Know God Better: Don't Ask Living Church of God!
On the Living Church of God's website, they have an article posted by Dexter Wakefield titled Know God Better Through His Statues. For those who are familiar with the Armstrong Churches of God, that title will come as no surprise to them. However, for Christians of a more traditional inclination, it may provoke a bit of a puzzled look - as in what do they mean by that? For Mr. Wakefield, as for most Armstrongites, Torah is a window into the heart and soul of God. For these folks, Torah IS GOD's Law!
Never mind that the "commandments, statutes, and judgments" of Torah were addressed to the children of Israel over and over again throughout those writings. Never mind that those "commandments, statutes, and judgments" were designed to meet the needs of a primitive and tribal people who embraced paternalism, polygamy, and slavery and were surrounded by pagans. Never mind that after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Levitical priesthood, it became literally impossible to fulfill many of the requirements of those "commandments, statutes, and judgments" of Torah. Never mind the New Testament claim that Christ fulfilled those same "commandments, statutes, and judgments." Never mind that Christ summarized Torah into Two Great Commandments, which he claimed comprehended the entire legislation! Never mind, that the epistles of Paul, Peter, James, and John all point to LOVE as the foundation and focus of God's Law!
That's right, according to Scripture, GOD IS LOVE (I John 4:8, 16). Hence, if you really want to know God better, it seems to me that the best way to do that is to learn about what motivates God and his "commandments, statutes, and judgments." Indeed, when Christ was asked about the greatest commandment(s) in Torah, he replied: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40, ESV) The Apostle Paul said that "love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10, NKJV) Notice, that it isn't the Law which defines love, it's love that defines the law! In other words, Torah was motivated by God's love for the children of Israel. Moreover, Christ underscored this principle for his followers when he gave them a "new" commandment. He said: "Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." (John 13:34-35, NLT)
Interestingly, the above Living Church of God article references God's prediction through the Prophet Jeremiah that God would establish a New Covenant someday: We read there: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:33-34, NKJV) They quote it, but they apparently completely miss how God intended to fulfill this prophecy about putting his law in their minds and writing it on their hearts. Remember, Jesus Christ's mission was to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17)
In his famous "Sermon on the Mount," Christ did just that! For his followers, the law would be internalized. The Old Covenant outlined in Torah and typified by a long list of dos and don'ts was to be fulfilled and replaced by him. Christ's disciples would be expected to measure their behavior by the principle of LOVE. In other words, is this behavior motivated by (and consistent with) loving God and each other? Now, as Torah was motivated and summarized by the same principle, we can see that many of the commandments which are associated with how they behaved toward other people and God are consistent with this new iteration of God's Law. For instance, we can readily see that being unfaithful to one's spouse would NOT be consistent with loving him or her. Likewise, we recognize that striking someone or murdering them is NOT consistent with the principle of love. Indeed, as Torah was motivated by love, one would expect the "commandments, statutes, and judgments" found therein to reflect the love which motivated them!
Think about it, if you wanted some insight into the character of the United States would you study the laws of the nation or the principles on which those laws were promulgated? Which came first: the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution? Didn't the principles espoused in the Declaration motivate and serve as the foundation of the laws that followed? In other words, these Armstrongites have it all backwards. To truly know and understand anything, one must start with the foundation. What is the motivating principle? Sure, you may eventually discern that principle by studying the many individual laws but isn't that taking the long way around and increasing the likelihood that you might get bogged down in the details and miss your destination? Hence, if we are really interested in knowing God better, we might want to start with reading about what love is (see I Corinthians 13:4-7). What do you think?
Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix
15 comments:
Jesus was our example of loving by the spiritual intent, not just the letter, of the law. But He didn't do that so you don't have to. He showed you what you should do by the law which defines love.
Which statues will help us know God better? Michelangelo's David? Rodin's The Thinker? The egrets flying outside Ambassador Auditorium?
then LCG laughs at cherubim on top of messianic Jews scrolls cabinet at their cheerful Saturday meetings
oh it's a typo : statutes
Since they will not tell it like it is, why don't we do it for them? It's more like "Get to know your ACOG by knowing what statutes and laws they pick and choose from the Old Covenant, and how those statutes and laws are self-serving to them!" That tells you all you need to know about your leaders, COG members,
A better way to get to know the God of the Old Testament is to read the Psalms. The life and times of King David were perhaps the "golden era" of the theocracy known as the Kingdom of Israel, with a maturity and depth perhaps not fully realized even by Moses, Aaron, or Joshua.
What David and the other Psalmists wrote is very compatible with what Jesus taught about the underlying principles of love for God, and love for fellow man.
BB
Hi Miller,
You quote Jeremiah 31:31-34 and then make this statement:
“They quote it, but they apparently completely miss how God intended to fulfill this prophecy about putting his law in their minds and writing it on their hearts.”
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
(Ro 8:4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.)
"It was a new heart-righteousness which the prophets foresaw as one of the blessings of the Messianic age, ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts,' God promised Jeremiah (31:33). How would he do it? He told Ezekiel: ‘I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes' (36:27). Thus God's two promises to put his law within us and to put his Spirit within us coincide... what the Spirit does in our hearts, is precisely, to write God's law there” (John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, BST, p.75).
Do you agree with John Stott?
God said “MY law” (Jer 31:33). What law would Jeremiah have understood this law to be?
God also said “MY statutes,” MY judgments”. From where would Ezekiel have understood these statutes and judgments belong?
Jer 31:29 In those days...
Jer 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD...
Jer 33:14 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD...
Jer 33:15 In those days, and at that time,
In the last days of the OC Kingdom of God, God made a promise in Jer 31 that He would make a NC with the House of Israel and Judah; and in Jer 33 that the Davidic kings and Levitical priests would also be restored.
Ac 1:6b Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
I do not recall if you have commented on the NC with Israel.
Do you see Jesus restoring the kingdom to Israel? Do you believe that God will make a NC with ethnic Israel in the future?
Jer 33:16 In those days shall Judah be saved...
Jer 33:17 For thus saith the LORD; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel;
Jer 33:18 Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.
What do you make of the promises in Jeremiah 33? Do you believe that God will literally perform his promise to the Levitical priests?
If not, why would God make promises He didn’t intend to keep?
“This promise of a numerous progeny to both the royal and priestly families is no doubt [sic] fulfilled in that great throng who (will) reign with Christ (see Ro 5:17; 8:17; 1Co 6:3; 2Ti 2:12; Rev 3:21; 5:10; 20:5-6; 22:5; see also Mt 19:28; Lk 22:30) and who in Christ have been consecrated to be priests (see 1Pe 2:5,9; Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6;...” (Ronald Youngblood, Jeremiah, NIVSB, p.1181).
"Such an understanding of these verses, however, undermines the promises given to the Levitical priests, standing its meaning on its head. In contemporary terms this would be tantamount to God's saying to America, "I will always bless you as a nation and will never forsake you," only to say several generations later, "But now I have designated France as America?" Wouldn't Americans feel robbed, not to mentioned deceived? Since when does God keep his promises to a specific people - here the Levitical priests - by changing the identity of the people?
"It is true, of course, that one group can forfeit its promised blessings and another group be raised up to take its place (thus David's offspring replaced Saul's offspring and the priesthood of Zadok replaced that of Abiahar; cf. 1 Ki 2:27, 35). But Jeremiah 33:18 states that the opposite of that, affirming that these same people will ultimately, if not perpetually, serve the Lord in priestly ministry (cf. also Isa 66:21-23; Zec 14:16-19; Mal 2:4 ... Ezek 40-48..." (Michael L. Brown, Jeremiah, EBC, Revised, Vol.7, p.425).
(Michael Brown is a Messianic Jew).
Anonymous Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at 12:01:00 AM PDT,
You asked me a series of questions about Jeremiah's prophecies. My answer to all of them is that I'm not sure how God intends to fulfill these prophecies. I do know that the majority of the Jews rejected Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah because he didn't fulfill the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures in the manner which they expected them to be fulfilled. Will there be a literal Temple in the future or is the language symbolic? Will God literally change the nature of animals in the future or are those prophecies indicative of a time of complete safety and the absence of violence? Will animal sacrifices be reinstituted someday in the future? I don't know, and I suspect that the scholars you quoted don't really know either. Our expectations and suppositions about how things will work out are just that - expectations and suppositions.
What is very clear to me is that Jesus of Nazareth is God's way of fulfilling the predictions which the prophets made. I also believe that Christ has already introduced the New Covenant and made God's Holy Spirit available to both Jews and Gentiles. For me, another future, newer covenant with just the Jews doesn't make much sense. If, however, you mean by that that God will draw the Jews to him in a more determined way in the future, I could easily buy into that notion. For me, it is clear that Jesus of Nazareth represents the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham and David. What else needs to happen? I'm content to leave that in God's very capable hands and will accept whatever way he decides to interpret/fulfill it. In the end, his perspective is the only one that really matters!
Miller:
I appreciated your exposition.
I would add, the structure of the Bible itself argues against looking through the statutes (shorthand term I will use to refer to commandments, statutes and judgments) as if they were a lens upon God. The Bible is a large and diverse work and this argues against taking any subset of it and making that subset the hallmark of the doctrine of God. In fact, the Bible contains in its pages a very pointed argument against the precise approach this preacher has taken (I did not read his article.)
The argument is found in the Book of Job. First, the statutes are found inside of the portion of the Bible that is referred to Deuteronomic. It consists of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicle – the part of the Bible that made Basil Wolverton’s Bible Story so interesting. The “Deuteronomic Bible” told us of a transactional God. It followed the argument “If you obey me, I will bless you and if you disobey me I will curse you.” This is what we find sharply modeled in the Book of Deuteronomy.
But that is not the whole picture of God. Job sought to obey God with a full heart and fell into disaster. He made his appeal to God. His “friends” showed up with their knowledge of the transactional God from the Deuteronomic Bible. They made the simple, Deuteronomic argument that Job had sinned and therefore was punished. They saw God through the lens of the statutes. Job and his friends served this ball back and forth to each other for nearly forty chapters.
Then, astonishingly, God himself showed up and he said to those who saw God through only the statutes:
My anger burns against you,
And against your two friends,
For you have not spoken of me what is right,
As my servant Job has.
God said, in essence, if you see me only through law, you will not see what I really am.
Scout
Is Miller an advocate of Noahide laws?
I am an advocate of God's Law as expressed in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Are the Noahide laws found in scripture? I don't think so. I think they were part of what the Jews call the oral law and are mentioned in the Talmud. The Law of Moses, of course, were given to one group of people, the Israelites. They expired at the cross (see Gal. 3).
I think Dennis's explanation is much better - also in other books I have read.
The early apostolic church followed the law of Moses.
Then Paul came along and abolished it.
Paul's version was more appealing to the Gentiles and was the winner.
TLA:
You wrote, "The early apostolic church followed the law of Moses."
I believe they did follow the Law of Moses. But they did not see it as a pathway to salvation. If they did see it as a pathway to salvation, why bother with Jesus. Why not just stick with traditional Late Second Temple Judaism.
You wrote, "Then Paul came along and abolished it."
No, the leadership of the church abolished the Law of Moses as the pathway to salvation at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. But it was not abolished as a cultural heritage for the Jews. They carried forward only a few principles for the Gentiles.
You wrote, "Paul's version was more appealing to the Gentiles and was the winner."
When Paul talked with James, Peter and John (whom Paul called "pillars" in the Jerusalem Church), they offered no correction to Paul and Barnabas - they only asked Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor. There was no winner or loser. There was agreement and unity.
I don't know what Dennis wrote about this. He does tend to consult the writing of Bart Ehrman. But the above is what I believe.
Scout
The encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia both have excellent discourses on the Noahide laws, 9:19. Read up on them. You might be quite surprised as it's quite different from what we were led to believe. I'll let you discover that for yourself, since if I share what I know, it's just something another guy with a keyboard is telling you. Your actual research will speak more authoritatively to you.
"...titled Know God Better Through His Statues" -- what sort of statues? Statues of famous people? Statues of HWA? Or of the current LCG leader?
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