Imagine you were walking through the mall this past weekend, and you noticed one of those mall kiosks with the following sign:
Bob’s Certified Driver’s Licenses
Too young to drive? No Problem. State License revoked? Get back on the road!
My Licenses Get YOU back on the road TODAY
You go up to the guy manning the Kiosk and ask who Bob is.
He says, “I’m Bob.”
“So…. are these Fake IDs?” you ask.
“No,” he replies. “They are real IDs. They are real Driver’s Licenses, but instead of being issued by the state, they are issued by me.”
“But wait,” you say. “You cannot just hand out driver’s licenses to anyone. People have to learn how to drive! What if you are giving licenses to people who had theirs taken away for drunk driving? This is dangerous! You are selling unauthorized licenses, and people are going to get killed!”
As you talk further, you find out he is a bit disgruntled with the way the state controls the Driver’s Licenses, and wants to create a new way for more people to drive. At one point, you think this is just some sort of get-rich-quick scam of his, and you ask how much he is charging for these “licenses” but he says they are free. He doesn’t charge a dime. You ask if the State Police recognize his licenses, and he says, “No yet. But eventually we will create our own Police Force that will. Until then, you might get a few tickets for driving without a license.”
The conversation goes on, and eventually, you become convinced that this guy is crazy, and even dangerous, and must be stopped. You go talk to the mall mop, who then calls the real cops, and they come arrest Bob and take him away to jail.
Sounds outlandish, right?
Jesus the Counterfeiter
But this is what people thought Jesus was doing in His ministry. When He went about forgiving sins without requiring them to go make sacrifices in the Temple, or telling them that they could pray directly to God the Father in heaven without having to use a Priest as a mediator, they thought Jesus was playing fast and loose with religion. What He was teaching was dangerous. People were going to get themselves hurt…or worse yet, damned for eternity!
Most of the time, we think Jesus got arrested and killed for claiming to be God. He did, but what initially upset and offended the religious leaders was the challenge of Jesus to the authority and power structures of Temple Judaism at that time. At most of the conflicts Jesus had with the religious leaders comes not from His claim to be God, but from His challenges to their authority.
For example, in when Jesus claimed to be able to forgive sins, he was not claiming to be God, but was claiming to have set up a new temple, and a new priesthood. When he let his disciples pluck and eat grain on a Sabbath, he was bypassing the leadership-approved method of obeying God.
The Challenge of Jesus
This is what was so challenging about Jesus to the religious leaders. He was bypassing everything they knew, everything that was approved, and was setting up His own system. And the question of the religious leaders and rule-makers of the time was, “Hey Jesus! Who do you think you are to do such things? Don’t you know we already have a system in place for all this? So follow it!”
In the eyes of the leaders, Jesus was undermining the Priestly authority. He was telling people to bypass the Temple and the Priesthood and the Sacrificial system. How were people’s sins to be forgiven if they didn’t kill a goat at the Temple?
In the eyes of the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus was a counterfeiter. He was making fake IDs and counterfeit money, and passing it out in broad daylight to all his friends and followers. These were not Roman-issued IDs and money, but Temple-issued rules and traditions.
The result was that eventually, just like Bob, Jesus got arrested.
I think the “Christians” would probably kill Jesus again, were He to show up in bodily form.
Can’t you imagine his booth at the mall? The signs might read “Sick of religion? Eternal life is a free gift.” “Sell your churches and give the money to the poor.” “Sins forgiven” “Prostitutes, adulterers and LGBT’s loved here.” “Religion stinks” “Give your life to others.”
Then again, Jesus would probably be hanging out with the sinners, prostitutes and all the others who don’t quite fit the mold of what a good Christian should be, rather than sitting in a booth at the mall debating religion and theology with the religious types.
I think what scares people most is “Church without a leader”
What would happen if most pastor’s just walked away unannounced and never came back? What would most churches do? Would the people just go home? Or find another church with a pastor?
People who say this now and considered insane. Now imagine Christ coming back and saying this plus what Sam said and what Jeremy’s been saying. It’s still awkward when people ask me “What church do u go to?”
How do you answer their question?
I say that I gather informally with other believers.
That’s a good point. A booth like that would probably only attract religious debate.
Tim, it is interesting that Matt 23:2-3 immediately precedes an entire list of Woes pronounced on the Pharisees for the things they teach and do. The woes pretty well balance whatever Jesus is saying is 23:2-3. And Jesus himself certainly didn’t observe everything the Pharisees told people to do.
BTW, Jeremy, is that a photo of the mall in Middletown?
No. I got this image from Google images. It kind of looks like the mall, doesn’t it?
It does!
Matt. 23:2-3. Think you’re about half a bubble off on this one.
Neither was He a revolutionary. He didn’t bypass the Temple — He went up to the Temple regularly to celebrate the feasts. He kept the Law, and taught the people to do the same. He had some choice words for people who didn’t, especially if they were in positions of authority. But He didn’t come to overthrow the tradition, He came to fulfill it.
Tim,
Yes, I did not mean to imply that Jesus was bypassing “everything” even though I used the word “everything.” Ha!
I should probably tweak the post to be more clear. The main things I think that Jesus was “bypassing” was the priestly class as mediators between God and man, the sacrificial system as the method for receiving forgiveness of sins, and the Temple as the locus of God’s presence.
Did Jesus still worship in the Temple? Sure. But not because it was where God was located. Did He still make sacrifices? I presume so (though other than Joseph and Mary offering sacrifices after His birth, we don’t have any record of Jesus offering sacrifices), but not to gain forgiveness of sins or to teach others to do the same. This was never the purpose of the sacrificial system.
Anyway, your point is well taken. I do believe Jesus fulfilled the Law, and was not teaching people to disobey the Law. But many aspects of the Law had become twisted or misapplied, and it was these that Jesus challenged.
Jeremy,
To be chasing this a little further…if in His life Jesus taught the people to bypass the sacrificial system, then of what value was His fulfillment of the system He had already circumvented?
If He were undermining the Temple as a locus of God’s presence, then why did He bother to cleanse the Court of the Gentiles?
Tim,
Before we can ask “Of what value was His fulfillment of the system” we must ask, “Of what value was the system?”
As stated in my comment, I do not believe the sacrificial system was “for receiving forgiveness of sins.” This is what Jesus was pointing out to the people. Most people think that the Temple and sacrificial system was the way to receive forgiveness of sins. I think Jesus was saying, “No. That is not how it works. God gives forgiveness freely.”
So before we can talk about what exactly Jesus fulfilled through his sacrificial death on the cross, we must understand what the sacrificial system was for. I am not about to tackle that here, but I do not believe God intended the system as a way for people to receive forgiveness of sins.
This is one reason why Jesus was able to offer forgiveness of sins to people who had not yet made the “Temple-suggested sacrifice” and He was offering this forgiveness chronologically prior to His death on the cross.
I think this is partly the point by the author of Hebrews in chapter 10.
Of course, I need to be careful because “forgiveness” is not really the word I have in mind…. The word I want is the Greek aphesis which is closer to “release” or “deliverance.” But that also is too much to tackle here.
Jeremy,
I love how little time it takes to get into deep water with you. Good stuff!
I agree with most of what you just said, and I’d add Heb. 9:8 to your mention of ch. 10. Jesus certainly pointed this out, but the Holy Spirit was pointing it out all along, as a concept embodied in the sacrificial system itself. Passover had all the information they needed, already: fellowship in anticipation of free(gratis) and free(libre) deliverance while judgment passed them by.
God’s people could always pray without a priest as an intermediary — which is why David, Solomon, Hannah, Elijah, etc., all prayed without going to a priest, as did Cornelius, Lydia, and other God-fearers in the NT. It was common enough for first-century rabbis to teach their followers to pray. The ability to pray to God directly may have been a revelation for 16th-century German Catholics, but it was common knowledge in Jesus’ time and place.
On the other hand, we can’t denigrate priestly ministry. It’s not like it’s something dreamt up by the Sadducees; God invented it. And we’re called to it.
Tim,
I really enjoy your comments, and all your blog posts as well. You make me think, which I love!
I may have slightly overstated my case, and will think on all of this more. Regarding the priestly ministry, I would say that while it was ordained by God, Jesus was broadening it to all His followers, not just to a select few. We are now a kingdom of priests. When this happens, those who are the select few get a little nervous and protective about their power.
Jeremy,
We almost agree. Israel was always supposed to have been a kingdom of priests — see Gen. 12:3, Ex. 19:6 — so again, Jesus was calling for the fulfillment of the Law. However, as Peter Leithart argues in _Priesthood of the Plebs_, the multi-tier priesthood of Israel has now been flattened out. Where they had a priestly nation that in turn had the Aaronic line serving as priests to the priests, Christianity initiates *all* the people into the highest order of priesthood by incorporating all God’s people into Christ, the priest after the order of Melchizedek.
I’m not sure how apparent this was during Jesus’ life — He was very much about rebuking Israel for not being Israel — but it’s plenty apparent by the time we’re well into the ministry of the apostles.
Tim,
As always, you seem to have read some GREAT books. Do you think there is a special “teaching class” of priests within the order of Melchizedek who have more authority or honor within the church?
Jeremy,
Outstanding question. Yes and no. First off, it’s not particularly about teaching; it would be about leadership.
Yes: It’s not possible to fulfill verses like Hebrews 13:17 or 1 Timothy 5:17 without embracing some sort of differential in authority and honor — and these requirements must be fulfilled. Nor is it possible for a church leader to fulfill the responsibilities given him in, say, Titus 1:5-11 without embracing a measure of authority.
No: On the other hand, I am sensitive to the concerns that prompted Ambrose Bierce to define an archbishop as “a Christian of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.” Nobody, least of all archbishops, gets to dodge passages like Ephesians 5:21, or John 13.
What the relevant passages require of us is that certain functions be fulfilled (capably, of course). They do not require that there’s some sort of special caste from which the people who fill those functions must be drawn. A man can serve for a time as an elder, watching out for another man’s soul as a part of his flock. In due course, the first man can step down, the second assume the post, and they switch roles. In each situation, the man who is ruling must rule well, and the man who is ruled must obey and submit himself (and no matter that a year ago, the roles were reversed.)
Tim,
Your comment provides much food for thought. I finished reading The Shape of Sola Scriptura last week, and with his emphasis on creeds and the teaching office of the church, it made me ask a few related questions as the one above.
Jeremy,
I should add that I do put my money where my mouth is on this. I am living a version of that example I gave. My immediate superior at church, and my associate pastor, is a former seminary student of mine, and I was once the associate pastor in the church he attended. Then, I watched out for his soul, now, he watches out for mine, and I submit to his authority so that he can give account with joy. This is exactly as it should be.
Tim,
Very interesting….and probably a good way to go. Has it ever happened to that he challenged or corrected you (or vice versa) and you (or he) dug your heels in? What then?
I understand the issue about ‘the few’ getting nervous and wanting to stomp down the upstarts. It’s a real problem, and we have it. I’m just more than a little concerned that when we set out to annoy them, we do it by being godly, not by setting up a new, and equally ungodly, idol.
Good point. A definite concern, and a trap I hope I learn to avoid.
Jeremy,
Yes. We’ve each challenged each other. We’ve rebuked each other. It’s gotten rough. We have a mutual friend, though–the fellow from Nazareth–and for His sake, we work it out. You will, of course, wonder what happens if we can’t work it out. It’s a good question.
But we’re called to be of one mind, and we have the Spirit to help us do it. If the Triune God is not enough to keep us going, we’re screwed. But it seems like a pretty good bet.