BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 69
January, 1995
Copyright 1995, Biblical Horizons
When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do so would offend the spirits. Thus, science and technology cannot develop in tribalistic societies. Moreover, the orientation to the past means that change is not really possible. The dead rule the world from beyond the grave, as Gene Wolfe so nicely puts it in his marvelous four-volume novel The Book of the Long Sun.
God initially presents Himself to Israel as the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He is the True Ancestor, back to whom they should look. He it is who rules from beyond the grave. But if that is the only conception of God we have, we can only begin to make historical progress. If we don’t move on, we shall fall back into only drifting through time and space, which is what tribes do.
In order to call Israel forward into history, God presents Himself at Mount Sinai as the God of heaven. He appears in a cloud in the sky, and gives laws to them. The Law provides them a firm foundation, and stops their tendency to drift through time.
Mt. Sinai is a ladder to heaven. The altar is set up at its base, and the smoke of the altar thus rises up into the Cloud. Mid-way up the mountain the elders of Israel covenanted to God with a meal. At the top God was enthroned in His Cloud; from there He uttered the Ten Words, and there He told Moses how the Tabernacle was to be constructed. (Exodus 24.)
When Israel left Mt. Sinai, they took a portable Sinai with them, for the Tabernacle complex reproduced this structure: Altar, Holy Place (with table of showbread), and Holy of Holies (with the Cloud of God).
The courtyard of the Tabernacle complex was marked off with five-cubit high pillars of wood, set in sockets of bronze and topped with rings of silver. The Tabernacle itself, located in the back half of the courtyard, was made of ten-cubit boards of wood overlaid with gold, set in sockets of silver. The sockets of silver at the base of the Tabernacle correspond to the rings of silver at the tops of the courtyard pillars. Thus, symbolically, the Tabernacle rested on top of the courtyard. You cannot build a two-storey tent, so you have to symbolize it.
The courtyard pillars were hung with white sheets of linen, and this represents clouds. We see this when we understand that the altar in the middle of the courtyard is a symbolic holy mountain. The courtyard, thus, is a mountain-top, surrounded by clouds, with the altar in the middle. The four horns of the altar represent mountain peaks.
The bronze altar and the bronze sockets of the courtyard pillars, thus, have to do with the earth. The gold, which is found in the Tabernacle, has to do with the heavenlies. In between is the silver, which has to do with the firmament between heaven and earth, to wit, the priestly nation. We see this in Exodus 38:24-26, where we are told that the amount of gold used was 29 talents (the number of days in a lunar month) and 730 shekels (twice the number of days in a solar year), thus associating the gold with the moon and the sun; whereas the amount of silver used was 603,550 half-shekels, the number of the enrolled men of Israel, thus representing the priestly nation.
The smoke rising off the mountain-top-altar is to be associated with the Tabernacle itself. The materials put on the altar fire–incense, flour, wine, and oil–are the items found in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle. These materials were turned into a cloud of smoke, which the Tabernacle represented. (See Jordan, "The Whole Burnt Sacrifice: Its Ritual and Meaning," published by Biblical Horizons .)
The Tabernacle, made of gold boards, was hung inside and out with curtains of a smoky violet color, and was overlaid with a goat’s hair tent the color of a dark cloud. The Tabernacle curtains are prescribed in Exodus 26. The warp was white linen, while the woof was "blue" and purple and scarlet (wool). These curtains had cherubim woven into them. Since "blue" is mentioned first, this is the primary color, seen wherever there were no cherubim. The other two colors were used to weave the cherubim into the cloth. "Blue" is not a good translation, though. The actual color was "violet," the color of smoke. (Previously I have followed commentators in associating the "blue" with the sky, but I no longer think this is correct.)
These curtains were not hung, as I originally thought (again, following most commentators) as a complete covering inside the Tabernacle. Rather, they seem to have formed two strips 140 cubits long, and were hung above and below the central pole of the Tabernacle wall, forming two draperies all around the inside and outside of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle walls were 30 cubits on a side, with 10 cubits at the rear, while the front was open. It seems that the curtains were hung all around the inside and outside in one strip above the central pole, and another strip below the central pole. The Tabernacle was 10 cubits high, while the curtains were only four cubits high each. Thus, there was a half-cubit of exposed golden wall above and below each curtain. The curtain presented a two-tiered army of cherubim looking inside and outside the Tabernacle.
Much attention is given to the central pole. For the gold-covered wooden boards to stand up straight, there had to be rings in them with poles run through the rings horizontally to keep the boards lined up. There were three lines of poles on each wall: at the bottom, the middle, and the top. The poles at the top and bottom were 15 cubits long, so that it took two poles to stretch the length of the Tabernacle. Attention is called to the central pole, because it ran the entire length. This created a two-storey effect in the Tabernacle itself. (Exodus 26.)
Thus, we have three storeys of five cubits each. The courtyard was five cubits high, and the two storeys of the Tabernacle were five cubits high each.
Now, Exodus 25 & 30, in describing the Ark of the Covenant, the Table of Showbread, and the Altar of Incense, describe in detail the poles and rings set in each of them. These poles were run through the rings in order to carry these objects, but we don’t find this out until Numbers 4. Why does the Holy Spirit call our attention to them at this point in Exodus?
The reason, I believe, is that these rings and poles link conceptually with the central pole of the Tabernacle. Though these objects literally sat on the floor of the Tabernacle, symbolically they were suspended in mid-air along the line of the central pole 5 cubits (8 feet) in the air.
The rings of the Ark were put at the bottom of its feet, so that the whole Ark was above the central pole, and above the heads of the Levites who carried it. The rings of the Table of Showbread were positioned at the top of its legs, so that the Table hung down mostly below the central pole, and below the heads of the Levite porters. Exodus 30 does not say where the rings and poles of the Altar of Incense were placed, but I suggest they were placed midway up. (The poles were never to be removed from the Ark of the Covenant, showing that if the people offended God, He would depart as He had come.)
These three items are three altars that form a stairway to God’s throne. Incense was placed on top of the bread on the Table of Showbread, so that smoke arose from it (Leviticus 24:7). The top of the Table was just above the central pole. We step up to the top of the Altar of Incense. Then we step up to the top of the Ark, which was also an altar because blood was put on it annually, and because the Fire of God’s Cloud was ever upon it. The Table was 1� cubits high. My guess is that � a cubit symbolically rose over the central pole. The Altar of Incense was 2 cubits high. My guess is that 1 cubit symbolically rose over the central pole. The Ark was 1� cubits high, all of which rose over the central pole. Thus, we have a sequence of �-cubit (9-10 inch) steps leading to God’s throne.
Just as the bronze courtyard altar stood mid-way between God’s house (the Tabernacle) and the people, so the Altar of Incense stood mid-way between the twelve-loaves of showbread (the people) and God’s throne (the Cloud above the Ark-Cover).
The high priest, when he officiated in the Holy Place, also wore a robe of "blue" (smoky violet). His cherubic garment made him a human angel, flying in God’s firmament and ministering to Him. Thus, symbolically, the high priest flew about in the Holy Place, itself symbolically in the air.
Now, as we shall see, the Temple of Solomon did not have any of these heavenly associations. There are no stair-steps into it, nor is there a central pole to indicate that things are in the air. Solomon’s Temple sat squarely on a pavement of gold, and meant something quite different from the Tabernacle in this respect. The same contrast exists with Ezekiel’s Temple, for it is pictured as a gigantic stepped altar, or holy mountain, so that it also does not have the cloudy associations we find in the Tabernacle.
In the Tabernacle, God revealed Himself as the King of Heaven. He called the people to stop looking to the past and look upward to Him. It is a characteristic of kingdoms that they are oriented toward the sky and toward sky-powers and sky-gods. God was calling the people forward from their tribal infancy into a fuller maturity as a kingdom of priests. From this time onward, God would no longer be just their Ancestor; He would also be their King (see Judges 8:22-23; 1 Samuel 8:5-7). The princes of the twelve tribes yielded their rule to Him in the extended ritual recorded in Numbers 7.
For further study:
James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World, chapter 15.
Vern S. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, chapter 2.
James B. Jordan, "From Glory to Glory: Degrees of Value in the Sanctuary"
James B. Jordan, "The Tabernacle: A New Creation"
James B. Jordan, "The Whole Burnt Sacrifice: Its Ritual and Meaning"
Biblical Horizons 1993 Conference on Temple and Priesthood
James B. Jordan, "Lectures on Exodus"
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 43
Copyright (c) 1996 Biblical Horizons
January, 1995
In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states:
We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society ‘ a nod, a handshake, a kiss, or a hug. One gesture is appropriate when the milkman calls for his money, another for your aunt, yet another for your wife. We express our relationships to other people through these ritualized greetings. Indeed the more moved we are emotionally, the more ritual we employ. Think of baptisms, weddings and funerals. On such occasions people dress up to look their best. The giving of flowers, and the consumption of food and drink is conspicuous. That we have rituals on some occasions, e.g. a twenty-first birthday party or seventieth birthday party, indicates that we regard reaching twenty-one or seventy as significant milestones…. People express in ritual what moves them most.
In a similar way, Wenham goes on to argue, rituals provide a key to a culture’s most fundamental and important values. From this basis, he examines the Old Testament sacrificial system with a view to discovering what communal values are embodied therein.
I don’t mean to beat up on Wenham. Much of his article is unexceptionable, and I recognize that he is trying to explain a complex topic in a few sentences. Wenham perhaps realizes that he is writing to an evangelical audience for whom emotional excitement is nearly the essence of religion, and therefore tries to defend ritual on that basis. Still, the exercise of critically examining this paragraph will be useful in thinking about ritual.
1. It is not true that we express our “deepest feelings” in ritual, if this means, as it seems to for Wenham, that the degree of ritualization is directly proportional to the intensity of our emotions. In fact, both in daily life and on special occasions we often go through “rituals” without feeling any strong emotions at all. My wife will not, I hope, be offended to learn that I generally feel no more intense emotion when I kiss her goodbye in the morning than when I wave to the postman. (This does not, I hasten to add, mean kissing my wife is no more important than waving to the postman.) How often do we move through a worship service without being deeply moved? Often, I suspect. Indeed, it is a common criticism of ritualized activity that it is dry and unexciting and provides no outlet for strong feeling. I do not believe that is correct, but neither do I want to endorse the opposite extreme by making a direct connection between intense emotion and ritual.
The error is fundamentally in Wenham’s apparent equation of “regarding something as important” with “being moved by strong emotions.” It is true that we frequently ritualize events and actions that we deem important (see #4, below), but we do many important things and recognize many important events without necessarily being moved emotionally. Moreover, different participants in a ritual have different kinds and intensities of emotion. Christmas is intensely exciting to a young child; the same “ritual” brings quite different feelings to an adult and perhaps nothing more than a vague contented numbness, or relief in having a day or two off work.
2. What can it mean to say, “the more moved we are emotionally, the more ritual we employ”? Degrees of emotion make some sense, but does it make sense to talk about degrees of ritual? Is it “more ritualized” to dress up for a wedding than it is to wear old jeans and a sweatshirt to a baseball game? Is it “more ritualized” to kiss an aunt you haven’t seen in years than it is to shake hands with a business partner? In the latter case, we might say that kissing your long-lost aunt is more emotional but is it helpful to say it is “more ritualized”? Perhaps the notion that there are degrees of ritualization is useful if “ritualization” means “degree to which conformity to specific rules is required”; in this sense, it is meaningful to say that Orthodox worship is “more ritualized” than that of the Plymouth Brethren.
In daily life, it would be more accurate to say that it is on important occasions ‘ marriages, deaths, important milestones ‘ that we highlight the ritual character of our behavior. In daily life my gestures of greeting are not marked off as “ritual” in the way a wedding is. We employ “more ritual” in a wedding than in daily greetings in the sense that we employ various means ‘ clothing, food, music, the act of gathering ‘ to make the wedding a special occasion. The differences in the “amount of ritual” is really a matter of the degree to which we consciously and intentionally engage in special kinds of behavior.
3. Is it true that we engage in ritual activity to “express” emotions? This formulation implies that the emotions pre-exist the ritual and are given visible, public form in the ritual. On the contrary, rituals evoke and guide emotions. We don’t plan a wedding because we feel strongly and want to perform a ritual to express those feelings. We feel strongly, if at all, in the course of participating in or observing a wedding; the words, gestures, setting, music conspire to move us. Funerals are different; for the family at least, strong emotions of sorrow precede the ceremony. (At least this is true in the West. In some cultures, anthropologists observe that ritual expressions of grief are strangely detached from any feeling of sorrow; a woman will interrupt her heart-rending lament to gossip, laugh, or helpfully explain something to the anthropologist.) But even in the case of a Western funeral, it is not enough to say that the ceremony “expresses” the emotions. Instead of merely expressing grief, the funeral ‘ with its words of comfort, its expressions of friendship and love, its reminiscences, its meals ‘ provides a pathway helping those who grieve to cross the threshold into a new world in which the loved one is no longer there. The rite shapes emotions as much as it expresses them.
4. Perhaps Wenham does not mean “deepest feelings” in the sense I’ve been taking it, but instead means something like “deepest concerns” or “things that are most important.” Thus, his argument would be: People ritualize those events and actions that are most important to them, and the rituals of a culture express its fundamental convictions about itself and the world. This is a much stronger argument. I’m still not sure that “express” is the best way to think about it, because it implies a priority of belief to practice that, in turn, suggests a primacy of the intellect. It is better to recognize that practice often precedes conscious belief, as for example in the case of children. At a theological level, John Frame has rightly argued that there is a circular relationship between knowledge of God and obedience, between belief and practice. And it seems unreasonable to suggest that every “ritual” is based on deep convictions; what beliefs are expressed by my nod to the neighbor?
Even with these qualifications, Wenham’s claims, while they may apply well enough to the biblical material, do not fit the evidence of ritual in general. Far from expressing the deepest beliefs and convictions of a culture, many rites quite explicitly reverse community values. Fertility feasts permit indiscriminate sex that is prohibited in daily life; beatings and other forms of violence are frequently part of primitive ritual, though they are not necessarily encouraged in daily life; foods normally forbidden are consumed at certain feasts. Max Gluckman has argued that these “rituals of rebellion” do, in the end, reinforce a community’s moral values by providing a catharsis for hostilities that cannot be expressed in daily life. Even if this is true, the possibility of reversals introduces a complexity into ritual behavior. Communal values cannot necessarily be directly and easily read off from rituals. Moreover, ritual forms may persist when the values with which they were originally associated have evaporated; they become to ritual what “dead metaphors” are in speech.
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 43
Copyright (c) 1996 Biblical Horizons
January, 1995
Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian Bradley of the University of Aberdeen, who summarized his recent book, The Power of Sacrifice. Bradley, author also of God is Green, came to see the significance of sacrifice in his study of environmental theology. If we are to “save the planet,” he argued, humanity must learn to make sacrifices for the sake of the rest of creation. He suggested that God is sacrificial by nature, and hinted that creation involved self-limitation and even suffering on the part of God. Sacrifice is not only central to the Christian understanding of God’s character, Bradley continues, but also a thread that runs through the entire creation. The principle enunciated in John 12:24 ‘ if a seed is to bear fruit, it must die ‘ is woven into the fabric of biological life; biologists are finding that the health of an organism depends on the death of certain cells.
There is much that is theologically objectionable in Bradley’s view of sacrifice. The criticisms at the seminar were basically of two kinds, however. First, several participants expressed fears that the idea that “some cells must die for the organism to live,” the idea that sacrifice as dying to live is fundamental to life, would be used politically to justify the elimination of “cancerous” elements in the body politic (Jews, AIDS victims, etc.). This was one aspect of a larger objection that sacrifice is invariably associated with violence and oppression, and therefore, the implication seems to be, Christian theology must get along without sacrifice. The other objection was that, if God is sacrificial by nature, and if creation is understood as His primordial act of sacrifice, then creation is not an act of God’s will, but a necessity of His nature. Bradley seemed willing to accept this implication, despite the fact that it was labeled the “Origenist heresy” by one of the participants.
The best approach to answering these two objections, it seems to me, is to follow out the implications of what I’m calling the “Meyers thesis.” At the 1995 Biblical Horizons Summer Conference, Rev. Jeffrey Meyers suggested that the Reformed notion that “God does all things for His own glory” requires Trinitarian refinement. Referring to a number of passages in John’s Gospel, Meyers showed that each person of the Trinity, far from seeking His own glory, seeks the glory of the other two. The Father glorifies the Son (John 8:50, 54; 17:1), the Son glorifies the Father (7:18; 17:4), and the Spirit glorifies the Son who glorified the Father (16:14). The Church is caught up in the mutual exchange of glory: The Son shares the glory that He receives from the Father with the Church (17:22), even as the persons given to the Son glorify Him (17:10). Thus, while it is true from one perspective that the creation is to glorify the Creator, it is also true that the Creator glorifies the creation, even as each person of the Godhead glorifies the others. As Meyers put it, God doesn’t suck glory from everything else; on the contrary, God (and each of the three persons) overflows in bestowing glory on others.
In discussions that followed Meyers’s lecture, it was suggested that his thesis gives us a Trinitarian prototype of sacrifice. sacrifice is a universal category of culture, often taking a ritual form in animal sacrifice but in the modern world often taking a political form of individual sacrifice for the greater good of the nation or state. If sacrificial acts and language are so universal in human culture, it suggests that the phenomenon is central to the meaning of man made in the image of God. If man is a sacrificing creature, and if man is made in the image of God, God must be a sacrificing God. And this is what we find in the passages in John. Each of the persons of the Trinity effaces Himself before the others, seeking not His own glory but the glory of the other. If this is taken as the “primordial” and essential form of sacrifice, then sacrifice is not necessarily associated with death or violence at all. Death, pain, and violence is an aspect of sacrifice in a fallen world. In its original form, sacrifice takes the form of not seeking one’s own glory but the glory of another. sacrifice has to do not essentially and originally with atonement, but with glorification of the other, with self-giving love.
This immediately answers the objections to Bradley’s notion of sacrifice. Bradley takes the sacrifice on Calvary as the model of all sacrifice: Death leading to life is the meaning of sacrifice. But the self-offering of Christ is characterized by John as the Son glorifying the Father, and this is precisely what the Son has from all eternity done. Calvary is not the foundational sacrifice; it is built on the eternal relation of the Son to the Father. sacrifice is indeed associated with death and violence in Scripture, but this is not the ontologically ultimate form of sacrifice. Christianity posits that what is ontologically ultimate is not violence but the Trinity with its mutual love, communion, seeking of the glory of others. The Meyers thesis also avoids the problem of seeing creation as a necessary act for a self-giving God. God is self-giving in Himself. Each person of the Trinity gives glory to the others, and therefore God does not need to create in order to manifest His self-giving nature in giving glory to Another.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 69
January, 1995
Copyright 1995, Biblical Horizons
Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus on the earth. Thus, for him, the symbols in the book have to do with the same events as the gospels. We must, however, modify his proposal to this extent: The events in Revelation are still future to John, and they therefore have to do with the end of the Old Creation in the events leading to ad 70.
It must be admitted, of course, that the Greek word aggelos simply means "messenger," and is used for human messengers in the New Testament, just as the Hebrew equivalent term, malak, is used both for spirit angels and human messengers. For instance, the following are human "angels":
Matthew 11:10, the Forerunner
Matthew 24:31, evangelists sent forth into all the world (?)
Luke 7:24, the Forerunner’s disciples
Luke 9:52, Jesus’ disciples
1 Corinthians 11:10, pastors and overseers
Galatians 4:14, Paul
James 2:25, the spies
2 Peter 2:4 & Jude 6, the Sethites
Revelation 2-3, pastors in the churches
Revelation 10:1, Jesus
If all the "angels" in Revelation were human beings, then Corsini would not have an argument, but it is clear that many are indeed spirit angels, and thus his argument has weight.
(to be concluded)
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 69
January, 1995
Copyright 1995, Biblical Horizons
Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the Bible (Ox, Lion, Eagle, Man; Moses, David, Prophets, Jesus).
My plan is discuss the Law (Torah; Sermon) of God as it structures history. Jesus is the Lord of history, and as Yahweh He gave the Law at Mt. Sinai to initiate and structure the development of human history in its initial phase: from Moses to the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70. While Israel lived in history and made progress, the rest of humanity lived in the "world," where there is no progress, only existence. God calls men and women out of the "world" and into history, out of bare existence and endless cycles and into His plan as His co-workers. When we leave His obedience and His plan, we fall back into the "world."
Thus, as we have seen previously, God’s first four great Words (commandments) structured the eras of the Ox, Lion, Eagle, and Man. I am developing this aspect at length in the essays in Rite Reasons. To date, we have explored the relationship of the First Word to the era from Moses to David, and of the Second Word in the age of the Kingdoms. This year we shall move on to the Third and Fourth Words.
The second aspect of my plan is to discuss the Symbol God gives to each era, and how it relates to the era. Thus, in the pages of Biblical Horizons I hope to provide an overview of the Tabernacle, Temple, Ezekiel’s Temple, and the New Jerusalem as they relate to what God was doing during the four ages.
The third aspect of my plan is to discuss the history of each era, how God grew His people from one stage to the next, and how the people themselves grew and changed. I plan to do this also in the pages of Biblical Horizons .
Let me enlarge on the rationale for this plan. God is a Person, and also mysteriously Three Persons. We cry out to God, and thus we expect Him (One Person) to hear us. But we also relate to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as Persons. There is no contradiction here, but there is certainly much mystery. Such formulae as "one in nature, three in person" are simply ways of dividing the question to help us come to grips with the mystery. No theologian worth his salt thinks that such formulae actually penetrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Think of it this way: God is One Person and also Three Persons, though not in the same way as He is One Person. Thus, He is not "four persons." Yet, if we could specify the precise way in which God’s One-Personhood differs from His Three-Personhood, we would to that extent and in that way diminish both sides of His Personhood. In other words, if we say that God’s One-Personhood means "this" while His Three-Personhood means "that," we have cut something off from both sides. Thus, we affirm that we cannot understand the difference, while we also affirm that the difference is real. Accordingly, we leave it a mystery.
God is Father, Word, and Spirit. As Father, He is the Fountain and Archetype of all personhood. When we study the history of the four eras, we are studying the growth and development of humanity as God child, maturing from infant to human eldership (fatherhood). As young warriors we gather at the hearthfire of the Tabernacle’s altar. As kingdom administrators we gather around the King at the Temple. As senior officials we guard the doors of Ezekiel’s Temple. As mature sons of God (elders) we rule the world from the New Jerusalem. We move from being oxen, to being lions, to being eagles, to being sons (kings).
As Word, the Son gives us His Teaching (Law; Torah), which directs our paths. When we study the Law as it relates to each period, we are focussing on the Second Person of the Trinity, our Husband and Lord.
As Spirit, God prepares His daughter (humanity) to marry His Son. The Spirit organizes humanity as a halo around God’s throne. This organization is symbolized in the Tabernacle, Temple, Ezekiel’s Temple, and the New Jerusalem (the bride out of heaven). Thus, when we study the symbol of each period, we are coming to grips with the sphere established by the Spirit.
This, then, is the plan I have set out for Through New Eyes Volume 2. Of course, first I need to get Through New Eyes (volume 1) back in print!
Biblical Chronology Vol. 7, No. 1
January, 1995
Copyright James B. Jordan 1995
OPEN BOOK
Views & Reviews
No. 25 Copyright (c) 1995 Biblical Horizons January, 1995
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
A Brief Introduction by James B. Jordan
Eugen Rosenstock was born in Berlin in 1888, son of a Jewish banker. He converted to Christianity early in life, earned a doctorate in law, and served in the German army in World War I. After the war, he became convinced that Western Civilization was undergoing a great change and decided to devote his life to providing a Christian explanation of this movement of history. When he married Margrit Huessy, he added her last name to his own.
The twin poles of his thought concern language and history. Against the method of philosophy, he contended that it is language, not logic, that opens reality; and against the timeless abstractions of philosophy he contended that God’s work in history provides the true revelation of human existence. In back of these two correlative ideas is the Christian doctrine of a God who speaks and who has created the universe and superintends the progression of historical development stemming from that act of creation.
Since the Second Person of God reveals God, and since He is the Word of God, and since humanity is made in His image, it follows that an investigation into the character of language is an investigation into the character of man and of reality. Thus, R-H proposed a linguistic approach to human life and developed a Christian approach to grammar that di_ers markedly from the Greek approach that we have all been taught. Language, according to R-H, moves from God to man as command, to which we respond in joyful lyrical obedience. God speaks to us again in judgment, evaluating our works, and we respond with re_ection, learning from our history. Thus, language moves from command to song to judgment to re_ection.
This is history; it is liturgical history because it is a dialogue between God’s Son and His daughter (humanity). (This is how I put it, not R-H). The history of cultures also runs from a time of command and initiation, when the culture is established, to a time of outworking, as the people joyously implement the paradigm of their culture. Then comes a period of decay leading to a time of judgment and a further time of re_ection. Thus (this is I, again), we move from Moses to David to the prophets (Jesus) to Paul.
Apart from God’s Spirit, sinful humanity drops out of history into the "world." God calls us back into history as actors in His drama. History, though, is a complex tapestry that involves all human beings and all human actions. Thus, R-H investigates history in depth, showing the changes and transformations, the revolutions, that destroy old cultural models and introduce new ones.
All of this I see as very valuable, and for that reason I recommend that anyone seriously interested in laboring in the intellectual arena become familiar with Rosenstock-Huessy’s insights. Now for a few observations.
1. Rosenstock-Huessy is always a surprise. One never knows what he will write or say on a topic, but it will always be something "di_erent." He tries to come at old things in new ways, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
2. Rosenstock-Huessy is rather a maverick as a Christian. He sco_s at the notion that the universe is millions of years old. He claims to hold _ercely to Nicene orthodoxy, and views the Bible as God’s inspired Word. He has contempt for liberal Christianity and for literary criticism of the Bible. He a_rms that the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in that order. Yet he also thinks that the books of Moses were put together in the days of David. Also, he often speaks and writes as if the Church were going to wither away in the next millennium, but he remained an active church-goer all his life. (In fact, the coming age of international techo-tribalism will be a golden time for the local church, for the local church is the purest form of the tribe.)
3. Rosenstock-Huessy’s followers and advocates are, it seems, mainly composed of people who want some kind of religionless Christianity, or some kind of one-world order that is not grounded in the church. The antithesis between Christ and non-Christ, between "history" and the "world," which is pretty clear in R-H’s own work (though not as clear as we would like), is not maintained by many of his disciples. In my opinion, the "liberals" who have taken up R-H’s insights are not being faithful to the master. Be warned, though, that if you begin to read the literature surrounding his work, you will sometimes encounter left-wing nonsense.
4. Rosenstock-Huessy’s books and tapes are available from Argo Books, RR2, Box 366A, Jericho, VT 05465. Write for a catalogue. They also publish a newsletter. The new catalogue is due out soon. If you want to get into this, and want me to make some suggestions of where to begin, write and let me know.
Belling The Bell Curve
by James B. Jordan
The Bell Curve by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein has been all over the news of late. In a _ne essay in the February, 1995, American Spectator, Thomas Sowell points out some problems with it, while generally commending the book. Sowell points out that IQ is not a matter of race or genetics, but changes rapidly from generation to generation within a culture. Sowell, however, provides no mechanism to account for this.
The Christian needs to be able to give an account concerning this matter. I believe we _nd much of help in the researches of Rupert Sheldrake and his associates, summarized most recently in his book The Presence of the Past (New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1989). Sheldrake, a Christian, points out that the evidence is mounting to show that the created universe does indeed undergo change in response to stimuli. Animals change over time, inheriting acquired characteristics not through gradual changes in tiny things called genes, but as a result of shocks to their "morphogenetic _elds." The constancies in the natural patterns and characteristics of animals are not bound upon them by "natural laws" but are "habits." Thus, Sheldrake challenges the notion that a given animal’s characteristics are solely determined by its genetic code and personal life experiences.
The current establishment view is that what is universal in animals and men are their respective genetic codes, and that personal life experiences do not in_uence the universal character of the species or race. Thus, the individual life experiences of gira_es or Eskimos does not change the species gira_e or the race of Eskimos. Sheldrake’s research contradicts this assertion. He shows that when a given gira_e learns something new, all gira_es will tend to learn it–and not over many generations, but within the lifetimes of the existing gira_es. This is a Trinitarian, one-and-many approach to the subject: The oneness of all-gira_es learns to some extent what the particular gira_e learns.
If Sheldrake is correct, the same is true of human races. Just because today the pygmies, for instance, have low IQs does not mean they will have low IQs in a generation. If they become Christians, for instance, they will rapidly change.
I cannot summarize Sheldrake’s evidence and his entire argument here. I can only recommend you _nd the book and read it for stimulation of thought.
The Christian view of race and IQ should take the following two factors into account. First, history is real and it is short thus far. The world is only 6000 years old. All change and development thus far has taken place in that short span of time. Further change can happen just as quickly.
Second, God intends humanity to mature as His daughter. Growth in life, and therefore in ability and IQ, is part of that development. The higher IQ of some groups has little if anything to do with genes, and everything to do with those groups’ history and habits. Change the habits of a group, and the group’s IQ scores will change in one generation.
On the Intrusion of
Imaginary Worlds
by Peter J. Leithart
In "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," one of his philosophical short stories, Jorge Luis Borges, the blind poet of Buenos Aires, recounts the _ctional history of the First Encyclopedia of Tlön. During the seventeenth century, a small group of European scholars determined to collaborate on an encyclopedia detailing the history, geography, philosophy, science, and languages of an imaginary country that they called Tlön. The task proved too immense for a single generation to complete. It was passed from master to disciple for two centuries, during which the society was driven from Europe and turned up in America.
"In 1824," the story continues, "in Memphis (Tennessee), one of [the society’s] a_liates conferred with the ascetic millionaire Ezra Buckley. The latter, somewhat disdainfully, let him speak – and laughed at the plan’s modest scope. He told the agent that in America it was absurd to invent a country and proposed the invention of a planet."
Buckley’s support of the project came with a single condition: "The work will make no pact with the imposter Jesus Christ." Borges explained, "Buckley did not believe in God, but he wanted to demonstrate to this nonexistent God that mortal man is capable of conceiving a world."
The society reformulated its goals accordingly, and in 1914, it _nished the _rst forty volumes of the encyclopedia. Plans were laid for a second, more elaborate edition, written not in English but in one of the invented languages of Tlön.
With the discovery of the First Encyclopedia of Tlön in a Memphis library in 1944, language, history, even pharmacology and archaeology began to be reformed by Tlönistic concepts. Within a hundred years, the narrator predicts as the story closes, "the world will be Tlön."
"The truth is," Borges wrote in a postscript dated 1947, "that [reality] longed to yield [to Tlön]. Ten years ago any symmetry with a semblance of order – dialectical materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism – was su_cient to entrance the minds of men. How could one do other than submit to Tlön, to the minute and vast evidence of an orderly planet?"
"It is useless to answer," Borges continued, "that reality is orderly. Perhaps it is, but in accordance with divine laws – I translate: inhuman laws – which we never quite grasp. Tlön is surely a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth devised by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men."
Borges’s dense and ironic stories, full of Chinese boxish _ctions-within-_ctions, resist easy interpretation. It seems legitimate, however, to understand this story as a parable of the modern world. Modern Western civilization is a massive e_ort to imagine and construct a world to replace the collapsed civilization of Christendom.
From a Christian perspective, the e_ort to invent a post-Christian world is like the creation of Tlön. Christianity provides not only comfort in a_iction and at death, but also a true account of the world and its history. Thus, when they set out to describe a world independent of God, the Encyclopedists of the Enlightenment, no less than the Encyclopedists of Tlön, were conceiving a world that doesn’t exist.
The problem, as Borges reminds us, is that imaginary worlds have a sobering capacity to fashion reality. The world can become Tlön, and Tlön can become a horrifying place to live.
No one would now deny that Marxist dreams of equality and freedom turned nightmarish when applied to the real world of Russia. What is less well understood is that the imaginary world of modern thought has intruded into and molded American civilization.
Perhaps the clearest illustration is found in public education. Most schoolchildren are taught to believe in a world where God, sin, and redemption are at best marginal and private concerns; where complex living organisms somehow spring into existence and then change into other organisms; where Christianity did not play a central role in the American struggle for liberty; where Moby Dick can be understood without reference to the Bible.
This world is neither neutral nor tolerantly pluralistic. It is simply a fantasy world.
Our civilization, T. S. Eliot remarked, "is trying to experiment with attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality." For the Christian, this experiment is as colossal a waste of e_ort and resources as a project to invent an Encyclopedia of Tlön. Just as wasteful, but, in a more than _nancial sense, far more costly.
Sex & Power
by James B. Jordan
I recently heard a tape of a discussion among several Christian writers and political thinkers, and one of the participants noted that it seems that some of our greatest leaders have not been sexually faithful men. Indeed, some have been pro_igate. Thus, the participant argued, it seems that private virtue does not clearly link to public virtue. In this essay, I wish to take issue with that notion.
First of all, we do not know now much greater these men might have been if they had been faithful to their wives.
Second of all, we do not know what other men, faithful men, might have been done far better if they had been in power rather than the "great men" who were.
But third, there is indeed a very strong relationship between marital faithfulness and public virtue, and that is what I wish to explore here.
To begin with, the Bible teaches that the leader(s) of a nation relate to the nation as a husband to a wife. The leader is married to the nation in some deep psychological sense. This is also true of the relationship between a pastor and a church. Thus, the corruption of a man’s marital relationship will inevitably a_ect his political actions. And vice versa: A pastor who betrays his ecclesiastical calling by attacking or betraying the Church may well _nd betrayal in his own marriage as a consequence.
In_delity, polygamy, and divorce are all forbidden by implication in Genesis 2:24, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife." If a man cleaves or sticks to his wife, he will be unable to cleave to another.
Leviticus 18:18 speci_es this prohibition to include the sister of one’s wife. Jacob had married sisters, though this involved a trick, because he was legally married to Rachel and then physically cleaved to Leah, thus becoming bound to both without planning to be. Israelites might have imagined, thus, that marrying two sisters was permissible. But God said, "And you shall not take a wife in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive, to uncover her nakedness." Any second wife is a rival, and any second wife "uncovers the nakedness" of the _rst, exposing her to shame and ridicule as inadequate. Thus, this law also forbids all polygamy.
We ask, then, why Moses (under Divine inspiration) adds in Deuteronomy 17:17 regarding the king, "neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." It has already been established that polygamy is forbidden. Why add that kings, in particular, are forbidden to collect wives? Surely the reason has to do with the particular situation of the ruler. We notice that Paul says that Church rulers also must not be polygamous (1 Timothy 3:2 & 12). The principle would be the same in this case.
Part of the reason for forbidding extra wives for the king is that marriages are alliances. Solomon’s wives were taken as part of alliances with the heathen nations round about Israel, for instance. This opened the nation up to idolatry, and Solomon built idol shrines for his heathen wives.
A deeper reason, however, has to do with the relationship between sex and power. Why is a man unfaithful to his wife? After all, if all the man wanted was sex, he could have it with his wife, or at least with a prostitute. Beyond this, if the man actually fell in love with another woman, he might have a love a_air with her, but this would not involve having sex with one woman after another. Engagement with prostitutes and extra-marital a_airs are sinful, but do not involve the abuse of power. We can think of the American o_cers during World War II who spent three or so years in Europe away from their wives and wound up having love a_airs with some female associate. This is understandable, though wrong, and is not an abuse of power.
Having sex with one willing woman after another, however, is an abuse of power. There is the thrill of titillation in possessing one woman after another, and often there is a very real addiction involved, but indulging in such activities is seldom possible apart from power (including the power wealth brings). Such women are readily available to men who have power, for they want to participate in the power. A John Kennedy, for instance, does not use such women for sex, for he has a wife, nor is he having a love a_air with them; he barely knows their names. Rather, he is abusing power.
Such a man _nds such women available and willing, and uses them. Uses them; that is the operative phrase here. Throughout history, men of power have used women one after another. Such behavior shows a great contempt for women.
The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, who has a Christian background that is re_ected in his early works, deals with just this subject in his novel A Man of the People. This novel, which I commend to you, is in part a re_ection on the parallels between sexual power and political power.
We can turn to David for a Biblical example. Though married to Michal, David began collecting more wives during his "wilderness sojourn" (Abigail and Ahinoam), and continued to collect more afterwards. His cavalier attitude toward women translated into a cavalier attitude toward his political responsibilities. Precisely when he should have been with the Ark leading Israel into battle, he stayed behind and sinned with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). His son Amnon imitated him and ravished Tamar, embittering Absalom, and leading to a civil war. Later, David abused power by numbering the people, trying to take Yahweh’s host as his own.
Today we (evidently) have a leader who regularly "Kennedyizes" with women. From the news, especially as recounted in several issues of the American Spectator, we gather that his preference is for the women to engage in fellatio (oral stimulation of the penis). Now, as far as a married couple is concerned, there is no Biblically forbidden caress, and whatever a couple chooses to do in the course of love-making is up to them. Where there is love and marriage and mutual consent, there is no degradation. In the context of one-night-stands, however, a man who uses women in this way is degrading them. He surely won’t remember their names. He gets them to do something that puts them in a position of humiliation before him. If these reports are true, this leader is certainly not in position to be faithful to his nation, and is a man who regularly abuses power.
The availability of women to the man of wealth and/or power is a great temptation. If he resists that temptation, he will develop character that will stand him well as he exercises power. Because the temptation is so much greater for such men, and because the consequences are so much more deadly, the Bible specially singles out men of power and forbids them to practise polygamy and pro_igacy. A faithful man may have other _aws that prevent his being a good leader, as was the case with Jimmy Carter, but marital faithfulness is one certain requirement for a good leader.
In conclusion, marital chastity and _delity are essential to the proper exercise of rule, in Church and state. The leader who abuses women will abuse the nation as well.
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 43
Copyright (c) 1996 Biblical Horizons
January, 1995
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and ‘ presto! ‘ the sacraments confer grace. By contrast, Protestants insist that sacraments are not means of grace apart from the word and a response of faith in the participants. It is not my purpose here to examine these debates, which in all probability involve a great deal of caricature and oversimplification on all sides. Instead I wish to suggest that it is best if we give the notion of efficacy a little stretch, if it becomes more elastic and complex.
I begin by noting some oddities of evangelical Protestant ritual theology. No one would question, after a rite of marriage, whether the man and woman were “really” married. In regard to marriage, no one questions whether the ritual works ex opere operato. Of course it does. By definition, one comes into a state of marriage through a ceremony involving the exchange of vows and a performative declaration by some official of the church or state. Nor would any Protestant raise the question of efficacy in regard to ordination. After hands have been laid on the candidate, no one asks if he is “really” ordained. He may be a good shepherd or a wolf in shepherd’s clothing, but that he holds office in the church is unquestionable. Again by definition, subjection to the rite of ordination brings the candidate into an office in the church.
If it is taken for granted that the rites of marriage and ordination, which are not even sacraments, have an “automatic” effect, why are questions raised about the “automatic” effects of the sacraments themselves? The reason is evidently this: With the sacraments, the stakes are much higher. That is to say, the Bible brings the sacraments into connection with union to Christ and our personal relationship with the Living God. Marriage and ordination imply nothing about one’s relationship with God. When earthly realities such as the family and the institutional church are in view, rites can be said to work ex opere operato, but that cannot be said when heavenly realities are in view. This distinction, however, is not as sharp as one might imagine. Marriage is not a secret fraternity handshake, and ordination is not election to chairmanship of the bridge club. A rite of marriage effects a one-fleshness that “God has put together,” and those who are ordained to office have been called and placed by the Holy Spirit. These rites have efficacy not only in human social terms, but also, in a strict and strong sense, before God and in heavenly places.
But let us grant that the stakes are higher in the sacraments, and let us grant that because the stakes are higher we must avoid a view that suggests eternal saving grace “automatically” is given to all who receive the sacrament. I do not want to suggest that everyone who is baptized or who receives the Supper is automatically right with God, a position that, to my knowledge, no one in church history has ever held. Instead, I wish to suggest that efficacy is a more complicated matter, that there are various kinds of efficacy that have to do with multiple uses, ends, or intentions. Some of these ends may inevitably accompany the performance of an action, and others may not. I put the children to work in the yard to force them out of the house, to burn up their excess energy, and to make the yard look better. The first two of these purposes will be accomplished simply by the fact of putting the children to work in the yard, but the last might or might not be. This does not mean that the activity was ineffective; it means that only some of my purposes were fulfilled. My broom is effective for sweeping up crumb, pulling cobwebs down from those hard-to-get corners, chasing away a neighborhood tomcat. Given the complex usefulness of my broom, it would be churlish of me to complain that it lacked "efficacy" because it rarely if ever transports me through the air.
For many centuries, there has been an unwarranted narrowing of the purposes and intentions of the sacraments. The sacraments have come to be seen purely in relation to individual salvation. But the sacraments have multiple purposes and intentions. In terms of individual salvation, they cannot be said to operate “automatically,” but this is not all that is going on in the sacraments. Conferring grace to individual members of the Church is not the only end for which the sacraments were instituted.
The Supper is not only a means by which individual members are joined more closely to Christ, but also a means by which the Church manifests herself as One Body: We are One Body because we partake of One Loaf (1 Corinthians 10:17). Whenever the Supper is celebrated, the Church objectively and automatically manifests this unity ‘ simply by virtue of performing the rite of the Supper. This ritual testimony to unity may be belied by the way members of the Church actually treat each other, but even here the Supper is not without its effect: It issues a rebuke and an invitation to repentance, which may, to the shame of the members, be ignored. Every time the Church drinks wine in the presence of God, she testifies that she has entered into the New Covenant Sabbath in Christ (compare Leviticus 10:8-11). Every time the Church celebrates the Supper, she manifests in a temporary and imperfect manner the festival form of the new heavens and the new earth, the perfected kingdom of God (Matthew 8:10-12).
The same kinds of thing may be said of baptism. Fears of baptismal regeneration have made Protestants reluctant to attribute any efficacy whatsoever to baptism. As with the Supper, this reluctance arises from too narrow a view of the purposes and ends of baptism. Aquinas called baptism (along with ordination and confirmation) a deputation to a certain function in the worship of God. In Reformed theology, baptism is the watery gateway to the church. Whoever is duly baptized is a member of the church, the royal priesthood, by virtue of the fact that he is baptized. He may prove himself a Hophni or a Samuel, but there is no doubt that he has been deputized to play a role in the worship of God. Baptism not only is effective for membership in the visible Church, but it also “automatically” manifests the “shape” of the Church and its position over against the world. Every time someone is baptized, the Church says that something is radically wrong with the world, so radically wrong that only death and rebirth can correct it. Every time an infant is baptized, moreover, the Church testifies that she is a community where the weak and helpless may find security, where the broken and ill may find brotherhood.
In these important ways the sacraments are "efficacious," and may even be said to work ex opere operato.
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 37
Copyright (c) 1995 Biblical Horizons
January, 1995
What follows is a brief response to “Tape Set #1: The Passover Argument” in Dr. Gentry’s series “Paedocommunion: Faith or Fad?” which purports to be a “reformed response” to those who believe young children should be admitted to the Lord’s Table. His sermons are premised on the erroneous notion that the case for paedocommunion rests entirely on a belief that children partook of Passover under the Old Covenant. He attempts to disprove paedocommunion by disproving such partaking. Here are his major arguments.
Did Every Mouth Eat?
Dr. Gentry states that, “The paedocommunionist says Exodus 12 teaches that the Passover is to be given to every mouth in the house.” Appealing to a literal translation of the Hebrew, Dr. Gentry claims that v. 4 says a lamb should be chosen that will accommodate “each mouth’s eating” in the household. “This phraseology occurs here in Exodus 12 and only one other place in Scripture, Exodus 16.” When God explained how the manna was to be collected (vv. 16, 18, 21), He commanded that they should gather according to the number of persons eating, or “according to the mouth of eating.”
Dr. Gentry basically accuses paedocommunionists of begging the question, since the passages don’t say that all mouths will be eating Passover and manna, but rather command that the amount be determined by how much each mouth that will be eating will eat. “A suckling child, a two-day-old infant does not need to eat bread. . . . He has a mouth, but he’s not one who’s to be counted in the eating, because he cannot digest it.”
Since no one thinks that infants ate roast lamb, one wonders what the point of all this is.
Dr. Gentry moves next to Exodus 12:37, where it is said that the number of men is six hundred thousand “aside from children.” Aha! See that the men have been counted because they took part in Passover but the children were excluded? “They had just counted so that they had the right number of lambs. And then when the children of Israel leave Egypt, they know how many men are leaving because they just made the count for the lambs.”
How does one respond to this sort of argument? To resort to understatement, it is speculative and flawed. For one thing, each man was told to count the number of mouths in his own household and choose a lamb from his own flock. There is nothing in the Passover instructions to imply that it involved a general census. Furthermore, Dr. Gentry “proves” far too much. His use of the passage not only indicates women were excluded from the first Passover, but it implies that they were left behind in Egypt! After all, if the adding of children to the number of men means the children were not “counted” during Passover, then what are we to do with the missing mention of any women whatsoever?
Were Children Part of the Whole Congregation?
Dr. Gentry states that a second major argument for “infant” participation, is that the “all the congregation of Israel” which was to keep Passover (Exodus 12:47) included children and even nursing infants. Joel 2:15-17 is invoked by paedocommunionists because it mentions children and infants as being part of the congregation.
According to Dr. Gentry, there are four problems with saying that children were part of the “whole congregation of Israel” in Exodus 12:
1. The paedocommunion position is guilty of a logical fallacy’of "affirming the consequent.” Here’s Dr. Gentry understanding of the argument:
a. The congregation in Joel 2 includes infants;
b. The congregation is to take the Passover in Exodus 12;
c. Therefore, the congregation in Exodus 12 must have included infants.
Dr. Gentry compares this to the following argument: “That which is black is a crow. My shoe is black. Therefore, my shoe is a crow.”
How anyone can be persuaded by this is beyond me.
2. Dr. Gentry says the paedocommunion case from Joel 2 involves “the problem of addition.” If children are part of the congregation, then Joel would not have mentioned children in addition to the congregation. “Not only does Exodus, chapter 12, lack reference to the infant and the young child when it establishes . . . Passover, but Joel himself felt compelled to add it when he reported what was going on in Joel, chapter 2.”
Let’s look at Joel 2:16a: “Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants.” Were elders not part of the congregation? The passage goes on to mention brides and bridegrooms, as well as the priests. Are they not part of the congregation? I assume Dr. Gentry knows about the parallel structure of Hebrew poetry. Joel is repeating himself for emphasis.
3. Paedocommunion contains the “problem of absurdity.” The absurdity is that in many places in Scripture “all the congregation” does things that nursing infants could not have done. “Christian, all the congregation does not necessarily involve each and every individual associated with the people of Israel.” Well, who denies this? There’s nothing wrong with defining the congregation according to contextual indicators. But Exodus 12 talks of “households” and “families” who are fed a midnight meal. God makes a point of saying who should be excluded from this meal’the uncircumcised.
4. The paedocommunion argument ignores the “contextual indicators” in Exodus 12 itself. Since Moses spoke to “all the congregation of Israel” (v. 3) and there were over two million Israelites, he could not possibly have spoken to each and every individual. Obviously, Moses did not make a point of speaking to two-day-olds.
Furthermore, “the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel” is to kill the paschal lamb at twilight” (v. 6). Are infants, small children, husband and wives all to hack at the lamb at once? Obviously not.
Of course, while Dr. Gentry raises the question of who killed the lamb, he never mentions the question of who eats the lamb. The answer in Exodus 12 is households and families. Again, the only people excluded are the uncircumcised. On what basis does Dr. Gentry exclude children?
The Argument from the Presence of Children
Dr. Gentry states, “The paedocommunionist says the Passover was performed originally in the home with the children present, therefore we expect that the children partook.” They point to Exodus 12:26 where the children are supposed to inquire about the meaning of Passover. “But as with all of their arguments, it incorporates major error in the outworking of it.” Why? The child only asks, “What do you mean by this service?” He does not ask, “What do we mean?” According to Dr. Gentry this is proof positive that children are observers only.
But if the child is a participant who does not understand the meaning of the rite, then obviously it is the parents for whom the rite has meaning, not the child himself. Furthermore, the meaning of the rite is “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord because He passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but delivered our homes” (Ex. 12:27, NASB, emphasis added). Contextually, the children are part of the homes that were passed over. In fact, as Jim Jordan points out in his tapes on paedocommunion, when Pharaoh offered to permit adults to go, Moses specifically insisted that the children must be allowed to leave Egypt to “hold a feast to the Lord” (Ex. 10:9). The contextual cues are overwhelming in favor of children’s participation in Passover.
Moreover, as Jordan also points out, Exodus 12:26 does not say that the child asks this question during the Passover meal. It only says that whenever the child asks about it, this is the answer to be given.
Next, Dr. Gentry considers a “second aspect of their argument,” which he labels an “emotional” argument. Paedocommunionists ask: “Would parents eat a meal and exclude their children?” Since the Passover was a meal that was to prepare them for long march in the night, wouldn’t children have needed to eat something?
Dr. Gentry replies that Passover was not simply a common meal but a sacrament. God is the one who must tell us who is to partake of His sacraments. Well, God said that all the congregation must eat of it, every household, but not the uncircumcised. Given Dr. Gentry’s logic, God is obligated to tell us if there are further exceptions.
Dr. Gentry tries to bolster his case by conflating the rules regarding Passover and other feasts in Deuteronomy 16:1-17 with Exodus 12. Dr. Gentry points out that sons and daughters are mentioned in context of the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths but not in context of Passover. Rather, only the men are required to attend Passover.
But, while children are mentioned in regard to the other two feast, they are not required to attend any of them. Only the men are required to appear at the Tabernacle for the feasts three times a year (Dt. 16:16).
Remember, the two feasts which mention children mention them in describing a celebration. Passover, on the other hand, mentions “the bread of affliction." It is more somber in character and is almost as much a fast as a feast. Obviously, if journeying from the outskirts of Israel is a hardship, men will be less likely to bring the whole family along for Passover, than for the other feasts. This doesn’t mean they are prohibited, any more than the mention of children with the other feasts means that they are required to attend. Since Dr. Gentry himself declares that both Mary and Joseph attended Passover annually (Luke 2:39), his argument is obviously fallacious. If Mary can attend despite an absence of any mention of women attending, then why can’t children?
Moreover, the other feasts were every bit as “sacramental” as Passover, since they also involved eating sacrificial meals. If children were included at these sacramental meals, as Dr. Gentry must admit they were, then what makes him think they were excluded from Passover?
The Design of Passover
This is supposed to be a positive argument instead of a refutation. But most of it is repetitive of what Dr. Gentry has already said. Roast lamb is not for nursing infants, etc.
Then he says that Exodus 12:48 proves that only adults partook of Passover: If a Gentile lets “all his males be circumcised,” then he may “come near to celebrate it.” Since only the stranger is mentioned, not all the rest of the household, this constitutes proof in Dr. Gentry’s mind. By contrasting the language of Exodus 12:48 with Acts 16:14-15 in which Lydia’s whole household is baptized, he makes his most cogent point. But this is again an argument from silence. Furthermore, if it proves anything it proves too much, since it excludes all other males in the household regardless of age.
The Cleanliness Code Impossible for Children
The basic thrust of this argument is that children cannot keep themselves ceremonially clean and therefore were not admitted to Passover. “These regulations I believe are beyond the capacity of the very young to keep” because they “require a maturity of mind and an upright standing with God.” Since Dr. Gentry has already admitted that children partook of the other feasts, he has himself conceded that this argument won’t work. All the sacramental meals of the Old Testament involved the same cleanliness requirements.
Episcopal Confirmation Classes
In this “positive” argument, Dr. Gentry uses Exodus 12:26, Luke 2:41-51, and Proverbs to “prove” that children were not admitted to Passover until the age of thirteen after passing an exam before the elders at the age of twelve. He tries to make this “proof” seem less ridiculous by several quotations from the Mishnah and the Apocrypha. (The Mishnah is the written form of the demonic oral law tradition that Jesus and Paul condemned in the harshest terms imaginable. Not the best source for a Christian to rely upon when doing theology!)
Dr. Gentry quotes Isaiah 7:13, which states “He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good” (NASB). The fact that the Bible acknowledges that certain types of food are appropriate to certain ages, and that these ages are associated with varying degrees of maturity, indicates to Dr. Gentry that the sacraments are only for those who have reached a certain age. Children should not partake of the Supper until they can discern between good and evil.
Once again, these speculations prove nothing. Dr. Gentry has yet to show us that the Lord’s Supper is not to be administered to children capable of digesting it. Furthermore, if his argument constituted proof, it would prove far too much. According to the Bible, those who “have no knowledge of good and evil” (Dt. 1:39) are those who are who are not yet twenty years old (Num. 14:29).
Then Dr. Gentry moves to Proverbs 22:6, which promises that if we train a child, he won’t depart from that instruction when he grows older. “It’s interesting that the word ‘train up’ here . . . literally has the connotation of ‘pour date syrup in his mouth.’ He’s talking about baby feeding.” Dr. Gentry never explains how the term connotes this. He infers that the text is telling us to “teach a child in a way that’s conformable to his youth.” But what does this have to do with the Lord’s Supper? “Well it’s very interesting, and it’s fascinating, and it’s helpful to our argument to notice that the verb form ‘when he is old’ is in the noun ‘beard.’” So the proverb promises that, once a beard forms, a son will not depart from what he was taught as a young child in an age appropriate fashion. What does this have to do with Passover or the Lord’s Supper? “But the point here, that I’m wanting to make is, that given history’in the Jewish Mishnah and other writings’given Scripture, the child is considered one who is in training under age, until such a time that he grows the beard, and such a time and such an age that at that time he comes to maturity. The Passover is a mature meal. It is not a giving of date syrup. It’s not curds and honey. It is a mature meal that is to be taken. And it requires a mature understanding that, generally speaking, comes upon a child around puberty.” Thus, Dr. Gentry “proves” that children are to be barred from the Lord’s Supper until they pass inspection of the elders at the age of thirteen.
Dr. Gentry tries to make Luke 2:41-51 support his position: Because the text says that the parents went up to Jerusalem every year (v. 41) and then says Jesus went with them when he was twelve (v. 42), that proves He never went to Jerusalem before. “Who went up? The parents of Him, and only the parents of Him. That’s all you find in that verse.” This is not only another argument from silence but a distorting of the verse which does not say that “only” the parents of Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In addition to the argument from silence (v. 41), Dr. Gentry argues that Luke records how all the ritual laws are being kept by Jesus “and here comes a major one”‘His first Passover. Just how can a “major ritual law” not be written in the Law? Nowhere is there a command for twelve-year-olds to be examined by the elders and then admitted to Passover the following year.
Conclusion
Throughout the tapes Dr. Gentry requires that the paedocommunionist prove his position beyond a shadow of a doubt, while assuming that his own position is self-evident. But not only is his own argument an argument from absolute silence, but it makes God guilty of leaving us exposed to an “uncovered pit” (Ex. 21:33-34). We are told we must respect a boundary that we cannot see. This barrier-boundary between baptism and the Lord’s Table is simply invented ex nihilo by Dr. Gentry without anything close to a Biblical argument. If such a boundary exists, God’s righteousness’and, for what it’s worth, the regulative principle of worship’demands that He explicitly reveal it in His Word. Given what Dr. Gentry claims is at stake, his arguments from silence lend plausibility to the paedocommunion position and render his own position incredible.
