“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree… And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”
Let’s say you have a very bright child and by the age of 5 she is curious about the reality of things and she comes to you and says, “Daddy I have made the most amazing discovery. I have found that if I take one of mom’s glass bowls and fill it with water and then if I take one of mom’s wooden spoons and put it into the water – guess what happens. The water bends the wooden spoon. I never would have guess in all my life that wood could bend but now I know that water bends wood. But that’s not all, as soon as I remove it from the water pot, I mean instantly, the air straightens the spoon out and it returns to what I call its ‘pre-aquatic condition.’ I mean I think it is instant, but I have admit the spoon is still wet and I have to admit that one time I thought I saw it quickly bend back but I couldn’t say that beyond a reasonable doubt.” You take a little time, Dad or Mom, to explain refraction and how light bends differently in water. Your daughter has pure love on her face as she wrinkles her brow and places her little hand on your shoulder and says, “Dad, I know what I saw with my own eyes.” And just then she pretends that her play cell phone is ringing and she jumps on the couch and says, “Kathy, guess what I discovered this morning…”
Why am I telling you this story? One point that I wish to make is that everything, all of experience, has to be interpreted which is to say that experience has to be understood. When the little girl said, “Dad, I know what I saw with my own eyes,” she was telling the truth because what she saw with her own eyes was in fact already out there before her. But she left reality when she thought that taking a look (even taking a very long, hard look) at what was before her meant that “water bends wood.” But children grow and develop. At some point our little scholar will grasp what her Dad meant about refraction – that light bends – and her world will never be the same again. At that moment she will experience her own personal Copernican Revolution – in fact that will be only one of many personal Copernican Revolutions and she will never be able to return to her original naiveté.
In Biblical studies the equivalent to “knowing as taking a look” is the belief that the Bible speaks for itself and it does not need to be interpreted. From this point-of-view interpretation is an intrusion of the reader into the texts – interpretation prejudices the texts, it permits you to read whatever you want into the texts and therefore it is best to leave all that out and just let the Bible say what it says. This is sometimes called “the principle of the empty head” which means that the less you know the purer your interpretation will be, the more objective your reading will be – if you decrease the text will increase. But you know that isn’t true. Our little girl ought to be evidence enough that the less you know the more likely you are to err in your interpretation of events. If you understand that light bends as it passes through our atmosphere and it bends in a significantly different manner it passes through water – if you have that information you will understand that the light is bending not the wooden spoon. The myth of the empty head does not assure the coveted “pure interpretation” and in fact it is a sure way to misinterpret the Bible – the less you know the more mistakes you will make.
This year I have had a lot to say about faith, justification, Abraham, the Promise, the Covenant, Participation and Jesus and it is my hope that some of you might wonder if what you have thought to be absolutely beyond dispute about faith, justification, and salvation may turn out to be somewhat analogous to the little girl’s misunderstanding of the curve of light and that would prod you to examine what you actually believe about faith, justification, and salvation and also prod you to wonder just what St. Paul and Jesus and the Church believes about faith, justification, and salvation. I think we will finish up Romans 9-11 over the next three weeks and I plan over those weeks to redefine faith, justification, and salvation from within the context of the New Testament, from within Israel’s context, Jesus’ context, from within Paul’s unconverted and converted context. When we read the Bible that way the narrative sounds strange and probably even dangerous and you are likely to feel some anxiety if you take it seriously, but that is exactly how a Copernican Revolution is experienced. I have to say by the way that I have not just made this stuff up – I’m not that smart. But I have spent a lot of time in the texts, saying my prayers, celebrating the Holy Communion everyday, and I have spent many hours collaborating with our clergy here at All Saints and clergy I know all around the country; and I, as well as our other clergy, have also spent many hours with the very best New Testament scholars living today – men and women, great teachers who spend their lives reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament as well as the Greek New Testament – scholars like Ben Meyer, N.T. Wright, Ben Witherington, Richard Hays and many others.
That being said the text for today completes a circle we started tracing in the text of Romans nearly a year ago when we looked at what it means to be “in” someone, what it means to “participate” as in our participation in Christ. First, I will read two verses from Romans 6 and next a portion of our text from Romans 11:17:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death… For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection…” Romans 6
“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree…” Romans 11:17
The upshot of both Romans chapter 6 and Romans chapter 11 is our participation in Abraham through our participation in Christ: we are baptized into Jesus Christ and to make the point even more exacting St. Paul say “we have been planted together,” that is we are planted with Jesus in his death and we are planted together, planted individually, yes; but also planted together as the Church with Jesus in his death. And then in chapter 11 Paul makes the same point again, but this time he completes the circle for us when he writes:
“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree…” Romans 11:17
The upshot of the two verses is that we have been grafted into Israel and now we feed upon the realized promises God made to Abraham. But first remember that we talked about the fact that we were in Adam – as his seed, his future children – when he disobeyed God and sin and death came upon this earth and since all humanity participated in Adam we too are “in” sin and death. Our world and we were lost in Adam. We have also talked about how God called Abraham to begin the process of bringing an end to sin and death not by giving him a set of commandments but by making a promise. God promised Abraham that He, God, would use his family to redeem all of creation and that would begin with a son from his own seed. Even though Abraham was well beyond fathering a child he believed God and it was “counted unto him for righteousness,” but it was not just reckoned to him as an individual person, it was reckoned to everyone who was “participating in” Abraham – that is all his unborn children. This is called the Abrahamic Covenant but Paul nearly always refers to as the Promise. Let me give you two more example of participation from the book of Hebrews:
First from the 7th chapter of Hebrews:
“One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.” Hebrews 7: 9-10
The writer of Hebrews was having a discussion about the Levitical priesthood that is descended from Levi and the fact that they received tithes from the people of God, but did not pay tithes themselves because of their office. But the point he wants to make is that the priesthood of Melchizedek is superior to the Levitical priesthood that is demonstrated by the fact that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek because he was in Abraham as his unborn seed when he paid tithes to Melchizedek. And here’s another example:
“By faith Abraham… sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the joint-heirs with him of the same promise… “ Hebrews 11: 9
What I want you to understand is that Jacob did not live in a tent with his grandfather Abraham and that’s is not what the writer of the Hebrews means anyway. What he means is that even when Abraham was all by himself, all his children, who are heirs to God’s Promise, were within him and in that sense Isaac and Jacob sojourned with Abraham, indeed in that sense, King David sojourned in the desert and so did Jesus because they were in Abraham’s loins.
The promise God made to Abraham was a promise made to his seed and by this promise God enlisted Abraham and his family to begin reversing the disaster that Adam’s sin had brought upon creation. That is the Abrahamic covenant, what Paul refers to as the Promise. Jesus is the Seed of the Promise and thus Jesus is focus of hope in Hebrews 11 and the faith of the saints of the Old Testament is the evidence of their hope, albeit their hope was not realized till the Incarnation:
“And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised…” Hebrews 11:39
Their hope was the coming of the Seed of Promise and much of Hebrews is about how Jesus Christ through his own faith in God the Father brought the Promise to maturity, to finality. The faith of Abraham is answered by the faith of Jesus the Messiah, the Promised Seed and the circle is drawn, the Promise is completed: Jesus embodies Israel and through his faith, the faith of Jesus, through his unwavering faith in his Father, he went to the Cross – not through mere obedience or any need to provide a legal satisfaction for sin – but through his faith in God at the hour of his betray, torture and crucifixion – his faith, the faith of the Seed of the Promise, Jesus the Messiah sealed up, perfected the faith of Abraham, brought the Promise to complete fulfillment. And his resurrection from the dead is God’s ratification of Jesus’ last word on the Cross: “It is finished” is God’s last word on sin and death: “It is finished.” It is not the end of the Promise it is the end of sin and death and now God’s Promise to Abraham will be filled up with the children he was swore both Jew and Gentile who will all bear the family mark of faith. The Church is the instantiation of the Abrahamic Promise comes to fruition and so by God’s amazing grace we Gentiles are grafted in.
I have spoken about this before. We are all born as branches upon the same Vine, Adam, the father of us all and when he disobeyed God, he died spiritually: he was deprived of the supernatural grace of God, and as we have seen, he suffered the four wounds of the fall. Our first parents were created to love God with their whole heart, soul and mind, but now not only can we not love God, we cannot love anything rightly without God’s help. Self-concern, self-centeredness, rebellion against God, and bias are never far off. We desire the good, but for the wrong reason and in the wrong manner. We are born as branches upon this dying Vine called Adam and though we receive from him true humanity, the true image of God, we also receive all the deadly consequences of the fall.
But the good news is that there is another Vine, the Vine of the Church, the Body of Christ, and the New Israel, the instantiation of the Abrahamic Covenant. The Church is the Vine because Christ planted this Vine. To be a member of the Church is to be a member of the New Israel, the New Adam, a member of Christ, a child of Abraham. The Vine of Christ is living; in fact the Vine of Christ is true life. Christ who is Israel is the root of this Vine and we partake of that its life-giving fatness, which is the life-giving sap of the Vine. In Romans 11:17 St. Paul writes that we have been grafted into God’s olive tree — which is the true Israel, Jesus Christ — and we now feed upon the “fatness” of that olive tree. In other words God’s olive tree is saturated with the life of God himself according to the logic of St. Paul’s imagery. To be a member of the Israel, the Olive Tree that God’s has cultivated is to be a member of Vine of Christ, which is to have the privilege of feeding upon the life of God. So on the one hand we are born as branches upon the Vine of Adam and if we continue to feed upon him we are ultimately feeding upon death. On the other hand, we have the New Adam, the New Israel, Jesus Christ, who is full of life and the richness of all the privileges God has given his Son. Therefore the only question remaining is “How do we get ourselves attached to this new Vine of Christ?” The answer is that we have to be grafted in. That means that we have to be broken off the old Vine of Adam and grafted into the New Vine of Christ, which is his living Body the Church.