A LAYMAN SPEAKS,
SOME VIEWS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PULPIT
J. Philip Landis, BSEE MIT 1948
Prepared for WCTS Meeting November 14, 2001
Matters of sin, the role of the Law, repentance, and forgiveness by God were in the forefront of Jewish thinking of Jesus' day. Jesus brought to consideration of these matters a new concept of God as loving father rather than stern judge. He taught (to use the titles of Abraham Joshua Heschel's books) "God in Search of Man" rather than "Man in Search of God."
Jesus lived in a Jewish society with a profound attachment to the Law. "For Judaism, if the Law was to have any meaning at all, it announced that God acknowledges only those who do righteously" (O.S.RANKIN, ISRAEL'S WISDOM LITERATURE page 42). This is further reflected in the stringent purity laws (e.g. John 18:28b) governing one's proper condition to approach God in Temple worship or other religious practice (even meals).
The innovation of Jesus was to preach that the process of reconciliation was not one of man's seeking God and desperately trying to "measure up", but one of God, in his fatherly love, seeking man, and accepting man in his sinful state. "The newness of the idea lay in the thought of the approach of God to man and not of 'the righteous' to God. The initiative lay with God." [ibid page 43]
Jesus did not lay out his teachings as might be found in a modern catechism. One must derive his meanings from the combination of his words and his actions. The notion of God's seeking sinners is seen in Jesus' table fellowship with the outcast elements of society, Jesus' acknowledgment that he came to seek "the lost", in his parables about the lost sheep and the lost coin, etc. His "process" of attaining "salvation", as I see it, entailed the following steps:
1. Recognize one's own sinful state
2. Know that God seeks one "as one is"
3. Accept God's loving forgiveness with a contrite and repentant heart
4. Know that one is forgiven and loved
5. In joyous gratitude and thanksgiving, seek thereafter to do God's will
I believe that "salvation" is simply Item 4 above, the joyous KNOWLEDGE that you are embraced by the loving arms of God. I further suspect that Jesus' Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven) on earth was the fellowship of those who had been saved in this sense and were striving to follow God's will.
Being "saved", is therefore a very simple process. It entails no complex ritual, no initiation, no special beliefs other than opening one's eyes to the fact that God is always there yearning for us to turn to him. I therefore consider Jesus as "Saviour" in the sense that he had this inspired but very reasonable insight concerning God's outreach. Jesus made this concept available to us. By "believing" his teachings and having "faith" that he was correct, we can then participate in this form of salvation.
Jesus said that sinners would enter the kingdom of God before the religious leaders in his audience (e.g. Matt 21:31). I think he meant by this that, owing to their smug assurance that their approach to justification was the only way, they could not immediately turn to God in repentance and KNOW they were forgiven as could the sinners who followed Jesus' way. Their search for God by rote would long deprive them of what the sinners could attain immediately.
The teaching of Jesus on salvation aroused the opposition of pious Jews and the religious leaders, probably by its very simplicity. They were accustomed to an array of actions and qualifications necessary to attain God's favor. Jesus' way was too easy. (His way was apparently too easy for Paul and the Christian Church, considering how they changed and complicate it.)
I think Jesus saw in the moral and ethical elements of the Written Law (with some additions of his own) useful guidance toward God's will, and hence he spoke to its continuing validity. The ceremonial aspects of the Written Law he did not specifically abrogate, but seemed not to consider essential to following God's will. This is reflected in his very casual attitude toward the purity laws (washing of hands, associating with sinners, etc.) and Sabbath observance. He further showed no evidence of taking part in the sacrificial activities of the cult.
His most intense arguments with religious leaders of his day appear to have entered on requirements of the Oral Law. Although Jesus did not specifically distinguish between the Oral and Written Law, his acid comments to the Pharisees seem to relate to the former, and indicate non-acceptance.
It is important to understand the difference between how Jesus saw the role of the Law and how Paul saw this role. It seems that, for Jesus, the Law was an aid to the "saved" person in following the will of God. Paul seemed to perceive it as a set of "entrance requirements" which had to be fulfilled prior to one's acceptance by God (and further, requirements so demanding that none could fulfill them).
Paul ignored or misunderstood the salvation process taught by Jesus (as he ignored the earthly Jesus generally). He did not see God in the terms Jesus did and he had his own novel notions about man's sinful state. He deplored the law as the mechanism for justification. However, he developed his own "entrance requirements" in the form of specific required beliefs. These were beliefs in Paul's concept of the sacrificial and atoning role of Jesus, a role totally different from that taught by the Gospels. (See also the discussion herein on THE SINFUL STATE OF MANKIND.) However, Paul's teachings did retain the feature that salvation could be attained rapidly and easily (so long as one could "believe" per Paul's specifications) while still in a sinful state (Rom 5:8-10). This ease of attainment is thought to have been a big "selling point" of Paul's Christianity (to the Gentiles) in contrast to the requirements of Judaism or the mystery religions.
Paul seemed to agree with Jesus that right behavior, as expression of gratitude, should and would follow the entry into the fellowship of the saved. However, Paul ignored Jesus' life and his ethical and moral teachings (except for prohibition of divorce, and Paul even changed that). Paul, instead, in at least three instances casts himself as role model for right behavior (I Cor 11:1,1 Cor 4:16, Phil 3:17). "The Lord" is casually Included (in second place) with Paul in I Thes 1:6.
Some may argue that my interpretation is totally different from what the Synoptic writers intended to convey. In that case I shall simply have to say "this is how the text speaks to me" and then fall back on the delightful note that Raymond Brown attached to his discussion of Isaiah 7:14 [BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH page 146 note 40].
[exegetes]...sometimes posit a "fuller sense" of Scripture, i.e., a...sense of the words... not clearly known by [the author] but intended by God.