Recently I wrote about When Jesus and Paul Disagree. I claimed, of course, that they didn't. In fact, I hold that if Jesus was God Incarnate and the Bible is God's Word, then the entire Bible is what Jesus would teach and they cannot disagree. Fine. Well, for many. In that piece, I mentioned the "red letter Christians", people who have decided that the really important verses are the ones that came from the lips of Christ (even though Jesus never said, "Now, John, when you write about this, and you will, make sure you write My words in red ink" -- the "red letter" version is an opinion, and a fairly modern one). There are those just off that fringe of "We only care about what Jesus actually said" who would argue "We interpret Scripture through Jesus's words." Subtle difference? Perhaps.
In these two camps you'll find those who argue "Jesus never said" and then proceed to tell you that He never talked about homosexual behavior, "gay marriage", premarital sex, or whatever other favorite hot topic is at hand. As if "Jesus never said" is proof that He had no opinion on the given topic. It's too easy to take that apart, of course, because I know of no Christian who would argue, "Jesus never said child molesting was wrong, so it's perfectly moral." Jesus never said a lot of things. He never said anything about rape, bestiality, polygamy, church polity ... all sorts of things. Not a good argument.
In this "We interpret Scripture through Jesus's words" mindset, though, a related realization occurred to me. You see, Jesus didn't talk about homosexual behavior (as an example) because that had already been covered (Lev 18; 20) and would be covered again (Rom 1; 1 Cor 6; 1 Tim 1). The question was not at hand, so He was not answering it. But if we're going to interpret Scripture through the lens of Christ's words, there will be one very serious gap in your Bible: grace.
Isn't that interesting? Jesus never once used the word. There is nothing from the lips of Christ about "saved by grace" or "justified by grace" or anything like it. John used the word in John 1:14-17 describing the origin of grace in Christ and Luke tells us that God's grace was on His Son in His childhood (Luke 2:40), but the word never comes out of Jesus's recorded words. Indeed, what was Jesus preaching? "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt 4:17; Mark 6:12; Luke 13:1-5).
What, then, are we to conclude? Well, if you are going to be true to "We interpret Scripture through Jesus's words", you're going to have to do something new and different with "grace". If you don't throw it out entirely, you're going to have to minimize it, since apparently Jesus did*. We don't really get a full explanation of just what biblical grace is until Romans 11 where Paul explains that grace is God's favor apart from works (Rom 11:6). But if we're going to filter Scripture through Jesus's words as our guide, we're going to have a problem with the basic premise of the Gospel, that we are saved by grace through faith.
What Jesus said is important. No doubt. His words are key. But always remember that Jesus occupied four of the 66 books in our Bibles. On the other hand, if Scripture is God-breathed and Jesus is God, all Scripture is the Word of Christ and should be treated with diligence and respect. Of course, that makes the "We interpret Scripture through Jesus's words" concept a little redundant since all Scripture is Jesus's words. So, good start. Now, let's get to work understanding what He meant.
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* Note that since I don't ascribe to the "Jesus never said" or the like kind of view, I don't actually believe that Jesus minimized grace. I think there were very good reasons He didn't teach on it. I think that grace didn't come into play until He died and was resurrected. I think the Jews needed to hear more "repent" and less "grace". I think that Jesus came to fulfill the law and grace apart from the law would have detracted from it. And, of course, I believe that all of God's Word is Jesus's Word and, thus, it was a key part of the Gospel ... later.
6 comments:
Great points. I see Christians and "Christians" use that argument at least a couple times a week on the Interwebs and elsewhere.
They tip their hands at how they don't think He is divine. And they don't even realize that they have no grounding to assume that one book's claims to speak for God are true (i.e., a Gospel) but another book's claims are false (e.g., Romans).
Here's my summary that I copy and paste when I see this on blogs and such: Arguing from silence is a logical fallacy, Jesus is God and part of the Trinity that inspired all scripture, He supported the Old Testament law to the last letter, the "red letters" weren't silent on these topics in the sense that they reiterated what marriage and murder were, He emphasized many other important issues that these liberal theologians completely ignore (Hell, his divinity, his exclusivity, etc.), He was equally "silent" on issues that these folks treat as having the utmost importance (capital punishment, war, welfare, universal health care, taxpayer-funded abortions, etc.), He didn't specifically mention child abuse and other obvious sins though that wouldn't justify them, and abortion and homosexual behavior simply weren't hot topics for 1st century Jews. And Jesus never said anything about the "sin" of criticizing homosexual behavior, so it must be OK!
It always saddens me when people say, "only Jesus", or "only Paul", or "only Peter", or "only King James", as a means trying to dismiss some sort of apparent contradiction, or to remove something they don't agree with. Seeing as all the words of Jesus were written by other men, that one is out, and Paul was no more inspired than any other Biblical writer, those two are out, and the King James is merely a translation into a language nobody speaks anymore, that one is out...now what? Either you take ALL of Scripture as God's word, or none of it is. If you don't agree with something the Bible clearly says, either change your thinking, because it is the WORD OF GOD, or stop reading your Bible because it is trash.
Neil, I agree (I said so in the post) that arguing from silence is a bad idea. Producing a positive argument from silence is, well, stupid. It was only when thinking about grace and how Jesus was silent on it coupled with the "red letter Christians" concept that it occurred to me that this argument works in reverse. But, I suppose consistency on their part isn't a virtue.
Heretic Rob Bell is one of those who consistently states that "Jesus never said" anything about homosexuality.
That arguing from silence is one of the most irritating claims.
Considering how long He preached and taught (though just a few years), there could be hundreds of things that He said that simply weren't recorded. In other words, just because a specific point or issue isn't covered within the confines of the "red letters", doesn't mean that Jesus had nothing to say on it. So looking at all of Scripture should be the default position for what wasn't a "Jesus quote".
I like the angle regarding grace. Grace is a word used often by some who regard it as the whole of Christian understanding. There was one fellow, who I never see these days on the blogs, for whom it is his final word on any subject.
BTW, I'm told I know little to nothing about grace, and usually in the most ungracious manner.
Interestingly, John wrote, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25). I would, I think without much dispute, that if He did more than books could contain, then He likely said more than books can contain.
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