The Progressives
Any one who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. 2 John 9 NASB
Goes too far – There is one standard of correct understanding of God’s demands on men. That standard cannot be diminished by subtracting from it, nor can it be increased by adding to it. The standard, the only standard, is what God has revealed through His word, exemplified in the life of His Son and in the clarification that the teaching of the Son brings to us. That’s it! No more, no less.
The Christian religion (not individual believers) has struggled with John’s point for centuries. In Roman Catholicism, the tendency is to add to the standard by the authority of the Church. Protestants are no less guilty. In general, they subtract from the standard by teaching followers that only some of God’s revelation is relevant. Both branches of religion operate on an implicit anti-Semitic replacement theology.
John uses the Greek verb proago. It comes from the words “to drive” and “before.” It entails the idea of progressive enhancement. John has in mind those followers who view God’s standard as merely the platform for further enlightenment. Does the word of God teach about baptism? Certainly! So we will expand the concept to include all forms of contact with “holy” water. Does it teach about chaste behavior? Yes. So let’s include makeup and hair styles and pants on women. Does it teach about authority in the home? Of course. So we’ll expand that to include “every man the head of his castle” (and male-only priests, by the way). Apparently we love to run ahead of God by deriving principles from His word and then expanding them to circumstances never envisioned in Scripture. Actually, we shouldn’t be too surprised about this methodology. It is quite in line with the Greek idea that Scripture isn’t really about particular, concrete actions. It is really about universal principles that can be adjusted and applied in every circumstance. That’s how we convert specific dietary requirements into principles of healthy eating. Why shouldn’t we make these applications of universal principles? After all, we have progressed since Moses.
John (and God) have particular, concrete, unique requirements in mind. Those requirements are encapsulated in the 613 Torah commandments, the paradigm exemplars of what it means to live God’s way. While there are applications of the exemplars in new circumstances, that does not mean they don’t depend entirely on their original concrete implementation. Yeshua clarified what Torah means by anger and adultery, but He didn’t suggest that the original was no longer valid because of the enlarged application. Application without adherence to the original execution goes too far. John writes that those who go too far are in danger of not having God at all. Have you thought about your own religious behavior? Is it “application” in lieu of original execution? Is it principles instead of concrete obedience?
Topical Index: goes too far, proago, 2 John 9
Those requirements are encapsulated in the 613 Torah commandments, the paradigm exemplars of what it means to live God’s way.
As I am a goyim, could you clarify this in light of Acts 15 and 21?
I have written quite a bit about the misunderstanding of Acts 15 as a reduction of the 613 for Gentiles. You can find it by searching my web site for the verse references. Once you understand the cultural setting of Acts 15, Acts 21 is not problem.
“Both branches of religion operate on an implicit anti-Semitic replacement theology.”
Well they certainly operate on an explicit anti-nomian replacement Torah theology. It seems that men and women will not give up their declared moral autonomy from God so readily, even in the community of the redeemed.
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus 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 first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22
This is so much simpler and easier to do than following 613 Torah commandments
Hi Ray,
How do you refine love? And, what does it look like to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. How does that show in one’s life? How does the Bible instruct us to do that in different circumstances? How does the Bible instruct us to love ourselves, and other people? Where are the instructions?
Hi Robin,
The Apostle Paul describes the Life and actions of Love in 1 Corinthians 13. I have to confess I find myself questioning all the Time whether I live up to the ideal in the practice of the Faith? The Faith does require practice on the lifelong road to perfection in Christ.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abides Faith, Hope, Love, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, Christ teaches. It is there where I will find God with me all the Time, for the Good or Evil I encounter in this Life in this world.
The Light of God exposes all my own sins, faults and shortcomings. The Grace of Christ helps me to overcome as I examine my own Faith and application of it in Loving others, both familiar and unfamiliar.
I believe in the idea and reality revealed in Hebrews 13:2 that we should welcome strangers for many have entertained Angels unawares.
We should also bear in mind when the Angel with the Rainbow over his head, traditionally accepted as a messenger directly from the throne of Christ, gave the Revelation to John the Divine, John fell down to worship at his feet. The Angel said, Get up! Don’t do that. I am one of your fellow servants. Worship God!!!
The people still worship their false gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, etc., the kings of the earth, and their movie and music idols. God is no respecter of persons, it is written. Yet we are commanded to Love one another as Christ Loves us.
Loving Ourselves
Whoso is getting heart is loving his soul,
He is keeping understanding to find good.
Proverbs 19:8 Young’s
Loving is from the Hebrew ahab which in the Septuagint is translated as agape
http://interlinearbible.org/proverbs/19-8.htm
http://apostolic.interlinearbible.org/proverbs/19.htm
Soul is nephesh, which Skip translates as the whole person. So you could write:
Whoso is getting heart is agape loving his whole person.
Compare to KJV
He that getteth wisdom loveth his own soul
New English Translation of the Septuagint
He who procures prudence loves himself
Brenton
He that procures wisdom loves himself;
In short, getting heart is something proactive on the individual’s part. At Biblos.com or Biblestudytools.com, go to the Interlinear and consider doing a search on heart (leb).
My Definition of Agape Used With Adult Singles
Agape love is a love that chooses to give, accept and receive respect, honor, care/concern, appreciation, and appropriate affection regardless of how you feel, and regardless of whether you or the other person has earned it or deserves it.
With adult singles, using this definition, it was easier to show abuse as the absence of agape.
Hi Ray,
How do you define love? And, what does it look to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. How is that demonstrated in one’s life? How does the Bible instruct us to show our love to God in different circumstances? How does the Bible instruct us to love ourselves, and other people? Where are the instructions?
All those Old Master paintings of the early Saints show them with a halo over their heads.
When one finds the treasure of God in their hearts, they become filled with Joy which radiates to all those around them. They may not know the source, but they notice the effect.
But to the Son he says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even even God, has anointed you with the Oil of Gladness above your fellows.
Hebrews 1
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them HE GAVE POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us
John 1
Are you on the way TO BECOMING a Son/Daughter of God?
Does the Word live in your Flesh?
Anyone who denies Christ IS COME in the Flesh is the spirit of anti-Christ John writes.
Hi Ray,
I’ll join Robin in her inquiry as to where the definition of love is found. You wrote this; “The Apostle Paul describes the Life and actions of Love in 1 Corinthians 13.”
I would submit that what the apostle wrote is not a “detailed” description of love, but rather the “attributes” of it. Another way to say it is, although he tells us that love is patient, he doesn’t bother to describe exactly what that patience looks like. One would assume 🙂 that perhaps Paul is negligent in his articulation of love, OR there may be an assumtion that the parameters have already been established and it is quite unnecessary to expound farther. That’s why the requirements for claiming faith in God through Yeshua were determined to be what they were, “for Moses is taught in the synagouges every sabbath.” (yes, the gentiles went to synagoge, not the other way around)
What “Moses wrote” defines the terms of “good and evil”, “hatred and love”, amongst others. The paradigm was already set, learning it, was and is, a process. However there’s no private interpretation of scripture nor can it be broken. (ever) The terms that God uses in His word to man are defined in the torah, the rest is the expansion of those principles in action.
BTW, we tend to distinquiush between ritual and moral purity, although there are in fact distinctions in the performance of these issues, it would seem that there is no distintion made in the nesessity of both. The fundamental statement of scripture, Hear O Israel, YHWH our God, YHWH is One speaks of unity. The God we worship in our “treatment” of people, is the same God we worship in our “services”.
YHWH bless you and keep you……..
May I suggest that Paul isn’t defining what we would call “love” at all. Read “The Grammar of Love”, an article I wrote quite awhile ago on the Greek text. It’s on the web site.
OK, I found it, I think this one’s gonna take a while. I’ll get back to you! 🙂
Where would you position the explanations of the sages and rabbis down through the ages regarding their expansive discussions of Torah. I’ve begun dabbling in a few of their writings (Rambam, Ramban, Besht) but don’t, as yet, have a real feel/understanding of their works. Would you say some of their deeper PRDS exegesis crossed over in to this add/subtract realm? Just wondering if you’ve seen any of what you’ve highlighted from 2 John 9 in any of the sages works?
Some of what I’ve read of them seems to get down some wild rabbit trails and in the arena of highly stretched meanings. I struggle often to follow their logic and chain of deduction. I grasp many of the summary statements they arrive at, but get befuddled as to how they actually got to that particular end.
Wild, but very invigorating reads. I feel my intelligence is somehow elevated just by reading them as they are very well delineated. My skills are improved simply by my efforts to translate and decipher their intent and meanings. I only seem comfortable reading small portions as it leaves my brain strained from exercise in thought. A good strain though, just like good physical exercise leaves me tired. A good tired.
Does any of that make sense?
To think like a rabbi requires replacement of most of the Greek hard drive. It is quite confusing. And a good deal of what they say depends on the construction of the Hebrew language (i.e., reading substitute vowels, transposing letters, etc.). Really difficult in English. Takes a few hundred years to catch on.
I guess I should get started then! lol
“Application without adherence to the original execution goes too far.”
Very articulate. Perhaps this is the principle we should keep in mind when we start thinking of ‘cultural equivalents’ for certain commands.
In considering the “harsh penalties” of Torah, we must always keep in mind that there were no laws against emigration, or none that I can think of right now. Hence, the’harshness’ was reserved for those who were demanding to be part of the community – yet refusing to abide by the communal teachings. There is a particularly corrosive arrogance at work in such an attitude.
Most pragmatic people can see the necessity of strict mutiny laws on a ship,… especially if the captain is a good and just man. Why is it so difficult to see an even greater life and death importance in creating a ‘nation of priests’? Paul speaks plainly about this in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.
The NAC adds this:
“When someone adds to the biblical testimony of Jesus Christ, a subtraction from the truth of who he is and what he did is inevitable.”
Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001). 231.
Might this statement be further amended to include the implication that also when we subtract or take away from this testimony regarding Yeshua, falseness is draped upon him, resulting in reflections portraying an inaccurate rendition of him?
Much of my life in Christendom has been learning about a Jesus that is lessened and falsified. What a seemingly waste of years.
“And we know that God causes all things to work together . . .” Let’s see, where is that verse?
It seems the political Progressives of our day are doing vast damage as well. Progressively.
Paul details God’s greatest gift.
and says, “Love does not boast “, 1 Cor. 13:4
The reason that love does NOT boast is that it focuses on the loved one, not on oneself.
Braggarts are full of themselves, occupied with how well they do their thing.
If the lawyers knew all about how to follow Moses law, why would Nic have needed to
slip off into the night to inquire of Jesus? (this is not a question. it is part of my case)
Paul had chances to boast, but he chose not to.
He served the Corinthians without a salary and did not boast of his sacrifice.
He wrote, “If I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting” (9:16).
Elsewhere, Paul wrote that no one has a right to boast about salvation:
We are saved by grace through faith, “so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:9; Rom. 3:27-28).
~ Anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God. But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son ~
Do we remember the midrash of THE Messiah: “Abide in Me?” (Chapter? Verse? Reference? – unknown?)- John chapter 15.
Rules? Ritual? Religion? ~ And when you pray, say “Our Father..~ Now,- “Relationship!”
~ Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is ~ (1 John 3.2)
It seems John makes Skip’s point a couple of verses earlier in his letter when he says:
“And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.” 2 John 1:5-6 (ESV)
The commandment(s) that describe and define love are the ones “we have had from the beginning” (Torah). Once again we need to remember the only “Bible” the early believers had access to at this time was the Hebrew Scriptures. The NT had not been written yet.
David Stern says: “Love toward God is this: that we should live according to his commands. Compare 1 Yn 5:3. This is the command—to love one another (v. 5); it includes all the commands (Ro 13:8-10&N, Ga 5:14&N).” – (Jewish New Testament Commentary).
Hebrew Law and Custom (Judaism 101)
Only Kohanim (i.e., adult – age 13 or older – males in direct patrilineal descent from Aaron) can perform the Priestly Benediction.
The Rabbi has much the same role as a Protestant minister, ministering to the community, leading community religious services and dealing with many of the administrative matters related to the synagogue.
Hi Skip,
I can see how we (those of us who are not Jews) could become a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister
But I can’t see how we could become a “priest” without being anti-Semitic in the Hebrew worldview
And I don’t see how we could be living the Hebrew worldview without adapting to ideology
Defined in Judaism 101
Mik alan oha – Kohanim
This is love-that we know Who ABBA YHWH is, in His character;
His ways, as in neither turning to the left nor to the right, but fully focused on Him, what He tells us we listen fully attentive to guard;
His Word is life to us so we cannot change, alter nor deviate from them, as in walking away from the light, we stumble and fail.
If we say we love YHWH, we choose to obey and walk according to His every Word, and not according to our understanding nor comprehension.
What ABBA has blessed is clean, but what ABBA has declared unclean for consumption is unclean, no matter even if we bless and prayed over it, making ABBA to be of no avail, that we can change what He has said! With what/whose authority?! Shocking! This is not complicated at all-the animals went in 2 by 2 for the unclean, and 7 by 7 for the clean. For what purpose is this clearly written?
If we say His commandments are written in our hearts, do we decide the ones we choose to walk in?
Would those commandments be His or ours?
We cannot mix the clean with the unclean, in every aspect.
It does make one wonder if such believers have the Father, or the Son in their lives.
ABBA has and will continue to draw folks out of Babylonian religious systems. Amein!