In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)
In our pluralistic society today, we often hear people say that what someone believes in isn’t as important as that they believe in something. This come from a well-intentioned, but misguided, view that all religions lead to God.
It sounds so restrictive to claim that there’s only one way enter the kingdom of God. People say, “if being a Christian works for you, that’s great; I’ve got my own religion that works for me,” or “I’m not into religion,” or similar remarks.
There is a law of logic called the law of non-contradiction which states, in the words of Aristotle, that “one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.”
We understand that this music stand cannot both be a music stand and not be a music stand. A thing can not be something and also not be it. So a religion that claims Jesus is God is not the same as a religion that says Jesus is not God. Both cannot be correct. One of them has to be wrong.
The notion of “what’s true for you may not be true for me” is as wrongheaded today as it was in A.D. 49 when the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the churches in Galatia.
He begins the letter admonishing them for accepting other rules and stories besides the Gospel of Jesus Christ that he delivered to them. They knew the truth, but felt inclined to accept other ideas as also being true. Sound familiar?
So Paul let them know, in very definite terms, that there is one Savior, Jesus Christ, whom we are to follow if we are truly obeying God.
This week, an article in the Seattle Times detailed the new-found spiritual dysfunction of an Episcopal Priest in Seattle:
The Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church said, “I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I’m both an American of African descent and a woman. I’m 100 percent both.”
She has been a priest for more than 20 years, and was director of faith formation at St. Mark’s. Now, she’s telling the world about her adherence to Islam, causing confusion for both Christians and Muslims.
Christians believe Jesus is God and Muslims believe he was merely a prophet. Christians believe Jesus died on the cross and Muslims believe Jesus did not die on the cross. The law of non-contradiction clearly an issue in comparing Christianity and Islam, and the core beliefs are not compatible.
Redding has a Ph.D. in New Testament from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and master’s degrees from two seminaries. She plans to begin teaching the New Testament this fall as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University, a Catholic school.
According to the Seattle Times article, she was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1984 but has always challenged her church, calling Christianity the “world religion of privilege.” She believes that Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans.
So to avoid the law of non-contradiction, Redding merely discards the core beliefs of both faiths in her effort to be accepting and inclusive of both religions. The saddest part of this is that her bishop, Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, thinks the “interfaith possibilities are exciting,” as though this is some great new celebrating diversity campaign.
Remember, these are clergy who have taken vows before God “to be loyal to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.” Other denominations have their own problems with clergy not following the Gospel, but this particular episode this week happens to be an Episcopal priest and her bishop.
This is why Paul’s message to the Galatians is so important to us even 20 centuries later. We need to understand that the Gospel is true and that all of its claims about Jesus are true. Many of us have modified the Gospel without realizing we’ve changed it, and think we believe the truth.
George Barna leads a Christian research group and discovered some things about Christian beliefs. In his research during 1996 and 1997, Barna discovered that many professing Christians believe that people are inherently good, that our primary purpose is to enjoy life, and that our most important responsibility is to take care of our family. He also found that:
• 81% believe that the Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves.
• 72% believe that people are blessed by God so they can enjoy life as much as possible.
• 60% say that Satan is not a living being but a symbol of evil.
• 55% say that if a person is generally good or does enough good things for others they will earn a place in heaven.
• 44% believe that Jesus committed sins while on earth.
• 61% believe that the Holy Spirit is not a living entity but a symbol of God’s presence and power.
• 40% believe that after he was crucified, Jesus did not physically return to life.
• 34% believe that there are some sins that even God cannot forgive.
Remember, these percentages are professing Christians who believe this, not seekers or the unchurched. It’s terribly important that we get the message right about the Gospel.
Paul shows us in today’s reading that the Gospel lets us become children of God through Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were referred to as God’s children. But Paul contrasts the Jewish teaching with the promise that we become spiritual descendants of Abraham and children of God through faith, not Jewish lineage.
One of the factors in determining if our interpretation of a statement or claim in the New Testament is accurate is to compare it to the Old Testament for validation. The Old Testament foreshadows Christ and the New Testament reveals the Christological aspects of the Old. Paul’s statement in verse 24 that we are justified by faith was not a new Pauline concept. The Old Testament has many references leading to the idea.
In fact, during the third century, Rabbi Simlai noted that Moses gave us 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commands, known as the 613 Mitzvot; King David in Psalm 15 reduced them to eleven; The prophet Isaiah — in 33:14,15 — condensed them six; Micah 6:8 binds them into three; and Habakkuk reduces them all to just one, namely — “The just shall live by faith.”
Three Changes in Those Justified by Christ
When we become justified by Christ, we undergo three important changes.
1. We become Sons of God. This isn’t a sexist statement. Sonship in biblical times — and to some extent even today — confers a higher status of gift or inheritance. Property was given to men, not women, and sons received much greater benefits than other relatives. In the Roman world, sonship also brought with it direct access to the father and all his resources. Paul was writing to both men and women in this letter, and his choice of the Greek word uioi for sons is the plural of the same word used to describe Jesus as the Son (uios) of God. Paul is confirming the elevated status of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
2. We become One in Christ – A common prayer said by many Jewish men each morning was, “Lord, I thank you that I am not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” The egalitarian idea of earthly status having no importance in heaven is emphasized by Paul’s choice of three polar opposite groups in the Middle East during the first century and still today. Jews were thought to be God’s chosen people, so they felt superior to the Gentiles whom they referred to as dogs.
For Gentiles to be equated with Jew in God’s kingdom was a shocking statement. Slaves did not enjoy the benefits of freedom on earth, yet in Christ they are just as free as everyone else. Another shocking statement that had to disturb the comfort of slave masters who believed they were better than their slaves. The biggest jolt probably came next, when Paul declared equality between men and women in the Kingdom of God.
In other words, God considers men and women as different, but equally loved and respected by him. If God considers men and women to be one in Christ, how can men continue to relegate women to the status of mere property? Paul is often criticized for comments that seem sexist today, but if you really look at what he was saying, Paul was more controversial in his fight for women’s equality than anyone before him.
3. We become Descendants of Abraham – The promise that the Jews believed was theirs alone, was actually offered to the whole world when God made his covenant with Abram in Genesis 12 (1-3):
The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
The Law
The Law was added during the time of Moses because of our transgressions. No one makes a law for a problem that doesn’t exist. We didn’t create speed limit signs until people started driving too fast. We didn’t invent childproof caps until children opened things they shouldn’t have opened.
Paul has a logical argument concerning the law. First, he points out in verses 19 and 20 that the law was temporary and only for Israel. He mentions it in Romans 2:14 and Luke writes about it in Acts 15:24. All these passages state clearly that God never gave the Law to the Gentiles. Although the moral law was already written in the Gentiles’ hearts (Rom. 2:15), the ceremonial law was never given to them.
Second, Paul shows in verses 21 and 22 that the Law convicted us of sin but never saved us from sin. If the law could save sinners, then Jesus would not have had to die on the cross; he could have used the law.
Yet the Law doesn’t contradict God’s promises. Rather, by revealing sin, the law makes us trust God’s promises. The law shows us that we need God’s grace; and grace lets us form faith.
The Law put all of us under sin, which means that we can all be saved by grace. All of us are loved by God, no matter how bad we think our sins are, and we are all able to be saved by his grace.
A priest visited an elderly woman who was dying at home. She was sure that God no longer loved her because of the sins she had committed in her life; things that she thought were too terrible for even God to forgive. The priest told her about God’s grace and mercy, and Christ’s atonement for our sins, but the woman was still not convinced.
He happened to glance across the room and noticed a picture on her bureau of a young woman. The priest asked who the person in the picture was, and the woman said it was her daughter.
The priest asked if she loved her daughter, and the woman replied, “Yes, I love her more than anything.”
The priest then asked, “Suppose your daughter did something really, really bad. Would you stop loving her because of it?”
“Of course not,” the woman replied. “No matter what she might have done, I would always love her! Nothing could ever change that.”
“Well,” the priest said, “God has a picture of you on his bureau.”
The third aspect of Paul’s argument in verses 23-29 is that the Law prepared the way for Christ. In those times, children were often under the care and discipline of one of their father’s slaves. This slave was their tutor or guardian, whose job included taking the children to and from school and instructing them as needed. Paul used the Greek word (pedagogus), ðáéäáãùãὸò, from which we get pedagogue today. The key role of the ðáéäáãùãὸò was leading the children to the schoolmaster, just as the law is intended to lead us to the salvation offered by Jesus Christ.
We face the same false Gospels today that Paul saw the church facing in the first century. The resurgence of Gnosticism, such as the increased interest in the Gospel of Thomas and the DaVinci Code. The cafeteria-style Christianity in which we’re tempted to take a little bit of this religion and some of that one, and a dash of that one, and create our own path to God is a false Gospel.
Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” not “a way, a truth, and a life.”
There is only one God. It is not consistent with his nature to tell us in one Holy Book that Jesus is his divine Son and say in another that Jesus is only a prophet. Since there is only one God, there is only one salvation. We may wish that there were more ways to get into the kingdom of God, but we tend to forget that it’s his kingdom. He has told us how to join him forever in glory, but he also left the decision up to us.
Jesus said “No one comes to the Father except by me.” It seems very clear to me then that not all religions are equal; that not all religions are true; and that not all religions lead us to God. Those that reject the salvation of Christ lead us away from him forever.
Amen. God bless you all.
