This text, Ephesians 2:13–17, speaks of reconciliation between peoples— through the cross of Christ.
13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached [the gospel of] peace to you were far off and peace to those who were near. –Ephesians 2:13–17 (ESV)
Some questions:
What aspects of this text speak exclusively to Jew-Gentile reconciliation in the church? What aspects of the text speak of reconciliation between Gentile peoples, tribes, or other social groups in the church?
What does it look like in a given local context when Jesus Christ, the One who is all in all (Eph 1:23), is the Savior-King through whom our tribal, racial, or status divisions in the church are resolved?
What does it look like in a given local context when the crucified Christ, having “killed the hostility” (Eph 2:16), becomes the body of Christ living as the “one new man” (Eph 2:15)?
This text (Eph 2:13–17) has dense atonement-and-gospel content; why, then, has it been broadly ignored in atonement doctrine—especially at the popular level? Why do few pastors preach on this text concerning the meaning of the cross of Christ?
To what degree is collective identity conflict addressed by the atonement verses in Ephesians 2:13–17? Does the atonement of Christ/gospel of peace offer reconciliation horizontally between groups in competition or in conflict within the church?
How was this text used, abused, or ignored in three historical contexts when the church failed to halt violence and bloodshed—despite widespread Christian influence in the nation?
Christianity and the genocide in Rwanda, 1994
Christianity and the German Reich, 1933–45
Christianity and America—slavery and racism
How does Eph 2:11–22 fit into the broader context of Ephesians? How does this text relate to the three passages that refer to cosmic powers of darkness, “rulers and authorities” (Eph 1:21; 3:10; 6:12).
Does this text speak of a reconciliation in Christ that is simultaneously vertical with God and horizontal within God’s people?
How does this text speak to the problem of group-based honor competition or tribalism in the Global Church? How might this text speak to the church in America?
How does this text challenge our Western bias toward individualism in theology?
What can we learn from Early Church interpretations of this text?
What honor-shame dynamics in the Roman Empire might inform our interpretation of this text? (I begin to address this here.)
How do scholars and preachers from minority groups interpret this text?
What might this text say to the Church Growth Movement or the Unreached Peoples Movement?
In service of our Savior-King and the global church, to what degree can a team of scholars and practitioners from around the world, be in fellowship on a journey together, to answer these questions?
More on the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project will appear here in forthcoming posts from our ongoing research. Subscribe and stay tuned. Or write to me at werner@mission1.org.
In my ministry with Mission ONE, I am working on a multi-year project called the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project.
Here’s the big idea: There is a social, horizontal dimension to the gospel of Christ because there is a social, horizontal dimension to the atonement of Christ (Eph 2:13–17).
Hindustan Bible Institute & College(HBI) has invited me and researcher Kristin Caynor to introduce the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project through HBI’s monthly webinar series. You are invited to join us!
Date: Friday, October 8, 2021
Time: 8:30 a.m. USA Eastern Time / 6:00 p.m. Indian Standard Time (Time Zone Converter)
Platform: Zoom video conference
Title:“Ephesians 2 Gospel Project: Does the Atonement Speak to Collective Identity Conflict?”
Format: a) 20-minute presentation by Werner Mischke, b) 20-minute presentation by researcher Kristin Caynor, c) 10-minute response by HBI scholar, d) Questions and discussion
My presentation will introduce the project. I’ll discuss the social/horizontal aspect of the reconciling work of the cross in Eph. 2:11–22. Kristin Caynor’s presentation focuses on how Early Church fathers interpreted Eph. 2:11–22.
We have two goals for the HBI webinar: 1) Describe in brief the research we have done so far in the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project, and 2) invite the HBI scholar community into the learning journey with us. We want the resources that are developed to be by and for the global church.
This is my fifth post in this series. I am addressing how the gospel of Christ offers a cure to the pathologies of racism and tribalism.My first four posts in this series were:
Below are several verses from the New Testament about the love of God. I include verses about the healing compassion of Jesus Christ. These verses do not specifically address racism or tribalism. But these verses in composite remind us that self-sacrificial love is the primary behavior for which followers of Jesus Christ should be known. And this love is profoundly contrary to the sin of racism and its dehumanizing effects.
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. … We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:18–19).
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Mat 5:9).
“But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. …” (Mat 5:44–45).
“And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.’ And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately his leprosy was cleansed” (Mat 8:2–3).
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mat 9:36).
“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Mat 14:14).
“Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way’” (Mat 15:32).
“Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And the man stretched it out, and it was restored healthy like the other” (Mat 12:13).
“and Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly” (Mat 17:18).
“The crowd rebuked [the two blind men], telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’ And stopping, Jesus called them and said, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, let our eyes be opened.’ And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.” (Mat 20:31–34).
“And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him” (Mat 27:28–31).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph 2:14–16).
“and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19).
The mere mention of Jesus should undermine racism
For those acquainted with the story of Jesus, the mere mention of the life and love of Christ should challenge racist attitudes and behaviors.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus seeks to save, cleanse, and set free those who are considered defiled, oppressed outsiders—those who are “other.” We see this in:
Jesus healing the leper (Mat 8:1–4)
Jesus setting free the demon-possessed man with an unclean spirit (Mark 5:1–20)
Jesus cleansing the woman with the blood disease (Luke 8:40–48)
Jesus revealing himself to the Samaritan woman (John 4:1–32).
Rather than dehumanizing them or ignoring them, Jesus saves them, cleanses them, restores their dignity, makes them part of his family.
One lesson to consider: From God’s perspective, we are all outsiders due to our sin. We are all “strangers and aliens” to God (Eph 2:12; 19). We all need the cleansing, restorative ministry of Jesus. Therefore, we dare not demean or dehumanize other persons, groups, peoples, races. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10–11).
A second lesson: In love, Jesus reaches across social boundaries to know others, to serve, to heal, to set free, to save. This kind of love for others can make us feel awkward. It was risky for Jesus. It can be socially risky for us today. But this is the very boundary-crossing-to-know-others kind of love that should mark the Christian community. Because it is often awkward, courage is required. Will we allow God’s love in us to give rise to that courage?
The life of Jesus—including his death and resurrection—comprises the embodiment of the love of God for all persons and peoples. The New Testament magnifies the egalitarian nature of the all-peoples, all-races, all-nations gospel (e.g., Acts 1:8; Rom 1:5; Gal 3:7–8). Racism is dehumanizing and destructive. But the gospel of the loving Christ is an affirming, honoring, elevating gospel for all peoples.
The embodiment of the love of God in Jesus Christ offers followers of Christ a glorious way of life—“the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19). This is not a personalized, individual experience that Paul is praying for in Ephesians 3. But if it’s not an individual thing, what is it?
Paul is praying for the love of Christ in community, in the church, in human relationships—and yes, across cultures and races (Eph 2:13–16). Observe that Paul prays, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts [plural] through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints [plural] what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…” (Eph 3:17–19). Do you see the emphasis on the plural experience, the community comprehending and living this together?
Will we allow the “love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” to be the way of our human relations—as a living witness against racism and tribalism in our divided world?
“To whom do we belong?” Is this THE question, THE issue of our time?
To whom do we belong? We often answer this question automatically: I belong to a family.
The bloodline, the DNA, the family story into which one is born is a relentless identity-shaping force in our lives. This is true for good and for ill, blessing and cursing, and everything in between.
Beyond family, I and my family also belong to a land. Wehave a place called “home” in a particular neighborhood with a particular landscape and certain kinds of people with our own culture. It is where I am familiar to others and where I feel at home. I belong to a region where I work—a city or town. I also belong to a larger land called a nation. Finally, I belong to the human family. Of course, there are exceptions to this. People can be at home while at the same time, feel lost or isolated. People can also move from their homeland by choice, or be forced out by war, famine or other disaster.
But let’s return to family. The question, To whom do we belong? is a question about our core identity, our source of honor. Another term for honor is “social capital.” I like to ask: Where does our honor, our social capital, begin? From a social perspective, it begins with family.
In light of the vital importance of the bloodline family in our lives, let’s consider what Jesus has to say about family in Matthew 12:46–50.
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 12:46–50 ESV
I have written about this Scripture passage before. In The Global Gospel, I describe an honor-shame dynamic called Name/Kinship/Blood. I refer to this very story about Jesus. I observe that Jesus is teaching that there are two dynamics relative to the family of God—a narrowing dynamic and an expanding dynamic.
Rather shockingly, Jesus is redefining family for the Jews, the people of God. Jerome Neyrey calls it a “new index of honor.”1 In other words, Jesus is teaching a new way of measuring honor. No longer is it satisfactory to think that being ethnically Jewish automatically means that one has the honor status of being part of God’s family. Jesus narrows the criteria for membership in God’s family considerably. Pointing to his disciples, Jesus says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Doing the will of God—obedience to the teachings of Jesus, e.g., the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7)—became the deciding criteria; this is the narrowing dynamic.
But Jesus expands the concept of God’s family as well. Being a member of God’s family and possessing the corresponding honor of being related to Jesus is now available to anyone and everyone; indeed, it is available to “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven.” This “new index of honor”—this new way of defining who was an “insider”—deeply challenged the status quo view of family.
Jesus’ teachings turned upside-down the traditional understanding of people of God, family, and father.2
Are the words of Jesus concerning family really that challenging to the status quo? Here’s what N.T. Wright says:
“In the peasant society, where family relations provide one’s basic identity, it was shocking in the extreme in the first century Jewish culture, for which the sense of familial and racial loyalty was a basic symbol of the prevailing worldview. This saying cannot but have been devastating. Jesus was proposing to treat his followers as surrogate family. This had a substantial positive result: Jesus intended his followers to inherit all the closeness and mutual obligations that belonged with family membership and a close knit family-based society. But this was not just extraordinarily challenging at a personal level. It was deeply subversive at a social, cultural, religious, and political level.”3
Yes, Jesus is teaching something here that is profoundly challenging: It is “deeply subversive at a social, cultural, religious, and political level.”
What does the family have to do with racism?
RACISM is “the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called ‘races’; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others.”4
When doing the will of God becomes the criteria for membership in God’s family, it subverts traditional ideas of superiority and inferiority, inclusion and exclusion. Therefore, being part of God’s family—doing the will of God—subverts racism. No longer is the Christian permitted an attitude of inferiority or superiority toward another follower of Christ (nor any other human being) because of skin color, nationality, race or ethnicity, education or wealth, or other measure of social status.
In Galatians 3:28–29, Paul contributes to Jesus’ teaching about family. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Paul creates theology from the life and teachings of Jesus. Paul is describing a new kind of humanity—a new kind of family that transcends the boundaries of the bloodline family.
Paul has relativized the family—the most basic unit of social organization. In so doing, Paul also relativizes other social units and other markers of social status. This includes: skin color and race. Family name, wealth or poverty. Citizenship and nationality. Level of education. And any other source of ascribed honor or achieved honor. (See my previous post on how and why knowing Christ relativizes other forms of social status.)
It is noteworthy that in Gal 3:28–29, Paul uses the honorific ‘family language’ of Abraham. When Paul writes, “you are Abraham’s offspring”, he uses the Greek word, σπέρμα, or sperma. The ESV translates sperma as offspring; the NIV and KJV translates sperma as “seed.” Doesn’t this refer to the male “seed”—vital for creating a new life?
Paul is conveying a powerful truth about family. Being in God’s family, being in relationship to others doing the will of God (sisters and brothers)—regardless their race or other social marker—this is more vital (not less), more important (not less) than bloodline-family-relations. This family is more durable (not less). This family is eternal, in Christ the risen Lord and King.
A traditional proverb says, “Blood is thicker than water.” But according to Mat 12:46–50, Jesus is saying, Doing the will of God is thicker than blood. Here is the principle:
The ‘thickest’ unifying family dynamic available to the human race is doing the will of God together in relation to Christ.
This is another way that the Bible undermines racism.
To whom do we belong? If we do the will of God (Mat 12:46–50) in Christ (Gal 3:28–29), we belong to the family of God.
LEARN MORE: Much more could be said about this family-of-God-priority. There are difficult questions. For example, what about Christian leaders who mistreat their family because they are overcommitted to their ministry—isn’t this problematic? For additional perspectives on this, I highly recommend The Bible Project podcast, “Family of God E6 / Jesus and the Gentiles.” The entire podcast is excellent, but the discussion about Mat 12:46–50 begins at around 42 minutes.
1. Jerome Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 57.
2. These three paragraphs are largely taken from: Werner Mischke, The Global Gospel: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World (Mission ONE, Scottsdale, AZ, 2015), 152.
3. N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2), (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 278. The author of this blog post first heard this quote from N.T. Wright in the podcast “Family of God E6 / Jesus and the Gentiles” from The Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/family-of-god, accessed 18 January 2021.
4. Definition by Audrey Smedley in Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism, accessed 18 January 2021.
In post #1 in this series, I introduced the topic of allegiance to Christ as King.Post #2 was on allegiance and grace, referencing primarily Paul and the Gift by Prof. John M. G. Barclay. Post #3 focused on allegiance and faith, in which we referenced Matthew W. Bates’s Gospel Allegiance. We now begin post #4.
The question we are exploring in this post: What does allegiance have to do with BAPTISM? Theologian: R. Alan Streett (info on Amazon) Book: Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (Wipf & Stock, 2018), 190 pages (more)
First—let’s look at two New Testament verses highlighting Jesus Christ as King of kings:
1 Timothy 6:15– which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
Revelation 17:14– They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”
Now let’s consider the main idea of Dr. Streett’s book on the sacrament of baptism in the early church, Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance. Here it is:
When the early apostles travelled across the Empire and preached that the kingdom of God was at hand, calling on their listeners to repent, be baptized, and pledge their allegiance to Jesus as Lord, they challenged imperial Rome’s assertion that it alone had a divine right to demand peoples’ loyalty. When viewed in this context, we can understand why baptism might be considered a subversive act.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (p. 22). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
According to Dr. Streett, baptism in the early church was an adult decision involving no small degree of risk, impacting much more than the spiritual, internal life of the believer. Baptism was a public statement of allegiance to “the Christ” with lifelong external, significance. It impacted the social, political, and economic areas of life for believers and for the local church. It could mean rejection, loss, shame, persecution, and sometimes martyrdom.
Streett makes his case from numerous Scriptures and from many writings from the time of the Roman Empire. It appears likely that in the early church (before Christianity was legalized by Constantine around 313 A.D.), the sacrament of Christian baptism meant switching allegiance from Caesar to Christ.
Consider the religious cult status of “Caesar Augustus.” He is famously mentioned in Luke 2:1. Dr. Streett writes about the renowned Augustus:
By virtue of being Julius Caesar’s adopted son, Augustus held the most honored position in the Empire. Until Augustus’s reign, only deceased rulers were granted divine status. Not willing to wait for such an acclamation, Augustus claimed for himself the title Divi filius (“Son of God”). . . .
Augustus and all future emperors who succeeded him were given the title “Father of the Fatherland” (Pater Patriae), which implied that the Empire was a big family over which the emperor stood as a father figure who protected, disciplined, and blessed his family members.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (pp. 23–24). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. Streett cites Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, p. 202, and Suetonius, who wrote the biography Augustus as well as Lives of the Caesars.
Augustus was the first Caesar, but he was not the last to be called son of god, or worshipped as divine. So when Paul opens his letter to the church at Rome, saying Jesus “was descended from [King] David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power” (Rom 1:3–4), this was likely seen by many Romans as a tension point relative to the authority of Nero, Rome’s Caesar at the time. Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
Or consider Jesus calling God his Father (John 5:17–18). And that Jesus teaches his disciples to relate to God as “Father” (Matt 6:9; 23:9). In the social context of the Roman Empire, this also had political implications. Only Eternal God is rightly addressed as the Father who “protected, disciplined, and blessed” his people. According to Streett, Jesus’ message was probably subversive in the Empire because it challenged the so-called divine paternal authority of Tiberius Caesar.
The imperial cult and emperor worship
Dr. Streett cites numerous sources to describe that, “Apart from ‘obstinate Jews and Christians,’ the majority living in the Mediterranean region of the Empire “worshipped at the feet of the emperor” (p. 31). He writes of “the emperor cult” as the “super-glue” cementing together the entire Empire (p. 32). This aligns with our reference (in post #2 in this series): “The emperor was the patron, the benefactor, of his every subject. The subjects, in turn, paid him back for his benefactions with their loyalty; this was the basis of his power. Thus, the empire was a single enormous spider’s web of reciprocal favours.”1
At the time of Jesus, the imperial cult permeated every facet of Roman life and culture. Public events became opportunities to pay homage to the religion of the state. Special days were set aside to honor imperial Rome and its leaders. The emperor’s birthday, which marked the beginning of the Roman New Year, was such an occasion. Others included anniversaries of great victories at sea and on land, celebrations to remember deceased rulers and heroes, attendance at sporting events, and national feast days. Banquets were eaten in Caesar’s name where people expressed piety (eusebia) and devotion, and renewed their commitment to the emperor and Rome.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (p. 32). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Streett’s last chapter gives special attention to the book of Revelation. It is in this book that the Bible’s message is most subversive relative to the Empire. Streett calls Revelation “the most overtly anti-imperial book” in the New Testament (p. 154). A crystal clear expression of this anti-imperial message is found in Rev 1:5 where Jesus is described as “the ruler of the kings of the earth.” The mentions of “Babylon” in Revelation (Rev 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2; 18:10; 18:21) are veiled references to the Roman Empire. The church of the Lord Jesus and Christ himself, the Lamb of God, are in conflict with the empire (Babylon).
New Testament scholar Dean Fleming affirms this view: “Whatever Revelation might tell us about future events related to the return of Christ, it was not written in the first place to twenty-first-century people. First and foremost the Apocalypse was intended to be a ‘word on target’ for seven churches in Asia Minor—churches that were struggling with what it meant to live Christianly in a world dominated by an empire that claimed ultimate allegiance for itself.2
Conclusion: The early church was sometimes in a stance of resistance against the evils of the Empire, and baptism was a sacrament marking this stance by publicly signaling allegiance to Jesus “the Christ.”
It was into a socio-political environment of emperor worship (Caesar Augustus worshipped as son of god) that Jesus was born (Luke 2:1).
It was during the rule of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1), which is also when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, that John the Baptist began his preparatory ministry of calling for repentance, and Jesus conducted his three-year ministry.
It was in a Roman court with Pontius Pilate presiding (John 19:12–15), that Jesus was convicted of sedition (albeit cynically). “We have no king but Caesar,” said the chief priests (John 19:15)—and this settled it for Pilate. Jesus: sentenced to death by crucifixion, mocked with a sign that read, “King of the Jews.”
And it was inside this socio-political environment that Luke wrote the book of Acts. He records the birth and early growth of the church of the Lord Jesus, calling people everywhere to repent and give pistis (pledge allegiance) to “the Christ” for the forgiveness of sins.
Next post: Why specifically was baptism considered an expression of allegiance in the Roman Empire? I will finish my focus on the sacrament of baptism and its meaning in the social context of the Empire—in my next post.
NOTES
J. E. Lendon. Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (p. 12). Kindle Edition.
Dean Flemming. Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission (p. 266). Kindle Edition.
IN MY LAST POST I began exploring the topic of allegiance as a Christian mindset and practice. Specifically, I am discussing the vital importance for believers to give allegiance to Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Savior-King. We are exploring in this series the significance of allegiance in three Christian dynamics: 1) grace, 2) faith, and 3) baptism.
This is the second post in the series. We examine the dynamic of grace as we consider a few brief excerpts from Prof. John M. G. Barclay’s seminal book Paul and the Gift. We will focus on allegiance to Christ and explore a few implications for believers today. NOTE: This post is lengthy; the topic requires a lot of explanation.
The question we are exploring in this post: What does allegiance have to do with GRACE? Theologian: John M. G. Barclay (bio) Book:Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015), 656 pages (more)
Perhaps you are new to Prof. Barclay or his book. If so, you can get a sense of the quality and impact of his scholarship here, or in this helpful book review, or in this 25-minute podcast/interview with Prof. Barclay.
A book that took ten years to research and write, Professor Barclay’s Paul and the Gift is considered one of the most significant books on New Testament theology in recent decades. He introduces what he calls the “six perfections” of grace. This means there are different facets of grace, each of which can be perfected or taken to the “nth degree.”
Prof. Barclay names these six “perfections” of grace:
superabundance—how massive, enduring, and eternal is God’s grace,
singularity—the degree to which God is characterized by grace and grace alone,
priority—the sense in which God’s grace as first and before, thus marking God’s freedom to give,
incongruity—the degree to which God gives grace without regard to the worth of recipients,
efficacy—the extent to which grace achieves God’s intentions in those who receive it, and
non-circularity—the degree to which grace is reciprocal; it has “strings attached;” God’s people are obliged to return praise, obedience, allegiance to him.
It is this last of the six “perfections”—non-circularity—that will be the main focus of this blog post. That’s because Barclay contends that Paul’s understanding of grace was not non-circular, but rather, obliging.
In other words, Paul viewed God’s grace as circular or reciprocal. God gives the gift of salvation in Christ to all who believe, although none deserve the gift. Therefore, it is “incongruous.” This was counter-cultural to social norms in the ancient world. At the same time, God expects that those who receive the gift of salvation to return honor and praise, loyalty and obedience—allegiance—to him. Therefore, the gift is reciprocal or circular in nature. This reciprocity was not counter-cultural; it is how grace ‘worked’ in the ancient world.
Understanding patronage to understand grace
To answer the question Why is God’s gift of grace reciprocal?, and before we further explore the writings of Prof. Barclay, we need to answer this question: Why are patronage and grace intertwined in the social context of the Roman Empire? The next few paragraphs borrow material from my book The Global Gospel in the chapter titled “Honor/Shame Dynamic #7: Patronage.”
Here’s a description of patronage from New Testament scholar, David deSilva: “Patronage was a [prevalent] social framework in the ancient Mediterranean basin. Patrons were people with power who could provide goods and services not available to their clients. In return, clients provided loyalty and honor to the patrons. Social inequality characterized these patronal relationships, and exploitation was a common feature of such relationships.” [1]
I want to emphasize two points; the first is this: Patronage is a social dynamic between patron and client characterized by reciprocity. Clients return “loyalty and honor to the patrons,” as deSilva noted. History professor J. E. Lendon adds about the Roman Empire and its emperor: “The emperor was the patron, the benefactor, of his every subject. The subjects, in turn, paid him back for his benefactions with their loyalty; this was the basis of his power. Thus, the empire was a single enormous spider’s web of reciprocal favours.” [2]
The diagram below illustrates this reciprocity or circularity.
Reciprocity in the patron-client relationship. Diagram by Jayson Georges and Werner Mischke, based on dialog from the Patronage Symposium, held at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, October 2018.
Our second point is this: People of the Greco-Roman world understood that grace (Gk., charis) is at the very center of the patronage dynamic. In fact, according to deSilva, first-century believers understood that “God’s grace (charis) would not have been of a different kind than the grace with which they were already familiar; it would have been understood as different only in quality and degree.”[3]
There was a distinct honor code about how to give and receive. The benefactor was to be wise, not self-serving. Their gifts were to be given only to honorable people—and thus, examples of excellent stewardship. Reciprocally, the client was to show proper gratitude and honor to the benefactor or patron.
According to the ancient writer Seneca, the reciprocal relationship between patron and client was to be characterized by “three graces”:
Some would have it appear that there is one [grace] for bestowing a benefit, one for receiving it, and the third for returning it; others hold that there are three classes of benefactors—those who receive benefits, those who return them, and those who receive and return them at the same time.
As quoted in deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, Purity, 106.
Seneca compared these three “graces” of giving, receiving, and returning favor to three sisters who dance “hand in hand … in a ring which returns upon itself.” Speaking of the word grace or charis, deSilva says it “encapsulated the entire ethos of the relationship.”
Grace at the center of the patron-client relationship.In the Roman Empire, grace (Gk., charis)was understood to be at the crux of the social practice of patronage. Diagram from Werner Mischke, The Global Gospel, Fig. 2.17, p 126.
So the social practice of patronage and benefaction would have related to the love and grace of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Even the giving of God’s Son would have been seen in the light of patronage. A highly honored, magnificent Benefactor is providing a great blessing—the gift of his own Son to many people. Note: this helpful video by New Testament scholar David deSilva makes the point crystal clear—that grace and patronage were integrally relatedin the Roman Empire.
Is allegiance to “the Christ” integral to grace?
In the Roman Empire, clients of patrons—those who received gifts—were obligated to return honor, loyalty, allegiance—to the patron. Accordingly, Barclay frequently uses the word allegiance in his book (55 times, a few examples below) as well as the word loyalty (26 times) to describe the way believers ought to live their lives in following Christ.
Below I summarize in three points the view of Barclay who contends that Paul understood divine grace as being reciprocal:
God the divine Patron gives salvation by grace through Christ without regard to any social capital, moral achievement, or any measure of worth on the part of the recipient (Eph 2:8–9 is an example of this). God’s grace is infinitely greater than what God’s people can ever return to him.
At the same time, this grace has strings attached. The Patron’s clients are receivers of God’s gift. And as believers in Christ they have dignifying obligations to reciprocate to their Patron by living an honorable life of good works in praise to God. (I see Eph 2:10 as one example of this).
Therefore, one of the qualities of God’s grace is its circularity or reciprocity. This is contrary to the view that some Christians hold—that grace is non-circular. (The view that grace is non-circular holds that once a person is saved by grace, there are zero additional obligations. Allegiance to “the Christ” is optional for believers, not required.)
Below are a few excerpts from Paul and the Gift. Following each excerpt I make brief comments about how this applies or what it means.
Excerpts from Barclay’s Paul and the Gift highlighting allegiance to the Christ
The sublime glory of belonging to Christ—this is the heart of Apostle Paul’s entire project. But belonging to Christ also obliges Christians to a purpose—a new humanity marked by counter-cultural love and diversity.
Commenting on Gal 5:13 and the “freedom” of believers to, by love serve other believers, Prof. Barclay writes:
… what counts is allegiance to Christ and adherence to the Spirit. Paul’s paradoxical interpretation of freedom as slavery (“for freedom you have been called … through love be slaves of one another,” 5:13) recalls the opening statement of 1:10–11: Paul is free from human criteria of value (“seeking to please human beings”) because he is a slave of Christ (1:10). For Paul, “freedom” is not autonomy but the product of an allegiance that breaks the power of previously taken-for-granted (and now “alien”) norms. He is dead to the regime of the Law, since his life is derived from and governed by the Christ-event: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (2:19–20). All other criteria of value have been discounted by the superordinate worth of belonging to Christ.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 428-429). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments: The key to this paragraph is the last sentence: “All other criteria of value have been discounted by the superordinate worth of belonging to Christ.” This reminds me of Paul’s words “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8). Because of this profound honor in knowing Christ, there is of necessity a transformation of value regarding one’s social network. Since believers belong to the incredibly worthy Christ they also belong to the family of believers. And all Christians have identities transformed by relationship with the incredibly worthy Christ.
The phrase “criteria of value” refers to the ways that people in all cultures create social hierarchies: Greek elites versus barbarian … free versus slave … insiders versus outsiders … men versus women … Jew versus Gentile … upper class, middle class, lower class … clean versus unclean … one political tribe versus another … literate or non-literate … black versus white, etc. According to Barclay, Paul is saying that any and all criteria of social value is “discounted” because knowing Christ, whose honor and worth is infinite, makes it not just possible—but vital—to have intimate fellowship with all brothers or sisters in Christ. And the emphasis is on all—without regard to social worth being higher or lower, better our worse. In relation to the all-honorable, all-glorious Christ, all believers have honorable insider status.
In is commentary on Galatians 1:6–12 , Barclay writes:
… Paul eschews crowd-pleasing, but the “crowd” whose opinion he dismisses is not the uneducated populace, but humanity as a whole: his arguments do not count for much among human beings, but they count before God. In his rhetoric, as in his practice, Paul’s allegiance is to Christ: “if I were still pleasing human beings, I would not be a slave of Christ” (Gal 1:10). Although Paul will celebrate “the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus” (Gal 2:5; 5:1), it is clear from this early declaration of “slavery” that what he means by freedom is the consequence of an allegiance to norms newly constituted in Christ.
The “good news” thus realigns and recalibrates Paul’s loyalties: announcing the incongruous gift enacted in Christ, he is at odds with the normative conventions that govern human systems of value. Hence the emphatic statement of (Gal 1:11): “I want you to know that the good news announced by me is not in accord with human norms” (οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον). This negation is of central significance to the theology of the letter. It signals a relation of misfit, even contradiction, between the “good news” and the typical structures of human thought and behavior.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 355-356). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments: The key sentence above is this: “The ‘good news’ thus realigns and recalibrates Paul’s loyalties: announcing the incongruous gift enacted in Christ, he is at odds with the normative conventions that govern human systems of value.” Because Paul’s allegiance is to Christ and his gospel, there is a corresponding recalibration of who and what is worthy. The gospel is not merely that persons can have eternal life by believing Jesus died for their sins. The gospel creates a new humanity (Eph 2:15), a new egalitarian community free of traditional cultural divisions and hierarchies (Gal 3:28–29)—all because of one earth-shattering reality: They are in “the Christ,” they have the astounding honor of being in God’s ancient-and-cosmic story of promise-and-blessing.
The two sentences below from are also from Prof. Barclay’s commentary on the first chapter of Galatians.
As a believer, Paul is a “Jew” who (in his terms) no longer remains “in Judaism”: his ethnicity has not been renounced but subsumed within an identity and an allegiance governed by the event of Christ (cf. Gal 2:19–21). His “ancestral traditions” no longer constitute his salient currency of worth.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 359–360). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments: I love this—“his ethnicity has not been renounced but subsumed within an identity and an allegiance governed by the event of Christ.” For Paul, his Jewishness ethnically and religiously had been his core identity before Christ. But Christ intervened. (“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”) He is still a Jew. But Paul’s core identity has been forever altered. This Jewish part of Paul’s life was relativized—it was “subsumed”—absorbed into the life of King Jesus through “the Christ-event” (Gal 1:20).
These sentences are from Prof. Barclay’s commentary on Galatians 3:26–29:
Neither ethnic nor gender identity could be simply removed, and in the eyes of the [Roman] law everyone counted as either “free” or “slave” (or “freed”). Paul and Peter remained Jews (Gal 2:15; cf. Titus, a “Greek,” Gal 2:3), and Paul was still identifiably masculine and free. What is altered, however, is the evaluative freight carried by these labels, the encoded distinctions of superiority and inferiority. In common solidarity with Christ, baptized believers are enabled and required to view each other without regard to these influential classifications of worth. Jewish believers should not withdraw from shared meals with non-Jews on the basis of their different, “inferior,” ethnicity (Gal 2:11–14). Slaves should not be disdained as “mere slaves,” since their worth as “siblings” is established in Christ (Phlm 16). What now counts for worth is only one’s status in Christ, and the consistency of one’s allegiance to him.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (p. 397). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments:For Paul, allegiance to Christ and his gospel of grace “enabled and required” believers to have community with other believers who would normally be from social groups unlike their own. Humans are generally drawn to people like themselves, and tend to avoid being with people who are “other.” But Christians have something in common that bridges those normally entrenched social divides: the astounding incongruity of God’s grace to every Christian regardless of nationality, morality, social status, race, wealth, education, or other measure of worth.
In Prof. Barclay’s commentary on Romans (Section IV of Paul and the Gift), one chapter is devoted to Romans 11. On page 558 he writes:
Finally, as the preceding and following chapters make clear (e.g., Rom 6:1–23; 12:1–3), Paul’s radical emphasis on the incongruity of grace by no means implies its non-circularity: the following appeal “by the mercies of God” (12:1) may be taken to indicate that grace has “strings attached.” But the absence or lesser significance of these other perfections does not in the least diminish the radicality of the one perfection that is central to these chapters; as we have noted, the various perfections of grace are not a “package deal” (see above, chapter 2). What matters in Romans 9–11, as throughout this letter, is that God’s grace or mercy is operative without regard to worth. It is because this is the core of Israel’s identity and history that it is also the hope for the salvation of the world.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (p. 558). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Relative to grace being “with strings attached,” Prof. Barclay adds the following in his Conclusion (Chapter 18):
Thus, throughout this book, we have been suspicious of the modern (Western) ideal of the “pure” gift, which is supposedly given without strings attached. We have been able to make sense of the fact that a gift can be unconditioned (free of prior conditions regarding the recipient) without also being unconditional (free of expectations that the recipient will offer some “return”). Paul has provided a parade example of this phenomenon, since he simultaneously emphasizes the incongruity of grace and the expectation that those who are “under grace” (and wholly refashioned by it) will be reoriented in the “obedience of faith.” What has seemed in the modern world a paradoxical phenomenon—that a “free” gift can also be obliging—is entirely comprehensible in ancient terms.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 562–563). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Summary: What does allegiance have to do with GRACE? Apparently, in the ancient world, grace and allegiance was understood as a package deal. You receive undeservedly a magnificent gift (Gk., charis) from a great Patron; you return to the Patron your praise, obedience, loyalty, allegiance. This allegiance is embodied individually and corporately, physically and socially in the cultivation of a new humanity marked by counter-cultural love and diversity.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [reasonable] worship. (Romans 12:1 ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV)
“I pledge allegiance to the Christ.” In the early church, to confess Jesus as Lord could mean switching allegiance from Caesar to Christ; this was often subversive. What does it mean in your community to make this confession?
Next post: What does allegiance have to do with FAITH?Click here to go to the next post in this series.
NOTES:
David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 96. DeSilva’s two chapters on patronage are titled “Patronage & Reciprocity” and “Patronage & Grace in the New Testament.” DeSilva describes in detail how the practice of patronage in the Roman Empire informed the early church’s understanding of the gift of God’s grace in Christ.
J. E. Lendon. Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (p. 12). Kindle Edition.
I grew up in America. Each and every morning at the beginning of the school day, from Kindergarten through 12th Grade, I joined my classmates by putting my right hand over my heart and saying “the pledge.”
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
https://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
For patriotic Americans, to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America is as natural as breathing. It’s just something we do. For children in school (especially), it’s obvious and automatic. Of course, it is. Liberty and justice for all are values worth defending. Loyalty to our republic and its Constitution is noble and good.
Dictionary.com defines “allegiance” as:
1) the loyalty of a citizen to his or her government or of a subject to his or her sovereign; 2) loyalty or devotion to some person, group, cause, or the like.
In pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States, Americans are pledging loyalty to America and the government by which they are its citizens.
For me, allegiance is a word that all my life has been linked to being “American.” But the word allegiance also relates to an even more fundamental part of my identity: “Christian.”
“Allegiance” is a thoroughly Christian term
I intend to show in this series of blog posts that allegiance is vital for followers of Jesus. All believers are called to the mindset-and-behavior of loyalty to Christ as King.
In the social world of the early church and Roman Empire, allegiance and loyalty to Caesar included being a regular participant in the “emperor cult.” Paying homage to the emperor as a “son of God” was part of being a citizen of the Roman Empire. Giving allegiance to Jesus the Christ as a citizen of his kingdom was thus equivalent to denying allegiance to Caesar.
In the early church, allegiance was expressed in word and deed, beliefs and practices:
Allegiance was a key aspect of grace (Gk. charis).
Allegiance was often synonymous with faith (Gk. pistis).
Givingallegiance to Jesus the Christ—instead of Caesar the Emperor—was a central feature of baptism(Gk. baptismatos).
Grace, faith, and baptism—each of these dynamics point to the vital role of allegiance on the part of believers. Becoming Christian, living as followers of King Jesus, put believers into a lifestyle that was inherently subversive. Living out the gospel with the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5) and the values of Jesus meant active resistance (though peaceful) to the values of Caesar and Rome. As a result 1) believers often suffered exclusion socially, politically, economically, and 2) the church nevertheless grew by leaps and bounds.
For each of the three dynamics (grace, faith, baptism) I refer below to a different theologian and a book authored by that theologian. Although each theologian’s book covers a different topic, they all have this in common: They describe how the dynamic (whether grace, faith, or baptism) was understood in the social context of the early church and Roman Empire.
Three dynamics, three theologians, three books
GRACE John M. G. Barclay (bio) Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015), 656 pages (more)
FAITH Matthew W. Bates (bio) Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ(Brazos, 2019), 272 pages (more)
BAPTISM R. Alan Streett (bio) Caesar and the Sacrament Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (Wipf & Stock, 2018), 190 pages (more)
I will devote one blog post to each of these books and share a summary about what they say concerning our allegiance as believers to “the Christ.”
Christ as “the good king”
I want to say a few things about the title of this series: “I pledge allegiance to ‘the Christ.’”
As believers, we often refer to our Savior as Jesus Christ. We hear preachers use the name Jesus Christ a lot more often than Jesus, the Christ.
But we are mistaken to think that Jesus is our Savior’s first name and Christ is his last name. Werner Mischke is my name. Mischke is my last name or family name. But “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. Most believers already know this, but it is worth revisiting the point.
Christ is not a proper name or family name. It is a title, an honorific title signifying Jesus as Messiah-King.
Thus, while Paul does not refer to Christ as king, his abundant use of the honorific “Messiah” [Gk., Christos] may indicate that he thinks of Jesus as the ideal king or ruler. Especially significant in this regard is Matthew V. Novenson’s recent monograph Christ among the Messiahs, in which he demonstrates that Paul’s use of Χριστός [Gk., Christos]actually conforms quite closely to common uses of honorifics in the ancient world. Thus, for Paul Χριστός is not a proper name but rather an honorific such as Seleucus the Victor or Judah Maccabee that can be used in combination with an individual’s proper name or can stand in for a proper name.
Jipp, Joshua W.. Christ Is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. Location 96.
Jipp argues that “Paul uses royal language to present Christ as ‘the good king.’” He surveys literature from the time of the Roman Empire describing the character and qualities of the good king. Jipp then demonstrates how the language from these extra-biblical sources overlaps in numerous ways with how Paul describes Jesus as “the Christ.” Compared to other literature describing the good king, Paul’s writing articulates Jesus as the true eternal good king. Jipp discusses:
The good king and law: Gal 5–6; Rom 13–15; 1 Cor 9
Hymning to the good king: Col 1:15–20
The good king enthroned: Rom 1:3–4; 1 Cor 15:20–28
In other words, Christos is a title with royal meaning. Jesus is the long-awaited Deliverer-Messiah, the Anointed One,theKing of kings—“the Christ.”
The phrase “the Christ” is common in the New Testament
A search of “the Christ” in the online English Standard Version Bible (ESV) yields 49 occurrences. It is worth scanning these verses to observe just how much regal honorific emphasis New Testament authors give to Jesus through the title Christos.
Here is a sampling of ten verses from just the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 1:17– So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
Matthew 2:4– and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
Matthew 11:2– Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples
Matthew 16:16– Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:20– Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
Matthew 22:42– saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”
Matthew 23:10– Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
Matthew 24:5– For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
Matthew 24:23– Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.
Matthew 26:63– But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
Christ is King. The word “Christ” has a royal meaning. This is why, as I have color-coded keywords in my Bible, I always highlight the word Christ in orange. It quickly helps me see just how often the honorific majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ is being heralded in the books of the New Testament.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (ESV), the word Christ appears 45 times, the word Lord, 11 times.
Remember the main point we are exploring in this series of posts: Jesus is our Savior and King. As believers, we owe him our loyalty and allegiance. “I pledge allegiance to the Christ.”
Next post: I will focus on John M. G. Barclay’s Paul and the Gift. We will examine one important aspect of his groundbreaking scholarship. How is allegiance is a part of a biblical understanding and practice of GRACE? To go to the next post, click here.
More than twenty years ago, I was reading Scott Peck’s A World Waiting to Be Born.[1] At the time, I saw myself as a good Christian husband. I was trying to be a good dad to two teenage sons. Our pastor’s favorite sermon subject? The family, of course. The organization, Focus on the Family, would regularly mail a long letter to our home from its president Dr. Dobson. His constant appeal was for families to be strongly Christian.
Nothing was more important to me than being a good family man.
Then I read these words from M. Scott Peck:
… Jesus took pains to make it clear that he was no great family man. He announced that he came not to bring peace, but a sword, that dealing with him would set children against their parents and brothers and sisters against each other [Mat 10:34–35]. When a disciple asked for a delay in order that he might attend his father’s funeral, Jesus coldly told him, let the dead bury their dead [Mat 8:22]. Jesus repeatedly tried to make it clear that one’s primary calling is to God, not one’s family . . . He needed to do this because he was fighting against the idolatry of family of his day. [1]
To this day, I remember the line: Jesus was no great family man. When we look at some passages of Scripture relating to family and kinship, examining them in the light of honor, shame, and the gospel, we can see some Christ-exalting truths.
Who belongs to Jesus’ family?
Consider Mark 3:31–35.
And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Rather shockingly, Jesus is redefining family for the Jews, the people of God. Jerome Neyrey calls it a “new index of honor.”[2] No longer is it satisfactory to think that being ethnically Jewish equates with being a part of God’s family. Jesus narrows the criteria for membership in God’s family considerably. Pointing to his disciples, Jesus says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Doing the will of God—obedience!—became the deciding criteria; this is the narrowing dynamic.
But Jesus expands the concept of God’s family as well. Being a member of God’s family and possessing the corresponding honor of being related to Jesus is now available to anyone and everyone; indeed, it is available to “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven.” This “new index of honor”—this new way of defining who was an “insider”—deeply challenged the status quo understanding of family.
Jesus turned upside-down the traditional understanding of the people of God, family, and father. Jesus is not doing away with honor codes, he is redefining them. Jesus is democratizing honor. The greatest honor of all—honor before Creator God—is now available to all people who put their trust in Jesus the King, who are willing to be least in his kingdom by serving rather than being served (Mark 9:35; 10:45).
Paul relativizes his Jewish family honor
Paul makes a deeply personal statement about his own social worth and honor in Philippians 3:4–10. It is based on his Jewish and ethnic family honor—both ascribed and achieved honor. Paul boasts about his family honor and social capital in order to set up a contrast.
… If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Philippians 3:4–6
Then comes the contrast in an altogether startling claim. All this family honor, all this ethnic status, all this social capital—is loss, worthless, like dung and garbage, odorous—in comparison “to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord” (Phil 3:8)
Paul exaggerates his point to relativize the honor that comes from his Jewish kinship group. It is risky. Paul may alienate members of his extended family. He might incur the wrath of his tribal peers and kinship group. What would his Jewish relatives think when he says all this family honor is as worthless as “dung” (Phil 3:8, KJV). Paul can only say this because a higher, greater, more satisfying and eternal honor has been revealed to him. It is the honor of knowing and serving the Messiah-King, Lord of the universe, Jesus Christ.
Paul has a new source of honor: Christ himself.
Relativizing family honor is good for us
The benefits of relativizing family honor are manifold. Consider the stranglehold of family secrets. There is untold suffering from sexual abuse swept under the rug in the name of ‘keeping up the family name.’ When the family is idolized, family sins of every stripe are kept in the dark, and all the members in the family system, young and old and in between can be kept in bondage. Consider honor-based violence in the family. We see it in The Godfather—blood vendettas of the Italian mafia. Or the multi-generational killing feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. What about killing to preserve the honor of the clan among various nations, tribes, and cultures—so-called honor killings?
Clearly: Family-based honor needs to be relativized—and the gospel of Jesus Christ offers this to us.
A little nuance and a summary
We have observed how both Jesus and Paul relativize family honor. But it is good to note that Jesus does not only relativize the family, he also affirms the family and marriage in various ways (e.g., Mat 5:32; Mat 19:19; John 2:1–12). Likewise, Paul does not only relativize his Hebrew family identity; he also valorizes his Jewish family and nation of Israel (Rom 9:1–5; Gal 4:21–31; Eph 2:11–12). Plus, he provides remarkable teachings to affirm the sanctity of marriage and family (Eph 5:20–33; 6:1–4; Col 3:18–21) all under the banner, Jesus Christ is Lord.
Summary: We were made in the image of God. We retain a longing for glory despite the corruption of sin and the Fall. God offers to cover our sin-and-shame and restore our honor through salvation in Jesus the Christ. From his exalted authority as the once-suffering-but-now-resurrected King, Jesus forgives our sin and raises us up in union with him. We are adopted into his family (Eph 1:5; Rom 8:15), complete with an inheritance (Eph 1:14) in a community that’s called a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). This is our new, eternal source of honor, embedded in Christ. The relational honor of knowing Christ and being part of his family is beyond compare. It is so magnificent that all other honors, including family-based honor, fade in significance. This is how the gospel relativizes family-based honor.
FOOTNOTES
1. M. Scott Peck, A World Waiting to be Born: Civility Rediscovered (New York: Random House, 1993), 174.
2. Jerome Neyrey writes: “‘Who is my mother and who are my brothers?’ The question reveals a crisis within Jesus’ kin group. In such a situation, families tend to paper over their internal problems and thus keep up appearances before others. But here Jesus exacerbates the problem between himself and his family, which threatens their public reputation. Resorting to a comparison, he establishes a non-kinship criteria for family membership. ‘Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’ (Mat 12:50). He identifies with a ‘family’ but not with the empirical group standing outside; he has a ‘Father’ to whom he is duty bound to show loyalty, the kind of loyalty that is the stuff of later parables (Mat 21:28–31, 37). According to this new index of honor he turns away from the blood relatives standing outside and toward the disciples inside: ‘And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”’” Honor And Shame in the Gospel of Matthew, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 54.
