Matthew

Oct 17, 2024 ∞

The? Unforgiveable? Sin

I’ve seen so many people anxious about whether they’ve committed the unforgivable sin. (And no, they have not.) Let’s look at what they’re talking about, why they are very sadly confused, and why we should all revel in our hope!

There are three passages in the synoptic gospels, all of which say more or less the same thing, though with different contexts. Matthew 12:22-32:

12:22 Then they brought to him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute. Jesus healed him so that he could speak and see. 12:23 All the crowds were amazed and said, “Could this one be the Son of David?” 12:24 But when the Pharisees heard this they said, “He does not cast out demons except by the power of Beelzebul, the ruler of demons!” 12:25 Now when Jesus realized what they were thinking, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and no town or house divided against itself will stand. 12:26 So if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 12:27 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. 12:28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. 12:29 How else can someone enter a strong man’s house and steal his property, unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can thoroughly plunder the house. 12:30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 12:31 For this reason I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 12:32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Mark 3:20-30:

3:20 Now Jesus went home, and a crowd gathered so that they were not able to eat. 3:21 When his family heard this they went out to restrain him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” 3:22 The experts in the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the ruler of demons he casts out demons.” 3:23 So he called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? 3:24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom will not be able to stand. 3:25 If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 3:26 And if Satan rises against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand and his end has come. 3:27 But no one is able to enter a strong man’s house and steal his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can thoroughly plunder his house. 3:28 I tell you the truth, people will be forgiven for all sins, even all the blasphemies they utter. 3:29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin” 3:30 (because they said, “He has an unclean spirit”).

Luke 12:8-12:

12:8 “I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before God’s angels. 12:9 But the one who denies me before men will be denied before God’s angels. 12:10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the person who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 12:11 But when they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you should make your defense or what you should say, 12:12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say.”

Matthew and Luke both say that speaking against the Son of Man will be forgiven, and Mark says “all sins” and “all blasphemies” will be forgiven. But all three say that whoever blasphemes/speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. Look, people say, here’s the unforgivable sin! If only we can figure out what it is! Maybe it’s suicide! Or dying having committed an unconfessed mortal sin! (Or maybe that’s the same thing!) But it’s probably that one terrible thought I had when I was eight! I’M SO WORRIED I STEPPED ON THE MAGIC TRIPWIRE AND THE ARBITRARY SCARY LEGALIST GOD HATES ME NOW AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO!!!!!

First, this conception of God is totally incompatible with the character of God. People whose idea of God is that he’s trying to find an excuse to destroy us all aren’t going to be talked out of that with a blog post. If that’s you, you need to practice rest. Learn that God is good, and loves you. If someone told you otherwise, they were lying to you.

But back to the text. Let’s point out a couple problems with “the unforgivable sin.” Then we’ll talk about what’s actually going on here.

First, that word “unforgivable.” The text never says anything cannot be forgiven. It says something will not be forgiven. That’s a subtle difference, but an important one. God is capable of forgiving all things. But some things he will not.

Second, “the” is a problem. Because there is another case where Jesus says God will not forgive! In Matthew 6:14-15:

6:14 “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 6:15 But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.

And again in Matthew 18:23-35:

18:23 “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. 18:24 As he began settling his accounts, a man who owed ten thousand talents was brought to him. 18:25 Because he was not able to repay it, the lord ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, children, and whatever he possessed, and repayment to be made. 18:26 Then the slave threw himself to the ground before him, saying, ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you everything.’ 18:27 The lord had compassion on that slave and released him, and forgave him the debt. 18:28 After he went out, that same slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him one hundred silver coins. So he grabbed him by the throat and started to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ 18:29 Then his fellow slave threw himself down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you.’ 18:30 But he refused. Instead, he went out and threw him in prison until he repaid the debt. 18:31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were very upset and went and told their lord everything that had taken place. 18:32 Then his lord called the first slave and said to him, ‘Evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me! 18:33 Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow slave, just as I showed it to you?’ 18:34 And in anger his lord turned him over to the prison guards to torture him until he repaid all he owed. 18:35 So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.”

(Notably these are both unique to Matthew.)

So now we have a couple of questions.

Firstly, why does Jesus bring up blasphemy when he does? Well, in Luke he talks about blasphemy in the middle of some other instructions, there’s no apparent trigger for that specific subject. But in Matthew and Mark it’s in response to some people (Pharisees or Judean Torah-scholars) respond to Jesus healing a man by saying “he heals by the power of demons!” It is, as Jesus points out, an absurd response. It’s not just weird or sad, it’s literally incoherent. Nobody could possibly think their response made any sense at all. Something about their nonsense is at least adjacent to speaking against the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, what do these two unforgiven sins have in common? Why is failure to forgive others tied to speaking against the Spirit?

The Matthew 18 parable is particularly instructive at the end. We read it in English and wonder, “This makes no sense.” (That’s usually a good indicator we should start digging and not stop until we hit gold.) “How can this man be put in jail _until _he comes up with an absurd amount of money? How is he supposed to do that from prison?” And now we get into some Greek oddities, because the Greek is actually ambiguous. It’s more like the servant is put in jail “until he clears the debt.” But which debt? It can mean “until he pays what he owes,” but it can also mean “until he forgives what is owed to him!” (I suspect the ambiguity is intentional; either will do, but only one is within his power.) This understanding makes more sense of the parable. In Matthew 6, Jesus says we will not be forgiven if we do not forgive, but failure to forgive isn’t a one-time action, it’s a state. God will not forgive us if we do not forgive others, but we can come to forgive others and God’s forgiveness will be waiting.

Is the same true of speaking against the Spirit? Suppose speaking against the Spirit is a state, the state of being in which one can see incontrovertible evidence of your own wrongness and still make up whatever insanity you have to to ignore that evidence and keep living your own way. If the Spirit works in us to heal and change us, to make us able to repent, then speaking against the Spirit can be rejecting our own need for repentance. Every one of us is sick, but only those who know their sickness will receive the physician. As CS Lewis put it, it’s incoherent to think God can take you back if you will not go. There are two kingdoms, and God in his mercy lets us be part of his kingdom where all debts are forgiven, and find life there. But if we will not, we remain part of the kingdom of death, where all debts are enforced, and we must inevitably die there.

As a final note, 10,000 talents is an interesting number. Much has been made of just how much money that is, but I find it interesting that “10,000 talents” is something we’ve seen before, if we know our Hebrew scriptures: it’s a reference to the story of Esther. The man who owed a king 10,000 talents in that story was Haman, who tried to annihilate the Jewish people. Even Persian Hitler has healing available to him, if only he’ll take it.

So do you, no matter what you’ve done. What matters is what you do now.

Oct 7, 2024 ∞

Sermon on the Mount: fractal structure and meaning

The Sermon on the Mount is often considered the core of Jesus’s teachings. But if you just read the sermon beginning to end, it comes across like it has no structure, like it’s just a random walk through unconnected topics. I propose that it does have a structure, and a very informative one.

In the sermon, we often see things divided into four sections, and the third of the four doesn’t quite fit with the other three. For a clear example, consider what I’d say is the second section of the sermon, which contains four lessons:

6:1 “Be careful not to display your righteousness merely to be seen by people. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven. 6:2 Thus whenever you do charitable giving, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in synagogues and on streets so that people will praise them. I tell you the truth, they have their reward. 6:3 But when you do your giving, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 6:4 so that your gift may be in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

6:5 “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. 6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

6:7 When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard. 6:8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 6:9 So pray this way: Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, 6:10 may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 6:11 Give us today our daily bread, 6:12 and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors. 6:13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 6:14 “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 6:15 But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.

6:16 “When you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth, they have their reward. 6:17 When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 6:18 so that it will not be obvious to others when you are fasting, but only to your Father who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

Give in secret
Pray in secret
The Lord’s Prayer
Fast in secret

Or consider the fourth section, also with four lessons:

7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 7:14 But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

7:15 “Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves. 7:16 You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they? 7:17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 7:18 A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit. 7:19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 7:20 So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.

7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven – only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 7:22 On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?’ 7:23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’

7:24 “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. 7:25 The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock. 7:26 Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 7:27 The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed; it was utterly destroyed!”

Narrow gate vs. wide gate
Bad fruit vs. good fruit
Fruit matters more than words
House on sand vs. rock

Those two sections are kind of obvious, and help us identify the first and third section. The first section is all of chapter 5, which also has four distinct lessons.

Beatitudes
Salt of the earth/light of the world
Righteousness through keeping Torah properly
Antitheses

What’s left is the third section, and it’s not nearly so obvious as the other three, but it does have a pattern. The catch here is that each of the four lessons in this section is actually two lessons, and each pair (except the third) is on the same two subjects. The first half of each is about God providing for our needs, and the second half is about generosity in our treatment of others.

Treasure in heaven vs. earth / good eye vs. bad eye
Do not worry / do not judge
Speck vs. plank / pearls before pigs
Ask, seek, knock / do unto others

We can now put these four sections in order, with some proposed section headings.

Being God’s children:

Beatitudes
Salt of the earth/light of the world
Righteousness through keeping Torah properly
Antitheses

How God’s kingdom looks:

Give in secret
Pray in secret
The Lord’s Prayer
Fast in secret

God providing/treating others well:

Treasure in heaven vs. earth / good eye vs. bad eye
Do not worry / do not judge
Speck vs. plank / pearls before pigs
Ask, seek, knock / Do unto others

The way of life vs. the way of death:

Narrow gate vs. wide gate
Bad fruit vs. good fruit
Fruit matters more than words
House on sand vs. rock

Now, for our final trick, let’s take those section headings and see where else we find those same ideas. Oh, wait! It’s the Lord’s Prayer! Consider that prayer as a set of four couplets, which in Hebrew fashion repeat the same idea twice.

Our Father in heaven / hallowed be your name. God is our father, and we are those who make God’s name be seen as holy throughout the world. Two ways of saying the same thing, because that’s simply what it means to be God’s children. The Beatitudes, salt and light, and the antitheses are all how we should be as people, so people see God through us.
Your kingdom come / your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Two ways of saying the same thing, because God’s kingdom on earth looks like God’s will being done, and what God wants is people being right internally rather than doing good things for show.
Give us this day our daily bread / forgive our sins as we forgive others. Just like in the third section of the sermon, each lesson is a pair of lessons about God providing and about our treatment of others. This doesn’t look like two way of saying the same thing, but it is. God gives us what we need, and that is identical to God forgiving us as we forgive others.
Lead us not into temptation / deliver us from evil. Two ways of saying the same thing; we have a choice to make, and we must choose well.

In summary, the Sermon on the Mount has four sections, each section has four lessons on the same topic, and both the third section and the third lesson in each section stand out from the others. The sections are all topics from the Lord’s Prayer, which is itself one of the mismatched third lessons. It’s structure that appears at multiple levels and the lowest level references the top levels all over again. The Sermon on the Mount is a fractal.

Oct 1, 2024 ∞

Salt as fertilizer

Jesus tells his audience for the Sermon on the Mount that they are the “salt of the earth.” What, exactly, does that mean? I thought I knew before I started writing this. Part of the purpose of this blog is to work out my own thoughts, even if it’s in public!

Matthew is the only one to use the phrase “salt of the earth” but Mark and Luke both talk about salt losing its saltiness, with variations. The variations may help us figure out what’s happening.

Matthew: You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

Mark: Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.

Luke: Salt is good, but if salt loses its flavor, how can its flavor be restored? It is of no value for the soil or for the manure pile; it is to be thrown out. The one who has ears to hear had better listen!

Let’s start with Mark, whose text is honestly confounding. Jesus is talking about how avoiding hell (Gehenna in this case, we’ll talk about “hell” later) is worth any cost. And then he says “everyone will be salted with fire.” (Or maybe he says “Every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” Or maybe both, the manuscripts vary.) As best I can tell, nobody is sure what this means. Jesus seems to jump from avoiding hell to being salted with fire, to salt losing saltiness, to having salt in ourselves and being at peace with each other. There’s no obvious thread here.

Now, I think there is a train of thought happening here, but I’m going to have to save that for another post. For now, let’s look at the words being used.

The word for “salted” shows up nowhere else in the New Testament except Matthew 5 and Mark 9. But in the Old Testament it does show up in Leviticus 2:13 and in Ezekiel 16:4.

That Ezekiel passage is particularly interesting, because it implies newborns should be salted. Why, exactly? Well, again, nobody seems to know, but it’s been a thing discussed for a long time. So is Jesus saying fire will do for us what salt does for newborns, some form of cleaning and purification? But then, why would we have salt in ourselves? The language doesn’t quite fit.

In the Leviticus 2 passage, it’s specifically grain offerings that have to be salted, so at least it makes some sense to talk about having salt in yourself, if you (or whoever Jesus is addressing here) are the grain offering. And grain offerings were offerings by fire, so that’s consistent at least with everyone being salted with fire. The fire applied to the people (which is presumably unpleasant) is like the salt of the grain offering, perhaps suffering to be made a holy offering to God, much as Paul compares himself to a drink offering. Maybe that’s something Mark has going on.

Except for Luke, where that makes no sense at all. Luke talks about salt being fit for soil or a manure pile, not for offerings to God. This is salt as fertilizer. Their salt wouldn’t have been our chemically pure table salt, it would have been obtained by evaporating sea water, and sea salt has all sorts of great plant nutrients in it. Salting the earth doesn’t ruin it, it turns it into a productive field, because really, who would be stupid enough to ruin perfectly good land in a context where your society needs every scrap of food it can grow? Now weirdly, in Luke we get no explanation of why Jesus suddenly starts talking about salt. He doesn’t compare it to people or make any apparent point with it. This may require further consideration in another post.

Can we square salt as fertilizer with Mark’s usage? Mark’s “have salt in yourself” makes sense, if we are ourselves the manure the salt is mixed into, so we can be fertilizer. So while Matthew says “you are the salt” and Mark says “have salt in you,” they’re using slightly different metaphors, but either way the purpose is for us to apply that salt to the world, preparing the world for growth. That’s consistent with the common agricultural/harvest metaphor for the coming of the Kingdom of God; the purpose of God’s people is to prepare the world for the growth of the Kingdom. But what does it mean for everyone to be salted with fire?

Now I want to get into the Greek a bit. I claim no expertise here, but as far as I can tell, the word here translated “everyone” is really just “all.” All will be salted with fire. The idea that it’s “all people” is an assumption by the translators from context, but it could also mean “all the world” or “everything.” Now, the idea that everything will be salted by fire makes more sense, if we understand salting to mean “preparing for new growth.” The world will be prepared for new growth by fire coming to destroy the corruption that already exists, and the disciples will be part of that as long as they don’t become corrupt and lose their own potential for facilitating that growth in the world.

There are some very smart people who read the salt passages differently than I do, of course. If you’re convinced that salt really is about purification rather than fertilization, I’m not claiming to be an authority that can tell you otherwise. But I do think this is a very significant theological point. If we assume these passages to be directed at all of Christ’s disciples, we ourselves should have salt in us, and be salt to the world. But are we just preserving the world against destruction, or are we making the world ready for new growth? These are very different perspectives of what exactly our purpose is.

I would suggest that God’s acts of creation are not just bringing something from nothing, they’re bringing order from chaos. As we have been assigned the task of reflecting God’s image to creation, we are invited to participate in that ongoing work of creation. Clearly we are not here to merely preserve what we have been given, but to make things grow. God’s people are the fertilizer of the earth; be sure to keep that fertilizer in yourself, so you can do the job you were meant to do.

Sep 30, 2024 ∞

The Antitheses

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives the six antitheses. “You have heard it said X, but I say to you Y.” I suggest that these six are specifically chosen to represent six figures who were, or should have been, leaders of God’s people. Let’s take a look.

First, we read about murder, anger with a brother, and offerings to God. Who does that make you think of? Cain.

Second, we read about adultery and looking at a woman to desire her. That’s David.

Third, divorce. This is actually kind of interesting, because there are surprisingly few people in the Old Testament who get divorced. Maybe Sampson, maybe Vashti. But the big one is Ezra, who commands the returned exiles to divorce their foreign wives, in a fashion it sounds like Jesus would not approve.

Fourth, oaths. There are a few notable oaths in the Old Testament. Jephthah comes to mind. But in this case, I’m going to suggest it’s Nehemiah. We’ll see why in a minute. Nehemiah leads the returning exiles to take an oath to obey the law of God.

Fifth, retaliation. Now, I’m going to go off the rails here. I promise I’ll explain. This is John Hyrcanus. Hyrcanus was a Maccabean king/high priest who conquered Israel’s historical enemies of Samaria and Edom about 100 years before Jesus.

Sixth, hate for enemies. This is particularly interesting because nowhere in scripture is anyone commanded to hate their enemies. Jesus seems to be responding to Essene teachings. (The Essenes were, in short, a Jewish monastic group who lived in the wilderness and was devoted to maximal personal purity. You can probably thank them for the Dead Sea Scrolls.) Now, there’s one historical figure who looks a lot like an Essene: John the Baptist. And the Baptist is not exactly all about reconciliation with certain people.

So our six figures form a chiasm, a structure with three pairs mirroring each other around a center pivot!

A: Cain
- B: David
  - C: Ezra
  - C': Nehemiah
- B': John Hyrcanus
A': John the Baptist

Ezra and Nehemiah in the center are an obvious pair, all about return from exile. David and John Hyrcanus are kings who represent the greatest achievements of their eras. Cain the first one after the first Adam, while John the Baptist is the last one before the Last Adam. Together, all six represent leaders of God’s people, both before and after the return from exile, who in some way or other didn’t quite Get It. Jesus is using them as object lessons for the broader message of Matthew 5: who are God’s people supposed to be?

Sep 30, 2024 ∞

Inheriting the Kingdom of God

I like thinking about how Jesus would have been understood by his Jewish audience. For today’s example, let’s look at two parables: the treasure hidden in the field, and the pearl of great price. (Matthew 13:44-46)

Rabbis like Jesus would often assume that their audience was deeply familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, and they would make references to stories that were always on everyone’s mind. Let me suggest that Jesus is doing exactly that in both these parables. Let me also suggest that each of these parables has two characters: the buyer and the seller. We are meant to be comparing them.

Let’s focus on the pearl for a moment. The man buying the pearl is a merchant. When do merchants buy things? When they can get a good deal, when what they’re buying is worth more than the price tag on it. The seller in this story has this pearl and is willing to part with it. They don’t see the value, but the buyer does.

The same is true for the treasure in the field. Western readers often ask, is it right for the buyer to buy the field without telling the seller what he found there? But just like the pearl, it’s the seller’s job to know the value of what he has. If I find a rare book in a used bookstore for $2, I’m not going to go to the seller and say, “Don’t you know how much this is worth!?” I’m going to buy the book!

So if Jesus is referencing someone from the Old Testament, who is it?

Esau. Esau, firstborn to Isaac. Esau, inheritor of all God’s promises to Abraham. Esau through whom all nations of the world would be blessed. Esau, whose progeny brought salvation to all mankind.

Except not, because he really wanted those lentils. (Side-note: when Hebrews talks about Esau being an “immoral person” it uses the word porne. He’s literally a whore for stew.) Esau stood to inherit the most valuable birthright in the history of mankind, but he didn’t see its value. Jacob did.

The Kingdom of God belongs, not to those who are born into it, but to those who do whatever it takes to get it, and will not let it go.