SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
MISUNDERSTOOD
TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
Chapter Six
"The letter killeth" (2 Corinthians iii, 6).
This text is freely used to discredit Scripture. Here is the verse in
extenso: "Who (God) also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ; not
of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life." And the commonly received exegesis of this is that the Apostle was made
a minister, not of the letter (ie. the words), but of the spirit, of the
gospel: for the letter of the gospel kills. Many a page might he filled with
extracts fioni the Apostle's own writings to prove the utter falseness of this.
But the following utterance from the lips of our Lord himself may suffice: "The
words that I speak unto you are spirit and are life" (John vi. 63).
Verse 7 clearly indicates that the contrast intended by the Apostles
words is not at all between the letter and the spirit of the gospel, but
between the ministration of death in the law -"in letters engraven on stones"
(RV. margin), and the ministration of life- or as verse 8 expresses it. "the
ministration of the spirit!" in the gospel. And he emphasises the fact that God
had called him to the higher ministry of the life-giving gospel. and not of the
death-dealing law. And by the figure of metonymy so familiar to every bible
student he seizes on the keywords "letter" and "spirit" to represent law and
gospel respectively.
"We must all appear before the judgment seat of
Christ" (1 Cor. v. 10).
To understand these words aright, we must study
the context. And the chapter should be read in the RV, for owing probably to
the far-reaching influences of Chrisostom's brilliant homily on it, our AV is
marred by mistranslation in some important respects.
The symbolism of
the preceding verses is graphic and yet simple. Our "natural body" is likened
to the tabernacle, the "spiritual body" to a building - not, like the temple,
built on earth by human hands, but a buiilding of God. eternal and in the
heavens. Then the symbolism changes. Death is likened to our being unclothed,
"found naked" and our receiving our heavenly body without passing through death
is symholised by our being "clothed upon"- the change which the Coming of the
Lord will bring to those "who are alive and remain" when mortality shall he
swallowed up of life. And our longing is for this (v. 2). Not that death has
terrors; for being always of good courage, we are "willing rather to be absent
from the body, and to be at home with the Lord."
Then come the words
(perverted in our AV) "Wherefore also we make it our aim (literally, we are
ambitious), whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto Him. For we
must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may
receive the things done in tile body, according to what he hath done, whether
it be good or bad." And here the Revisers scarcely do justice to their own
text, in which kakon gives place to phoulon, a word the primary
meaning of which, according to Grimm. is "mean, worthless, of no account." As
Archbishop Trench tells us in his Synonyms. the notion of worthlessness is the
central notion of phaulos.
When thus read aright, the passage
refutes two rival errors which are sadly prevalent. The one, a legacy from
certain of the Latin Fathers, challenges the truth of the Lords words
that the believer "cometh not into judgment." For the bema of Christ is
not the great white throne of the Apocacalyptic Vision .And in the judgment of
the redeemed the issue is not life or death, pardon or doom, but it relates to
conduct and testimony while here below. And the rival error is that, in passing
to heaven His people will receive a lethal draught which will destroy all
memories of earth. This deplorable delusion robs the Christian life, not only
of its solemnity, but of its significance, and it degrades heaven to the level
of a fools paradise. Moreover, as Bengel so well says: "The everlasting
remembrance of a great debt which has been forgiven will be the fuel of the
strongest love." In these days of excessive nerve strain, people fall into the
hands of the police at times, not because of any wrong committed, but because
they have been "found wandering." Who they are, they cannot tell, or where they
come from. Their very name they have forgotten, and all their past is an utter
blank. In a condition of this kind it is that Christians, not a few, expect to
enter heaven!
Personality depends on memory; and if this vagary of
religious thought were a Divine truth, death would mean annihilation for the
Christian. My name may be in the book of life; but if death destroys all
memories of earth, my identity with the ego who will bear that name in heaven
is a mere theory, or, as the lawyers would say, "a legal fiction." And it has,
for me, no interest, save as a subtle problem in metaphysics. It is not merely
that my earthly friends will fail to recognise me; I shall not recognise myself
! I shall be like one of the " found wandering" cases above referred
to.
It may be said, perhaps, that it is only the evil of our present
life that will be forgotten ; the good will be remembered and rewarded. Is it
possible that any Christian could cherish a thought so unworthy and so mean? It
will be the remembrance of our Sins - sins long forgotten, it may be - that
will enable us to realise, as we never realised before, the wonders of Divine
love and grace, and the preciousness o the blood of our redemption. But further
discussion is idle ; for the teaching of our present verse is in the warp and
woof of Bible doctrine on this subject.
"Now a Mediator is not of
one but God is one" (Galatians iii. 20).
In the Speakers
Commentary, Dean Howson remarks that "the interpretation of this verse is one
of the curiosities of Biblical criticism. The explanations of it are reckoned
by hundreds" (Jowett mentions 430!). The following note, therefore, is offered
merely by way of suggestions toward a correct interpretation of it. The usual
gloss, adopted by eminent Commentators, depends on construing the final word of
the verse to mean "immutable." But though this occurs nearly 250 times in time
New Testament, it bears no such meaning anywhere else. And the suggestion that,
in a brief and simple sentence like this, any writer would use one of the
commonest of words in two wholly different senses, is so entirely without
precedent or parallel that, if there be no other explanation open to us, we may
well leave the passage unexplained. Moreover, this is not the only Epistle in
which the Apostle emphasises the truth that God is one. In 1 Corinthians viii.
6, he writes, "To this there is but one God" ; and in 1 Timothy ii. 5, For
there is one God, and one mediator between God and man." Why then should we
suppose that in Galatians the word is employed in a strange and mystical
sense?
I venture to think the main difficulty in expounding the passage
is due, not at all to the language of the twentieth verse, but to our putting
on the words "covenant" and " mediator" a fixed meaning which they do not bear
in the New Testament, or among Orientals generally. For it is assumed that a
covenant is necessarily a compact between different parties, and that a
mediator implies a covenant in that sense. But in his "Light from the Ancient
East", Professor Deissmann avers that diathêkê did not carry
that meaning among Greek-speaking peoples in the first century.
And
surely a study of this passage as a whole, and of verses 16 to 19 in
particular, will make it clear that the Apostle uses "covenant" and "promise"
as convertible terms. It is noteworthy, moreover, that, in Grimms
Lexicon, the primary meaning of diathêkê is "a dispensation
or arrangement of any sort, which one wishes to be valid." And it is as a
secondary meaning that he gives "compact" and "covenant." Indeed, the question
claims consideration whether, in the legal sense of the word, God ever made a
covenant with men.
But, it will be asked, what of the Mosaic covenant?
Here a suggestion of Bengels is both interesting and important. It is
that the Sinai covenant was not between God and the people ; for "God delegated
the law to angels as His representatives." And in another passage he seems to
say that the parties to that covenant were, on one side the law personified,
and on the other the people, Moses being the mediator. The word
mesitês (mediator) occurs only once in the Septuagint (Job xxxi.
31), and very seldom in pagan Greek writings. And in the New Testament, besides
Galatians iii. and 1 Timothy ii. 5, already noticed, it is used only in Hebrews
viii. 6, ix. 15, and xii. 24. Its use in Hebrews Vlll. in connection with
covenant will throw light upon our present verse. What is the nature of the
"better covenant" of which Christ is the mediator ? The words are, "I will
accomplish a new covenant upon the house of Israel " (v. 8)" And again, " This
is the covenant that I will covenant to the house of Israel " (v. 10; repeated
in ch. x. 16). In these Hebrews passages, the Apostle emphasises the contrast
between the Sinai compact and " the covenants of the promise - to use his
phrase in Ephesians ii. 12 (R.V.). And is not this his purpose here also ? The
law covenant, as contrasted with the promise covenant, involved two parties,
and the mediator of such a covenant represented both. But God is one, and there
is no room in His promise covenant for a Mediator in that sense. For, as the
Lexicon will tell us, the word has another meaning, namely, "a medium of
communication." We all understand this in human affairs. The Kings
Private Secretary, or his Secretary of State, is the mesites through
whom he deals with his subjects.
Thus leads me to suggest that the
old-fashioned doctrine of "a redemption covenant between the persons of the
Trinity" tended only to obscure and limit the great truth that, at no time, and
in no circumstances, does God ever deal with men save in and through Christ.
This truth led the old Divines to make Christ a party to the Sinai of covenant
- a view which, as above indicated, Scripture does not warrant. But whether it
be a question of Israels national blessings, or of the election and glory
of the Church the Body of Christ - whether it be a question of pardon and life
for a repentant sinner, or of grace and guidance for a believer in his daily
walk - all is in and through Christ. The ordinary meaning of mesites is
"a go-between: and though we may not apply such a colloquial term to the Lord
of Glory, the thought which it expresses is a right one. In His name it is that
we pray for mercy and grace to help in time of need; and in and through Him it
is that the mercy and the grace are given.
If then my view of the
passage be right, the clew to a correct interpretation of it depends upon
studying it in relation to the purpose with which it was written, namely, to
refute the teaching of the Judaisers. They regarded the Abrahamic covenant as a
covenant with "Abraham and his seed according to the flesh," and the Mosaic
covenant as confirming and enlarging the peculiar privileges of Israel. And the
reason why the ministry of Paul was specially obnoxious to them was because he
was the Apostle to and through whom was revealed the distinctive truth of
grace, which ignored and swept away all special privileges of the kind. That
truth he called " my gospel," for he regarded it as a special trust committed
to him.
So his answer here was that the Abrahamic covenant was to the
Patriarch and his "seed" and that it was not a compact or bargain, but a
promise in grace, absolutely without condition; and that "the seed" of that
covenant was not Israel, but Christ ; and that the law, so far from confirming
or extending this, " was added because of transgressions until the seed should
come." It was on an altogether lower level - a compact arranged
(diatassô) through angels by the hand of a mediator." But a
mediator (in that sense) is not of one, i.e. does not represent only one party
; and therefore he could have no place in the promise covenant, in which God
stood alone, for God is ONE.
"By grace are ye saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God " (Ephesians ii. 8).
The "gift of God" here intended is salvation by grace through faith. It is not
the faith itself. "This is precluded," as Alford remarks, "by the manifestly
parallel clauses not of yourselves' and 'not of works,' the latter of
which would be irrelevant as asserted of faith."
It is still more
definitely precluded by the character of the passage. It is given to us to
believe on Christ, just in the same sense in which it is given to some "also to
suffer for His sake" (Phihppians i. 29). But the statement of our present verse
is doctrinal and in that sense the assertion that faith is a gift, or indeed
that it is a distinct entity at all, is a sheer error. This matter is sometimes
represented as though God first gives faith to the sinner, and then, on the
sinners bringing Him the faith, goes on to give him salvation! Just as
though a baker, refusing to supply empty-handed applicants, should first
dispense to each the price of a loaf, and then in return for the money out of
his own till, serve out the bread ! To answer fully such a vagary as that would
need a treatise. Suffice it, therefore, to point out that to read the text as
tlmomugh faith were the gift, is to destroy not only the meaning of verse 9,
but the force of the whole passage.
"The truth as it is in Jesus"
(Ephesians 4:21)
The popularity of the cant phrase, "the truth as it is in
Jesus "- a perversion of this text - to express Evangelical truh,or " the truth
of Christ," is a signal proof that with Christians in general the Lord is named
just as caprice or ignorance may suggest. In the narrative of the Gospels,
those Divine records of His earthly sojourn, the Lord is habitually called
"Jesus." But the name of His humiliation is never used in this way in the
Epistles. As Bishop Barry notices in commenting upon this very verse, "
wherever it occurs in the Epistles it will be found to be distinctive and
emphatic." This is strikingly exemplified in the two passages - and there are
only two- in which He is thus named in the six later Epistles of the Apostle
Paul.
In Philippians ii. 9, 10, we read that "God hath given Him the
name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should
bow." This can only mean that in the full realisation that He is Jesus - the
despised and rejected Galilean, He is to be acclaimed as Jehovah -"the name
that is above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in
that which is to come" (Ephesians i. 21). And in our present text (as appears
so plainly from the verses which precede and follow it), it is not doctrine the
Apostle has in view, but practical Christian living. Referring to the base
immoralities of the Gentiles, he writes, " But not so did ye learn Christ ; if
indeed it was He that ye heard, and in Him that ye were taught, according as is
truth in Jesus" (Alford)- in other words, the truth as exemplified in His life
on earth in the time of His humiliation.
"Wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord" (Ephesians v. 22 if.).
In
this section of Ephesians the marriage relationship is readjusted by a heavenly
standard, the ordinance of Genesis ii. 24 being re-enacted on a spiritual basis
and with a new sanction. The Church is the body of Christ, and "because we
are members of His Body" (v. 30, R.V.) the Christian is "to love his wife even
as himself." For while the bridal relationship which pertains to the heavenly
election out of Israel implies the closest unity, the body relationship between
Christ and the Churcil connotes absolute oneness. And this is the "great
mystery" of verse 32; not the marriage bond - for such a use of the word
"mystery" is foreign to Scripture - but the truth of the one body, which is
specially revealed in this Epistle. And so the Apostle adds, "I am speaking
concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless (plen, i.e. though it is
not true in fact of man and wife, yet because it is true of Christ and the
Church) let every one of you so love his wife even as himself."
Now is
it conceivable that, if the Church-bride doctrine were a Divine truth, the
Apostle would not have made it the basis of this exhortation? But that doctrine
is discredited by the absence of all mention of it in this the very Scripture
which is supposed to teach it. It may be said, perhaps, that verse 27 implies
it. But the body figure expresses a corporate unity, and until it is complete
it cannot be presented. It is now only in building (ch. iv. 12, 13) In
Revelation xix. 7 we have a kindred thought in the bride becoming ready. The
Church-bride doctrine is really a by-product of that deplorable error of
Patristic theology, that God has "cast away His people whom He foreknew " ; and
therefore their promised blessings mire now appropriated by the Church!
The question whether A. B. is C. Ds wife may receive a negative answer,
either by pointing to another woman as his wife, or by indicating a
relationship between them which is incompatible with marriage. And in both
ways Scripture vetoes the Church-bride theory. For Abrahams city, the
heavenly Jerusalem, is the bride, and that city is "our mother"! (Galatians iv.
26, R.V.). It may be added that the typology of Scripture refutes it. For Isaac
was admittedly a type of Christ, and it was the Divine purpose that his bride
should be of his own kindred.
But it may be asked, As these body and
bride phrases are figurative, may they not be interchangeable ? We must imere
distinguish between a figure which expresses a truth, as when the Lord called
Himself "the Shepherd of the sheep," and a figure which is merely illustrative,
as when He said He was the door of the sheep. And the figures of the body and
the bride are in the fornmer category, and express real relationships.
We may learn much by marking the order in which these truths appear in the New
Testament. The bride is prominently mentioned in the kingdom ministry (John
iii. 29) ; but during all the interval between the close of that ministry and
the Patmos visions, Israel is set aside and the bride disappears from
Scripture. Is it conceivable that if the Church were really the Bride we should
seek in vain for a single mention of it, or even of the word
numphê throughout that entire section of Scripture in which the
truth of the Church is specially revealed?
The use made of 2
Corinthians xi. 2 in this connection is a strange vagary of exegesis. In his
Jewish Social Life Dr. Edersheim cites the passage to illustrate the functions
of "the friend of the bridegroom." But to construe such an illustrative
reference as being a Divine revelation of a truth of such vital importance
betrays want of respect both for Holy Scripture and for the intelligence of
men. Moreover, if the Christians of Corinth were the Bride of Christ, the same
must have been true of every other local church; and if thus construed, the
verse would suggest a harem rather than a wife! And by a single step further in
error the Church of Rome applies it to the individual, and thus claims a
Scriptural sanction for the evil system of convents and nuns.
And this
should bar our dismissing this subject with a cui bono? All Scripture is
profitable if read aright. But perverted Scripture has been the bane of
Christianity. For by a misuse of Scripture the historic church has found a
warrant for every atrocity and crime that has befouled its history. And if
every true Christian ought to stand clear of its guilt, this responsibility
rests specially upon any one who brings the gospel to Jews; and if he ignores
or shirks it he is false to his message and his Lord. It behoves him to
declare, in the spirit of Dean Alfords words quoted on p. 85, ante, that
"the Christian Church . . . the outward frame of Christendom" is an apostasy,
and to remind his hearers that the Christian victims of its fiendish
persecutions have outnumbered the Jewish a hundredfold.
More than that,
it behoves him to repudiate that "orthodox" system of exegesis which, by
spiritualising the prophetic Scriptures, robs the covenant people of their
heritage - an evil system which, as Adolf Saphir wrote, "has paved the way for
Rationalism and Neology." And he might begin with the twentyfirst chapter
of Revelation. Can we not realise the wondering delight of a company of Jews on
hearing for the first time the glowing words of the Patmos vision of the
heavenly Jerusalem, and being told by a Christian preacher that it is all for
Israel, and will be realised for Israel in the coming age, when at last they
accept their long-rejected Messiah
"Work out your own salvation"
(Phiippians ii. 12).
This phrase has passed into common use. And, strange
to say, on the secular page it seems always to represent a true thought,
whereas in " Christian" use it often implies a denial of "salvation by grace -
that great basal truth of Christianity.
Many an error is due to the
habit of putting a theological label upon New Testament words, and then reading
that meaning into every passage where they occur. The word sotêria
means "safety" or "deliverance," and the context must always guide us as to the
nature of the peril referred to. In Acts vii. 25, for example, the word has
reference to Israels bondage in Egypt; in Hebrews xi. 7 to the judgment
of the Flood; and in Acts xxvii. 34 to the foundering of the ship in which Paul
was being conveyed to Rome. To the ordinary reader of our A.V. the
Apostles words, "This is for your health," must appear grotesquely
incongruous; for when men are face to face with death it is not their health
they think about, but their safety; and sôtêria is the word
here used.
It is noteworthy, moreover, that although the Apostle had an
explicit Divine promise that there would be no loss of life (v. 24), he
impressed on the men the need of taking food to fit them for the struggle for
life which awaited them. This is of great practical importance in these days
when, in sickness, for instance, "the use of means" is condemned by some as
though it implied want of faith in God. Isaiah was Divinely commissioned to
bring King Hezekiah the definite promise that he would recover from his
malignant disease; and yet he ordered the use of the best remedy known in those
days (2 Kings xx.) And it is in its ordinary sense that the Apostle uses the
word sotêria in Philippians. Chapter i. 19 does not mean that his
hope of eternal salvation was enhanced by the fact that evil men were preaching
Christ, "supposing to add affliction to his bonds"; but he hailed it as likely
to increase his prospect of an acquittal at his impending trial. In our
ignorance of all the circumstances we are unable to appreciate this, but the
issue proved that he was right.
And so in chapter ii. 12 he was
thinking of the spiritual perils by which his beloved Philippians were beset;
and he appealed to them by their loyalty to himself, and by the fact of his
enforced absence, to work out their own deliverance. The gloss which refers
this to their salvation in the theological sense rings the changes upon
"working out" and "working in." But this is a play upon the wording of our
English translation. The contrast implied in the phrase "work out your own
deliverance" is an absolute bar to any such exegesis. For, if thus read, the
Apostles words must mean, either that they were to work out their own,
instead of other peoples, salvation ; or else to secure their own
salvation, instead of trusting him to do it for them. And as regards eternal
salvation, both these alternatives are obviously false. His words to the
Ephesians were no less true to the Philippians : "By grace are ye saved through
faith; and that (salvation) not of yourselves: it is the gift of God"
(Ephesians ii. 8; see p. 107, ante). And the struggle to which he called them
was akin to that in view of which he enjoined upon the Ephesians to put on the
whole armour of God - a struggle to be maintained "in fear and trembling" to
the end.
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