“(Abraham) said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:31)
There are repeated efforts to nullify the witness and teaching of the Old Testament by neo-Gnostic attempts to separate the Old from the New. The Gnostic exemplar par excellence, Marcion tried to show that the God of the Old Testament was not the same God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but what he called the “Demiurge”. Consequently, separated from God’s revelation of himself and his expectations of his people, the Gnostic sects of the second and third century were mired in antinomian immorality such as pansexual behaviour.[i]
Today we have teachers undermining the authority of Old Testament by restricting its function for Christians as merely a forerunner to the incarnation, or other dismissive denotations. A message doing the rounds on social media caught my eye and it typifies this undermining of the authority of God’s word.
“You can’t follow Jesus and ignore his fulfilment of the Law. You can’t quote Leviticus and then eat bacon and wear polyester.”
In a screed too long to reproduce here, the writer was basically inferring that because Jesus “fulfilled” the Law of Moses, we don’t follow any of it. Of course, the writer was failing to make a distinction between the cultic, ceremonial and civil laws which applied to ancient Israel and the moral law which does not fall away. The popular American preacher Andy Stanley has argued that Christianity must be “unhitched” from the Old Testament, and he believes that the leaders of the early Church “unhitched the church from the worldview, value system and regulations of the Jewish Scriptures”[ii]. This attempt to distance the Old Testament from the New or more radically, to discard it as being God’s word to us today, is also an attempt to distance Jesus from the God who revealed himself to the people of Israel.
In Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees, he plainly asserts his divinity in passages such as John 8:48-59.
“So, the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”[iii]
He thus also implied his presence throughout the events of the Old Testament.
Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians[iv] asserts that Christ was spiritually present in the events of the Old Testament, both as saviour and judge, and the Old Testament episodes of judgement are also lessons for Christians – i.e. that God judges immoral behaviour and disobedience in his people. The behaviours that Paul lists[v] which exclude us from the kingdom are from Leviticus, and the decision of the early church in Acts 15:20 is an instruction for us all to keep the moral law. This the Holy Spirit enables us to do, even though our flesh is inclined to rebel.
The images in the gospels showing Christ as judge are not only applicable to some far distant future event, but Christ was judge in Old Testament times, is presently judging, and will be the judge on the last day. The incident of Ananias and Sapphira show that Jesus’ statement that he came to save the world and not to judge can be misinterpreted to mean that he would never in this life judge unrepentant sinners who spurn or presume upon God’s grace.
Throughout scripture Sodom and Gomorrah stand as paradigms of divine judgement (texts such as Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 1:10; 13:19, Jeremiah 49:18; 50:40, Lamentations 4:6), and archetypes of a society in the final stages of corruption and evil (see Isaiah 3:9, Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46,48,49; Amos 4:11, Zephaniah 2:9). The New Testament scholar Peter Jones observes that,
“Sodom and Gomorrah have always served as the symbol for end time pagan idolatry, ultimate moral disintegration and eschatological divine judgment.”[vi]
Jesus employed the same paradigm of judgement in his dramatic prophetic denunciations to illustrate the seriousness of his hearers’ situation. (Matthew 10:15; 11:23,24, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12; 17:29.
The epistle of Peter also emphasises the incident as a sobering example of divine judgement that should spur his readers to live holy lives (2 Peter 2:6). The passage in Jude which mentions the judgement of the cities has some important aspects.
“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe…
Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”[vii]
This passage is explicit that Jesus was spiritually present during these Old Testament events. The oldest and most reliable manuscripts have Jesus and not the Lord. The reference to the cities would have been particularly powerful for his audience because smoke could still be seen rising over the site of Sodom and Gomorrah when this was being written[viii]. These episodes were not seen as events which belonged in the misty realms of a legendary past, but a present warning – these cities are undergoing an eternal punishment. There is a taking up of past present and future judgment together in the mighty righteousness of God. The warning is clear – Gods standards have not changed. Your word is eternal sings the Psalmist. Standards and consequences for disobedience are unchanging whether people believe it or not. Warm fuzzy images described by former Archbishop Justin Welby about gay life[ix] are only reassuring to those who are ignorant of history and sit lightly on the clear word of holy writ. Neither are his ‘pro hominem’ pleas a rational engagement with the issue – being a nice virtuous person in dealing with others does not exempt one from obedience to God’s standards for sexual behaviour. Adherence to faithful relationships does not absolve one from wilfully unrepentant lifestyles.
With the election of an Archbishop of Wales in a same-sex civil partnership, and a new Archbishop of Canterbury that supports same-sex marriage and the murder of the unborn[x], the historic churches of England and Wales have sent a signal to the worldwide church. Despite the soothing pabulum of the initial statements after their elections, it is in fact in my opinion, a hubristic decision which dismisses the witness of the worldwide communion. It is a visible sign of the co-option of the Church to serve the interests of a technocratic managerial ruling class.
These appointments have multiple effects, influencing others – even those who are not under their direct authority, even those who are not Anglicans, or believers for that matter. Every person elected to a position of leadership in the church is a role model and has a powerful influence over the faith and theological understandings of others -especially those who are immature in the faith, and those struggling with difficult personal issues. They will be led like sheep, and they will be led further away from God’s truth.
These churches have, in the words of Mouneer Anis, adopted theological positions that are heretical[xi], and have not only distanced themselves from the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide, but may have closed the door to any reconciliation.
The Church hierarchies of The Episcopal Church, The Church in Wales, The Scottish Episcopal Church and now The Church of England have made their choice to leave orthodoxy. Our choices have eternal consequences and the choices our leaders make have eternal consequences for multitudes.
The choice has been made, the path chosen – perhaps these elections signal that the Judge of All the Earth has made his judgement. He, after all, respects our free will and gives people what they desire. One glimmer of hope is the fact that the Lord judges, with an ultimate salvific intent and he must surely be concerned for the multitudes who have been betrayed by their shepherds.
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”[xii]
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[i] The members of the Gnostic Carpocratian sect were notoriously hedonistic; see Irenaeus, Ad Her, Book 1, Chapter 25.4; also, Clement of Alexandria, To Theodore.
[ii] Quoted by Albert Mohler, see: https://albertmohler.com/2018/08/10/getting-unhitched-old-testament-andy-stanley-aims-heresy/
[iii] John 8:57,58.
[iv] 1 Corinthians 10:1-14.
[v] 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, Colossians 3:5-10, Ephesians 5:3-6.
[vi] https://truthxchange.com/androgyny-the-pagan-sexual-ideal-part-1/
[vii] Jude vv5,7.
[viii] See Philo, Life of Moses 2.56; Wisdom of Solomon 10:7; On Abraham 141.
[ix] Justin Welby: ‘I was thick’ over same-sex relationships, see: https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/i-was-thick-welby-s-comments-over-same-sex-relationships
[x] In a past interview she declared her stance on abortion as ‘pro-choice’.
[xi] https://firstthings.com/sarah-mullally-and-reforming-the-anglican-communion/
[xii] Matthew 9:36.