THE CAMBRIAN PESHER
THE VOICE OF THE DESPOSYNI TO THE AMERICAN DISPERSION
Christmas Day, 2004
Liberty, the Law & the Lord Messiah
The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
- Isaiah 42:21
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
- Isaiah 53:10
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
- James 1:25
Beloved:
It is often a discouraging feature of man's moral nature to take something beautiful and good and then corrupt it, even twisting it into the opposite of its original purpose. We moan at the commercialization of Christmas. Likewise, when it comes to the Law of God as expressed in the Bible, we all know well how oppressive it is in the wrong hands.
Jesus spent much of His preaching blasting the religious rulers of His day, who, as He said, "strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel" (Matthew 23:24). We know He often enraged His opponents, for example, by breaking the rules for the Sabbath, arguing that "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" - meaning, that the Fourth Commandment was meant to be a law of liberation. Slaves are not entitled to rest days. That God requires a rest day for all people, even for work animals, is a witness to the purpose of the law as a firewall against oppression. And it also testifies to the perverse ingenuity of the Pharisees who later took all of the fun out of it by adding a list of dos and don'ts for the kind of activities which could be done on that day.
The Puritans in the English Parliament were on the fast track to ban sporting events on Sundays, when King James the First finally had had enough. Arguing that Sundays were the only days that the poor could engage in organized sports and physically improve themselves for military service, King James vetoed the proposal and rescued recreational fun from the moroseness of those more recent Pharisees.
The Puritans of colonial New England banned Christmas for generations and even punished as a misdemeanor anyone who dared to celebrate it. Why? Of all things, they thought it was a Popish introduction of the Mithras cult into Christianity. Many would-be Puritans of our day think the same thing, as if somehow celebrating Christ's birth on the birthday of Mithras means we are worshipping a pagan deity. Suppose your birthday lands on the same birthday as Adolf Hitler. Do you think that if I throw a party in your honor that I am honoring Hitler, as well?
Within this historical context, it is no wonder that many people look at laws as restrictions on their freedoms. Some people think that any law is oppressive, especially if it is religious.
I often speak favorably of Old Testament law. It frightens some people. I can understand why. In the hands of the Church's theologians, some Old Testament laws seem weird and harsh. But knowing our heavenly Father to be a loving God, perhaps if we take another look at the Old Testament laws, we might find the good they were meant to accomplish. A good fence will keep in livestock, but it will also keep out many predators. The laws of the Bible are like a good fence, and it works both ways.
#1 - The First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Why did Yahweh give this law? Was it because He was jealous of His people to the point of insecurity?
Well, it is true that God says He is a "jealous God." However, jealousy is not necessarily bad. Jealousy is an appropriate motive which protects the notion of private property. I don't promiscuously lend my tools. Any craftsman knows if you do that, it won't be long and they will be gone forever. Jealousy means you belong and when it comes to God, if you belong to Him, it should comfort you to know that He will guard you with a jealous love.
There is more. The word for God is "Elohim", which is sometimes translated in the Bible as "judges" (Exodus 21:6, et al). In this Commandment, God is helping the people understand that you can have only one final arbiter of truth and justice. This law is the foundation for all of Biblical law; for law flows from the authority of a lawgiver. Thus, within the Biblical context, the Israelites were liberated from Pharaoh - the false god - as the source of law and were now free to serve the true God who saved them "from the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2).
#2 - The Second Commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." This Commandment forbids idolatry. Again, why should it matter how people worship? They are still worshipping the true God, aren't they, each in their own way?
The history of world religions is not very flattering to the wisdom of our species. Murder, torture, human sacrifice, self-mutilation and more have been practiced under the guise of religion. Baal priests castrated themselves, as did the priests of Isis. Other religions, such as Moloch, Mithras, and Mayan, required the infliction of human suffering, fire, and child sacrifice to appease the gods. Some religions enjoined cannibalism and the ingestion of human blood.
This all came from the demigods who ruled the earth prior to the Flood of Noah. They ate humans like we eat beef, and each city and hamlet had to provide their quota of human veal for their demonic masters. As I explained in my book, Hierogamy & the Married Messiah, these monsters were the originators of pagan religion. It was also the religion of the Canaanites who were ruled and inbred with this evil, half-human race. To our modern eyes, we recoil from the Israelite genocide of these people. Again, we do not have all of the facts, or perhaps, we do not give sufficient weight to the evidence we do have. The Canaanites were not just a morally deficient people; they were fast becoming the propagation of this strange alien race. God used the Israelites to purge this corruption , lest He be faced with the same scenario which existed before the Great Flood.
#3 - The Third Commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain." People grumble, "Is God upset with a little swearing?"
Well, yes, God is offended with profane speech because we are what we say. But more than that, I think this Commandment protects the sanctity of oaths and vows. It protects us from frauds and deceivers. Does anyone want to complain that we do not have enough hypocrites and charlatans among us?
#4 - The Fourth Commandment: "Thou shalt remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." See above.
#5 - The Fifth Commandment: "Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother." Is there anything unnatural with a loving and obedient child? May we not say obedience to this Commandment would rid the land of gangs and juvenile crime?
#6 - The Sixth Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." Does anyone want to complain that Christianity is not about killing people? Unfortunately, many Christians identify manliness with the warrior-cult and think that somehow fighting and killing must be a part of a Christian culture. In killing, man is less than a man if he cannot also build and give life. Righteous dominion requires a man who is competent and willing to produce things of value from his own labors. This is manliness. The ability to destroy is an adolescent urge which reflects ignorance of how to deal with frustration. Warrior cultures do not reflect the values of Christianity or of the ever patient and omnipotent God.
#7 - The Seventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Ah, there's a sticky one. In listening to the sermons of many preachers, you would think that sexual lust must be the only sin in the world; it's the only one they talk about. Why is that so? Following Augustine's lead, the Church has built its entire concept of sin and atonement around the notion that sex is inherently evil. Hence, the illustrious St. Jerome - a lonely monk in Bethlehem - castigates himself for dreaming of the dancing girls in Rome. Instead of obeying the Creation Mandate "to be fruitful and multiply", he buys into the fraud that men are angels trapped in a body. He thinks that he can ignore and purge his manly nature by force of will. It's as absurd as claiming that God can act against His own nature and build a rock so big that He cannot lift it.
Adultery and other sexual sins are usually the result of repressed sexual feelings. When our sexual natures are fulfilled in a fruitful way, the ravages of passion are alleviated. But the Church, in its deference to this perverse theology, entices us all with sexual sin by creating unnecessary frustrations.
The Church has a faulty view of the sin of adultery because it has a faulty view of marriage. I have yet to find a theologian willing to acknowledge that Exodus 21 allows a concubine the possibility of many lovers during the course of her lifetime - and the possibility of children by each of them - which are appointed by her husband. How many married women have gotten themselves pregnant by men other than their husbands, simply because their husbands didn't want any more children? Is such a woman an adultress? Or was her husband's dereliction the antecedant to her sin? "He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone."
#8 - The Eighth Commandment: "Thou shalt not steal." Do we want a society full of thieves? Is there anything harsh in this Commandment?
#9 - The Ninth Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." This is a common sin in the Church and perhaps the single greatest reason why the world has turned away from it in disgust. Christians are unmerciful in their gossip and defamation. Their motive is self-justification at the expense of the reputation of others. It is Phariseeism and God hates it.
#10 - The Tenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet." Would we rather have a religion which encourages people to lust for what belongs to another? To encourage people to use trickery and legal loopholes to oppress one another? How many people abuse the warranty system in order to get something for nothing? On the other hand, should we complain that the consumer protection laws are unreasonable? Would we need them if men were not covetous?
While it is obviously not an opportune time to discuss all of the Bible's laws, with this sampling, we certainly can see that they are not backward or oppressive when properly understood and applied. Yes, many of the ritual laws of the Old Testament are no longer reasonable. And I would add, also, much of the penal code. That is a part of the message of the Gospel: they have been fulfilled in Christ. We do not preach death, but redemption.
In so doing, we are now free to pursue virtue for its own sake, to apply love and wisdom in every situation, without consideration of whether it is earning enough points to get us inside the Pearly Gates.
Jesus came "to fulfill the law" and to rule the nations according to its righteous decrees. He proclaims the Jubilee, and "liberty througout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." Go, do thou likewise.
A servant of Jesus,
James
Collect for the Day:
O God, you make us glad by the yearly festival of the birth of your only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that we, who joyfully receive him as our Redeemer, may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our Judge; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, now and for ever. Amen.