Paul wrote Galatians as a rebuttal of the legalism that was infecting the churches in the region of Galatia.  These Galatian Christians had come down on the wrong side of early church’s law controversy.  This controversy is discussed in part in Acts 15.  Some Jewish Christians (probably former Pharisees) were arguing that, in order for Gentile Christians to be saved, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses” (Acts 15:5).

One of the synchronisms between Acts and Galatians that is fascinates me is the coupling of Galatians 4:9-11 with Acts 18:21.  Galatians 4:9-11 concerns the observance of feasts and certain Biblical times:

But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?  You observe days and months and seasons and years.  I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain (Gal 4:9-11).

Opponents of Sabbath-keeping use this as a proof text that Christians are not supposed to keep the Sabbath anymore.  Proof-texting is the practice of slicing and dicing Scripture, usually with no attention to context, in order to get the Bible to say whatever one wants it to.  Lift verse A out of context, take verse B out of its historical setting, put it together with a misapplication of verse C, and all of a sudden Christians are supposed to sacrifice their children to Caesar.  This has been the main method of Biblical exegesis taught to Christians for the past several centuries.  It is the source of most of our errors today.  But I digress.

When we couple Galatians 4:9-11, with Acts 18:21, we see what might appear as a contradiction.  In Acts 18:21, Paul tells the Christians in Ephesus, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem.”  But in Galatians, he admonishes the church because they “observe days and months and seasons and years.” (As a side note, Paul may have written this about the time of a Jewish jubilee year).

Taken together, these texts together create some interpretive problems for us.  Paul has already planted the church in the region of Galatia.  He then writes them a letter saying that they shouldn’t  “observe days and months and seasons and years.”  Then, he returns there after telling the Ephesians that he must go to Jerusalem to keep a feast (see Acts 18:23).

So now we have a bit of a problem.  It seems Paul is contradicting himself, telling the Galatians not to observe feasts and the like, while at the same time observing them himself.  There are a few solutions:  1) Paul is a reverse hypocrite, binding practices to himself that he doesn’t bind to other Christians.  This doesn’t seem to make sense, because Paul equates Mosaic ordinances with the bondage of slavery.  Why would he want to be in bondage?  2) Paul changed his mind on feasts between Acts 18:21 and Acts 18:23.  But he makes clear to the Galatians that his letter is not teaching anything different from what he taught to them at the first: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8).  So we can’t say that he has changed his mind somewhere on feasts.  And if he did change his mind, then he would be under God’s curse.   3) There is a difference between Paul going to Jerusalem to “keep” a feast, and the way the Galatians “observe” holy days.   As we shall see, this is indeed the case.

To understand this, it is vital to read Galatians 4:9-11 in the context the whole epistle and especially Galatians 3:26 – 4:8.  Paul writes:

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.  Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods (Gal 3:26-4:8).

Paul contrasts being “under the law,” with the “adoption as sons.”  Paul also uses the phrase “under the law” in Romans 6:14 and 15, written after Galatians.  In Paul’s mind, this concept of not being “under the law” is not a license to sin, but rather the reason a Christian doesn’t sin.  After all, Paul says, “…sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.  What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!”  (Rom 6:14-15).

Paul makes clear the law he is referring to is not just the ceremonial laws of Moses, but the Ten Commandments as well, because he defines law at least in part by one of the Ten Commandments.  Continuing his line of thought from Romans 6 into Romans 7, Paul says, “… I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Rom 7:7b).  Clearly “you shall not covet” is a member of the Decalogue, so Paul isn’t just talking ordinances here.  But Paul is also saying that the law still tells us what is and isn’t sin.

Paul also makes clear that Christian obedience is different from the kind of obedience under the Law of Moses.  Paul says in Romans, “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:6).   The Christian does not serve God by a list of do’s and don’t’s, by a panoply of rules and regulations.  Because God in His grace gives the Christian the Holy Spirit, the Christian has the spirit of sonship, so the Christian serves by the supernatural transformation that causes him or her to naturally do those things that please God. 

Both in Romans and in Galatians Paul discusses our adoption as sons and daughters of God, where we are adopted into the same sonship with God the Father that Christ has had with Him from eternity.  Christ cried out “Abba, Father!” in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36), with Abba being the Hebrew word for Daddy.  It is this same Spirit, Paul says, that we are given.  Since Christians have “put on Christ,” we are adopted by God as children, and given the same intimate personal relationship with Him that Jesus has had for eternity.

As Paul says, God gives the Christian a spirit of adoption, an intimacy with Him that cannot be captured by a checklist of rules and regulations.  When the infinite Father offers His infinite self to us in relationship, no set of rules, no matter how vast, can possibly define that relationship.  Indeed, a loving son obeys his earthly father, but no loving son bases his relationship with his father on a list of shalt’s and shalt not’s.  Why would a Christian relate to his Heavenly Father differently?  Rather than approaching God according to this spirit of intimate love, the Galatians were approaching God according to a spirit of legalistic outward observances and rules.   Paul says they were serving God as slaves.

The problem with the Galatians isn’t specifically what they did, but why and how they did it.  For instance, Paul tells them not to undergo circumcision.  But in Acts 16:1-3, we see Paul circumcising the uncircumcised half-Jew Timothy “because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek” (Acts 16:3-4).  The Galatians were circumcising ritually in order to earn salvation, while Paul circumcised Timothy so that he would be allowed into the synagogues with Paul to preach Jesus.

The Galatians were trying to justify themselves before God by their own righteousness, rather than accepting the justification offered freely by grace through faith.  Paul tells the Galatians, “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Gal 5:4). 

Now that we have an idea of the context of Paul’s statement, let’s consider the ultimate verse in question:   “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?  You observe days and months and seasons and years” (Gal 4:9-10).

The Greek we translate “observe” here is paratereo.  It does not connote “keeping” a day, or “celebrating” as we might use the term today.  It connotes a check-list sort of Pharisaical observance.  Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown describe paratereo as “sedulously observe.”  Sedulous means doing something in a very detail-oriented way, like the way Pharisees in Jesus’s time kept the Sabbath and the Mosaic ordinances.  But Jesus never kept Sabbath sedulously in this sense.

Vine’s Expository Dictionary says of paratereo in the context of Gal. 4:10, “…‘to watch closely, observe narrowly’ (para, used intensively, and No. 2), is translated ‘ye observe’ in Gal 4:10, where the middle voice suggests that their religious observance of days, etc. was not from disinterested motives, but with a view to their own advantage.”

More, paratereo is used elsewhere in the Bible in the context of keeping a certain day, namely the weekly Sabbath:  Speaking of the Pharisees, Mark writes, “And they watched Him closely [“watched closely” = paratereo], whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him” (Mark 3:2).  And it is used identically in Luke 6 to describe the same instance.  Luke 14:1 uses paratereo in the same way to describe a similar incident.

In Mark and Luke, paratereo is used to connote a very detailed, assiduous attention to outward actions, aimed at finding the slightest little thing that could be overblown into a grievous sin.  In the gospels, paratereo is translated “watch closely.”  It would fit to translate it as such in Galatians too.

Opponents of Sabbath keeping use Galatians 4:9-11 to “prove” that Christians aren’t to celebrate the Sabbath anymore.  Adventists argue that Paul wasn’t talking about Sabbath at all here, but other days.   As is often the case when Christians set to slinging mud at each other simply to win a fight over who is the greatest in the kingdom, the reality is that both are wrong. 

Paul doesn’t give any direction on which specific days he means, instead using a very general blanket statement of “days and months and seasons and years.”  I would say Paul was indeed talking about Sabbath… and Hanukkah, and Passover, and Pentecost, and any other day that a person might keep legalistically in order to win merit before God by his own righteousness.  Even those who keep Sunday could do so in a way that violates Paul’s statement. 

Because Paul’s problem wasn’t the actual “days and months and seasons and years” themselves.  After all, he himself was about to celebrate the feast of Pentecost with his countrymen.  And certain passages in Paul’s other letters and the book of Acts, for instance Romans 14 and Acts 15, seem to indicate Jewish Christians were at liberty to keep the feasts if they desired, but not as a means of winning merit before God.

Rather, Paul’s problem was the way the Galatians were keeping days, with a Pharisaical bent, with a careful and constant eye to every little detail, in order to keep it “perfectly” and thus cause God to accept the keeper.  Truly, Christians are not to observe Sabbath any more, in the sense of the paratereo of the Old Covenant.  Sabbath has no power to justify and save.  But celebrating Sabbath through the enjoyment of God is another story altogether.

In divorcing Paul’s warning from its context in order to defend Sabbath-keeping, we Adventists may have ignored a very important warning to us about how to treat the Sabbath, or any other celebration for that matter.  The Christian who keeps Sabbath legalistically and meritoriously, with an eye towards gaining favor by his own righteousness, rather than the imputed righteousness of Christ, is as much in error as he who disregards Sabbath entirely.  Paul said we are to “serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6).  Any form of external obedience that destroys relational intimacy with God violates the spirit of the law, and is sin.  Christ came to give us true rest and true liberty in Him, and everything we do should reflect the freedom and lightness we have in Jesus to approach God as His carefree children.  God’s ultimate goal for humanity has always been very close intimacy with Him.  We should not obey in a way that ultimately disobeys that Spirit of adoption.

After the destruction of Jerusalem and the deaths of the apostles, ex-Pagans, rather than ex-Jews, began to dominate Christianity.  These ex-pagans, called the “Church Fathers,” were not entirely free of pagan superstitions, so Christianity became in many ways a pagan religion rather than a monotheistic one.  The respected historian Will Durant wrote, “Christianity didn’t destroy paganism; it adopted it.”

One of the results of this adoption of paganism was the mystification of the Lord’s Supper.  Within a few generations, the food and drink became so “holy” that only a trained cleric, a priest, could bless and administer them, even though early Christians had no clerics.  Soon, the food and drink was seen as the literal flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, a doctrine called transubstantiation.   Consequently, the Supper had to be blessed by a special incantation, the Mass, in order to turn it into God the Son.  It became a “re-sacrificing” of Jesus Christ, in contravention to the Scripture, which says that Jesus only had to die once (see Hebrews 9 for instance).  Then, the priests began to withhold the cup of Mass from the masses, in effect withholding access to Jesus Christ. 

The Protestant reformers did away with the special incantation of the Mass, and most of them abandoned the  idea that the bread and wine were literally body and blood.  But in many ways the mystification of the Lord’s Supper continues to this day.

To understand how the early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper, and how it contrasts with our ritualistic observance today, consider 1 Cor. 11:18-34, where Paul corrects several abuses related to communion in the churches of Corinth.  Paul wrote:

For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper.  For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you (1 Cor 11:18-22).  

In this text, where Paul is dealing with divisions among the church, he talks of divisions “when you come together.”  These factions split up the church, so that “when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper.”  It is interesting that Paul seems to be commanding that, when the church is not fighting, they will eat the Lord’s Supper “when [they] come together.”  In other words, in the ideal state of affairs, the bread and cup are enjoyed every time Christians gather.

Second, the Corinthians did indeed use real wine in the meeting, because apparently some of them were drinking so much of it that they were getting hammered (Paul wrote, “one is hungry and another is drunk”).  We don't know if this was the general rule for all the Christian churches.  The Corinthian church was horribly dysfunctional and even licentious, so we shouldn't read too much into it, and we certainly shouldn't take their practice as a general rule for today, because Paul is admonishing them.

And wine in those days differed from wine today.  Today, people drink wine full strength, i.e. with no dilution.  In the Greek, Roman, and Jewish world of the first century, only uncouth barbarians drank their wine full measure.  In civilized society, it was heavily diluted.  This is why the Bible says, “…he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation” (Rev 14: 10). 

Moreover, most wine today has extra yeast added to speed up fermentation, and possibly to increase alcohol content.  Grape juice can ferment without added yeast, but not as well, and it might spoil before it reaches full fermentation (see wine expert Tony Aspler on this).  And as one authority notes, natural juice starts undergoing at least some fermentation after 6-12 hours if not kept properly.

During Passover, Jews don't eat anything that contains yeast, so their wine, even if undiluted and undergoing a little fermentation, wouldn't have had the kick of modern wine.  Add a lot of water to it and you get very low alcohol content by any standards.

In rabbinic Passover regulations of the time, for instance, each cup of straight wine was diluted with three cups of water.  Communion was instituted at a Passover seder, so it is not unreasonable to assume that Jewish Christians used about the same dilution.  The fact that someone was drinking enough of this to get drunk tells us either that the Corinthians weren't following rabbinic regulations and Gentile societal norms, which technically they weren't required to per se, or they were drinking this extremely-low-alcohol wine by the liter.  Either way, Paul has a problem with how their doing things.

So the problem Paul had with the way the Corinthians were keeping the Lord’s Supper was that they were divided into sectarian lines (see for instance 1 Cor. 1), so even though they thought they were keeping the Lord’s Supper every time they came together, they were not keeping it in the spirit it was given.  Because of these divisions, people weren’t courteously waiting for others to eat, and some were hogging all the food and (hiccup!) wine.  

But there is something more here that needs to be understood.  Paul, in criticizing the Corinthians, says, “For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry….”  So some were eating all the food before others had a chance to get any.  It appears that the great violators were the wealthier Christians.  Paul writes in verse 22, “What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?”  The Christians who had their own houses to eat and drink were depriving those among them who didn’t, and as such the poorer Christians were going hungry while the wealthier were gluttons. 

Paul’s admonish in verse 22 and again in verse 34 to eat at home rather than hog the bread, does not necessarily imply that Paul advocated the “single Wheat Thin plus thimble of grape juice” approach to communion that we Adventists take.  The Greek word Paul uses for supper, deipnon, signifies a full meal, or even a feast, not a small snack.  Nowhere in the Bible is deipnon used otherwise. 

Rather, Paul is saying that it would be better to eat at home than to violate the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.  Paul writes later, “Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.  But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment” (1 Cor 11:33-34).  The implication, if I may be so forward, isn’t that one eats at home, and then has a morsel at the church meeting, but rather that one either eats at home or at the church meeting.  It is better not to eat at all than to do so in a way that harms another believer.

Paul continues:

1 Cor 11:23-34

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,  “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.  But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.  For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.  For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.  But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.

Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.  But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.

In verse 29, Paul says, “he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”  Because of a tradition started by the reformers[i], when we partake of the bread and cup, we are sometimes told to examine ourselves, as Paul says, because if we take it unworthily, we will be eating and drinking judgment.  But what are we supposed to examine ourselves for? 

It is important here to understand what Paul is saying in its proper context.  Only a few paragraphs before, Paul says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17).  Communion is so called because it in part symbolizes the unity of the church.

And only a few paragraphs later, in chapter 12, Paul writes, “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.  For in fact the body is not one member but many” (1 Cor 12:12-14).

Paul’s concern is that people are eating together who do not love each other, and this enmity causes some to hog all the food and drink.  When Paul is telling the Corinthian Christian to “examine himself,” he is asking the Christian to consider whether he is harboring enmity toward his brother and being selfish with the meal.  The communion meal in part symbolizes the unity that Jesus means to have in His church, and taking communion in a way that harms that unity is a violation of what the Supper stands for.

Unfortunately, we interpret Paul’s admonition as directed towards the individual Christian in his internal spiritual consciousness.  We think we have to work to put ourselves in the proper spiritual state in order to eat and drink worthily.  So we take communion as if having peace with God is a matter of our effort, rather than God’s grace.  Works-righteousness meets ritual, and we violate the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.   Thus the bread and the cup become a thing of legalism.  “Am I partaking unworthily?  Oh no! How will I know?  I don’t want eat and drink judgment to myself!”  This understanding takes Paul’s commands terribly out of context. 

Paul describes the offender as “he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner,” and it is clear from the context that Paul is talking about those who eat and drink too much, denying others their meal and getting drunk in the process (recall the discussion of verse 21).  In this context, then “Lord’s body” in verse 29 (some manuscripts omit the word Lord’s) probably means the church body.  After all, Paul referred to the church as the body of Christ both shortly before and shortly after chapter 11.  Recall for instance that Paul wrote in chapter 10, “For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor 10:17).    Indeed, speaking of “the Lord’s body” in verse 29, New Testament scholar Robert Banks writes, “Although this has been generally interpreted as a reference to Christ’s crucified body, the community itself is almost certainly in view.”[ii]

One of the unfortunately outcomes of our misinterpretation of Paul’s admonish is that we deny communion to children, arguing that they would eat it “without knowledge of the Lord’s body” and thus would be partaking “in an unworthy manner.”  Do we think God is going to strike judgment on our children because, due to their undeveloped minds, they cannot understand Christ’s sacrifice for us in the way that adults can?  Do we think then that a perfect understand of Christ’s death is the prerequisite?  But then who of us can claim to fulfill such a colossal requirement?  And if we think someone must understand the sacrifice of Christ in a sophisticated adult way in order to partake, what do we make of Christ’s declaration that “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it” (Mark 10:15)? 

But in the case of the Lord’s Supper, we actually have a Biblical command, of sorts, to allow children to enjoy it.  Communion was first given by Jesus at a Passover Seder, a meal where Jews eat the foods that remind them of God’s deliverance from the Egyptians.  When Christ gave the disciples the wine, He told them, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20), indicating that the Lord’s Supper was the antitype of the Old Testament Passover.   When Moses first gave the Passover command, he told the Israelites: 

And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ (Ex 12:26-27).

The seder was a time to teach the young Israelites about the salvation God had given to Israel.  If the typical service was a tool of instruction, how can we deny our children the lesson of Christ’s ultimate salvation from death and sin?  Didn’t our Master tell us, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them” (Mark 10:14)?

Paul never intended for his admonition to be used against children.  It is obvious from context that they were not the offenders he was considering.  Paul was not concerned that the church was extending the Lord’s Supper to too many unworthy participants, but that the participants were partaking unworthily, and by hogging all the food and wine, were keeping others from enjoying it fully.  In other words, Paul is admonishing the Corinthians for denying the Lord’s Supper to others, not for allowing people to partake.  And those who deny it to others should have it denied to them.  If we deny our children the Lord’s Supper, without any Biblical reason for doing so, and in contradiction to the principle undergirding Moses’ command, would Paul say are we adults today are “eating and drinking judgment” because we don’t allow our children to be part of “the Lord’s body”?

Perhaps we should reconsider the Lord’s Supper in its Biblical context, as Jesus meant it, and not as it has been passed down to us by our pagan ancestors.  When we stop superstitiously mystifying the bread and the cup itself, and start holding a sense of awe and mystery of the Lord they signify, perhaps then we will understand communion as Paul and the early Christians did.

My new blog over at blogger.com:  

Hodos, Aletheia, Zoe

Those familar with NT Greek will see the tie to The Way (Hodos), the Truth (Aletheia), and the Life (Zoe).

Perhaps, we should just sit down, and pray, and truly trust that God will make plain and clear to us the methods He is seeking to use for His purposes, instead of running out and trying the same old failed plan simply to assuage a guilty conscience (forgiven Christians shouldn’t have any guilt anyway—guilt is for the lost). Perhaps, as has been shown in books like Cole’s Organic Church, the gospel can spread like wildfire in the toughest parts of North American using very simple Bible-based apostolic methods. 

As the Father has taken me along a difficult journey of late, I have been led to a re-evaluation of large portions of Scripture in order that I may understand God as He is, not as I want Him to be.  

One of the books I have re-evaluated is the book of Job. God Himself tells the Devil that Job is "blameless and upright" (Job 1:8).  Some pharisaical Christians interpret this to mean Job had never sinned, and so they betray their own lack of understanding of what it means to be blameless.  It is not that Job never did anything wrong, but that God did not impute blame to him, but instead imputed righteousness to him because of his faith.  

Paul makes clear in Romans 4 that being righteous before God, being justified and thus "blameless," only ever came by faith.  The Bible says Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Gen 15:6).  

In Galatians, Paul says, "But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for 'the just shall live by faith [Hab 2:4].'  Yet the law is not of faith, but 'the man who does them shall live by them [Lev 18:5].'" (Gal 3:11-12).  Paul here contrasts "the just" who live by faith, with "the man" who does the works of the law.  The man who does the works of the law is still not considered "just" in God's eyes, but is only called "the man."

Why is this?  It seems so counter-intuitive that you can keep all the right regulations and not be considered blameless, but that you can be a sinner who has faith in Jesus and so have  His righteousness accounted to you as if it were your own.  

I think the answer lies in who God is, a Trinity.  God has always existed as a Being in relationship.  He invites us into that relationship with Him, to walk with Him and live in Him while He lives in us.  When someone tries to earn His love, that person is turning a loving relationship into an economic transaction.  But when someone accepts God as He is, on faith, he enters into a binding relationship with Him.  Since it is this relationship that God ultimately desires from us, the one who tries to approach God by his works will never experience Father the way He wants us to.

Job's friends tried very hard to convince him that all his troubles were because he was a sinner who had incurred God's wrath.  Job clung to the imputed righteousness of Jesus with everything he could, because it was all he had.  I think of the time when Saul clung to Samuel's robe, and I'm reminded of Francis Thompson.  

Thompson was an opium addict who lived in as a vagabond in the London neighborhood of Charing Cross, next to the River Thames.  It was in that desparate milieu that he met  Jesus.  He wrote: 

"But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry--and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

"Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

Cry--clinging to Heaven by the hems;

And lo, Christ walking on the water,

Not of Genesareth, but Thames!"

It is this clinging to Heaven by the hems that intrigues me.  Job clung to the robe of Christ's righteousness tenaciously, not allowing anyone to take it from him.  So it should be with the disciple of Jesus.

There are many who would like to take that robe from us.  There are those who would tell us that unless we do X and Y and Z for some religious denomination or institution, God will not love us.  We are told that when Jesus returns, He will only take those who are doing A or B or C.  Or we are told only members of such and such denomination will enter into heaven.

And consequently so many Christians have their hope in this or that institution, or this or that doctrinal statement, or this or that action of their own, rather than in Jesus Himself.  Their hope is in human wisdom and human understanding and human capabilities, because that is what they have been taught.  But I am reminded of the great hymn:

"My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.

"I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me."

When your hope is in a denomination, or a special "distinctive" doctrine, or a post-Biblical teacher, your foundation is faulty.  You may fool yourself that it is firm, but your actions and thoughts will betray your own insecurity, because you are not resting in God's love through the righteousness of Christ, but living in the weakness of human devices and human systems.  You will lash out at Christians who don't agree with you, and spend your life trying to prove to them how wrong they are, and how right you are.  You will live a life of fear, terrified lest anyone expose a weakness in your foundation that would cause it to crumble.  And so you will not be able to experience the love Father has for you.

But Paul says, "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 3:11).  He, Himself, His person, not facts about Him or institutions that say they serve Him, is the only foundation a Christian can have.  It is when we realize that Jesus truly loves us, and that He presents us faultless before the throne of God, that we realize we no longer need human affirmation or human works.

Father's love is not conditional on our actions.  Rather, He loves us even when we fail.  It is stepping into that relationship with God, into His reality and His love, and clinging to it for all we are worth that will allow us to weather the storms of life and enjoy the freedom found only in His son.

Do not let anyone take your robe, and let no one come between you and your Father.

“But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying:

‘We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance;

We mourned to you,
And you did not lament.’” (Matt 11:16-17)

We play the flute for Him.  He doesn’t dance to our tune.  We mourn to Him, and He does not cry.  We will not follow his footsteps.  He will not play by our rules.

They “ministered to the Lord” and He said to them, “Now separate Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2).  But we separate ourselves to our own work, and we wait for the Lord to minister to us.  We have separated ourselves from Him.

He is the Lion of Judah.  We crack our whip like a lion-tamer.  But “He is not a tame lion.”[i] He doesn’t fear our money or our power.  He doesn’t fear our whip. For He was flogged but once, and no man may flog Him again.

He drove the moneychangers from the temple with His whip.  And our moneychangers have driven Him from ours. “Pay your tithes!  Pay your tithes!”  But the poor go hungry.

I saw Him once, in the face of a single mother, poor and hopeless. Tears of a lifetime of suffering cascaded down her cheeks.  The sheep would dry her tears, because they see the Shepherd do it first.  We goats sit on committees and wax eloquent about the wretchedness of sinners. 

And so we build great castles.  But we leave the King outside (Rev 3:20).  And He stands in the rain, and sleeps in the snow, for, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Mark 8:20).  But He is warm, for in Him is warmth.  And we are cold; in us is darkness.  “Look at our fortresses!  Look at our riches!  Look at our teachings!  He will glorify us.”  But He is the chief cornerstone!  He is the treasure of Heaven!  He is the teacher from God!  Still, we will not glorify Him, lest we come into the light and our deeds be exposed (John 3:20).  We are the light of the world, but what happens when our flame goes out?

His Gospel is “the power of God to salvation,” (Rom. 1:16), but to us, a tool for sibling rivalry.   To us, His words exist to show our rightness, not “for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16).  And so we use His words as hammers against our brothers, to fight over who are the greatest disciples. 

We wait for Him to return, to say that we are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and our brethren are second-class citizens.  “But many who are first shall be last, and the last first” (Matt. 19:30). 

But we are rich!  We have become wealthy!  We have need of nothing (Rev 3:17)!  No, we are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17).  Still, we wait for Him to come, to take us to Him, to tell us how good we are.  But, “No one is good but One, that is, God” (Matt. 19:17).  Certain of our own goodness, we will ask Him, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?” (Matt. 25:44).  His reply, “I never knew you.” (Matt. 7:23). 

And like an old king, we gloat of glory days gone by, of deeds by knights who would not know us now, of grand feasts and banquets, of Hrothgar’s Heorot, of Beowulf and Grendel.  But we are lying in our bed, wrinkled and gaunt and cold, and there is no young Abishag to give us warmth (1 Kings 1:1-4).  

And like a senile old maid, we assure ourselves, “I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow” (Rev 18:7).

In my posting “The Great ‘Sanctuary’ Heresy,” I pointed out the Biblical evidence that early Christians met in the homes of believers.  A friend of mine commented that early Christians were Jews who met in synagogues.  My answer to that is yes and no.  I would like to sustain that.

First, it is important to note that, while Christians often met together in homes, this doesn’t mean there is something sacred about a house itself, as compared to any other building.  As I have written before, early Christians didn’t “go to church.”  They were church.  They could have met wherever they chose, including in a synagogue.  This didn’t make the synagogue “the house of God” in their minds, because they understood, as Stephen said, that “the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands.”  In other words, they didn’t think of the brick and mortar of the synagogue as somehow constituting a “holy place.”

In the time of the Apostles, Judaism was heavily fragmented.  There were the monastic Essenes, the revolutionary Zealots, the legalistic Pharisees, and the reductionistic Sadducees.  Early Christianity was often seen as one of these sectarian movements.  Among Jews, early believers were know pejoratively as “the sect of the Nazarenes,” (Acts 24:5) a reference to the fact that Jesus came from Nazareth.  Nazareth, after all, was not highly thought of at the time.

So it was not uncommon to find Christians in synagogues.  But it was also uncommon to find them staying there very long.  Indeed, the first time a synagogue is mentioned in Acts, it is in disputation with early Christians, not in community with them.  The “Synagogue of the Freedmen,” a collection of what appears to be non-ethnic Jewish converts, disputed against Stephen, and they were the ones who initiated the course that led to his martyrdom (Acts 6:8-12). 

When Paul, before his conversion, took it upon himself to destroy this dangerous cult that called itself “the Way,” he went to Damascus to search for Christians among the synagogues there. “Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1-2)

There are interesting implications from this verse.  First, the letters were to synagogues in Damascus, demanding that the synagogues turn out those among them where were “of the Way.”  This indicates that at the very beginning, Christians took part in synagogues that were not specifically “Christian,” as it were.  In other words, Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah communed with those who didn’t.  Some were "of the way" and others weren't.

However, we also have evidence that they kept their own meetings, separate from the mixed synagogue services.  Shortly after Pentecost, they are described not only as meeting together, but living together in a commune of sorts.  And in addition to meeting in synagogues, they met in houses.  “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:46-47). 

The reference to “breaking bread” is probably an indication of the Lord’s Supper.  This meal originated as part of a Passover Seder, but there are indications throughout the Scriptures that early Christians celebrated it whenever they met together.  In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul seems to simply assume that they ate the Lord’s Supper at every meeting (carefully read 1 Cor. 11:17-34).  Indeed, I plan to handle the modern misunderstandings of communion in a later article.

This also shows why they had to have their own meetings apart from the mixed synagogue meetings.  Only in their own meetings could they enjoy a mutual fellowship, wherein the entire faith community worshipped Jesus Christ and enjoyed His presence through the Holy Spirit.  Only in their own communities could they enjoy the Lord’s Supper, an act that non-Christian Jews simply wouldn’t have understood.  The High Priest was head of the synagogue system.  But Jesus Christ, the new High Priest, was head of the early church.

Interestingly, it was on the road to Damascus that Christ called Paul into His kingdom.  Paul stayed in Damascus, seeking to convert his fellow Jews to belief in Jesus (Acts 9:22).  But he was so successful that “after many days were past, the Jews plotted to kill him” (Acts 9:23).

Obviously, if the Jews plotted to kill one of the Christians, it is logical to assume that the Jewish Christians stopped meeting in the synagogues at that point.  I mean, imagine how socially awkward that would be if they kept going! 

“Oh, Saul, he's out of his of his mind!”

“How can you say this?  Saul is staying in my house!”

We find synagogues mentioned again in Paul and Barnabas’s first missionary journey.  Paul and Barnabas went to the synagogues on the island of Cyprus and preached Christ there.  Then they went to Antioch in Asia Minor (there were two Antioch’s in those days), and taught Christ in the synagogue there.  It is important to note that these meetings were evangelistic in nature.  Paul and Barnabas went into the synagogues to convince the Jews to accept Jesus, not just to worship.  However, we shouldn’t draw too fine a conclusion from this, because the entire journey was evangelistic in nature.  Paul and Barnabas weren’t on a sight-seeing tour through Asia Minor.

Acts records an interesting development immediately after the meeting in Antioch.  “So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath” (Acts 13:42-43).  As Bruce Shelly notes in his well-read Church History in Plain Language, it was common for pagan Gentiles to be found on outer fringes of synagogue meetings.  Though they were attracted to Jewish teachings, they could not accept circumcision, which in their cultural understanding was humiliating and barbaric.  When a new movement arose that embraced the essential truth of the Jewish scriptures, but preached an end to circumcision, these Gentile hangers-on proved a fruitful field for the Christian message.[i]

Many Jews accepted Jesus at this first meeting, but many did not.  Acts records the events of the second meeting:

“On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.  But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul.  Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:44-46)

Again we see the same pattern that we found in Damascus.  Paul preached Christ, people were brought to Christ, and the non-Christian Jews cast out and persecuted the Christians.  We find the results of the successes at Antioch:  “But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region” (Acts 13:50).

The next time we find a synagogue mentioned is in Paul’s second journey, when he had come to Thessalonica.

Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.  Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”  And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.

But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.  But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.  Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king — Jesus” (Acts 17:1-7).

Again we see the now-familiar pattern.  The gospel of Jesus as Messiah is preached in the synagogue, the Jews are angered by it, and they go about persecuting the Christians.  But telling in this passage is the mention of Jason’s house.  It says that “the brethren” were taken from Jason’s house, that a mob went into Jason’s house and “sought to bring them out to the people.”  Again we find the pattern that, when Christians wanted to engage in a purely Christian fellowship, they did not go to the mixed synagogue meetings.  They went to a believer’s house.

After leaving Thessalonica, Paul and Silas come to Berea and reason in the synagogue there. 

“Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.  But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds.  Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there. (Acts 17:12-14).

The account in Acts says “many of them believed,” but not “all of them.”  Apparently, there were still enough unbelieving Jews that, when the rabble-rousers came from Thessalonica, Paul had to leave.

We find a synagogue mentioned again in Paul’s visit to Athens. 

 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.  Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there (Acts 17:16-17).

What’s interesting about this passage is that Paul’s visit to the synagogue is equated, at least in purpose, with his daily visits to the marketplace.  In other words, both were for the purpose of evangelism.  But as I wrote early, his entire journey was for the purpose of evangelism.  We can’t draw to fine a line here.

Now we find Paul coming to Corinth, and we see perhaps the most fascinating story about the relations of early Christians to the synagogue.  Upon reaching Corinth, Paul immediately meets Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2).  Then we find Paul going into the synagogue every Sabbath to persuade people there for Christ (Act 18:4).  As was the regular pattern, Paul preaches to the Jews, some of the Jews believe, but the rest persecute him.  Indeed, the text specifically says that Paul quit going to the synagogue.

When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.  But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’  And he departed from there and entered the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.  Then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household.  And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized (Acts 18:5-8).

Here we see Paul operating out of a household.  This is the pattern of the early Church.  When Christians wanted to meet in a purely Christian fellowship, they did not go to synagogues.  They met in houses.

But there is another telling point in this story.  The Jews brought Paul to the governor of the region of Achaia.

When Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat, saying, “This fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.”

And when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you.  But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves; for I do not want to be a judge of such matters.”  And he drove them from the judgment seat.  Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat.  But Gallio took no notice of these thing (Acts 18:12-17).

What is notable about this is that Crispus was ruler of the synagogue, but he converted to Christianity.  Then we are told that Sosthenes was ruler of the synagogue.  This may indicate that, once Crispus accepted Jesus as Messiah, he had to give up his post as ruler of the synagogue.  This is understandable, since the synagogues answered to the High Priest, who was anti-Christian.  It is also understandable, because a distinction between clergy and laity was antithetical to early Christianity, as I will show in a later post.  On the other hand, Sosthenes might have been from a different synagogue.

Paul returns to Ephesus on his third missionary journey, and preaches Christ at the synagogue.  He first meets with the disciples (Acts 19:1-7), and then goes into the synagogue, indicating that, while Christians would spend time in synagogues, they did not meet solely in synagogues. 

And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.  But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.  And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks (Acts 19:8-10).

This synagogue clearly was not solely attended by Christians, because there were some in the synagogue who didn’t accept “the Way,” which was the phrase early Christians used for Christianity.  Once again we find the regular pattern:  Paul preached Christ, the Jews got angry, and the Christians left the synagogue. 

No more do we find Christians going to synagogues in the book of Acts, though certainly it may have happened.  We find no further evidence of Paul entering synagogues from this point forward.

Christians did not call themselves a synagogue.  They called themselves an ekklesia, a congregation.  This comes from Christ’s statement that “I will build my ekklesia” (Matt. 16:18).  Christ warned against pooring new wine into old wineskins, and simply meeting in synagogues would not have sufficed for His purpose.  This is not because the Judaism of the Old Testament prophets is untrue, but because most of the 1st century Jews  did not accept the truth of what the prophets and Moses had said.  Jesus told the Pharisees that if they really believed in Moses, they would believe in Him. 

There was a great deal of tension between early Jewish Christians and early Non-Christian Jews.  It is easy to understand why.  Judaism in the 1^st century defined itself by the sacrifices, the priests, and the Temple.  Christians were opposed to all three: 1) Christians proclaimed that Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, had brought an end to all sacrifices. 

2) Christians proclaimed that, in the words of Peter, they were a “holy priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:5).  As in the book of Hebrews, the Christians taught that Christ was the new High Priest, that He was not a Levite, and therefore, as Hebrews 7 makes clear, the Levitical priesthood had been abolished (more properly, fulfilled). 

And 3) Christians proclaimed that “the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts 7:48).  Rather, God dwells in His people, the “called out ones” who worshipped this radical Jesus guy from Nazareth.  Consequently, the Temple was not God’s dwelling place on earth.

We know the Old Testament prophets taught all three of these truths.  1) See for instance Hos. 6:6 and Psalm 51:16-17.  2) See Exodus 19:6.  3) See Isaiah 66:1-2.  But the 1^st century Jews didn’t understand this, much like the fact that most modern Christians don’t understand the implications of these three truths (but that is an entirely separate study).

Obvious, while the early Christians were Jews, their gospel would have been seen as a total attack upon conventional 1^st century Judaism.  Early Christianity, though it pre-supposed the truth of the Old Testament, was not purely Jewish by the standards of the Judaism of the time.  It did not embrace circumcision, it spoke against the Levitical priesthood, it rejected the sacrifices, and it claimed that “the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands.”  It was not that the early Christians considered themselves un-Jewish, but that the non-Christian Jews considered them so. 

Indeed, the words of Jesus were fulfilled, when He said, “But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues.” (Matt 10:17-18).