had a similar but more elaborate vision, which he describes in chapter 1. Ezekiel describes God as follows, “Seated above the likeness of the throne was something that seemed like a human form. Upward from what appeared like the loins I saw something like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all around, and downward from what looked like the loins I saw something that looked like fire, and there was a splendor all around.” The figure he sees ‘seemed like a human form’. Both Isaiah and Ezekiel are clear that they saw a figure in human form. I thought they were getting a vision of God!
But Ezekiel concludes the vision with the words, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” In other words, though we think he sees the glory of God, he himself is clear that his description only captures the ‘likeness’ of what he saw. But what did he see? Once again, we will leave the prophet while we continue our exploration.
The Transfiguration Accounts
And so we get to the three accounts of the Transfiguration in the Synoptic Gospels. All three accounts are, as usual, quite Spartan. Matthew tells us, “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light.” This is oddly the most descriptive of the three accounts! Can you believe it? What does it mean, though, that Jesus’ face shone like the sun? Presumably, we can conclude that this was what his glory consisted of. But what did the disciples see? After all, none of us really knows what the sun looks like since we actually cannot look at it. Now in all three Synoptic accounts, Peter suggests making tents for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. And all three accounts tell us that the disciples were terrified at what they saw. What did they see? What was the glory that was revealed to them?
All three Synoptic accounts place the Transfiguration soon after the episode at Caesarea Philippi where Peter confessed Jesus to be the Messiah and following which Jesus told his disciples for the first time about his upcoming crucifixion. In addition, Mark and Matthew tell us how Peter rejected this revelation of a suffering Messiah. Six days after this episode, Jesus took the three disciples up a mountain where he was transfigured. And we still do not know what they saw? Nor do we know what made them afraid.
Peter on the Mountain
However, it seems clear to me that the timing of the Transfiguration was no accident. Rather, it is precisely because Peter made a confession about Jesus but using the words with meanings that were not aligned with what Jesus had in mind that Jesus felt the need to take him and the two brothers up the mountain to receive this vision. Something about the misalignment of Peter’s words with reality led Jesus to take the three disciples up the mountain. Hence, we can conclude that what they saw on the mount of Transfiguration was meant precisely to re-align their idea of who Jesus was and how he was going to accomplish his task with reality.
While recalling the Transfiguration Peter writes, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.” (2 Peter 1.16-18) In other words, according to Peter, the voice from heaven at the Transfiguration confirmed that what they had seen there was honorific and glorious in the sight of God the Father. But we still do not know what Peter, James, and John saw when Jesus was transfigured.
Terrifying Clouds
As mentioned earlier, all three Synoptic accounts tell us that the disciples were afraid. According to Mark, Peter “did not know what to say, for they were terrified” (v. 6), following which they were enveloped in a cloud. In the words of Matthew, after seeing Jesus transfigured and after hearing the testimony of the voice from the cloud, the disciples “fell to the ground and were overcome by fear” (v. 6) In Luke’s words, while Peter was making his suggestion about the tents, “a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.”
The idea of clouds is a common one in the bible. When God gave Moses the Torah on Mount Sinai we read, “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled.” (Exodus 19.16) Here too we find a link between the cloud and the fear of those who are enveloped by the cloud. The narrative goes on to tell us, “Now all of Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently.” (v. 18) The idea of smoke as a substitute for the clouds is also common. In Isaiah’s vision we read, “The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.” (Isaiah 6.4) Were the pivots on the thresholds shaking because of the loudness of the voices or because the pivots too were gripped by fear as the house was filled with smoke. Given that Isaiah can speak of singing mountains and trees that clap their hands (Isaiah 55.12), there is no reason to preclude pivots shaking because of fear!
Daniel’s Night Vision
In Daniel 7, the prophet tells us about a troubling vision that he had. In the vision he sees four beasts, each worse than the ones preceding it, representing four powerful nations that would oppress the people of God. The sequence of bestial kingdoms is brought to an end by a decisive act when Yahweh shows up in his fiery throne chariot and begins to judge the nations. Having dispossessed the bestial human empires, Yahweh proceeds to invest the authority to rule in someone who presumably is worthy to rule the world.
Here too we read about clouds for Daniel tells us, “I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.” (vv. 13-14) The clouds, which in other passages shrouded the mysterious divine glory, now envelop this humanlike figure. Note what Daniel says carefully. He does not say that he saw a human. Rather, he saw ‘one like a human being.’ Whatever does this mean?
Daniel too is afraid when he gets this vision for he tells us, “My spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me.” (v. 15) Even after Daniel receives the interpretation of the vision his fears are not quelled for he writes, “My thoughts greatly terrified me, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter in my mind.” (v. 28) Note the addition of the idea of having his face become ashen after he receives what should have been an interpretation that dispelled his fears.
Reasons for Fear
However, what are the reasons for the fear that all these people confess to having? What gives rise to fear in us? Fear is a natural physical and physiological response to real or perceived threats. When faced with something unknown or something that potentially could harm us (e.g. spiders or snakes) our bodies could respond by making us experience the threat through the symptoms of fear. In general we could say that when we are faced with something that threatens us or those we love, we could respond with fear. However, a greater response of fear would be caused if we are given a tool that supposedly would get rid of the cause of fear but that we believe is insufficient for the task.
For example, if I am facing a cobra that is ready to strike me, I would be justified in fearing for myself. If my friend, who is standing behind me, gives me a sheet of paper with which to fight off the cobra, my sense of fear would increase because the ‘solution’ is just not up to the task at hand.
Similarly, if I were engaged in a sky diving exercise, there would be a certain amount of justified trepidation. But if my instructor hands me my parachute and says, “We did not have time to perform all the safety checks on this,” the fear would increase because the tool given to save my life may be inadequate to the task.
I have not come across a single Christian writer who deals with fear who addresses the increase in fear caused because the ‘solution’ seems inadequate to solve the problem that first gave rise to the fear. It seems that there is a belief, unfounded in my view, that the ‘solutions’ God gives us always satisfy us regarding their adequacy.
Reality Check
However, we have seen that all the visions that reveal God include some substance that obscures what is seen from those who are not invited in. This could be clouds, as in Exodus, Ezekiel, Daniel and the Synoptic Gospels, or smoke as in Exodus and Isaiah, or fire, as in Exodus, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Note that the account in Exodus links all three obscuring substances. What we see in these accounts are that both those who are outside the realm created by the obscuring substance (e.g. the people at Sinai, Daniel before the interpretation, the disciples in Mark) and those who are given the vision (e.g. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel after the interpretation, the disciples in Matthew and Luke) are struck with fear.
For those on the outside the fear is the fear of the unknown. They do not know what is inside the obscuring substance and are afraid for themselves because they think it presents a threat to them. They know that they are facing some insurmountable problem and the enormity of the task at hand gives rise to the fear. For those on the inside the fear is the fear of the known! They have been given a glimpse of what the nature of reality is and they fear for themselves because they think it is insufficient to deal with the problems of the world. They have been told to fight off the snake with a sheet of paper or jump from the plane with a possibly defective parachute.
It is my hypothesis that what those who are given a vision of God’s glory see is something that does not match their expectations. More to the point, what they see is completely different from what they believed would be glorious and, as a result, they are moved to be afraid after receiving the vision in addition to before.
The Gospel According to John
We understand why this is so when we turn to two Johannine works – the Gospel and the Apocalypse. John’s Gospel is different from the Synoptic Gospels in that it does not have an account of the Transfiguration. Yet, John declares, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1.14) The Synoptic Gospels have the account of the Transfiguration to point to and, as we have seen from 2 Peter, this is precisely how Peter viewed the episode. John, as usual, is different. Since he does not have a retelling of the Transfiguration, where in his Gospel do we have evidence that John saw Jesus’ glory?
At the Last Supper, when Judas receives the bread, he leaves them. The die is cast. Now there is no turning back. His betrayer is resolute in his mission as Jesus was in his. And so Jesus says, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” (John 13.31) Earlier, Jesus had clearly linked his death with his glorification when he said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” (John 12.23) Indeed, John himself makes the link when he writes, “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7.39) Given that Jesus breathes the Spirit on his disciples on the evening of the first Easter (John 20.21-23), proclaiming peace to them, the only occasion in the Gospel of John that can qualify as fully revealing Jesus’ glory is the crucifixion.
The Apocalypse of Jesus
When we open the Apocalypse, however, all the strands we have been discussing come together. In a mashup that involves elements from all the parts of scripture we have dealt with so far, John presents to us a central worship scene in chapters 4 and 5. It is best to set this scene in context. The initial vision in chapter 1 depicts Jesus as the one who is intimately involved in the lives of the churches. Then we get the letters to seven churches of Asia Minor in chapters 2 and 3. These letters reveal that the followers of Jesus were facing persecution of differing intensity, each church having different responses. John is then spirited to heaven and the worship scene begins. The questions in the mind of the reader would have been, “What is God going to do about the suffering of his people?” and “Are the forces of evil, now embodied in the empire, going to keep wielding oppressive power over the world and especially over God’s people?”
If you knew that your life was threatened because the nation in which you live was against everything connected to Jesus, surely this would have caused some fear and trepidation in your mind. And you would have asked the questions above, wondering how God was going to ensure that his world would not be ruined and his people would be vindicated for following his Son.
And then you turn the page to chapter 5 and read about a scroll that contains God’s purposes for the world. But no one is found to be worthy to break the seals and open the scroll, that is, to execute God’s plans. Already filled with fear, your fears are now compounded with despair since it seems that no one is worthy to put God’s plans into action. It seems that God’s plans will forever be thwarted by the forces of evil because there is no human worthy enough to be given the responsibility of putting those plans into effect. John begins to weep (v. 4) and we would too if that were the last word on the matter.
However, one of the elders tells John not to weep saying, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” (v. 5) Finally! Now the great warrior will be revealed, the one who would be able to vanquish all God’s enemies and forcefully put them under his feet. You turn with John to take in the overwhelming glory of this all-conquering hero.
And your eyes meet “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.” (v. 6) What!? God was entrusting the future of the universe to this weakling? All of God’s purposes hang on the success of this Jesus who was hanged on a tree? This defeated and executed figure was the one who was found worthy enough to be the executor of God’s purposes?
Conclusion
Surely this is cause for fear! Can we really trust that God defeats all the forces of evil, who have no qualms about unleashing their wrath on us through unending and limitless violence, through the power of self-giving love? If what Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel saw was not just one like a human, but one like a human who had been slaughtered, can we not think that they were afraid because they could not, as we today cannot, really believe that evil will be utterly defeated by the power of nonviolent self-sacrificial love? If what Peter, James, and John saw was a vision of the ultimate reality about Jesus, namely that he was going to be victorious in and through his death, can we not understand why they were so confused and terrified?
Then why did God tell Moses that no one could see him and live? I conclude that it is not because God’s glory is so overwhelming that we will be blown away by it. Rather, because our ultimate goal is self-preservation, the revelation that God’s ultimate reality, the deepest truth about him, the weightiest aspect of his character, is self-sacrificial love threatens our self-preservatory instincts giving rise to utter insecurity, leading in turn to a complete unraveling and death. It is only because the vision on the mount of Transfiguration was tempered by the prior knowledge and experience of Jesus that Peter, James, and John had that they could handle the revelation. And it is only Jesus’ resurrection that certifies that his way was indeed the way of divine victory over the forces of evil.
The unraveling vision of the slaughtered, yet victorious, Lamb is terrifying because, if this is how God won his victory through Jesus then it tells us that he underwrites no other way by which to secure the victory of his kingdom. In other words, the unraveling vision condemns every justification we use for the violence we engage in, and especially violence done in the name of the slaughtered Lamb. The unraveling vision invites us to follow Jesus in his victorious way of self-sacrificial love. And the fact that the Church has, for many centuries now, relegated the way of self-sacrificial love to the margins demonstrates the serious extent to which we have rejected the unraveling vision.
The resurrection narratives in the Gospel according to John are particularly poignant. This is especially so because John devotes quite a large chunk of text on Mary Magdalene. The episodes with Mary finding the empty tomb and then seeing the risen Jesus outside the tomb are moving and evocative. Twice she goes on a mission, once on her own accord with a message of despair for the disciples that the body of her beloved Jesus had been stolen and the second time with an evangelistic message from Jesus for the same disciples, now called Jesus’ brothers, that he was ascending to the Father. The male disciples are somewhat side-lined. They are not at the tomb, nor do they stay there once they confirm that it is empty. Mary, however, is both first and last at the tomb and is rewarded for her patience and tenacity by being the first person to see the risen Jesus. But this post is not about Mary and her encounter with Jesus.
I wish rather to focus on the episode that happened in the evening on the first Easter, when Jesus first appeared to his male disciples (except Thomas, of course). Here is John 20.19-23 in the NRSVUE:
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
When they had seen Jesus last, it was either at his arrest, when they had run away, or, in the case of Peter, at his trial, when he had denied Jesus, or, in the case of the beloved disciple, at the crucifixion, when he watched helplessly as Jesus died. To a man they had let him down either with their actions, words, or inaction. The stalwarts, Peter and the beloved disciple, had not even bothered to go to the tomb with Mary. Nor had they thought of staying back when they saw the tomb was empty. Instead they had joined the others in hiding from the Jewish leaders.
They had all believed that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s designated ruler who would drive out the foreign oppressors. However, Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday had shattered all the hopes that they had placed on Jesus. Surely someone who was under God’s curse by hanging from a tree was not God’s Messiah! Surely the glorious God, who had made Moses’ face radiate with divine brilliance, could not be found associated with a broken and bruised man hanging from a Roman cross.
Some days before his crucifixion Jesus entered Jerusalem in tears, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” Jerusalem and the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were unable to recognize the path of peace when it was presented to them. To the contrary, they rejected the path that Jesus presented to them. As a result, within a generation of Jesus’ crucifixion, Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple burned to the ground as Jesus had foreseen. The rejection of the path of peace and the adoption of the path of violence is precisely what, according to Jesus, would result in the siege of the city and its subsequent destruction. But what was this path of peace?
We can easily point the finger at the Jewish authorities and all the people in the crowd who cried out, “Crucify him,” when Pilate asked them what he should do about Jesus. But the truth is that even Jesus’ disciples had no clue what the path of peace was. Just hours before his death, when he was being arrested, one of his disciples, some Gospels say Peter, struck out with a sword in an attempt to foil the attempt to take Jesus captive. In other words, minutes after he had told them that he was going to die to ratify a new covenant, they had still not understood what the path of peace was. Or more to the point, they rejected the path of peace in favor of the path of violence. This was nothing new. Indeed, right from the occasion when Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, he also rejected the vision that Jesus had.
We must also not fault only Jesus’ contemporaries. I am quite certain that, had I lived in those days, I too would have failed to see how God could achieve a victory through death. And I too would have chosen the path of violence. Even today, as I write this post, I know that, were it not for the grace of God, I would resort to violence at the drop of a hat. When I read or hear or watch what is happening to the Palestinians or how the radical right wing Hindus are clamping down on minorities in India, thoughts of violent retribution readily come to my mind. At my heart I am not a nonviolent person and violence clouds my thoughts often. But I have made a commitment to speak peace regardless of how I feel or think. I will never use words to incite violence because the myth of redemptive violence is taken to be a truth that few, if any, even challenge, let alone reject, rendering us susceptible to its allure. And if we do not challenge or reject it, it will envelop us in never ending cycles of violence from which we will never be able to extricate ourselves. And we will burn in the everlasting fires of a hell we have created through our complicity with violence.
And so, on the evening of the first Easter Jesus appeared to his disciples and showed them his hands and side. He showed them what human sinfulness had done to him. He showed them how he had been violated and murdered by the powers that be. And he showed them that, despite this massive injustice, when most of us would be seething for retributive violence, his first word to them was one of peace. Early in his ministry he had told his disciples that, if someone slapped them on the right cheek, they should turn and present the left cheek in response. This was not a call to being a doormat but a reassertion of one’s dignity through nonviolent means. Now on the first Easter he embodied this very teaching by refusing to blame anyone for his death. He refused to hound anyone as being responsible for killing him and, therefore, of being worthy of facing his wrath. Just as he had told his disciples to put away the sword at his arrest so also he refused to ask the Father to rain down in wrath against Pilate and Herod and Caiaphas and the crowd that had yelled, “Crucify him.” Rather, his first word to his disciples was one of peace.
But his next word to them was, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The implications are clear. If the Father had sent Jesus to speak peace to his disciples and Jesus was sending them in like manner, then his disciples were to be ‘peace speakers’ like him. They were to go out to the world, encountering even those who were violently opposed to Jesus, and speak peace to them. This is the only way in which Jesus’ first two sentences can be understood.
But you may say that this is a tall order. It isn’t easy, after all, to speak peace to those who are bent on destroying you. And Jesus knows this. He is not oblivious to the fact that what he is asking from his disciples requires fortitude the kind of which neither they nor we demonstrate. Not consistently at least. And so he breathes on his disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit as the empowerment to do what he was asking them to do. Moreover, he gives specific shape to the mission he was entrusting to them. Speaking peace shows up quintessentially as forgiveness. He also says that if we forgive someone, their sins are forgiven. But if we retain someone’s sins, then they are retained. But give this some thought. Is he actually giving us wiggle room here to be unforgiving and non-peace speaking? Actually not. If the Holy Spirit is given so that we can accomplish the peace speaking task that Jesus has entrusted to us, then the retention of anyone’s sins is a tacit admission that we do not work under the guidance of the Spirit at best, and that we have actually driven the Spirit from us at worst.
In other words, Jesus leaves us without a choice. If we are his disciples, we are to emulate his peace speaking vocation and forgive the sins of other because he has given us the Holy Spirit precisely to empower us to accomplish that mission. According to Jesus his disciples are those who, because they have seen him speak peace, and because they have been commissioned to do the same under the power of the Spirit, rely on the Spirit to forgive even the ghastliest of sins. After all, Jesus was able to speak forgiveness from the cross! And surely there could be nothing ghastlier.
How is it that we Christians have not seen this as the first word that we must speak? It is the word that we must speak precisely to those who hound us and persecute us. Rather than seeking ways to convince them of our innocence, we must, like Jesus, be willing to bear all sorts of injustice and in response speak the words of peace. Could it be that the world is in such great turmoil today in part at least because those who claim to follow Jesus today have forgotten what makes for peace and have chosen rather to rely on the myth of redemptive violence. Could it be that the Church has forgotten its primary role as ‘peace speaker’ and has surrendered it in an attempt to wield power? Could it be that, in seeking to be recognized and respected, the Church has had to play by Caesar’s rules rather than by the rules of King Jesus? If that is the case, then I pray that those who follow Jesus today will have renewed courage to actually be like him, having the fortitude to face injustice while being messengers of the peace that only comes from him. In this world, ruined by violence, would the Jesus-commissioned, Spirit-empowered ‘peace speakers’ please stand up?
What links the 34thUS President, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jesus’ parable about the sheep and goats? On the face of it, nothing! With most common interpretations of the parable, the parable is totally unrelated to anything that Eisenhower ever said or did. But perhaps this is because we have misunderstood the parable. If your interest is piqued, read on!
Eternal Conscious Torment
In recent months, I have been wrestling with the issue of what happens to humans after we die. Much of this wrestling was precipitated by the untimely death of my wife, Alice, in June 2023. Of course, the wrestling that I underwent following her death was actually only the latest stage in a wrestling that began many years ago. In my early days as a Christian I somewhat reluctantly believed in eternal conscious torment (ECT) for those who died without having accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. In other words, I reluctantly held to a traditional Evangelical doctrine. But somehow the doctrine never sat well with me and, in a manner of speaking, being dishonest with myself, I would often just refuse to wrestle with what was bugging me.
However, watching Alice suffer and die, I realized that I could no longer refuse to wrestle with the matter. Not only does what happens to us after we die play a critical role in understanding why we suffer now, but also what happens to us after we die reveals a lot about the character of God. This is not the place to address either of these issues as they are much too large for a blog post! I have written about this briefly elsewhere but will be expanding on it in the future. Here I will take the opportunity presented by my wrestling to address another issue – the interpretation of the parable of the sheep and goats.
Most Christians, at least those who believe in ECT, will often point to this parable as one that supports the doctrine. After all, in concluding the parable, Jesus says, “And these (i.e. the goats) will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous (i.e. the sheep) into eternal life.” One claim is that, since the parallel Jesus draws is between ‘eternal punishment’ and ‘eternal life’, if we take ‘eternal life’ to be never ending, then ‘eternal punishment’ should also be considered to be never ending. Another claim is that Jesus describes the eternal punishment in v. 41 as “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,”1 thereby “emphasizing [hell’s] purpose as a place of punishment for the forces of evil.” However, there is no reason to think that the ‘eternal fire’ refers to ‘hell’. Such a conclusion is our reading into the text rather than reading out from the text. But, even if it does refer to ‘hell’, we will see that this does not actually teach ECT.
Are the Sheep and Goats People?
So what does this parable actually tell us? Jesus starts the parable with the words, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his throne of glory.” All well and good so far. Unless you are a full preterist, you will believe that this is a statement concerning a future date when Jesus returns physically to judge the world. Jesus goes on to say, “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” The NIV reads, “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” The ESV reads, “Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” However, the NASB reads, “And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (emphasis mine) Wait what? Why does the NASB have the word ‘them’ while the NRSVUE, NIV and ESV have ‘people’ (either with or without the definite article)? Simply because the Greek text has the pronoun autous rather than the word for ‘people’. In other words, as the rules of normal grammar would have it, the pronoun must refer to the closest noun that makes sense of the sentence. Now, there is not a single use of the word for ‘people’ before this for the whole of chapter 25! However, there is a noun before autous that would make perfect sense and that is if autous referred to the ‘nations’. In that case, the NRSVUE would read, “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate [the nations] one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
In other words, this parable has absolutely nothing to do with what happens to individuals when Jesus returns to judge us. To the contrary, it has everything to do with how nations have treated those who were hungry or thirsty or homeless or naked or sick or imprisoned. Our unwillingness or inability to see this is due to the fact that we think salvation, whatever we mean by it, only concerns individuals. However, humans are not just individuals. We are individuals in community, as seen in Genesis 2, where the first thing God declared was not good was the fact that the human was alone. Hence, salvation must address not just our individual lives but also our communal lives. In other words, those forms of communal living that align with the values of the kingdom of God will be ushered into the new creation to enjoy ‘eternal life’. This will include those aspects of nations that demonstrated concern for the weaker and disenfranchised members of our societies. On the other hand, those forms of communal living that are not aligned with the values of the kingdom of God will be discarded on the rubbish heap of condemnation and be subject to ‘eternal punishment’. This will include those aspects of nations that were unconcerned about the weaker and disenfranchised members of our societies or even actively oppressed them.
The Culling of the Flock
Moreover, the phrase “as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” probably does not refer to some indiscriminate separating of species. Sheep and goats serve humans differently. Quite obviously, we cannot get wool from a goat! In addition, goats normally breed faster than sheep and produce more milk than sheep. However, too many male goats would result in too little milk for the shepherd/goatherd to collect, consume, and sell. To have a good supply of wool and milk a balance between the two species would have been crucial. And this, unfortunately, meant the culling of many male kids. This might also be the principle behind the many male animals required for offerings – not a preference for males, but a recognition that only the females have utility beyond their hide and meat. Indeed, the fact that Jesus uses the word eriphos, meaning ‘male baby goat’, incidentally the same word used by the elder brother in Luke 15.29 when he says, “You have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends” (emphasis mine), rather than gida, the generic word for ‘goat’, lends credence to the notion that Jesus was speaking of this kind of culling of the flock rather than a complete destruction of one species of animal. These male kids would have been those elements in the flock that only consumed, either their mother’s milk or the grass where they were foraging, without producing anything, bringing about an instability and imbalance to the flock, thereby requiring them to be culled from the herd.
So in the parable, those nations that proved to be those who consumed others, depriving others of life sustaining resources would be akin to the male kids in the parable, who need to be culled from the flock in order to restore balance to the whole ecosystem. So we can see that Jesus is not even indiscriminately targeting goats as though they were inherently bad, but addressing the separation of those elements of the flock who were destructive to the wellbeing of the flock because they were primarily consumers and those who did not care for the basic necessities of others. In other words, the willingness to consume and hoard even at the expense of others is what sets apart the eriphos from the sheep. We will return to this once we consider some things that Eisenhower said.
Ike’s Indictment
Eisenhower, nicknamed Ike, the 34th President of the USA, was no ‘peacenik‘. He was the commander of the US forces during World War II and played a key role in the defeat of the Nazis, including planning and supervising Operation Torch in North Africa and Operation Overlord, involving the invasion of Normandy. Yet, shortly after the start of his first term in January 1953, in an address titled The Chance for Peace, delivered before the American Society of News Editors on 16 April 1953, Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” (Click here for audio clip in Eisenhower’s own voice.)
This was during the Cold War, mind you, and not at a time when there was no or even reduced global tensions. Yet, during this period of turmoil, Eisenhower could see that the pursuit of the means and ends of war was nothing more than a theft from those who are weak and from our future generations. Despite this, most nations of the world, during and after the Cold War, have supported increased military spending, stealing from those among us who are weakest today and depriving future generations of much needed resources.
Pariahs of the World
In other words, if Eisenhower is right, and I believe he is, then most nations today, with their increased reliance on military spending, have declared themselves to be the young male goats of Jesus’ parable. By relying on military methods and worshipping Mars, most nations have openly declared that they are to be considered as pariahs in Jesus’ kingdom. Many countries devote a sizable chunk of their GDP to military spending. And while almost all the UN member nations have proudly divulged these figures to the World Bank, some, like Canada, France, Israel, the UK and the USA, haven’t even bothered to report to the World Bank how much they spend on public welfare. I wonder why they are silent about this while proudly publishing the figures for military spending! Perhaps their public welfare spending is so high they don’t want to shame the other nations! Or is it because they have such a tiny population of needy people that even huge per capita contributions would appear as nothing? Or is it because publishing these figures would expose them to shame in the eyes of the world? Silence, sometimes, does shout from the rooftops!
From the relative figures of military spending and public welfare spending most nations have demonstrated that they seek to dominate and deprive others. Most nations have revealed themselves to be consummate consumers, who have done little to contribute to the welfare of the world at large. Some countries, of course, are shamefully more guilty than others and have openly declared themselves to be at odd with the values of Jesus’ kingdom. As of now they have sentenced themselves to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Nations in the Kingdom of Jesus
If the parable about the sheep and goats is, as I have argued, not about judgment passed on individuals, but on nations, then most Christians have been looking at the parable with the wrong lenses. Whether or not the parable supports an unending punishment for the ‘goats’ in contrast with the unending life for the ‘sheep’ will depend on how we interpret the Greek words kolasis, normally translated ‘punishment’, and aiónios, normally translated ‘eternal’. After all, there are many kinds of ‘punishments’ with different goals. Punishment could be retributive in nature or restorative. At the same time, we really have no idea what the English word eternal means since Jesus, in John 17.3, uses the word to describe knowing God and him in the here and now. Hence, concluding anything about the nature and duration of the punishment requires further study.
However, if the parable is about judgment on nations then we must understand that there is a place in God’s kingdom for the judgment of nations. God will call not only individuals to account but also nations. And the nations will be judged based on their response to seeing other humans hungry or thirsty or homeless or naked or sick or imprisoned. The public welfare systems of nations will be assessed to see if they prioritized the lives of those who were falling through the cracks. Note that even those who are imprisoned, presumably for some crime, come under Jesus’ public welfare umbrella. So this has nothing to do with whether or not another human deserves some benefit or whether or not he/she is innocent. Rather, nations will be judged for whether or not they realized and acted on the truth that all humans, regardless of the stature in society and regardless of what they may or may not have done, deserve food and water and shelter and clothing and healthcare and hope.
So if I am proud of my nation and its culture and would like to see it gain an enduring destiny in the kingdom of Jesus, what I need to do is encourage my country to spend less on what Mars would want and more on supporting ‘the least of the these’. I need to nudge my nation into becoming a more humane society where every human is treated as a human. I need to lobby my representatives to support policies that allow for the treatment of all humans with dignity and that ensure the provision of basic needs to all humans. Else I consign my nation and its culture to the rubbish heap of discarded human endeavors where it and all it stood for or stands for will be consumed even as it consumed ‘the least of these’. And the same goes for you and your nation!
I will be quoting from the NRSVUE unless otherwise noted. ↩︎
I had not heard of Jeffrey Salkin till Wednesday, 24 January 2024, when I came across one of his posts on the Religion News Service website. He is a Rabbi based in New York City and has a blog and podcast both named Martini Judaism. After reading a few of his posts, I realize that I disagree with him on most of the issues centered around Israel. Yet, he writes well and in a balanced manner. While he is a Zionist, he does not deny the right of the Palestinians to exist between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. So I do not mind recommending his writing to others who wish to get a different perspective than mine on these issues.
The Martini Judaism post I first came across is That SuperJew poster from the 1960s. Not being old enough to have lived through most of the 1960s and probably because I am not a US citizen, I had no knowledge of the poster or what it represented. It seems that, in the wake of the 1967 war, people in the USA and UK began to consider Jews as not being weaklings but being people who were secretly endowed with great power, much like Clark Kent was secretly Superman. In the post Salkin turns his attention to the hands of the SuperJew in the poster, realizing that they are dirty. He presents three possible interpretations of the dirty hands.
First, the anti-Semitic view. Jews are filthy, dirty people. Hence, even the SuperJew, though powerful and strong has unclean hands. Since I was unable to determine anything about the creator of the poster, Harry Hamburg, I cannot comment on whether this interpretation is valid. Hamburg could have been an anti-Semite. On the other hand, he could just have been creating a satirical poster without any intention of disparaging the Jews.
Second, the anti-Zionist view. According to this view, proposed by anti-Zionist Jews like George Steiner, the Jews were intended to be the ‘conscience’ of the world and could only do that if they did not have a nation state. The dirty hands, in this interpretation, comes with the desire to possess a nation state, a desire that is a betrayal of Jewish ideals. Hence, the poster would then be seen as a critique of the Zionist movement, which desired the Jews to have political power in the world.
Third, and this is the view Salkin supports, power itself makes Jewish hands unclean because it is the way of the world. But because we live in a broken world, it is a necessary evil. Since power is a necessary evil, Jews should not shy away from it, but should cautiously embrace it. However, as Salkin observes, if we adopt this interpretation, we need to find ways of critiquing Jewish power so that there is at least the desire to wash those hands and reduce the dirt that is on them.
I found Salkin’s interpretations of the dirty hands quite intriguing. But they also got me thinking about the Church. According to the New Testament, the Church is the fulfilment of Israel. Jesus did not come to found a new religion. He lived as a Torah observant Jew and died the same. The first apostles, like Peter, James, John and Paul, were all Torah observant Jews. And they did not think that they were starting a new religion. As far as they were concerned, the Church was the next stage in the development of Israel. And since all of them were Jews, they could not have been accused of any sort of replacement theology. If you asked them, they would have said that the Church was the true Israel. The inclusion of the Gentiles, foreseen in the pages of the Tanakh (e.g. Exodus 12.48-49, 1 Kings 8.41-43, Isaiah 56.1-8, and Isaiah 60.10-14), was the sign that the Church was the genuine form of Israel for the period following the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Since the inclusion of the Gentiles was supposed to happen after the coming of the Messiah and since, according to the multi-ethnic Church, Jesus was the Messiah, any Jewish community that now excluded the Gentiles could not be the genuine Israel.
However, the conviction of the Church from our earliest records was that if it is the continuation of Israel, then the Church should play the same role as Israel did prior to Jesus’ resurrection. Could this be the reason for which, as recorded in Acts, the repeated persecution of the Christians only served to disperse them among the nations so that they could be ‘salt and light’ as Jesus had said in the Sermon on the Mount? The presence of small groups of Christians in different places of the Roman Empire in the first couple of centuries of the common era ensured that the people in the Roman Empire were exposed to Christian ethical thought.
For example, while infanticide was an accepted practice in the Roman Empire, Christians often adopted babies who were abandoned. Similarly, while Greco-Roman cultures accepted a wide variety of sexual expressions, early Christians held to a strict monogamous sexual ethic. Slowly but surely the ethics of the Christians permeated Roman society. Hence, it is probably fair to conclude that, just as the Jews were supposed to be the conscience of the world, the same vocation was fulfilled in the Church as it got dispersed throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.
Could it also be that, whenever Christians began to wield power, the falsified the gospel and dirtied their hands? It is well known that Jews were persecuted in most places where Christians were in the majority. Antisemitism has been a disease that has infected the Church and affected its witness to Jesus in many places. In addition, we have the situation of the supposedly ‘Christian’ colonial powers sailing off to distant lands to enslave the natives or plunder the lands or both. All of the Americas and Australasia, most of Africa and much of Asia were overrun by these European ‘Christian’ colonists, resulting in the decimation and impoverishment of native peoples the world over. If this is not a case of getting one’s hands dirty, I don’t know what would qualify.
That this situation hasn’t changed much is clear when we consider that the colonial nations like the UK and France and the European settler colonial nation that it the USA occupy the majority of the permanent seats on the UN Security Council with rights to veto anything that does not align with their vested interests. Please note that I am not saying that these countries are – or ever were – Christian. However, with Christian state religions in the UK and France, this was the case of Christians wielding power in these countries. And though the USA supposedly has a charter of separation of Church and State, the first couple of centuries of US history involved European settlers all of whom were from different Christian traditions. That these three countries and predominantly Orthodox Russia use their veto votes to allow injustices to continue is a sad fact that the people of the world are subjected to almost on a continued basis. If this is not getting one’s hands dirty, I don’t know what is.
Unfortunately, Christians in these countries have gotten used to being in the majority and enjoying the ensuant privileges. Now, after centuries of enjoying political clout, many, if not most, of them cannot bear to think of a post-Christian world. We, who live in countries that were, thankfully, never ‘Christian’ wonder about what the term ‘post-Christian’ means. In fact, if these countries used the methods that Jesus decried, could they have ever been truly Christian? And if not, then the phrase ‘post-Christian’ is being used by these Christians only to rue the erosion of their power base and has nothing actually to do with being a Christian or following Jesus. It is just a scare tactic to ensure that their adherents do not actually side with the causes of justice around the world, which would ensure that, as Isaiah put it, “every valley will be exalted and every hill made low.”
The Christians of the first world nations have developed a taste for being in power and they are not going to willingly give that up. But because of this their hands remain dirty. I pray that, in these times of increasing injustice of the first world nations against the developing and underdeveloped countries, the Christians of the developed world, who are in a position to make a difference, renounce their dependence on power and wash their hands. It is time they stopped relying on the security their nations and their military and economic might affords them and start living the reality that the global Church is the one body of Christ placed on the earth to spread the values and priorities of the kingdom of God in it.
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