Just how holy and righteous am I to be? My good friend and author of God and Human
Wholeness: Perfection in Biblical and Theological Tradition responded to my
last devotion (Sept. 25) with the concern that while it is true that God looks at the
heart and honors those who seek God, we must not play down “innocent or hands”
and “pure in heart” as impossible demands.
The Bible does not present such perfection as impossible; and, this is not
just an OT command. Jesus never lowered
the bar. Drawing on the OT (e.g. Lev
19:2; Deut 18:13) Jesus, in the “Sermon on the Mount,” commands, “Be perfect,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).
I think Christians, including myself, try to find ways to sidestep this call to
perfection. Some people who adopt the
forensic notion that Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to them (that is, God sees
Jesus’ righteousness and not one’s own sinfulness) can lead them to such a
sidestep. They are already righteous! This belief may serve as a corollary to the “cheap
grace” practice of coming forward at church and saying the “sinner’s prayer” so
that one “gets saved” and will not “go to hell,” but their lives do not
change. Another example would be those Christians
who uphold a form of Dispensational theology that actually tosses out the Sermon
on the Mount as not applicable to Christians!
My best excuse for self-tolerance (better: self-justification) fits a
pattern of seeing myself as not quite as bad as some of those other folk.
But God is serious about the call for God’s people to be holy (distinct) and
righteous in their relationships with God and others. God works through God’s people. It is through them that others are drawn to Christ
and find blessing, healing, wholeness in relationship with their Creator. Again, and embedded in Psalm 24, is the key answer:
the practice of seeking God. Those who truly
seek God will be moving toward such perfection.
They will have the heart’s desire to change, and they will have the efficacious
Presence of God to enable that change. From
them will radiate what Paul calls the “fruit of the Spirit,” love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22 – 23).
Lord, I want to be such a faithful seeker of you, your kingdom, your
righteousness. Help me. Amen.
Monday, October 2, 2023
HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS, ME?
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Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, Fortress (reprint) 1992, page 284:"Jesus could not have said, “Be perfect.” There was no such word, or even concept, in Aramaic or Hebrew. And for good reason. The Second Commandment had forbidden the making of graven images (Exod. 20:4). Israel consequently never developed the visual arts. The word used by Matthew, teleios, was, however, a Greek aesthetic term. It described the perfect geometric form, or the perfect sculpture. It was seldom used in ethical discourse, since moral perfection is not within the grasp of human beings, and would even have been regarded, in Greek piety, as a form of hybris." On the same page Wink writes, "Placed in its context within the rest of the paragraph, Jesus’ saying about behaving like God becomes abundantly clear. We are not to be perfect, but, like God, all-encompassing, loving even those who have least claim or right to our love."
ReplyDeleteYes! Thank you Sharyn. (I take a different approach than Wink on word usage but come to your same point.) The use of Greek telios (usually translated as "perfect") at Matt 5:48 is dependent on the OT concept of God’s holiness (Hebrew qodesh). That is where I think we need to start to understand the NT writers’ use of telios. Holiness has the sense of being distinct and dedicated to that which is sacred, being totally good and separated from all evil and wickedness. It is a relational term under the umbrella of which “righteousness” also belongs; that is being “right” in one’s relationships. Some of the other OT vocabulary which express the OT idea of “perfection” are tammin and shalom, which again are about purity and wholeness in terms purpose and function, rather than the English-language moral abstraction of a state of being error-free, without flaw or lack (or Greek aesthetics of “flawless form”). This is why God looks at the purposes/intent of one’s heart as the basis of a “right” relationship. Still, since God’s people are called to be holy and, therefore, both “pure of heart” AND “clean of hand,” such purity of heart will be expressed by “clean of hand” in relationship with others – the correlation to “love God” is to “love your neighbor.” Jesus confronts believers with this correlation between “purity of heart” and “clean of hands” in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matt 25:31 – 46). There, Jesus portrays judgment as based on righteous practices of feeding the hungry, taking care of the sick, etc., because the people of God, whose hearts are “perfect” will be doing such things. The person rightly related to God, will have such “fruit” of being rightly related to others.
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