Bates and Switch
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15 NASB
Commandments– I consider myself a careful reader. I even read the footnotes, just to make sure I don’t miss anything. So when I find myself confused when I read someone’s argument, I wonder if perhaps the argument itself is confusing. After plodding (and I mean that) through Matthew Bates’ chapter on justification[1]with continuous confusion about his logic and conclusions, I looked forward to the last chapter, the one that was supposed to tell us how to live a life of allegiance to the King.
After finishing it, I am more confused than ever.
Here’s what I expected. Yeshua is the anointed King of all creation, elevated to that position by YHVH, evidenced by the resurrection. As King, he has expectations for those who follow him. As the verse in John 14 clearly demonstrates, commandments are central to these expectations. Bates says so himself. Allegiance entails obligatory obedience. So I expected Bates to tell me what is obligatory. Knowing that he dismisses all rule-based systems (and particularly Torah), I was anxious to see what he thinks “commandments” means. But what I got was this:
- a reiteration of his eight-point summary of the gospel, totally Trinitarian
- a statement that the Church needs to “stop asking others to invite Jesus into their hearts and start asking them to swear allegiance to Jesus the King”[2]
- a claim that “it is dreadfully wrongheaded to suggest that the gospel is best (or even adequately) proclaimed by actions unencumbered by words” . . . “the true gospel is not reducible to Christian activities.”[3]
- a suggestion that the “Christian metanarrative” need only include the creation, the fall, the election of Israel, the gospel, the church and the future renewal[4]
- a demand for discipleship: “The invitation to begin the journey of salvation can never be anything less than a call to discipleship, for nothing less will result in final salvation.”[5]
- a suggestion that saying the creeds (particularly the Apostle’s Creed) is the equivalent of saying the eight-points of the Trinitarian gospel as he outlines it.
Okay. Great. But what does this mean? There is not a word about what the commandments of the King really are. The entire chapter on practicing allegiance is about declaring the eight-point doctrine. What happened to the “rules”? In the end Bates leaves us with nothing to guide our actual living. He tells us that it is important to saythe right things about “Jesus,” but after that it is a big blank. Bates has switched us from expecting to hear howto live to expressing cognitive correctness about what we believe. Once again the condemnation of Harold Brown echoes in the hallways. “While Buddhism and Islam are based primarily on the teaching of the Buddha and Mohammed, respectively, Christianity is based primarily on the person of Christ. Christianity is not belief in the teachings of Jesus, but what is taught about him . . .[6]
Without Torah there isn’t any gospel. There is only “your best guess” about how to live. There is only doctrinal proclamation, and that never “saved” anyone.
Topical Index: allegiance, salvation, Torah, rules, Matthew Bates, John 14:15
[1]Matthew Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, Chapter 8.
[6]Kegan A. Chandler, The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma, pp. 248-249, citing Harold Brown, Heresies, p. 13.
We are shown to go back to the basics. The Commandments are not the suggestions. The rules and guidelines that were given when you shoot or was living. Along with the disciples he had. Must have been Torah. That’s all there was to go by. There is no other evidence up at that time. Except Greek mythology, and things like that. Which anyone coming from Hebrew world new were wrong. Such a conflict that Hellenism brought, with all its confusion.
I spent 36 years struggling with this same thing. I knew there were requirements made by God to be a Christian, but I could never kick down the walls that were placed around the things I was being taught to see truth. I never could get clear instruction on how to live a life of allegiance. Just seemed like a big ball of raw bread dough. I knew there were things in there that were good, but never quite what it’s supposed to be like til you’ve got an oven to bake it in.
The pastor couldn’t bring the gospel down to my level of understanding because I was after all a mere lay person. Blindly follow the doctrines of the church and shake your head in agreement. He after all had knowledge because of his superior calling.
This nation is not fast becoming a godless nation because of lack of proclamation “with their lips” but because our “hearts are far from him”. Heart change is a change of experience. “Jesus in my heart” is where we get Him out of the head and into the life. We may be able to “follow” idols on facebook, but we were told that the only way to follow Christ is to pick up our crosses.
The biggest cross to be found in the Commandments is Sabbath keeping. The other nine can be looked at as just good moral sense, but the Sabbath? The only reason that is there is to make very visible an allegiance to a Creator God, which is a terrible cross to bear in an age where evolution is being touted by almost everybody, including the Pope, and most everybody is going to church on Sunday.
I think we all find what we are looking for. When folks set out to ‘find’ ways to not have to obey, they ‘find’ them. Its pathetic to read the accounts of yesteryear where people were still trying to obey the Ten Commandments (well, at least nine of them) but justify disobedience to the fourth (because they didn’t want to stop going to church on Sunday, as per tradition). Because that can’t be done, I think the baby eventually got thrown out with the bathwater and everybody got told that nobody needed a bath anyway. The Sabbath was the deal killer for the Commandments, historically, at least for Protestants.
Yes, Laurita…. a deal killer for those who rejected the Torah (Jewish, ‘ya know). That includes the Catholics as well. My formative years as a Catholic (til I was 20) I was told the “sabbath” was changed to Sunday, the day Jesus Christ was raised from the grave and further more we were to “just do what the priest tells us to do and all will be fine.” Obedience was to doctrine and dogma, ad nauseam! Empty. So I left and found no difference in every place I looked for the REAL Yeshua.
Doctrine and dogma is a plague that blankets the earth. Each commandment is challenged, if not by the individual, the ‘church’. Reducing or eliminating the commandment of the Sabbath, is like pulling on a thread that holds the tapestry together. To forego the significance of the Torah gives way to idolatry and self determination that feeds lawlessness. In essence walking away from Yah. No intimate connection to Yah? What’s the point of it all?
I will soon be writing about the very Western need to “get it right.” This is the motivation behind dogma and doctrine – to have the RIGHT answer – to have certainty so I don’t have to struggle with the tension of life. This is a Western idea, not a Semitic one. As you will see, the Semitic idea is about a connection point to the divine, and that connection point is the interaction of God with Man in the giving of the Torah. Once you leave that connection behind, everything is up for grabs and then you have to have the RIGHT answers in order to feel safe.
Should I regret suggesting you read Bates’ book then Skip? Ha-ha! 🙂
I have to agree that his 8-point summary of the Gospel was a bit of a disappointment to me.
Let me share something I passed on to Skip and a few others yesterday. I have just started to read “Faith unraveled: how a girl who knew all the answers learned to ask questions”, by Rachel Held Evans. I haven’t got very far into it, but she writes well and with humor about her fundamentalist background (I especially love her version of using apologetic strategies to argue in favor of the existence of Santa Claus, as a 4th-grader!).
She later writes: ‘Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue.’
So you don’t think that the connection “point” is the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh?
Sorry, but of course you don’t. You already stated your view. What I should have asked is if you would please offer a brief explanation here of why you don’t think the connection point is the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh. Thank you.
Bates and Switch August 29.
Laurita’s post as well as Lucille’s…..so true! Both of your posts were worded so well! Deal killer. Handy expression.
How important setting the day apart is!
Yes and amen.
We stopped going to Sunday Mass services years ago and we were very active participants. Too many of the attendants would be there saying, doing, singing one thing or another for an hour or so and the rest of the week living in a different world. The hypocrisy was just too much. We found the same thing in our Florida retirement community over the past 6 years.
For us the Sabbath commandment is a 24/7 commandment, not one day a week or one hour a week but a lifestyle commandment. Every day is the Sabbath.
Despite who you are or what belief system scratches your itch,
everything changes when God Himself reveals His being and presence
to you. Ask Abraham. Or Paul. When that “one and only” God makes contact,
you’ll “know that you know that you know”.
King David knew, and he wrote it down: “The Lord is my light and my salvation —
whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?” Ps 27:1
As Yeshua said to Nicodemus: “we speak of what we know…”
When you know, you’ll be led to all truth, including the commandments. It’s His Way.
“But if anyone obeys His word, God’s love is truly made complete in Him.” 1Jn 2:5
It’s been said, it’s not what you know, but WHO you know that counts.
Rich, I also believed in when God reveals homself personally. Then I found satan revealing himself through the Christian doctrines I was listening to. How scriptures were adapted or read out of place creating a great argument but a weak foundation.
That is when I started seeking.
God is still not revealed but the lie from the father of lies (satan) those are being recognised easier. One lie at a time. And as said: Truth is no mans slave (called into freedom through self retrospection and admission so that repentance can manifest) but lies what magnificent servants they make (brought into bondage and guilt).
Seeker,
I’m not sure I got your full message. I hope you are experiencing His life
in your new heart as His Spirit gently guides you into all truth, as Yeshua
promised in Jn 16:13.
“Look to the Lord and His strength;
seek His face always.” Ps 105:4
Many blessings . . .
This is my matenarritive for the state of mankind. There where two trees of knowledge placed by the creator in the garden of delight. Both had a fruit of understanding. The tree of life’s fruit was interdependent reason. Eating this fruit gave a knowledge that lead to obeying and understanding the will , way and purposes of the creator. The other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’s fruit was independent human reason. Knowing through personal choice or deductive logic; not informed by the creator. Deciding without submission to the revealed truth ( enlivened by spirit) we don’t like rules for our behaviors we get out of jail free-. We need to force revealed truth (biblical truth) to conform to our paridigm; In my story this is the root of mankind’s cognitive disconnection with truth and reality. “Take captive every thought and subject it to Christ” Paul…
Great work Skip. It is amazing how quiet ‘believers’ get when I challenge them to read Matthew 5-7. The words of Yeshua is not palatable to the human flesh. The majority of those that claim to believe in Him, really only believe what is being said about Him, but to believe His words and do the commandments is just going too far! I challenged one of my co-pastor brothers to preach Matthew 5, 6 and 7 for a year and see the change that will take place in his congregation. He was silent for a few seconds and then replied; ‘I cannot do that.’ When I asked; ‘why not?’ he replied; ‘my church will run empty.’ What a sad day for the gospel to become compromised for the sake of congregational income. Pew warmers are very content to recite the apostle’s creed and to be stroked in their hearing with soothing messages that do not challenge their sinful lives and thus concentrating on what is being said about Jesus, with no challenge on how to live in obedience to our Heavenly Father. Yes, they believe in Jesus, but they do not believe Him! Isn’t it numbing to the intellect that the words of the co-equal in the Trinitarian godhead to be so blatantly ignored by its purveyors and adherents?
AMEIN!!! Isn’t this correct, also? There isn’t any gospel either without trust in the forgiveness of sins through trusting in Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel and his death and resurrection, and trusting in a righteousness that is by faith, and the promised gift of the Ruach HaKodesh, as well as the promise of eternal life, right? Or, maybe more accurately, there isn’t a FULL GOSPEL?.
I say, let us live and preach and teach the FULL GOSPEL and not only part – All of these different ways in which the gospel is phrased in the scriptures -.the gospel of God, the gospel of the son, the gospel of Yeshua Messiah, the gospel of of Yeshua and the resurrection, the gospel of the kingdom of God, the gospel of salvation, the gospel of good things, and the gospel of peace!
AND….I THINK THIS IS REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT……
If we take a position of OVER-EMPHASIZING one thing more than another, and thereby DE-EMPHASIZING another thing, both IN COUNTER-REACTION to another polemic by SOMEONE ELSE WHO IS DOING THE SAME THING, we risk the possibility of CO-CREATING A POLARIZATION AND OPPOSITION to the FULL MESSAGE OF THE TRUTH or the FULL GOSPEL, and not only lessening the influence of the message but actually unintentionally playing into the work of the adversary that can result in us or someone else denying some component of truth that is part of the full truth.
IN OTHER WORDS…..IF, let’s say in communicating with Christians, they “hear” us as OVER-emphasizing what we might term the responsibility of obedience to Torah part of the gospel, while they also “hear” us DE-emphasizing what we might term the empowerment and reward side of the gospel, we can be rightly thought of as being “legalistic” (“excessive adherence to law or formula, or dependence on moral law rather than on personal religious faith”) because that is what our polemic sounds like, and then our message may be rejected. Just like for others, say of a Jewish background, if they “hear” us OVER-emphasize and DE-emphasize the same in reverse, we can be rightly thought of as anti-Torah, because that is what our polemic sounds like, and then our message may be rejected.
Obviously, it’s not all a matter of just what we believe or how we personally live it out, or even how we communicate about it when trying to enlighten, correct, influence, help, etc.. IT’S A MATTER OF HOW OTHERS ARE GOING TO INTERPRET US, and as you, Skip, have said here, THE RESPONSIBILITY LIES MORE WITH THE COMMUNICATOR THAN WITH THE LISTENER, right?
I, myself, often fail in that regard here in that I often agree with things more than I say and over-react to some polemic here that to me sounds “unbalanced”, minimizing, invalidating, or even opposing something i believe to be the truth, and unintentionally may be co-creating a polarization and opposition. I know others do that in reaction to me and my polemics here, too.
There are a lot of potential explanations for why we all do this at different times. However, it is both in having a love of the truth about ourselves and even our own faulty character, nature, and motives, and also a love of the truth about His wisdom and ways of righteousness in our ethical attitudes and conduct and communication that will correct the problems and make straight the way that will better usher in His kingdom on earth, in and through us, just as it is in heaven. And I think this so-called “movement”, if you will or must, of which we are a part here, to help bring about the restoration of all things through the coming and advancing of His kingdom, is often thwarted by this faulty tendency we have of over-reacting to certain polemics and then both over-emphasizing and de-emphasizing various truths, because of both our inner brokenness still, as well as our ignorance in being more Messiah-like in our wisdom and ways of proclaiming, preaching, teaching, or just having dialogues and debates.
Shalom from above to one and all!
Did Jesus really set apart the Sabbath for the New Testament church? Aren’t all animals good for food? How could bacon be so good and God not want us to enjoy it? Jesus said all food is clean and there is even an added verse to make that clearer. Aren’t Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s day the days the Church has called holy days? Don’t you really love them and feel connected through them? Why would we want to consider the days YHVH declared holy as anything other than Jewish legalism that Jesus came to free us from? Why would we want to go back under such bondage? The local church is holy. The pastor became holy in seminary. He/she will instruct us about how to live for Jesus in our present culture. As society changes, the church has to keep relevant. How could we evangelize if people didn’t want to come? We need to be more moral (holy) than the culture. But, if we are not, Jesus paid for all sin on the cross so we’re still good. We have hundreds of years now to prove these things are true and desirable for us.
When I was in that system, those “realities” were so believable! The enemy has changed the times and the seasons and now those hundreds of years of whispering the new and improved “holy” traditions are nearly insurmountable. I still struggle to practice Truth. Only a work of the Spirit can open our eyes. There is such an attack on everything YHVH Himself declared holy. Anyone who seeks to live righteously will likely be persecuted. I just never realized the church would participate.
I have been there, am still there …..and so it goes on. I’m humbled, preturbed and saddened but cling to HIM who is………who called me to move on BUT with every effort to keep alive the peace and joy as part of my walk even in the midst of rejection………. wanting to walk in His ways and his appointed times is a choice to honour Yah above all else……dying indeed!
Gal 3:24 – “the Torah functioned as a custodian / schoolmaster until the Messiah came, so that we might be justified by faith. But NOW,
that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”.
When people try to “hang on” to Torah, it doesn’t make Torah relevant or irrelevant, it just means they never graduated “High School”. Torah just does what any good teacher would do – keeps you in line, until you develop some sort of understanding and accountability. But there is life after the High School…LOL, with more challenges and opportunities, that’s why Jesus has sent us his spirit to teach, guide, and lead us. It’s not as “black-and-white” and “set in stone” as Torah, and you can’t box it up, – “you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going”, and there is going to be lots of mistakes (missing the marks), distractions (doubts) and hardships (crosses) on the way,…. but it’s still better to choose life than the “safe known”, as there is nothing more sad than a 40 year old student “stuck” at the level of the 12th grader.
Olga, you are right. But to graduate we need to start at pre-school and work thorougly through all 10 commandments as well as the prophets and apostles before we can be ready for a life in Christ. There is no shortcut. So it is not the 40 year in grade 12. It is more like the 40 year old attending the right school for the correct qualification. They all chastise unto Christ. No valid school lesson without them…
Yep, there is no shortcuts, Seeker, – we all know where that leads to…..lol