Faith, Contamination and Belonging

After I posted my last blog based on the first part of Matthew 3 which, among other things, dealt with what “bearing fruit in keeping with repentance” might look like, a friend pointed out that I had not included faith in that list of fruit.  I chewed on that for a while.

Those baptized with John’s repentance-baptism were not professing their faith in Jesus.  They were not baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  John’s was a different baptism than that with which we, as Christians, are familiar.  In fact, it was different from anything with which the Jews were familiar as well. 

Prior to this time, there were primarily two situations where Jews would have experienced something akin to what we consider baptism.  One was for those who became defiled by coming into contact with something that was considered to be contaminating, e.g., a dead body.  In order to cleanse themselves of their defilement, they were required to immerse or “dip” themselves in water collected in a pool.

Water purification was also one of the three requirements for the conversion of a proselyte to Judaism.  In that sense, it was a membership ritual.  Converts had to be immersed before they could “belong”.  

The individuals themselves performed both of these ritual cleansings.  John’s repentance-baptism, by contrast, was administered by John, who acted in a priestly role, and seemingly in competition with the temple rite of purification through sin offerings. 

In the instituted sacrificial system, the person bringing the sin offering would confess to the priest the specific sin for which the offering was being made and then he would place his faith in the sufficiency of the sacrifice for the forgiveness of his sin.  I can’t say with certainty, but I can imagine that, despite the fact that its intention was the opposite, this system, because of the fallen nature of mankind, would foster the belief that one was paying for his own sins.  ‘I committed a sin for which I am bringing one of my own possessions as payment.  I, therefore, can have faith that God will accept this transaction and forgive my sin.’

John’s proclamation of repentance-baptism took the people out of the familiar and gave them a completely new perspective.  All sin was now placed in the context of contamination.  They were all defiled—as unclean as if touched by death.  Their sin also placed them on the outside, looking in, as surely as if they were foreigners.  They could see that their ancestry did not ensure their belonging.  Forgiveness of sin could no longer be viewed as a pay-as-you-go transaction.  Repentance could not be a public apology for show.  It was now permanently fused with the need for water cleansing, which must be administered by another.   Repentance called for a complete change of everything they had ever understood about themselves and about God.  Their faith, at that point, was temporarily placed in the sufficiency of John’s repentance-baptism, in preparation for the coming of the one true object of faith.

When Christ came, then, to receive this repentance-baptism from John, John rightly understood that Jesus should be the one administering and he should be on the receiving end.  There stood Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, not provided from the flock of a sinner, but provided by God as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world.  Jesus had nothing for which to repent, nothing that necessitated water purification.  This repentance-baptism was not even a feature of the law that God had commanded all to fulfill; but, by submitting to it, Christ did two things. 

First, he affirmed and established the pre-eminence of baptism, this means of water cleansing for the forgiveness of sins, over the specifically Jewish sacrificial system of purification via sin offering. This repentance-baptism became the foundation for the baptism Christ later established.

Secondly, and most importantly, he fulfilled through his righteousness on our behalf the requirement of perfectly turning to God in full submission and completely turning away from all wickedness, which is the true meaning of repentance and something that we can never fully do on our own, no matter how hard we try. 

Because of what Christ completed at the cross, this perfect repentance and cleansing are gifted to us; as is the faith we receive from him to believe and accept those gifts.

Straight Paths, Good Fruit and Unquenchable Fire

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ³ For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight!’”

⁴ Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan; ⁶ and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; ⁹ and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. ¹⁰ The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹ “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:1-12 (NASB)

Today when I read this passage in Matthew, a few questions came to mind: 

1.  How was John the Baptist supposed to make God’s paths straight? 

2.  What does “fruit in keeping with repentance” look like?  

3.  What is this very disturbing picture of Jesus with something akin to a pitchfork and hell fire all about (All that’s missing are the horns, right?!)?

My initial research took me to Isaiah 40.  Verse 3 is quoted in Matthew, but, for context I began with the first two verses and read through the two following verses: “Comfort, O comfort my people”, says your God.  “Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.” A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.  Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley.  Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:1-5

What I first realized is that the ultimate message was to be one of comfort and tenderness.  The people were to be told that their warfare had ended and their iniquity had been removed.  This was not meant to be a message of condemnation, as it is often pictured, but one of hope!  Not only that, but I saw that it was not John the Baptist’s job to clear the way for the Lord, or to make his paths straight; rather, his was to be the voice calling the people to clear the way for the Lord and to make his paths straight.  So, how were the people supposed to make God’s path straight?

In all four of the gospels, we read that John preached to the people the message of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.  The passage in Matthew has John calling the religious leaders of the day a “brood of vipers”, and asking them who warned them to flee from the coming wrath.  He also told them not to rely on their credentials as Abraham’s children, since God could turn the stones into Abraham’s children if he wanted to.   Luke goes even further, and applies those words to all who came out to hear John’s message and then details the different groups, such as tax collectors and soldiers, who asked John what behavior was required of them.  John answered each of them with specific instructions. 

From these passages of scripture, I began to see that the way the people were to prepare a straight path for the Lord was by squarely facing the reality of their sin.  They needed to stop thinking they were acceptable to God because of their personal goodness or their ancestry.  They needed to examine their specific behavior requirements and find themselves wanting.  They needed the law to be laid down, to show them that they actually needed a place to run, to escape the coming wrath.  They needed to see their need, so that nothing would impede their grateful acceptance of rescue when it arrived.

This understanding also answered my next question about what “fruit in keeping with repentance” looks like.  It looks like humility.  It looks like shedding all dependence on my own goodness.  It looks like recognition that I am no better than anyone else, that we are all in the same boat and that boat is sinking. It looks like desperate longing for rescue and, ultimately, great relief and joy when the good news is revealed.

But, what about that picture of Jesus with the winnowing fork ready to clear his threshing floor; gathering his wheat into the barn but burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire?  This is a picture of the harvesting process where the wheat is tossed into the air with a fork so that the wind can blow away the worthless parts such as the husks, hulls, shells, etc., leaving only the grain.  The chaff is then burned. 

Some consider the wheat to represent those who recognized their need for a savior and accepted the offer of rescue through Christ, with the chaff representing those who saw no need for rescue.  I prefer to picture Christ taking all of those who believe in him and tossing us into the air so that the wind gently blows away all of our worthless and even damnable efforts to be good enough, until all that remains is wheat, made perfect in his righteousness.  Then, all of the evidence of our fearful and fruitless struggle is burned with unquenchable fire, because, finally, we are eternally safe in Him.

Three Kings?

Today is Epiphany, or Three Kings Day.  For Christians, this day is the culmination of the Advent and Christmas seasons, celebrating the three Magi who came, following a star, to find the Christ child.  In my lifetime, I have heard many wonderful stories about the significance of the announcement of Christ’s birth to the shepherds.  They were the least and the lowest as far as their place in society.  They represented the idea that salvation was for everyman, not just for the elite.  But, in light of that, what do these Three Kings represent?  I decided to do some research.

The first thing I discovered was that scripture never says how many of them there were, it only says that Magi came from the east.  The idea that there were three men came from the number of gifts mentioned: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. 

Then, I discovered that the Bible never says they were Kings.  They were “Magi”, which is not nearly as fancy a title as I’ve been led to believe all these years.  In fact, its meaning was rather surprising to me: sorcerer, wizard, magician or astrologer.  If you have studied scripture in reference to any of those words, you will know that the people of God were clearly forbidden to have anything to do with those who did such things.

Prior to this story, the closest that scripture comes to presenting these practitioners in anything resembling a positive light was in the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream found in Daniel 2.  When none of Nebuchadnezzar’s magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers could tell him his dream and its meaning, Daniel, only with direct revelation from God in answer to his prayer, was able to do so.  As a result, Nebuchadnezzar put Daniel in charge of all of his “wise men.”  The obvious implication of that story was that God alone is the source of true wisdom.  Daniel was only a “wise man” because he was a conduit of God’s wisdom.

In the New Testament, the same word translated as “Magi” in the story of the visitors from the east, was used in only two other verses, Acts 13:6 & 8, and was translated there as “magician” and “sorcerer”, referencing a wicked man.

What we now have in the Epiphany story are a group of pagan sorcerers and astrologers to whom God chose to reveal himself.  Through their forbidden practices, he enabled them to discern the fact that a powerful king, the King of the Jews, had been born; and, by their astrological charts, he showed them a star, which they followed to find him.  These men, whose deeds God called detestable in scripture, are contrasted against Herod, the currently reigning King of the Jews, to whom God revealed nothing.

This is scandalous!  So scandalous, in fact, that we felt the need to dress up the story, making these men presentable and worthy by elevating them to the status of kings who must have somehow procured copies of the Hebrew Scriptures and carefully studied them; and on whom God bestowed his favor, because of their diligence, by leading them to Christ. 

The truth is, they were not worthy of that honor.  They were shockingly unworthy, just like the shepherds to whom the angels came; just like us.  Yet, God met those practitioners of the detestable black arts right where they were and demonstrated to us all that no one, no one, is beyond his reach. 

That’s worth celebrating!