I’ve
been thinking about how we handle some of the more incongruous portions of
scripture.
The
book of James, for example. Martin Luther wanted to toss the book out of the
Bible; he called it the “Epistle of Straw,” and he had a good reason: James is
such a completely different presentation of God than the rest of the New
Testament. It doesn’t mention Jesus’ name even once. How can we have a book of
the Bible that doesn’t point to Jesus?
But
eventually, we figured it out. James’ epistle doesn’t stand alone. It stands in
context with the rest of the NT, and we interpret James’ comments about the
value of works, for example, in the light of the rest of the revelation about
who Jesus is and what he has done.
Because
Jesus is all about grace apprehended by faith instead of by works, we know how to interpret James’ words about works: through the life of
Jesus, through the cross of Jesus. James is talking about working out our faith,
working from the forgiveness we’ve received, not working to earn forgiveness.
If
we didn’t interpret those passages, through the life of Jesus, if instead we used James’
words about works to define Jesus (I have met some confused, law-based people
who have), then we could seriously misunderstand Jesus.
We’ve
figured out how to interpret James. Why do we not, I wonder, apply the same
lesson to Revelation?
We
should take the difficult to understand fire-and-brimstone passages of
Revelation, and interpret them through the very clear revelation of the life
and words of Jesus. “OK. Jesus taught us that God is perfect love, and Jesus himself took
all condemnation on himself on the Cross. So how do I understand the four horsemen
in that light?”
But
there aren’t very many people who do that. I’ve met hundreds of people who take
this most-bizarre, most difficult-to-interpret book of the New Testament, and use it to define
Jesus by employing their best guess about what the strange imagery and bizarre metaphors
are referencing. It requires that they completely ignore the clear revelation
of the life of Jesus in four first-hand testimonials, and we ignore the clear revelation
of his own teaching.
I am NOT saying that either James or Revelation are not inspired scripture, or that we can do without their teaching. I AM saying that we must interpret these passages through the greater revelation of Jesus, and not use them to define our understanding of Jesus. We always use the clear passage to define the less clear passage, and there is no clearer understanding of God than the person of Jesus.
Jesus
rebuked people who would “strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.” I’ve met a
bunch of those people. That’s gotta give them indigestion.
Jesus
is the clearest interpretation of God that there has ever been: God himself
became human, and walked among humans so that we could know who God is. We need
to base our understanding of Scripture off of that clearest revelation;
everything else that we think we understand about God must be interpreted
through the life of Jesus. If we hold a belief about God that is inconsistent
with him, then we need to let it go.
We
need to apply the lessons we’ve learned from the book of James to Revelation
and other less-clear passages about who God is.
1 comment:
As members of a legalistic church for a couple years, and then in the last couple years coming back to a revalation of the Father's love and mercy, I can totally relate to what you are saying. I like what Bill Johnson says, "Jesus Christ is perfect Theology"
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