Strait, Narrow, and Few

In my last post, I talked about Scripture flowing in one direction on a topic, but then sometimes we see "rocks" that interrupt that flow. One of these "rocks" that I mentioned is Matt. 7:13-14. I've been wrestling with Matt. 7:13-14 for some time now. Some would just tell me to accept the fact that few go to heaven and almost everyone goes to hell. End of discussion. It's settled.

Only that doesn't settle it for me because I see a strong current in Scripture moving toward an earth that is full of righteousness and a heaven with innumerable hosts. It's surprising how often this appears.

It's in the Pentateuch in Numbers 14:21. Here, there are only a few. There are two faithful out of about 2 million and God is ready to wipe them out. Moses appeals to God's mercy and forgiving nature and God responds with forgiveness and mercy and states that "all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." He does not withhold punishment in this incident, and reminds us of the virtue of justice. But He forgives and pardons and redeems and preserves those two and raises up an entire faithful nation that inherits His promises.

This statement in Numbers 14:21 is repeated almost verbatim in Habakkuk 2:14. Again, it's a context of wickedness overwhelming righteousness, and here is this promise. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

In probably the most Messianic Psalm, Psalm 22:1-31, we have a very interesting promise in Psalm 22:27. The Psalmist is forsaken by God, surrounded by enemies mocking and abusing. But eventually God hears and delivers, and promises that "all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord."

There are several verses like this in the Psalms.(Ps. 72:19; 86:9; 66:4; 102:15; 98:1-3, etc. etc.)

And Isaiah? Isaiah surely believed that the whole of the earth was going to honor God. Isaiah 11:9 is essentially the same as Habakkuk 2:14. Isaiah 11 is in a context of the kingdom of God covering the whole earth and is one of the most beautiful descriptions of the earth being full of peace and righteousness in all of Scripture.

And I haven't even talked about Revelation 7:9-12. And Revelation 15:4. And there are many more. Research for yourself.

Some may say, "but those passages are figurative and prophetic". I'll grant that for some of them. But even so, the figures and prophecies have meaning. The overwhelming flow is toward an earth filled with people who know God. You have to try to miss that in the Old Testament. And the innumerable hosts in heaven stands in contrast with few entering a narrow gate.

Yet the most common explanation of Matt. 7:13-14 that I've heard is a reversal of this flow. This explanation says, "Very, very, very few go to heaven. Almost everyone goes to hell." It's as if Jesus came along and on the Sermon on the Mount said, "By the way, all those promises about the earth knowing and turning to the Lord, I'm reversing those. Just a very few people are truly approved. 'Us and them' is the right way to think after all."

The churches with which I've been associated have especially relied on this passage. These churches have shaped my faith and made me much of who I am today. I owe an incredible debt of gratitude to them for my Bible knowledge, study habits, friends, family, good work ethic, appreciation for purity, and many other good things. I love those churches, my people. But these churches have isolated themselves from all others who claim to be Christian and used Matt. 7:13-14 as justification and as comfort for this isolation.

I no longer believe the "us and them" use of this passage is correct or good. According to Wikipedia, these churches have about 120,000 members. There is considerable evidence that the number of members is shrinking at an alarming rate. If their isolation is correct, then less than 0.0017% of the world's population makes it. That isn't a narrow gate. It's a closed gate.

I'm not completely sure what Matt. 7:13-14 means. Consider the immediate context that promises that "all who seek will find" and "whoever knocks, it will be opened for him" (Matt. 7:7-8). The immediate context emphasizes that the Father knows how to give good gifts and wants to give them more than we do (Matt. 7:11). In light of that, I don't think He's saying that there's a pattern for worship hidden in the New Testament and about 1 out of 100,000 in the world will find it and those will be rewarded with the good gift of heaven while the rest of the world just won't get the blessing of God's eternal goodness.

However, no matter the numbers and despite its contrast from the context, Matt. 7:13-14 still has meaning. I do not want to ignore this verse. I do not want to ignore the flow of Scripture. How can I honor both?

The rock is still there and the river is still flowing and God's voice is in this sound of the flow against the rock. The earth and heaven will be filled with innumerable people who know God and His love and justice and peace. Few enter the narrow gate that leads to life and many go the broad way to destruction.

One idea that I think has some merit is this: Jesus was speaking exclusively to a Jewish audience. Those in that Jewish audience were His contemporaries. His teachings were very strange and contrary to them. Very few of His Jewish contemporaries would heed His word. Maybe.

Perhaps He is talking about a way of life more than eternal destiny. He's talking about a way of life that truly lives by the golden rule and gives to the needy and shares and puts others' needs above one's own. There are really few who truly live self-sacrificially, even though that is a brilliantly simple and fulfilling yet difficult ethos that brings life. Perhaps.

Or maybe He really is saying that only Christians will be saved and there will be few of them. In the world today, about 2 out of 7 people claim to be Christian. Even if "not every one who says Lord, Lord" (Matt. 7:21) makes it to heaven, a little over 2 billion is enough to cover the earth but it's still a relatively narrow gate. Maybe.

Or maybe the truth is in the sound of the flow against the rock. Just like Joshua and Caleb were alone among the spies and the vast numbers in the whole camp of Israel, God redeemed the camp and raised a nation. To this nation in His perfect timing, He sent His Son. His Son was alone and rejected and abused and killed. Even though His followers disbanded and forsook Him in His darkest hours, God raised Him. And God redeemed those followers who disbanded and turned them into the church, the kingdom of God, that now covers the earth. In spite of overwhelming odds and a very small beginning, God's name and glory will cover the entire earth and God will continue to redeem the faithfulness of His servants to spread love and peace and justice. That's what I think is the best explanation.

But for sure, I'm convinced that Matt. 7:13-14 is NOT a passage to give any one tiny sect a raison d'etre. It's not intended for folks to quote then congratulate themselves for being the few who figured out God's true will. It's not intended for people to use as justification for sitting on their hands and isolating themselves from other followers of Jesus. It's not there to give comfort for a small sect's own numbers falling because "broad is the way" and "this evil world doesn't want the truth". I'm sure of that.

Instead of worrying about who's in and who's out, I should put more effort in loving God and loving others. More like Him.

The Greatest Is Love

This post is related to my post about how to read the Bible. In that post, I recommended NT Wright's suggestion that we read entire books and entire letters at once instead of in small chunks. Taking this advice, I sat down and read all of First Corinthians. What caused me to read 1 Corinthians is that I stumbled upon a quote from chapter 15 that intrigued me and I wanted to see it fit. (In my opinion, chapter 15 is one of the most important chapters in all of the New Testament letters. Maybe more on that at another time.) During this reading, though, chapter 13 jumped out at me.

Reading 1 Corinthians as a whole and using it as a window through which to view the entire New Covenant changed my perspective on this chapter. Previously, I had used 1 Corinthians 13, especially verses 8-13, to condemn those who claim that the Holy Spirit works and lives in God's people today in a supernatural way. Why would such a beautiful description of love be used to condemn? I had totally missed the point.

When Paul wrote this beautiful chapter, the church at Corinth was a mess. He had already dealt very forthrightly with many of their problems in the chapters prior to this one. They were proud of their own wisdom and knowledge. They were divided personally, claiming allegiance to different preachers. They were divided spiritually by taking pride in their various spiritual gifts and holding other spiritual gifts in contempt. They were divided socially with the rich mistreating and shaming the poor, especially during the Lord's Supper. They were going to court over some of their differences. Apparently, some were not even convinced that there is only one God. They were tolerating, even taking pride in sexual immorality in their congregation. Their assemblies were chaos. Numerous men and women were interrupting one another and speaking over one another in the assembly. Some were even denying the resurrection. What a mess of jealousy, envy, bitterness, injustice, immorality, carnality, heresy, and rudeness!

What caused these problems? They lacked love. Chapter 13 is a beautiful description of love. It's filled with figures that magnify love. And love is the remedy to their problems. Let's read it together...

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
(1Co 13:1-7 ASV)

Even the greatest of spiritual gifts and good deeds, if they are not from love, are meaningless. Love is filled with virtue and absent of any bad thing. Love never fails. Then, Paul finishes this chapter in a surprising way. What follows almost seems not to fit. Paul, in the midst of that beautiful description of love, says that we are at present incomplete, but we will be completed. Notice the present incompleteness below.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
(1Co 13:8-13 ASV)

This chapter is far more than a simple exhortation to love. Sure, patience, humility, truth, and forgiveness, love in other words, is our duty. But if viewed as a duty, it can at best bring temporary change. This chapter is telling us more than that. Love is ultimately what will characterize us when God completes His redemptive work in us. What NT Wright says about this chapter in Surprised by Hope on page 287 is beautiful.

The point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love is not our duty; it is our destiny. It is the language Jesus spoke, and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food they eat in God's new world, and we must acquire the taste for it here and now.

This chapter is pointing to a glorious future with love. And Paul goes on to describe this resurrection future for us in chapter 15. Love is the greatest virtue of all, even greater than faith and hope. We will be resurrected and perfected in love! That's the point of this chapter.

I don't really understand how I once used this chapter to condemn others. I don't now understand how I could have drawn such a hard line that the "perfect" in verse 10 was the completed New Testament canon. Paul, as best as I can tell, never gives any indication of a completed canon and it is doubtful that his readers would have understood such a reference. I once thought that those who did not agree that the "perfect" was the canon were simply looking to justify their own disorder and good feelings. That was a harsh and presumptive position to take.

I don't believe that this chapter is at all about the canon of the New Testament. This chapter certainly isn't about condemnation. This chapter no more condemns supernatural spiritual gifts than it condemns anything else, except a lack of love, which it indirectly condemns quite a fair amount. Let this chapter remind us that a surprising, no an astonishing, destiny of love awaits us in the resurrection and we need to be busy preparing ourselves for that destiny right now. 

To be sure, I'm not saying that verses 8-13 can't be interpreted to support cessation of supernatural gifts though I disagree with that interpretation. Sure, now with a knowledge of history and a knowledge of the canon, one can read cessation back into this text. However, I can't imagine that the readers at Corinth would have understood the "perfect" to refer to the canon. I don't think that is an unreasonable or dishonest interpretation. I understand the arguments for it, and those arguments make some sense but they also have some flaws. I don't believe this passage teaches a cessationist position, but that's not the point. When its primary use is to prove a cessationist position, and then that position is held to very strongly and used to condemn others, then this passage has been abused. The theme of this passage is love, not condemnation and not cessationism.

I pray that I will be resurrected to a destiny of perfect love. But until then, I pray that I can grow in love to be more like Him.

Moses At The Bush

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Bible records for us a fascinating dialog between Jesus and the Sadducees, specifically regarding the resurrection. Please read these accounts in Matthew 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27, and Luke 20:27-39. 

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They had what they thought was a rock solid argument in favor of their position, proving in their minds that the notion of a resurrection couldn't possibly be consistent with Scripture. But they had misapplied Scripture as Jesus would show. Their argument went like this:

1. The law of Moses mandated levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5-10) to preserve a man's name. 
2. Suppose there were seven brothers who died without children after being married to the same woman. (This was not an unreasonable or impossible scenario. Uncommon, but not unreasonable.)
3. Which of the seven brothers would have her as wife in the resurrection?  If the resurrection is true, in their reasoning, it is inconsistent with the law of Moses.They thought there was no answer to this question.

Jesus' answer to this question is simply amazing. First, He deals with their hypothetical question, showing that it is an invalid question to begin with. There are no marriages in the resurrection (Matt. 22:30), so the question of whose wife she will be in the resurrection is nonsense! Second, He very sharply rebukes their disbelief in the resurrection. He tells them that they should have known from reading the passage about Moses at the burning bush that there is a resurrection (Mark 12:26-27).

That last part of this story is what I want to look at closely. In the past I have argued that Jesus based His entire argument on the tense of one verb in one verse when He quoted Exodus 3:6 and said, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."  Did Jesus actually base His entire argument on the tense of that one word?  I would like to suggest that there was much more going on in this application of this burning bush passage than the tense of one verb. I don't believe Jesus was teaching us to build arguments about critical Bible principles based on small details in the text.

If that's not what Jesus was teaching, then what was He teaching? We do learn a hermeneutic lesson from this story. It's just not the hermeneutic lesson that I've been teaching. Jesus' argument for the resurrection did NOT rest solely on the tense of one verb in the Septuagint translation of Exodus 3:6. First, Jesus called their attention to Moses at the burning bush, calling to their minds the entire story. That story includes a poignant description of God's name, power, and nature (Ex. 3:14-15). It is the first revelation of God's name (Ex. 6:3) and nature to any man. The tense in this passage is part of the very nature of God, not a small linguistic detail. God is. Period. Second, Jesus expected them to understand that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died by the time this incident happened. He expected them to have some knowledge of the history taught in the books of Moses. Also, Jesus expected them to understand that God is the God of the living. That's interesting because "the God of the living" isn't something being addressed in the immediate context. "The God of the living" is a large theme throughout the Bible (Gen. 9:16; Psalm 56:13; Isaiah 8:19; etc.). There is so much more going on here than just the tense of one word in one verse. Yes, the tense of that word is important, but there is so much more in the context to indicate the tense than just that one word in one verse.

To argue that Jesus main argument rests on the tense of one word in one verse, as I have done repeatedly in the past, is borderline absurd. It's more unreasonable when I consider that in Luke's account (Luke 20:37), He doesn't even quote the verb! Then, when I consider that the verb is present tense in the story, but it's being used to prove a future event (the resurrection), it's clear that the tense of one verb is not the most important thing going on.

So, here are a couple of closing observations on this passage.

1. Jesus expected the Sadducees to have deduced from the story about Moses at the burning bush that the resurrection of the dead is a fact. They had not read this story correctly. They had not handled the Scripture accurately (2 Tim. 2:15).
2. Their rejection of the resurrection of the dead was an insult to the power of God, and that power was on display in the story He called to their attention.

So, when we look at the facts, Jesus did NOT base His entire argument on the tense of one word. Far from it. He based His argument on the historical context, the nature and power of God, and the overall teaching of Scripture. That's our hermeneutic lesson from this story. Consider the context, the nature and power of God, and the overall themes of Scripture when interpreting a passage. Jesus did not say, "Exodus 3:6 settles once and for all the question of the resurrection." Don't build a theology using single verses.

I pray that I will learn to properly interpret the Scripture, more like Him.

My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts

You may recognize the title of this post as coming from Isaiah 55:8. I've used this verse a few times when I've run across some difficult text or commandment in the Bible. I've basically used this verse to teach that God says, "You obey Me and like Me whether you understand why or not. You don't have to understand why or like it to obey it." Also, often when I cited Isaiah 55:8, I went on to verse 11 (kinda ignoring verse 10) to be sure we knew that God's word will do what He intends whether we understand or not. Though I never said it quite this way, the not so subtle message that my misuse of this passage sends is that God says, "Because I said so."

I'm sorry that I have used this passage that way. I do not believe that is the intent of Isaiah 55:8 at all. If so, then how do we reconcile that with words from the same author in Isaiah 1:18 where God says, "Come, now, and let us reason together"?

Even a cursory reading of Isaiah 55 shows that God's mercy and love are under consideration in the context. He is more merciful and loving than we are. He will extend His salvation to everyone on the earth. That's what is meant by "My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways." God will show mercy and pardon to all who seek Him. What a beautiful picture is painted of God's word coming to the earth to enrich and nourish His creation! Just as the rain and snow from heaven give life to the earth, God's word gives life to us.

Back to Isaiah 1... The context there is a contrast between God's love and mercy and Israel's abuse and oppression. God says, "Come and reason with me. Be merciful as I am. That is My desire for you." You see, God's desire for us is to reason and learn that He is loving and merciful, more so than we are. Because of that, His ultimate desire for us is that we be more loving and merciful, to be better than we are. And He helps us to accomplish that through the example and the forgiveness that is in Jesus.

God wants us to understand that love is the ultimate good. Love is at the center of all of His communication with us (Matt. 22:36-40). God challenges us to learn that. God does not say, "You just do exactly what I tell you and only what I tell you without thinking about it because you're too simple to understand Me anyway." I've used Isaiah 55:8-11 to say almost that, but God wants much more from us. Blind submission is not even remotely under consideration there.

If I don't understand how a directive from God or an action of God is loving, then I don't understand that directive or action. God help me to understand Him better and be more loving, like Him.