The Nature of National Repentance

Written by Douglas Wilson

Saturday, 17 November 2012 21:22

INTRODUCTION:
In God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis has a very fine short essay on the dangers of national repentance. In short, what he cautions us against is the prayerful form of “don’t blame me, I wanted to do something else.” In other words, every form of true repentance is hard, while there is a form of blaming others (while using we language) that gives us a carnal pleasure. In everything else that we consider today, this wise caution should be kept in the forefront of our minds, and at the very top of our hearts.

THE TEXT:
“And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey” (Deut. 26:6-9).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
At the tail end of their time in the wilderness, the Israelites are being reminded out how it was that they came to be delivered in the first place. The Egyptians treated them oppressively, and laid hard bondage upon them (v. 6). The people of Israel cried out to God as a consequence, and God heard them, and considered their afflictions (v. 7). As a result, God rose up and scattered their enemies with an outstretched arm (v. 8), and brought them to the threshold of a land filled with promise (v. 9). And by no stretch of the imagination is this a “one off” situation; it is a biblical theme (Judg. 3:9; 4:3; 6:6; 10:10; 1 Sam. 12:9-10; and many other places).

HOW INDIVIDUALS REPENT:
Repentance is always a function of things going wrong somehow. Nobody converts because every day they get happier and happier, and finally they are so happy they decide to turn to Christ. Some convert even though they are externally blessed—but only because they feel and see the hollowness of it (Ecc. 1:14). Others do it in a more straightforward way—they have their whole life come apart in their hands (divorce, financial ruin, disease), and in their affliction they turn to God.

HORSES AND MULES:
We should far prefer to be taught (Ps. 32:8). We should not be like the horse or mule, needing a bit and bridle to direct us (Ps. 32:9). But when we refuse teaching, the Lord is fully capable of ramping it up. He always sends prophets before He sends the pestilence. But when men are sleek in their conceits, they think the mere fact of a prophet means there will be no pestilence.

LORD, DO WHAT IT TAKES:
National repentance is not a nebulous dislike of ourselves, and it does not consist of being accusative toward others. Jesus teaches us what our value system ought to be. We ought to prefer losing our right hand to keeping our right hand to go to Hell with (Matt. 5:30). We ought to prefer to go to Heaven missing our right eye than to go to Hell with both eyes (Matt. 5:29).

Translate this to our national situation. What do we actually prefer? Would you rather have America spend the next ten years doubling our GDP, or the next ten years repenting? Now some might think a sensible response would be to ask why we couldn’t have had a doubled GDP and the repentance too. I don’t know why we couldn’t have had that. You tell me.

So if we are true Christians, our prayer will be, “Lord, do whatever it takes. Lord, break us down.” We do not ask for more than it takes (obviously), but we must not ask for less than it takes. It is not lawful for us to arrange any of this for ourselves, taking matters into our own hands. But it is lawful and right to accept it with gratitude and humility when the Lord takes up the rod. Behold the kindness and severity of God (Rom. 11:22).

WHAT SINS?
Remember that in calling for national repentance, we are not calling for a generic or nebulous kind of “feeling bad.” Repentance is an activity of the mind (the word means “changing your mind”) and consequently it is an activity filled with content.

These are not “partisan issues” at all—the call to repentance is genuinely bipartisan. God calls all men to repent and believe, and it is possible to come to Him from any direction—from left, right, and center. You can come to Him from the polished marble floors of Washington, and you can come to Him from the fever swamps. You can come to Him from a gay pride parade in San Francisco, and you can come to Him by climbing down off your step ladder of Pharisaism. Come.

Some might object that this really is partisan—that I am somehow targeting the Democrats, and not the Republicans. Not a bit of it. I am preaching against Suleiman the Magnificent, and against his harem.

What do you let go of when you come? I mentioned that repentance is an activity filled with content. Let’s consider two general areas, one from the first Table of the law, and the other a cluster of three commandments from the second Table of the law.

First, we must repent of secularism (Ex. 20:3). We have no right to worship, pray to, invoke, or claim the name of any other God. The only God that any nation has a right to claim is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Secularism is a sin, a grievous one.

As far as our national hatred of our neighbor goes, think about our complicity with abortion (Ex.20:13), pomosexuality (Ex. 20:14), and statist piracy (Ex. 20:15). Three commandments, three verses, right in a row. And remember that secularism started off by justifying its neglect of the true God for the sake of our neighbor. Where is all that neighbor love now?

THREE STARK REALITIES:
We have some great challenges before us. This is not going to be easy—whether to declare or to endure. At the same time, we may embrace what God sends, even though we do not have the authority to send those hard challenges down upon ourselves.

Here are the three central issues we must keep central to our thinking about all of this. First, there is no deliverance without Jesus. Second, there is no deliverance with the sin. And third, there are no other options, or other alternatives. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. If the Lord is God, serve Him. If Mammon is god, then let us all go to that great Federal Reserve temple, where we may follow our god of green liquidity in solemn procession as it circles the drain.

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Jonathan

Saturday, November 17, 2012 11:55 pm

Strange that you say you're not being partisan, then ask us to consider our complicity with abortion, homosexuality, and "statist piracy", rather than, say, war, heterosexual adultery, and greed. Or divorce, lust, anger, fraud (especially legal fraud), slander (especially based on politics, race, or national origin), drunkenness, abuse, oppression of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, mistreatment of the stranger, torture, idolatry of nation (the conservative kind as well as the liberal kind).

All in all, it doesn't seem in keeping with the heart of repentance to draw attention and focus to the things that "other people" are doing and implicitly blame them for the judgement, when there is plenty of other sin of a completely different nature going on in our own homes.

holmegm - re:

Sunday, November 18, 2012 4:25 am

Jonathan wrote:

Somehow, this scrupulousness only emerges when someone is trying to get us to ignore the conga line around that golden calf ...

Jonathan

Thursday, November 22, 2012 2:31 am

The conga lines around lust, greed, and war are far longer and far more acceptable both within and without our churches. If there are "golden calves" that certain political elements within the church are trying to divert attention from, I can't think of any better options that those three.

Michael Hutton - oops! Your assumption is showing

Sunday, November 18, 2012 4:28 pm

Sorry Jonathan, I was going to point out that you assume that Wilson doesn't address these other sins in "our own homes". Then I realised if you had read much at all of Wilson's writing in the christian context you would know he does address all sorts of sins.

Is it ignorance? Is it prejudice?
Is it trying to squirm off the hook by manufacturing a hypocrisy charge that makes you feel better?

The fact of the matter is that Wilson nails sin of any kind wherever he sees it. To imply he condones oppression, idolatry, greed, adultery, lust, anger is ignorance of a spectacular kind.
These are the sins in me that are addressed when I read his books to Christians.

The fact of the matter, though, is that when a nation wants to rename baby murder family planning and make it a good thing, that's always got to be in the sights of anyone who cares at all about right and wrong.

Jonathan

Thursday, November 22, 2012 2:29 am

I'm referring to the fact that he addresses these particular sins, for this particular reason. It is a focus, whether or not others have been mentioned at other times.

I'm interested by what you're trying to say by "Is it trying to squirm off the hook by manufacturing a hypocrisy charge that makes you feel better?" Exactly what hook have I found myself on that I need to squirm off of? Personally, I have no complicity in abortion or homosexuality, nor am I a supporter of either, and I don't even believe in "statist piracy" as Wilson defines it, so I feel rather unhooked at the moment.

Ioannes

Monday, November 19, 2012 11:50 am

Jonathan,

'Strange that you say you're not being partisan, then ask us to consider our complicity with abortion, homosexuality, and "statist piracy", rather than, say, war, heterosexual adultery, and greed. Or divorce, lust, anger, fraud (especially legal fraud), slander (especially based on politics, race, or national origin), drunkenness, abuse, oppression of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, mistreatment of the stranger, torture, idolatry of nation (the conservative kind as well as the liberal kind).'

Well, Pastor Wilson was discussing national repentance, so it makes sense that he mentions national sins. Most of the sins you mention, while they do exist (as Wilson among others has pointed out) are not of a national character. For example, I am unaware of any national policy endorsing or facilitating heterosexual adultery.

War is a matter of national policy, but war by itself is not a sin. Unjust wars are sinful, and it is true that there are some wars we ought to repent of. But we do not need to repent of "war" itself this side of the eschaton. American confusion about what constitutes a just war -- while very real -- is a drop in the bucket compared to our complicity in abortion, which has slaughtered millions of innocents.

National idolatry is a good sin to bring up, except Wilson already brought it up (albeit from an oblique angle) when he mentioned our "first table" commandment-breaking. Comments elsewhere show that he would include national idolatry therein and takes Right- and Left-wing versions of it quite seriously, and expected those prior thoughts to be read into his warnings about idolatry in general.

The one sin you mention that he might have brought up is divorce, since that is a part a matter of national policy. However, there is nothing "wingist" about concerns with divorce, or if anything mentioning it might have made him look even more Right-wing, since that tends to be a Right-wing concern.

Cordially in Christ,
Ioannes

Jonathan

Thursday, November 22, 2012 2:26 am

I don't know if "war" can be defined as a sin, but I certainly believe that the killing of people in war is wrong. "Just war" was a concept made up 300 years after Christ with virtually no justification anywhere in the New Testament and in violation of numerous tenets of the New Testament. Not that any recent wars could have been defined as "just" via any notable definition of the term anyway.

Of course, there are those with power who go head over heels to try to justify the killing of enemies, regardless of what Jesus (or Paul, for that matter) says about how we should treat our enemies. The idea that war isn't clearcut, but Pastor Wilson's "statist piracy" is, starts to look just a bit ridiculous to anyone who isn't already pushing a horse in the game.

Divorce and heterosexual adultery are at least as condoned in our society as homosexual adultery. They are legal in far more places, they are practiced by far more people, and they are allowed in far more churches. I don't think there would be anything "wingist" in bringing it up, which was my point - Pastor Wilson specifically brought up the things that are both specifically used by right-wing politicians to get out the Christian vote, and specifically railed against by those who like to focus more on the speck in someone else's eye than the log in their own.

I would also say that lust, fraud, greed, slander, drunkenness, oppression of the poor, mistreatment of the stranger, torture, and idolatry of nation are certainly national sins. Not only are many forms of each of those things legal or practiced by the government, but certain ones are heavily encouraged by our corporate and economic systems, and others are specifically encouraged by one or the other of our major political parties. For something to be a "national sin" doesn't just mean that it somehow involves the government - Israel was judged in the 1st century when they didn't even have control of the reigns of government. There is more than one way for something to be "national".

Ioannes

Thursday, November 22, 2012 5:18 am

Jonathan,

"I don't know if "war" can be defined as a sin, but I certainly believe that the killing of people in war is wrong."

Then why does Yahweh command it on numerous occasions?

--Ioannes

Jonathan

Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:57 am

I also believe that if someone in today's world carried out the intentional massacre of all children and infants in a town, that would be sinful. I'd say the same for attempting to kill your child via sacrifice to God. I don't think finding a command to do that from Yahweh in the Old Testament changes that. If someone tried to defend abortion by pointing out that God commanded infant-killing in Amalek, so it must be okay some of the time, I would refute that immediately. God also commanded Abraham to kill his perfectly healthy child, and Abraham accepted that such a thing could be God's will. That doesn't change the fact that I would immediately rebuke anyone who told me that God wanted them to kill their own child.

I believe that Christ gives us by far the clearest teachings of how followers of Christ should live. I believe that in a world where Christ has died on the cross and has been vindicated by his resurrection, we are called to accept Christ as Lord and live by the solid foundation that is his words. Is it sometimes difficult to reconcile the clear commands of Christ to his followers with specific commands made by God to certain Israelites hundreds of years before Christ? Yes. But since we are not those Israelites, were not commanded ourselves by God to do those things, and are not living before the saving grace made available for us by Christ's death and resurrection, I don't see how you can use your interpretation of a specific Old Testament story for a specific incident to override the clear teachings of Christ for us.

Ioannes

Thursday, November 22, 2012 7:44 pm

Jonathan,

What I understand you to be saying is that some commands God gives in the Old Testament are peculiar to the specific situation of the Hebrews (or other individuals) and are not meant to be generalized. (I certainly agree that there are certain commands in the Old Testament like this. If there were still any Amalekites, I doubt we would still be obligated to wipe them out.) Furthermore, you say that killing in war was meant to be one of these not-to-be-generalized commands.

But killing in war is commanded in a much more generalized way than, say, the massacre of the Amalekites. The Old Testament is fairly specific that the ban applied to the Canaanites or others do not apply in other situations, and unique situations like Abraham's being commanded to sacrifice Isaac are pretty clearly commands to specific individuals only. But killing in war is commanded in contexts that are much more readily generalized, and it is unclear to me why they should not be generalized. At the very least, I think a clear explanation is required to justify the claim that biblical teaching on war (which assumes and authorizes killing in just wars) is not meant to be generalized.

Meanwhile, nowhere in the New Testament is killing in a just war expressly forbidden. Soldiers have encounters with John the Baptist and the early church and undergo conversion experiences but nobody asks or expects (at least in an apparent way) them to abandon their vocation as incompatible with a Christian witness. The burden of proof is I think squarely on those who want to claim that New Testament teaching forbids killing in war.

--Iohannes.

holmegm - re:

Friday, November 23, 2012 3:45 am

Ioannes wrote:

Meanwhile, nowhere in the New Testament is killing in a just war expressly forbidden. Soldiers have encounters with John the Baptist and the early church and undergo conversion experiences but nobody asks or expects (at least in an apparent way) them to abandon their vocation as incompatible with a Christian witness. The burden of proof is I think squarely on those who want to claim that New Testament teaching forbids killing in war.

Ioannes

Friday, November 23, 2012 8:44 am

Jonathan,

I agree, by the way, that "national" can be used in more than one sense. However, I think your sense differs from Wilson's. I believe he is discussing national sin in the sense of sins of national policy, not merely culturally pervasive sins. In Wilson's sense, heterosexual adultery is not a national sin because it is not a function of national policy.

Cordially in Christ,
Iohannes

Jonathan - re: re:

Saturday, November 24, 2012 7:57 am

holmegm wrote:

[quote=Ioannes]Meanwhile, nowhere in the New Testament is killing in a just war expressly forbidden. Soldiers have encounters with John the Baptist and the early church and undergo conversion experiences but nobody asks or expects (at least in an apparent way) them to abandon their vocation as incompatible with a Christian witness. The burden of proof is I think squarely on those who want to claim that New Testament teaching forbids killing in war.

Indeed. Jesus in the gospels seems to have quite an affinity for soldiers, in fact. And soldiers of the Roman Empire, for pete's sake. (Not blue-helmeted guys with rubber bullets and firm orders never to use them.)[/quote]

Jesus has an affinity for Roman soldiers for the same reasons he had an affinity for tax collectors, prostitutes, and Samaritans. They were all examples of God's Kingdom reaching those whom the religious establishment considered to be "outsiders". Everyone is a sinner, but there are plenty of examples of Jesus healing people without giving them a litany of every sin they had to stop committing. The point was that his identity, as a Roman and part of the occupying forces, did not in itself make him unclean, and in fact he could surprisingly be praised by Jesus for his great faith.

If Jesus was about giving out sin rebukes, then of course the Roman occupation was sinful. That should be clear even if you think some wars are just. The entire situation was not good, and there is plenty of historical documentation of their atrocities. But Jesus wasn't doing about listing out sins like that - or if he was, the evangelists weren't about recording them.

I see no human way to love your neighbor as yourself while killing that neighbor. I see no way to judge someone worthy of death when we are told not to judge. I don't think that the killing of others is compatible with a humility that counts others as greater than ourselves or with an agape love of the enemy that both Jesus and Paul preach. I know of no situation where being killed and damned is what I would want others to do to me, so I cannot do it to others myself. Love does not harm, those who live by the sword will die by the sword, take up your cross, lose your life to save it, turn the other cheek...this is a small space, but it is a very robust theology that supports nonviolence. Have you ever read any Hays or Swartley? (even from Wright you might be able to figure it out.)

Jonathan - re:

Saturday, November 24, 2012 8:03 am

Ioannes wrote:

But killing in war is commanded in a much more generalized way than, say, the massacre of the Amalekites.

Ioannes

Saturday, November 24, 2012 3:49 pm

Jonathan,

You have said that you see no way we can love our neighbor and kill him. Your underlying assumption, I think, is that we cannot harm someone and love them. But the biblical definition of love is not harmlessness, nor does it entail harmlessness. The same law that commanded us to love our neighbor (Lev. 19:1

also commanded the death penalty for a number of crimes (Ex. 21:24), and there is no confusion with God.

Love in the biblical sense sometimes requires the infliction of punishment (Prov. 13:24), up to and including death (Rom. 13:4). Surely God loves us, and yet he inflicts death when it is necessary: God is love, and yet he punishes and chastens, even with death; therefore love and harm cannot be mutually incompatible, with is the assumption I think you must defend for your position to hang together.

--Iohannes.

Jonathan - re:

Saturday, November 24, 2012 7:29 pm

Ioannes wrote:

You have said that you see no way we can love our neighbor and kill him. Your underlying assumption, I think, is that we cannot harm someone and love them.

It's possible that Paul directly saying "love does no harm" in Romans 13:10 might convince me that my assumption is correct, eh? (or "ill" or "wrong", depending on your translation)

Ioannes wrote:

Love in the biblical sense sometimes requires the infliction of punishment (Prov. 13:24), up to and including death (Rom. 13:4).

I think that's quite a misguided interpretation of Romans 13. For example:

1) The sword was not the tool of execution in the Roman world, so if you're trying to take the verse literally then you can't use it to defend capital punishment.

2) The government Paul is referring to in Romans is a pagan government presiding over an unjust occupation that is evil in numerous ways. God can use that government as a tool of his justice (see Habakkuk 1, Jeremiah 21, Ezekiel 29, Isaiah 10, Micah 6, Amos 7 for other examples of evil nations being used for justice), but there is absolutely no implication that anything the Roman government is doing is being done out of love.

3) Jesus had already said that all who live by the sword will die by the sword (Matthew 26:52). The Roman government at the time promoted the false idea of Pax Romana, the idea of peace through strength, but Paul is subverting that idea by pointing out that they are clearly still bearing the sword, and not in vain. God can use what they intend for evil to accomplish justice, but it is still clear that the Romans will be judged for their actions even though God used it for justice (just like the Assyrians in Isaiah 10 and the Babylonians in Jeremiah 30:8-16).

4) There is no implication of Christian participation in the wrath that Paul is referring to in Romans 13:1-7. In the same passage Paul had just said that we couldn't avenge ourselves, but had to leave wrath to God (Romans 12:19). So when he refers to the government as a tool of wrath in Romans 13:4-5, it is obviously not us he's talking about! Paul had just said that as followers of Christ we are to bless and not curse persecutors (Romans 12:14), that we cannot repay anyone evil for evil (Romans 12:17), that we can never avenge ourselves (Romans 12:19), that we must physically serve our enemies rather than inflicting violence on them (Romans 12:20-21), that our only duty is to love, which fulfills the law (Romans 13:9-10), and that love does no harm. How is this possible, the Romans might have asked, just as you do today? Because God can use even the pagan Roman government as the instrument of his wrath and judgment! But that is not the role of Christians - the role of Christians is to bless, forgive, and serve their enemies, all our of sacrificial agape love.

Ioannes wrote:

Surely God loves us, and yet he inflicts death when it is necessary: God is love, and yet he punishes and chastens, even with death; therefore love and harm cannot be mutually incompatible, with is the assumption I think you must defend for your position to hang together.

As I've pointed out, the fact that Paul directly says love and harm are mutually incompatible in the very passage that you're trying to twist to fit your case makes my case pretty easy to make.

Do you believe in hell? Do you believe that if you kill someone in the moment of their murderous intent, that there's a fair chance you're providing the blow that ends their opportunity for repentance and restoration and condemning them to hell? And could you do such a thing to someone you loved? It may be possible for God, that's a question far more complex than you're making it. But I think it is certainly impossible for me. Do you have a daughter whom you love? Could you kill your daughter if you knew that there was a good chance she would go to hell if you did so, and that she would still have a chance for repentance if you did not? And if not, why do you think it should be so easy to love and yet kill someone for whom you have even less emotional connection?

Jonathan - re: re:

Saturday, November 24, 2012 7:41 pm

Ioannes wrote:

But killing in war is commanded in a much more generalized way than, say, the massacre of the Amalekites.

Can you give an example of any command in the Bible to kill people in war that actually could be applied to you? Jesus tells us to love our enemies. To love our neighbor as ourselves. To do unto others as we would want them to do to us. Those appear to be general commands directly meant to apply to any follower of Christ. He also says things like "those who live by the sword will die by the sword", which also appear to be quite generally refer to anyone. Can you give an example of such a Biblical command to kill people in war that is given generally to all followers of God? And can you show why this would override the commands of Jesus that quite clearly apply to us?

I gave this challenge once already, and I don't think that a proverb about disciplining children answers it.

I'll clarify exactly what Biblical thrust I think you need to disregard in order to support Christian violence. The violence that I dispute is any violence that harms the person which it is done to (Romans 13:10). Any violence is wrong if it is not done out of sacrificial agape love for every person involved (Matthew 19:19, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:7-8, especially if the person is your enemy (Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:27-36, Romans 12:9-21, 1 Corinthians 4:12-13). It must really be what you would ultimately want to be done to yourself in that situation (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31). In fact, I think the fate of the other should be considered even more important than your own (Philippians 2:1-11). It can not involve the judgment of someone as beyond love or beyond restoration (Matthew 5:43-48, 7:1-5, 13:24-50, Luke 6:37-42, 1 Corinthians 4:55, James 2:13, 4:11-12). It cannot be done in retaliation (Matthew 5:38-42, Luke 6:29-30, Romans 12:17-21, 1 Peter 3:9, Hebrews 10:32-34), and it is not to be done with the sword (Matthew 26:52). To summarize, it must ultimately be aimed at the restoration of the person involved. If you think the action ends the person's last chance at repentance, if you are judging yourself that the endpoint has come and you can now separate the weeds from the wheat, then I do not think you as a Christian are choosing love.

I am not a utilitarian. I don't believe you can calculate out good and bad, and then do bad to one person because it's outweighed by the resulting good for others. I am a follower of Christ, which I believe means that one should love all persons, irrespective of whether they've done deeds deserving of it. I try to act accordingly.

Ioannes

Sunday, November 25, 2012 3:44 am

Jonathan,

I wonder which translation you're using; "love does no harm" is not, I believe, a very good translation of Romans 13:10. The word Paul uses for "harm" is "kakos," which is literally "bad" or "evil." The AV translates it much better: "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." The law being referred to is God's law, which requires death for several categories of malefactors; surely Paul is not including the just penalties of the law as "working ill" to one's neighbor (a law whose fulfillment he says is the definition of love!).

You say also that the sword was not a tool of execution in the Roman system. Now, suppose someone were to say, "The state does not bear the handgun in vain," and someone else were to point out that this statement surely did not authorize capital punishment, since a handgun is not a typical weapon of execution? Right, but they're not for decoration, either, and the word Paul uses (machairos) is the word used generically in the NT for "sword," and the word Paul uses when he envisions death by the sword (Romans 8:35). The power of the state being contemplated here is indeed the infliction of death, even if the instrument mentioned is not the typical tool of capital punishment.

You also seem to accept Yoder and Ellul's reading of Romans 13; I think it is a rather strained interpretation, and the hermeneutical double-jointedness it asks for is only necessary if you presuppose a flabby, unbiblical definition of love. The biblical view is that the enforcement of just punishment is a working out of love, not the opposite of love. It is only by importing humanistic definitions of love into the text that we get stuck with the interpretative problems Yoder, et al. want to solve (I think Yoder's preface to The Politics of Jesus is revealing: his inspiration lay more in the sixties counterculture, and, more distantly, Gandhi's and Tolstoy's appropriation of Jesus, than in the Bible.)

Thank you for an intriguing discussion. I feel like I have gotten more insight into your presuppositions than was available in the few scattered postings of yours that I have seen. I will give you the closing statement in the discussion.

Cordially in Christ,
Iohannes

Ioannes

Sunday, November 25, 2012 3:49 am

A quick addendum: the culprit for the "love does no harm" citation appears to be the notorious NIV; the ESV and Holman translate it as "does no wrong."

Jonathan - re:

Sunday, November 25, 2012 9:45 am

Ioannes wrote:

I wonder which translation you're using; "love does no harm" is not, I believe, a very good translation of Romans 13:10. The word Paul uses for "harm" is "kakos," which is literally "bad" or "evil." The AV translates it much better: "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

NIV is one of several translations that use "harm", though I believe "works no ill" is a fine translation too. I disagree that "harm" could not be a literal translation - is it not the same Greek word used in Acts 16:28 and 28:5?

Ioannes wrote:

The law being referred to is God's law, which requires death for several categories of malefactors; surely Paul is not including the just penalties of the law as "working ill" to one's neighbor (a law whose fulfillment he says is the definition of love!).

I disagree with these leaps - I do not believe that when Paul says "anyone who loves is fulfilling the law" or "love is the fulfillment of the law", that he is also saying, "the letter of the law is always the equivalent of love". To make a math analogy, saying that B is now equal to the intended result of A does not meant that every subset of A is still equivalent to B. God intended many things by the law, but I don't think one of them was to apply every bit of it to a post-Christ context and call it love.

Ioannes wrote:

You say also that the sword was not a tool of execution in the Roman system. Now, suppose someone were to say, "The state does not bear the handgun in vain," and someone else were to point out that this statement surely did not authorize capital punishment, since a handgun is not a typical weapon of execution? Right, but they're not for decoration, either, and the word Paul uses (machairos) is the word used generically in the NT for "sword," and the word Paul uses when he envisions death by the sword (Romans 8:35).

Your example is perfect! If someone said, "the state does not bear the handgun in vain", then I think very few people would think of capital punishment. Such a statement would naturally be referring to police authority, and could equally well be made whether or not the state in question even has capital punishment. If someone was intending to refer to capital punishment, they would obviously refer to electric chairs, not handguns. Which sorta proves that point.

I quite agree that the reference to "the sword" is certainly a reference to the violent power of the state. I am not diminishing at all that Paul is highlighting the violence of the state in this passage.

Ioannes wrote:

You also seem to accept Yoder and Ellul's reading of Romans 13; I think it is a rather strained interpretation, and the hermeneutical double-jointedness it asks for is only necessary if you presuppose a flabby, unbiblical definition of love. The biblical view is that the enforcement of just punishment is a working out of love, not the opposite of love.

I also find Yoder's reading of Romans 13 strained at a few of the details, but not at all because of how he defines love, and not in any way that damages the overall thrust of his interpretation. Perhaps you would prefer Richard B. Hays's reading of Romans 13? He is careful NOT to use love as the center point of his New Testament ethics, because of the distortions to the word that some find so easy. Yet he still comes down equally strongly against violence in his quite good reading of New Testament ethics. Swartley, Hauerwas, Klassen, and Keesmaat all fit in here too.* I think that any reading which seats Romans 13:1-7 appropriately in Romans 12:9-13:10 and in Romans as a whole is vastly superior to those readings which take it completely out of its quite relevant context.

As far as a "flabby, unBiblical definition of love", I think the opposite is actually true. The specific agape love referred to here really means something, and Paul is quite detailed about what it means (Romans 12:1-21 and 13:8-10 is the obvious context, 1 Corinthians 13 is quite a substantial help, and 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 and Galatians 5:13-26 provide additional context). The reason I put love in such a high position is because I think it means something concrete. The people with the "flabby, unBiblical definition of love" are those who turn the word into a mere feeling, and then are able to superimpose it on any action of violence or hate and say it's still love because their love doesn't actually mean anything anymore.

To expand outside of the Pauline context, John (1 John 3:11-24 and 1 John 4:7-5:5) and James (James 1:22-2:26) were quite clear about how concrete true love is and how visible it is in real actions. As, of course, was Jesus (Matthew 5:38-48, Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:27-42, Luke 10:25-37, John 13:34-35).

Ioannes wrote:

It is only by importing humanistic definitions of love into the text that we get stuck with the interpretative problems Yoder, et al. want to solve (I think Yoder's preface to The Politics of Jesus is revealing: his inspiration lay more in the sixties counterculture, and, more distantly, Gandhi's and Tolstoy's appropriation of Jesus, than in the Bible.)

I am wondering whether you have made an error here or just a profoundly strange reading. I looked up Yoder's prefaces to both his 1st and 2nd editions, and neither come close to suggesting any of those things. If you're referring to something Yoder actually wrote, I think it must be somewhere other than the preface of that book.

Ioannes wrote:

Thank you for an intriguing discussion. I feel like I have gotten more insight into your presuppositions than was available in the few scattered postings of yours that I have seen. I will give you the closing statement in the discussion.

Thank you for the thanks. It's meaningful to me when people exchange dialogue and check back on old comments rather than commenting and running.

* I noticed that all seven theologians referenced there could be described as Christian pacifists, though they come from a variety of traditions. Then I realized that once you take Romans 13:1-7 out of the mix, the New Testament case for not being a Christian pacifist becomes quite sparse indeed.

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