Posted on 10/23/2006 6:34:48 PM PDT by ROTB
AN OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT CONTROVERSY
With the love of Jesus in my heart and the Gospel of the New Testament of Jesus Christ in my mind, I attended a sermon on Psalm 35, purporting to give us insight as to how David asked God to inflict retribution on his enemies. "Let them be as chaff against the wind… Let the angel of the Lord persecute them."
I have a conflict with applying this Psalm today. I believe the New Testament supercedes the Old Testament when there is a conflict of what the Old Testament commanded then, and what Jesus now commands us to do now.
Jesus in Luke 6: 35 said, "But love ye your enemies and do good,… and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
For example: John and James wanted Jesus to exact retribution by raining fire and brimstone down on the land of the Samaritans. Why? Because the Samaritans would not house Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. Jesus told James and John. "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." He nicknamed them the "Sons of Thunder!" They were disciples, still learning, and not Apostles of the New Testament, yet.
We have a New Testament where Jesus died for our sins on the cross, and as he died he asked God to "Forgive them for they know not what they do." He asked God to forgive the Romans and the priests for murdering him. Not to subject them to retribution. The centurion said upon Jesus' death, "This man was truly the Son of God." Was this the beginning of a conversion or an outright conversion? Nicodemus, a priest, was truly saved. Jesus gave us a New Testament of love for our enemies. While it is hard to do, it is what Jesus requires of us.
As prophesied in the Old Testament by Jeremiah 31: 31 "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a New Covenant" with the House of Israel, and with the House of Judah: 32-Not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my Covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: 33-But this be the Covenant that I will make with The House of Israel.
Jesus said to turn the other cheek. He instructed us not to hit back. He did warn the faithless and persecutors of retribution if they did not repent, but even He did not ask God the Father to exact retribution directly on anyone or any group, EVER!
The "Apostles" of Jesus Christ never asked Him to exact retribution on anyone as they spread the Gospel. They warned unbelievers of retribution and that is all.
Herod Agrippa arrested James. As James was led by a guard to his beheading the guard stopped, got down on his knees and asked James tearfully to forgive him and that he believed in the Lord. James kissed him on the forehead and said, "Peace be with you, [brother]!" James, like John the Baptist, talking to Agrippa's Uncle, no doubt warned Herod of the fires of hell that awaited him if he did not repent. But, James did not ask the Lord our God to exact any retribution on him. He left Herod to God.
Andrew suffered on the cross for two days before he died, ministering not only to the travelers on the road into Patras, Greece, but also to the Roman soldiers crucifying him. At no time did any Apostle of the Lord ask God to seek retribution for wrongs done to them. And many wrongs, as we know, were done to them. All of the original apostles, except for John, went to their deaths, ministering to their executioners as well as the travelers passing by. Sometimes, they were dying slowly and painfully, yet all the while informing them of the salvation of Jesus and that it was His gift to them and that they needed to believe in Him and the innocent blood He had shed for them.
Peter did emphasize to those who were at present "dead to the Lord," or in error, to correct their behavior or there would be retribution. But, at no time did he ask God, the Holy Spirit or Jesus to exact retribution for wrongs done to him by anyone and that included Roman and Jewish authority as well as unbelievers.
The Lord said, "Vengeance is mine!"
God will exact retribution on those as He sees fit and when He sees fit. Pray to Him for your deliverance, but do not pray to Him to persecute or kill your enemy. Pray for their conversion to Christianity.
Also, Judge not least ye be judged.
We should not be following the prcepts of the Old Testament if they are in conflict with the teachings of the New Testament. Jesus fulfilled the prophesy of the Old Testament and in so doing gave us the New Testament. It supersedes the Old Testament. Jesus healed people on the Sabbath. The priests tried to chastise Jesus for what they believed was his lack of respect for the Old Testament (Septuagint) laws. They tried to tell Jesus that he was breaking Old Testament rules. (Exodus Chap 20 Verse 10) Not to work on the Sabbath.
Jesus taught us to love our enemies not to hate them. He wants us to love everyone not just the elect. If we only love the elect, how will we be used by God to convert? You can only be used if you love and you must love even in the face of our physical death.
Jesus wants us to pray for them and their conversion. We are not to pray for retribution against them. Psalm 35 is in conflict with the teachings of Jesus.
Last but not least. 1 Corinthians Chapter 4 Verse 5 says: “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: And then shall every man have praise of God.” To even pray Psalm 35, we will be violating the commands set forth in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 5.
I also like :b'shem Yah'shuaIsaiah 12:2 Behold, Yah is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for Yah, YHvH is my strength and song;
and He is become my salvation.'
IMHO, this is how I would approach your article. Balance your studies with how we are to respect legitimate authority.
As a simple check on your thinking and actions, consider love as the most important commandment, but also consistent with His divinely established institutions.
Will (volition), marriage, family and national governance were all divinely established institutions for believer and unbeliever alike.
Freedom without authority is anarchy. Authority without justice is tyranny. Freedom exists in those institutions insofar as legitimate authority remains just.
Our number one priority in the Church Age is to remain faithful to Him through faith in Christ. In this fashion He indwells us with the Son, Holy SPirit and the Father.
By remaining in fellowship with Him in all things, His plan is accomplished by our good works. Those good works might indeed be the defense of legitimate authority.
Adversity in death and in life is inevitable. Stress is optional, through our remaining faithful and in fellowship with Him through faith in Christ.
In the last days some will persevere and others will go into captivity. Vengeance is the Lord's, but this doesn't keep us from remaining obedient to legitimate authority of the institutions He has provided.
If those institutions become corrupted to the point that living within those corruptions removes one from fellowship with God, then we must persevere with Him.
Many times we might be faced with apparant solutions to problems by worldly or carnal mechanisms which are independent of Him. These are to be avoided. Likewise, the Lord never disallowed force to be used in the enforcement of legitimate authority through the will of Him. Even in the Garden of Gethsemanie (sp?) when the sentry had his ear cut off and our Lord healed it, note that our Lord and Savior was remaining obedient to the Father and acted through faith with the Holy Spirit healing the body. The import was not of a pacifist, but of a perfect man, in body, soul and spirit, who discerned where others were acting from soulish perspectives, yet in His perfect body soul and spirit, had already discerned spiritually He had been destined to submit to the Judgment of the Father.
So much of what our Lord endured was merely efforts by adversarial spirits to attempt to sidetrack our Lord from remaining faithful, but even those efforts telegraphed the lack of faith of those tempting Him, believing their soulish conditions independent of the Living God were a modus operendi for problem solving.
The violence of unrighteous evil must be met by righteous violence to enforce justice. The power and force to implement that justice might not always be at our disposal immediately, but through faith in Christ all things are counted for good.
We should always be good and faithful servants anticipating His immenant return, but that might imply good works with force, not impotent of His will.
Remember, the most violent act of all human history was performed on our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Violence is a conflict of will and the most violent act was the obedient will of the perfect Son, seeking to remain obedient to the Father and retain fellowship with Him, while the Father in His perfect Righteousness, immutably had to mete out perfect justice on the Son when the sins of all humanity were imputed upon Him, resulting in the separation of the Body, soul and spirit of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus on the Cross. He has already performed that sacrifice. None other is required other than us to sacrifice the old man when we are reborn in Him.
Our mandate is to remain in fellowship with Him, not to be pacifists. Pacificism is one of the most carnal and worldly methods for unbelievers to follow. A believer who fails to remain in fellowship with God when faced by adversity, simply looks for something the individual can think, decisde, act or behave to influence events independent of God through faith in Christ. That frantic search might be by bodily violence or it might be in complete cowardly submission. Neither, if performed out of fellowship with Him are righteous.
Hope this might offer edification of your spirit, but only through Him and not myself.
While enduring suffering, remember that while in fellowship with Him, for every cursing there is a blessing. Most of all do not allow the temptation to avoid adversity remove you from fellowship with Him. That would only turn a blessing into a cursing.
Be thankful for the testing, for as we persevere our rewards in heaven being handled by our Lord and Savior will be met with good favor and rewarded us when the bride joins the groom.
If we lack the power to influence events, place faith in Him and let Him handle the situation, Thank You Lord. If we are tied up, facing a beheading by Muslim extremists, with no allies nearby, Thank You Lord. If we face being mutilated and loss of everything we own without recourse, Thank You Lord. Nothing can remove us from the love of God and our fellowship with Him through faith in Christ.
Well said.
I doubt if you attend a “mainline evangelical” church today you are going to find out much. I mean this kindly but your pastor is probably going to fumble around a lot, say how the word of God is inspired, and give some pretty good explanations on some things. But on the verses like Psalms or Jeremiah he will probably scratch his head and say it requires further research.
Psalms 35 is not in conflict with the rest of scripture. Many in the churches today believe that God loves all men and then you come across something like Psalms 35 and they can’t explain it. I would refer you to John Gill’s commentary on Psalms 35. There is nothing as good as some old time teaching.
Jesus was a good rabbi.
There's one thing missing from the above teaching. The responsibilities that God gives government differs from the responsibilities given to the individual. In the New Testament, believers are to overcome evil with good, and to bless those who curse. Government's responsibility is to execute wrath on the disobedient. Liberals like to swap these responsibilities.
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