You may be sensing a trend here. In recent months, I have started putting more emphasis on and effort into dealing with the broad classification of progressive Christianity and the way that this theological system attempts to maintain a robust, genuine Christian faith while openly and knowingly belittling and dismissing much of the Bible.
The primary focus in this is what Jesus says in the Gospels, since a major component of what would be called progressive Christianity is setting Jesus's (apparent) teachings, as recorded in the Gospels, in conflict with the rest of the Bible and ultimately overruling much of it. The rest of the Bible is a lesser revelation, usually deemed to be a man-made attempt at understanding God in contrast to the true and ultimate authority of Jesus (as found in the much more accurate and reliable Gospels).
However, this whole approach to scripture and theology falls apart if Jesus Himself (in the Gospels) contradicts this theological system and affirms the truth, accuracy, and divine origin of the other scriptures (namely the Old Testament, since the rest of the New Testament did not exist yet).
This is not the only theological issue I am interested in right now (besides the doctrine of hell; I am a regular contributor at Rethinking Hell and that's where you'll find my work on that topic). But it is the topic you are getting today!
The following is a follow-up, an unofficial part 2, to my previous post: Some Reasons to Think that Jesus Affirmed the Old Testament (and Not Progressive Christianity). It also ties in to a previous article on how Jesus Is The Word of God, but He Is Not the Only Word of God. They will be referenced, but are not required for the following to make sense.
Brief Personal Background
Contrary to what some may think, I have been familiar with the ideas of progressive Christianity (broadly speaking) from day 1. When I first came to know Jesus, I still wasn't a big fan of the Bible and thought that just because Jesus really did rise from the dead didn't mean that there weren't many false teachings in the Bible (especially in the Old Testament). I was, for a short time, a progressive Christian of sorts.
That changed pretty quickly, as it became apparent that I could not, in good faith, separate Jesus and Christianity from the rest of the Bible. Although I have gone back on forth on the doctrine of inerrancy (the belief that Bible is without any error whatsoever in what it teaches), early on I realized that the Bible being inspired, God-breathed scripture was part of the package.
And through study and through prayer for understanding and an obedient heart, I came to realize that the Old Testament was not this horrible, evil thing I thought it was. Really, when push came to shove, I didn't have problems with the Old Testament because I hated God or had a disobedient, rebellious heart like before my conversion. I had these problems because the Old Testament has hard teachings and many others that seem terrible on the surface before they properly understood.
I have no doubt that this is the case for many Christians who have come to flirt with forms of progressive Christianity as well. This is why I have started to finally address the matter on paper; God has many ways that He might answer the prayers of those who were like me, and I hope to be one of them.
In the course of this, I recently have thought of some additional examples that challenge any theology that sets Jesus in the Gospels against the Old Testament.
Jesus Attributes The Words of Genesis 2:24 To God and Not the Human Author
In Matthew 19, Jesus addresses the matter of marriage and divorce when questioned by the Pharisees. There is a actually lot of historical background to the their question, which references Deuteronomy 24:1, but for our purposes, I want to draw attention to the basis of Jesus's answer.
Jesus appeals to creation in order to show God's intention for marriage:
And He [Jesus] answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'"? (Matthew 19:4-5).
Here, Jesus appeals to the Old Testament scriptures ("have you not read"..."), since the New Testament did not exist yet. And one of the scriptures He cites is Genesis 2:24. In context, this is when Adam first sees Eve:
Then the man said,
"At last this is bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called 'woman,'
Because she was taken out of man."
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:23-24).
There is a lot that can be gleaned from this passage, but one aspect that is really important in determining Jesus's view of the Old Testament is this: in context, the Genesis passage is not quoting God directly.
The passage isn't quoting God. The passage does not say "thus sayeth the Lord" or anything like that. The writer quotes Adam and then gives commentary on it. It is not God speaking.
...Except it is, according to Jesus.
Jesus literally says that the creator, the one who made humans (and made them male and female - also in contrast to what a lot of progressive Christians now believe), said the words that are recorded in Genesis 2:24.
There are only two possibilities here: Jesus was wrong and mistakenly thought that Genesis 2:24 was a quote of God, or He thought, as the Jews did and Christians historically have, that the Old Testament was to be considered the word of God.
Considering that He calls other passages from the Old Testament "the word of God" as well (e.g. Matthew 15:6), this would be fitting.
One cannot look at Jesus in the Gospels as the true authority over and against everything else in the Bible while dismissing the fact that He considered a passage from the Old Testament as being spoken by God Himself.
And why would this passage of Genesis be special and different from the rest of Genesis? What in this passage would make it the word of God while other passages in Genesis would not be?
On its own, this passage is very telling as to how Jesus viewed the Torah. When factored in with the other numerous instances where Jesus affirmed Old Testament texts, the idea that Jesus would ever side with a progressive view of the Old Testament as a collection of flawed human documents becomes harder and harder to justify.
Other, Additional Affirming Uses And Citations of the Old Testaments
Not every time Jesus cites the Old Testament is it as clear and overt as calling it "the word of God" or crediting passages like Genesis 2:24 to God Himself. And such an instance doesn't have to be that powerful in order to help form a cumulative case and help further drive home the idea that Jesus had a much higher view of the Old Testament's accuracy than progressive Christianity can allow.
Jesus Citing Exodus 3:6 To Prove The Resurrection
Jesus didn't only take flack from the Pharisees; the Sadducees tried to trip Him up with difficult questions too.
As usual, He gave back better than He received.
In one encounter, recorded in Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 20, the Sadducees try to challenge the idea of the resurrection from the dead. As part of His response, Jesus appeals to a passage from Exodus 3:6 to show why there must be a resurrection.
And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He is not God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:31-32).
The fact that Jesus is appealing to scripture is evident from Him asking "have you not read..." We can also infer that Jesus is citing Exodus 3:6 because it is the passage in the Torah where God says that specific statement about being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
But Jesus does not merely say that this passage says that God made that statement. He says it "...was said to you by God." Jesus affirms that the text is accurate when it tells us what God said.
Mark elaborates on this even further, likely because he is believed to have written to an audience that was not as distinctly Jewish as Matthew's audience (who would have recognized the reference more easily):
But regarding the fact that the dead rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken" (Mark 12:26-27).
This raises the key question: what good is Jesus's argument if what happened in this narrative within Exodus isn't true?
Jesus's whole argument is that God is the God of the living, and since God called himself the God of people who were dead (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), there must be a resurrection to make these dead people no longer dead.
That argument falls apart if God didn't actually say that He was the God of the three patriarchs. Therefore, Jesus had to believe that what was said in Exodus about the burning bush was true.
The same general point is true of Luke 20:37-38; Jesus's argument stands or falls on Exodus 3:6 being true (and, as Matthew specifically draws attention to, God actually saying what the Old Testament author attributed to Him).
"Love Your Neighbor As Yourself" Doesn't Challenge The Old Testament Law (It Is Part of It)
The command to "love your neighbor as yourself" was not a radical new teaching of Jesus. And He definitely isn't overriding the Old Testament because He is quoting the Old Testament! The commandment comes directly from Leviticus 19:18. It was a command of Moses in the Law:
You shall not take vengeance, nor hold any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.
It is especially remarkable how often "love your neighbor as yourself" is cited - even by evangelicals with a high view of scripture - against anything that could be seen as anti-LGBT, such as opposing same-sex marriage or eating at Chick-Fil-A because of the Christian charities they (used to) donate money to. This is because the actual passage Jesus is quoting is sandwiched between Leviticus 18:22 - which famously forbids men having sexual relations with men - and Leviticus 20:13, which calls for the death penalty for that sin.
Clearly, in its original context, "love your neighbor as yourself" did not mean affirming homosexuality.
Jesus Acknowledged the Origin of the Command
It should be evident even from the passage of scripture where Jesus says the "love your neighbor" line that He is referring to the Old Testament, not refuting it.
And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, "'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 foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:35-40).
Jesus is being asked what the greatest commandment is in the Law, i.e. the commandments given to Moses that are recorded in the Torah.
And notice that Jesus didn't even cite "love your neighbor" as the greatest commandment. The greatest is "Love the Lord your God." Insofar as one commandment would ever take precedence over another, that commandment is of even higher precedence than loving one's neighbor. This would explain how Jesus could see commandments in scripture that don't seem loving to the neighbor who is affected by it (such as an Israelite who is put to death under Leviticus 20:13), yet still call "love your neighbor" the second greatest commandment. Loving God by obeying his commands commands (cf. John 14:15) takes precedence over even the second-greatest commandment.
Whatever the case regarding the relationship between the first and second greatest commandments in the Mosaic Law, it is of supreme irony that a saying of Jesus often used against the validity of Old Testament teachings is itself an Old Testament teaching (and identified as such by Jesus).
Jesus Ties These Two Commandments To The Whole Law
Lastly, notice what Jesus said in Verse 40: "Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and Prophets." How can we separate the Law and the Prophets from these two progressive-friendly, love commandments when Jesus Himself ties them together like that?
We can't.
If we want to say that Jesus distanced Himself from the false, manmade teachings of the Old Testament (or at least the Law, where most of the controversy lies), we must also say that Jesus did not affirm these two greatest commandments here. After all, those other commandments that He supposedly denies would, by His own admission, hang on these two greatest commandments. So instead, He must have only been giving an academic answer in this passage, commenting on the structure of the Law as an outsider to it.
And wouldn't it seem odd for Jesus to not affirm the Law (and prophets) if He believed that the Law was based on such positive and Christlike ideals as fully and devotedly loving God and your neighbor?
Conclusion
This may be something of a personal editorial point, but the more I look at Jesus's interactions with the Old Testament, the more difficult any progressive approach to Jesus and the Old Testament becomes. Rather than giving me pause, rather than making me realize that things I expected to see were not in the Gospels, the opposite has been true. The case for Jesus affirming the Old Testament isn't just based on tradition or other books of the Bible.
I have a feeling that in time, I will think of and communicate even more reasons to reject a progressive view of Jesus and the Old Testament. To say that the Gospels accurately record what Jesus said and taught, but that He contradicts and overrides the Old Testament on numerous occasions, ignores how Jesus Himself treats and uses the Old Testament in these very Gospel accounts.
Works Cited
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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