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This past Sunday we looked at a fascinating story of a conversation between Jesus and some scribes and Pharisees who had come up from Jerusalem to “interview” him. Without recapping the entire message, suffice it to say that the teachers of the law and Pharisees were concerned and upset that Jesus’ disciples did not attend to the tradition of the elders on the issue of ceremonial washing before eating. We discussed how the oral tradition had developed over the centuries, and how the focus of Jewish worship and spirituality had shifted from the temple to the synagogue, and how the Pharisees had come to apply the purity laws of temple worship to everyone. In doing this they had redrawn the lines as to who was to be considered a faithful Jew, a covenant keeper, i.e. who was really “in” and who wasn’t. Speaking of this in more narrow religious terms, the Pharisees and scribes had become guilty of legalism (making a law binding upon the conscience where there really isn’t one) and what I call the “holy huddle” mentality. Jesus rightly rebuked them for their shallow and hypocritical legalism whereby they had forgotten the heart of the law. Jesus also addressed the holy huddle. He pointed out that the Pharisees (and everyone else) were in much worse shape than they thought, that real moral/spiritual uncleanness was a product of the evil which resided in the heart, including the heart of the Pharisee. By this verdict Jesus put all human beings in the same boat. We are all unclean, defiled before God. And so Jesus laid the groundwork for the ultimate solution to this radical problem -- his own death, burial, and resurrection. Though they didn’t know it and couldn’t see it the Pharisees were talking to YHWH’s answer to the problem of Israel’s sin. A new day was dawning. The New Covenant was being ushered in before their eyes. Today amongst professing followers of Jesus in North America the problem is less the legalism of the Pharisees and more its opposite -- a radical antinomianism (anti meaning “against,” nomos being the Greek for “law”). Simply put, antinomianism is the belief that real inner and outer change or obedience to the word of Jesus is not a necessary component of salvation. Combined and mixed in with general cultural redefinitions of the nature of God and of the human condition, this antinomianism has had disastrous results. But legalism and antinomianism share a common trait -- they both constitute attempts to avoid the profound and radical problem of evil (and the defilement which it brings before a holy God) which resides in the human heart and which Jesus intends not only to forgive but to root out if we would be his followers. Antinomianism avoids it by saying it doesn’t ultimately matter if we change morally/behaviorally or not this side of heaven. Legalism avoids it by setting up what appear to be strict and alternative laws and behaviors, which, in comparison to the profound demands of the great commandments, are but child’s play indeed. Though what predominates today in our culture is antinomianism, legalism still lurks in insidious ways, particularly in the conservative back lash against the general moral lawlessness and antinomianism of the day. Pressure groups, interest groups, and holy huddles abound, as one might expect in the attempt to stave off the cultural assimilation and increased paganization of the church. We blink, and we find ourselves more like the scribes than we may think we are. But Jesus’ verdict is still right -- "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.’ For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" This evil which Jesus speaks of is not so much a thing in itself but the absence of something which should be there and isn’t. It is the moral judgment of the creator God cast upon what is left when good departs. Evil is what is left when a created being fails to live out the calling it has received from its Creator. When good diminishes, when a being departs from its intended purpose, what is left is a grotesque caricature of what that being was made to be like. In the case of human beings, evil, the absence of good, is dehumanizing. We were created to be a certain way -- to mirror God’s nature and character and to stand in for him as vice-regents over his world. To be less than that, to be evil to one degree or another, is less than human. We need to look at the ten commandments from this perspective. The ten commandments are negatively framed for the most part. They speak of behaviors (and imply the underlying causal attitudes) which we are not to exhibit. These behaviors are bad or evil in that they are clearly devoid both of proper reverential love for God and active love for neighbor. But these behaviors are almost instinctive. They are part of our condition. They flow almost spontaneously out from the heart. Because of the brokenness, separation, and curse resulting from our rebellion against God, we think, feel, and behave in ways contrary to what is good, contrary to what is God-like, contrary to what it means to reverently love our creator God. And so the negative of the commandments is like a very big stop sign to get our attention. Don’t act that way. That is contrary to good. That is evil. Don’t go there. Each of the negatively framed general commandments suggests the need for sub-commandments, explanatory words which fill out the meaning in more detail. Much of the Old Covenant Torah consists of such explanations. But even the explanations cry out for further details. So it is natural that one would build up a body of laws around the core or general laws of the commandments. Some of these sub-laws necessarily fill in the details and explain the intent of the more fundamental principle. However, other of these detailed, lower level rules or laws serve less as a necessary inference of the meaning of the main principle, and more as a protective fence around the main principle. The difference between necessary inference and protective fence is important. For example, I am not to use God’s name in a trivial or profane or demeaning way. I am to have deep respect for the name of God. What does this mean? By logical inference I may conclude that I would not use God’s name in a curse. I would not use it in a joke. And so I make rules to that effect. “Do not use God’s name in a joke” becomes a secondary but implicit and necessary sub-commandment. To me, these “rules” would be necessary inferences of the main principle. My love and reverence for God however should keep me from a minimalist approach to obedience to this commandment. I do not in any way wish to misuse God’s name. I am afraid I may, and I want to protect myself from so doing. The Jews did this of course. In fear that they might misuse God’s name, they decided not to use His name at all. Thus we do not even know how His name was pronounced. This sort of rule is a fence around the main moral principle. In this case it is a bad fence. Not to use God’s name is to misuse it. But this illustrates the idea of a moral/behavioral fence, which is in essence a good thing. Since in reverent love for God I do not wish to misuse his name, I worry over some common expressions that either use the word ‘God” or some derivative of it like “golly,” “gee” and “gee whiz.” Now I cannot really prove that saying “golly” is a violation of the third commandment and necessarily dishonors God. Thus I cannot prove that it is evil. But to be safe I make a rule to keep that expression out of my vocabulary. I thus make a moral “rule”: Do not use God’s name or derivatives of God’s name in idle expressions like “golly” and “gee.” That rule is a moral/behavioral fence. You might consider it a necessary inference. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether a sub rule is a necessary inference and thus is more universally binding, and whether it is a protective fence, which may be more or less necessary depending on individuals or contexts. So far I have been speaking of negatively framed rules or statements. These help to keep us from evil, from behavior which is devoid of good, behavior which fails to be love for God and love for neighbor. The negatively framed rule is like a big stop sign -- DON’T GO THERE! But always the real good behind the negatively framed commandment is a positive attitude and action -- active love for God and neighbor in a way that mirrors God’s own nature and character. Anything else, to one degree or another, is evil. Obviously the avoidance of the negative does not create the positive. There is another product of the fall which profoundly effects our ability to be what we have been called to be in a positive sense. This is our spiritual/moral/physical lethargy. This lethargy allows us to think we are being righteous when we avoid the negative behavior, when really we just taking on a private, self oriented, “live and let live” attitude toward life and love. There is a huge behavioral and attitudinal space between murdering someone on the one hand and actively/energetically desiring and seeking his good and blessing on the other. In our lethargy we readily inhabit that space, and think better of ourselves than we should. Let me illustrate all this with two or three examples. Why is murder evil? Because it is totally contrary to love. I am called to love and honor God, but I dishonor Him when I desire harm to come to a creature made in His image. I am to seek the good of my neighbor. This means I am to seek to preserve and defend and protect his life and health and well being with as much focus and energy as I do the same for my own life. I cannot love my neighbor and seek to preserve and protect his life and then murder my neighbor. Murder is the extreme absence of the good of love. Murder is the extreme contrary of love. But the absence of the negative does not in itself result in the positive. Love is much more than not murdering. Love is active. Love protects and defends and seeks the good of. Not murdering is a start, but not the goal of love. The end or the goal is active love. I can not murder, but otherwise ignore my neighbor altogether. In order to avoid bringing harm to my neighbor, I may need to build a fence of extra “rules” around the commandment not to murder. These rules help keep me from harming my neighbor. I make a rule that I will not drive over 20mph in my neighborhood. I make a rule that I will not carry a loaded gun. I make a rule that I will not drive after drinking. I make a rule that I will not spank a child if I am angry. I make a rule that I will not smoke. I make a rule that I not pour used oil down the storm drain. I make a rule that I will try not to feed the kids fatty foods. I make a rule that I will try not to watch movies with graphic violence. Etc. Etc. These rules are negatively framed. They involve things I won’t do so that I will not bring harm to my neighbor. But in order not to be neglectful, I may also make rules that require more active effort on my part. I may make a rule that I will check my brakes every day. I may make a rule that I will always have a good battery in the smoke detector. I may make a rule that I will build a fence around my back yard. I may make a rule that my kids will always wear a helmet when riding their bikes. I may make a rule that I will only have a car with an air bag. If I am seeking to love God with all my heart and love my neighbor as myself, I may seek to follow even more active/positive rules regarding my neighbor’s life. I decide that I will pray everyday for the health and safety of my neighbors. I make a rule that I will always stop the car and pick dangerous objects out of the street. I decide that I will volunteer at the hospital or the crisis pregnancy clinic. Likewise with another commandment. Why is adultery evil? Because it is totally contrary to love. Adultery is contrary to God’s design for the created order. To commit adultery is to disrespect God. Adultery is also a failure to love your spouse and the spouse of the one with whom you commit adultery. Adultery wrecks families and destroys children. The same could be said of lust. Why is lust evil? Because lust is contrary to love. The one lusted after is an object to gratify desires. How can you treat a person with dignity, love, and respect and be lusting after him or her? The person you lust after ( no matter how degraded he or she might have become in desiring to be lusted after), is a human being made in the image of God. To lust after that person is to disrespect God. However, the absence of the act of adultery or the attitude of lust is not enough. The negative points to a positive. What is the positive of the commandment? Be faithful. Be patient. Seek the good of your mate. Be faithful to your mate in mind and heart. Love your husband or your wife. Respect and protect the marriages of those around you. To protect myself from temptation in this area I erect a fence of extra or secondary rules. I may make a rule that I will not go out to lunch with women other than my wife. I may make a rule that I will not got to movies where there are graphic sexual scenes. I may make a rule strictly to avoid even soft or mild level pornography. I make a rule that I will dress modestly. I may make a rule that I will not flirt with other women. I may make a rule that I will not sit in restaurants facing the door where people are coming and going, such that where I may be tempted to watch women come and go. I may make a rule that I will not go see “R” rated movies. Some of these rules fall into the protective fence category, some the necessary inference category. We see then that it is good and natural that we build these moral/behavioral fences around the central points of the law of God. We need these various protections and stop signs and reminders. We need to be wise. We need to protect ourselves from temptation. All this is true. I build fences around me in many ways, in many areas of life. There are things I don’t do, not because it is inherently wrong to do them, but because I need to fence myself off from the possibility of certain thoughts or behaviors happening. This process is necessary and right. These moral/behavioral fences are good. In this sense, “good fences do make good neighbors,” in that these rules help me better to love my neighbor. Some of these rules or laws I may recommend to others. You and I may compare notes and see that certain life rules or patterns tend in general to discourage evil and encourage good. As we compare notes and agree about certain behaviors, we are building up a body of collective wisdom, a kind of oral tradition. This collective wisdom or oral tradition is a good thing. But there is a danger. We may come to mistake our rules for the law itself, to give them the same or even greater weight than the primary principle itself. We may come to impose our rules upon the conscience of other people. We may become proud about our rules. We may forget the core matter our rules are meant to protect. I would like to illustrate this process and its pitfalls using the illustration of a real fence. We, the Gillespies, have a fence around our back yard. We put our fence there for three reasons – to keep the kids from wandering off and getting hurt or lost, to keep others from having too easy access to our yard when the kids are playing there, and to enhance the appearance of our yard. Though there is a danger of muddled metaphors here, this fence represents by way of illustration the moral/behavioral rules that fence off and protect me from violating the real heart of the God’s will for me. I am tempted by these moral and behavioral “fences” to make several mistakes, which I will illustrate using the idea of a real fence. First, we have a fence around our back yard ostensibly because we love our kids. Having a fence is a small but a real part of what it looks like for me to love my kids. But the fence doesn’t cause me to love my children in the deeper more significant ways. I can have and maintain the perfect fence, and still be a mean spirited or neglectful or nagging parent. Having a fence may be for me a necessary part of love, but it is not close to being the heart or core of love. Likewise, in fencing off my life with moral/behavioral fences – even in wise and well intended ways – I may lose track of the fact that biblical love is positive in its focus; it is active and seeks to do something, not simply not to do something. I can go my whole life and not murder someone or never drive my car too fast, and still be selfish and hateful and spiteful and delight when bad things fall upon a person I don’t like. The moral/behavioral fence doesn’t change my heart. Second, I can come to focus too much of my energy on maintaining my fence and forget why I had there fence there in the first place. I can go to fence-building and fence-maintenance seminars. I can be after the kids to be careful not to hurt the fence. I can spend an inordinate amount of time taking care of the fence. Likewise, we can fence off our lives with good and wise rules, but then subtly these rules can become the focus of our concern, our time, and our energy. So not only does the very existence of the fence tempt me to forget the many active ways I am to love those inside and outside the fence, but the fence itself begins to become the focus of my energies. Third, I can start to feel pretty proud of myself for my wisdom and goodness in having and keeping up such a great fence. I may be a jerk, but as long as I have and can keep up a nice fence, I don’t know it or see the truth about myself. The standard by which I judge myself has shifted. It has gotten lower. In my pride I think I’m raising the bar with all my concern that people have good fences, but really I’m lowering the bar. Compared to loving the real people inside and outside my fence as God has called me to, keeping up the fence is child’s play. I focus on it to a great degree because it is easier and because it does make me feel quite proud of myself. Fourth, I begin to look down upon folk who don’t have fences or very nice fences. I may be nice to my neighbor, but deep down I’m thinking less of him because he doesn’t have a fence like mine. I become proud of myself in relation to my neighbor. I say to myself, he can’t be a very good father because he doesn’t have a fence. He must be a bad parent. He must be a loser. It may be true that my neighbor doesn’t have a fence because he is neglectful or unthinking. But maybe he doesn’t have a fence because he doesn’t need a fence. Perhaps even his young children are so very respectful and obedient to him that they don’t need a fence to stay in the yard. Maybe he doesn’t want the fence because of the way it effects his relationship with his neighbors. Likewise, there may be very good reasons that our Christian brother or sister doesn’t erect the same moral/behavioral fence that we do. Fifth, I begin to gather with like minded folk in a fence building and maintenance association. We all agree: if only our neighbors had fences then we could turn the neighborhood around, roll back crime, cure family problems, and restore our fortunes as a people. Fences become my mission. Unfortunately those of us with a passion for fences can’t quite agree on just what constitutes a good fence. Some prefer wood, some chain link, some picket, some privacy, etc. Fence association meetings become long arguments and debates. Members present position papers. Soon there are three fence associations. Likewise, our moral/behavioral/political fences easily become our hobby horses. We bear witness to them with greater zeal than we bear witness to Christ. We propose them as the solution to our nation’s problems or whatever. Soon we become almost a separate sect. Sixth, I lose sight of the fact that whatever good I may have intended to bring to others in my neighborhood, the only people with whom I can now effectively communicate already think like me anyway. In my campaign to make sure everyone else had a fence as good as mine, I have divided out the neighborhood into us and them, us fence folk and them non fence folk. Funny, no one but the fence folk want to talk to me anymore, and of them, only the ones who are into picket fences. Plus, in my zeal to build and maintain a good fence, I have communicated to my neighbors around me “do not enter, unwelcome, we don’t want you here.” I was wondering why no one comes over anymore. Seventh, I create a backlash. An anti-fence neighborhood group starts up. To them, the whole problem with the neighborhood is all these fences! If only our neighborhood had no fences everyone would be free, open, harmonious. They call me narrow and close minded. Fence people are mean, intolerant. Fence people are Nazis. Soon, many people who otherwise had fences up for plain and simple reasons, who weren’t part of any fence building campaign, but who just wanted a nice little fence to keep the kids in the yard, soon many of these take down their fences. They don’t want to be thought of a Nazis. Kids begin to drift around. One child gets kidnapped. Two kids get run over by a car. Maybe there was something to fences after all…. Copyright © 1998 by Joel Gillespie. Reproduction for non-commercial use is permitted, provided |
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