whose stories are they?

[nextian]

This is a personal essay I have been trying to write for a very, very long time. It isn't sparked by one thing in particular, but it comes in response to, and accord with, things I've read by chopchica and miriam_heddy and roga and dafnap and abyssinia4077 and xiphias and kita0610 and ... yeah

Comments

[deutscheami]

I am going to do a TERRIBLE job trying to explain this, so bear with me as I do some shadow-punching, Bible in hand.

The whole of the New Testament, understandably, hinges on the figure of Jesus and his death and resurrection--"But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are... for everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins ["For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord" {Romans 6:23}]... there is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews, or Gentiles. Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law" (Romans 3:21-24; 30-31).

"Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised... if the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Chris. Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian" (Galatians 3:19; 23-25)

Through the "way of faith" Jesus gave us ("The one who rescues will come from Jerusalem, and he will turn Israel away from ungodliness. And this is my covenant with them, that I will take away their sins" [Isaiah 40:13]), in accepting his forgiveness of our sins against the picture of God shown through the holy and perfect Law, we are "released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit" (Romans 7:6).

[deutscheami]

Christ doesn't make the law obsolete, he's fulfilled it ("For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God" [Romans 10:4]) and made it new-- Hebrews 8:13 cross-references in my Bible to 2 Corinthians 5:17-- "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!"--through the grace granted through the acceptance of his sacrifice on my behalf. But outside of that grace-- and back to Romans-- "...in fact, it was the law that showed me my sin... at one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, and I died. So I discovered that the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. But still the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. ...so we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes. ...I have discovered this principle of life-- that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 7:7; 9-13; 21-25)

Does that-- I don't know if that explains things? I hate taking verses out of their context (first rule of a Bible scholar that I was taught: context, context, context) but if you're curious, I would definitely check out the book of Romans in its entirety for more in-depth explanations of sin, death, and the law.

Whoops, forgot to cite-- all those verses are from the New Living Translation

[nextian]

It's a lovely exegesis and if this was any other post I would leave it at that.*

LIE. If this was any other post I'd get into an indepth theological discussion with you about the essential humanity and personality that shines through in the letters, omg, how did I not know about that before? I feel like he's going to sign it with like "hugs and kisses, Paul." Also an argument about faith and truth and so forth. But not on this post! Anyway, sorry, moving on.

But I can't, because it is this post. The problem is that I don't have any idea of how to articulate what I want to say. It's something along the lines of: I'm sure you know that Judaism has at best only a partial implementation of the idea of sin? That Paul's statement that the law is good and true and perfect, but incomplete, is in itself a devaluing of the law? Because for us it is all; faith is a wonderful bonus. For you it is half. That isn't -- it's not usually something that upsets me at all, it's just the definition of the divide, but it's something I don't think it's profitable to try to explain, because I know the reasoning behind it (although you have illuminated the specific texts very well) because I have to, to study my own texts, and that is part of what makes me sad.

[nextian]

Holy shit that last sentence was not even a sentence.

One more try.

Part of what makes me sad is a casual, cruel use of my text. But part of what makes me sad is that through no fault of any modern Christian or even 99% of Christian history they can never be entirely my texts, my stories, my history at all.

[foomf]

Thank you for writing all this.

I understand and sympathise with the sadness, but I suspect that you're catching onto something true that nobody quite gets...

It's not just the books of Moses and the Law, etc. (please forgive my brain slippage in not getting every name right) ... nobody gets to truly and exclusively own their traditions, stories, and histories, because everyone else who encounters them will appropriate some part, and often, leave behind some (unwelcome? Bizarrely twisted? transformative and insightful? All of these? ) part of themselves and their own context which insinuates its presence into the lives of those where the encounter takes place.

[deutscheami]

I have a lot more that I'd like to discuss with you, and questions that I'd love to ask, but this is, as you said, probably not the best space in which to do so. I'll look forward to that discussion another time!

Paul totally does sign his letters with hugs and kisses though-- 1 Corinthians 16:20 usually gets translated something like "Greet one another with a sacred/holy kiss"!