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December 15, 2004
Hello everyone,
Though they sometimes sound deceptively simple, the teachings of Jesus contain many layers of meaning and wisdom. In fact, there is an entire science known as hermeneutics devoted to the correct interpretation and understanding of Scripture. Perhaps its most basic assumption is that in order to correctly interpret a given book, we must first uncover to the best of our ability what its author was actually trying to communicate: what the author believed to be true. Only after we have assessed this factor to the best of our ability may we then proceed to evaluate whether we believe the author’s claims to have validity. Thus, in the Gospel of John, we see Jesus literally proclaiming Himself to be the Son of God; a cross reference with His other teachings indicates that He made this statement from the standpoint of an Orthodox Jew trained in the Torah, not a Hindu versed in the Vedas or Upanishads. Thus we must conclude that Jesus—or at the least the author of the book—is claiming that He is the Son of God as understood in fulfillment of Orthodox Jewish prophecy which looked for the Promised One, the coming Messiah, the Kinsman-Redeemer of Israel. We may reject this claim just as many of the people of Jesus’s own day did and as people continue to do to this very day. But we must not say, if we are to apply the same standards of hermeneutics we would apply to any other text, that Jesus is claiming to be an Indian guru who has achieved self-enlightened mastery, another of God’s avatars—a bodhisattva of peace. So then, a correct application of hermeneutics does not force us to accept for ourselves the conclusion that Jesus was the Son of God as understood in Orthodox Judaism, but it does rule out the conclusion that the text indicates He was simply an Ascended Master. To imply that such is what is being claimed in the Gospel is either shoddy, revisionist scholarship, or a desperate attempt to reconcile His claims with “friendlier” beliefs (or both).
If we are to understand the meaning behind the words of Jesus, we must remember that they were always spoken in a specific context and had meaning relevant to that setting. Put another way, Jesus always spoke to the immediate situation at hand and His words are only fully understood against that backdrop. He was not an author writing to an unseen readership, but a teacher—a Jewish rabbi—who addressed His audience on whatever level they were ready to receive, often with earthy examples well understood by those who bent their backs under the hot agrarian sun. He spoke of the flowers of the field and mustard seeds and the grass that withers and is cast away, or, when He spoke to the educated and self-inflated elite, He was capable of drawing literary metaphors from Greco-Roman culture, comparing such persons to hupokritēs, actors performing the comedies and tragedies of the Greek playwrights. He was not the sort of person to waste words, but shrewdly discerned and addressed the central issues of the heart. Children profitably understand and benefit from many of His teachings, yet Jesus’s words are intended to address the many cares and complexities of an adult’s world.
To the Pharisees who did not believe in Jesus at all, His words were dark and foreboding. “You teachers of Israel, you know the power of the Holy Spirit. You know that Satan does not cast out Satan. You know that no man could do these miracles without the power of the Living God within him. Yet you slander. Your hearts are filled with jealousy and your motives are entirely self-serving. You have the word of God on your lips but your hearts are miles removed; you are whitened sepulchers filled with dead men’s bones. I have nothing more to say to you.”
Recall that we said in order to understand the deeper meaning of Jesus’s words, we would also need to know the context of those words: with whom was He speaking and why? Let’s look at an example from the Gospels. There are a total of four occurrences in which Jesus would appear, to the ears of a child, to be saying the same thing in two different ways. In Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23, He says: “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” However, in Mark 9:40 and Luke 9:50, He makes two statements that are almost identical in every way except that they are stated in the positive and appear in the second and third person instead of the first. In Mark 9:40, He says: “For he who is not against us is for us.” And in Luke 9:50, He says: “He who is not against you is for you.” So then, if we were to turn our childish minds on these statements, we would find them true enough: if somebody isn’t for you, then he is against you; what is more, if he is not against you, he is for you. But if we merely read these passages like children—or if we even examined them as single sentences stripped from their surrounding narratives—we would have missed a much deeper truth. What if, when encountered in context, the difference between a positive and negative sense (much more so than first, second, or third person) had a very significant impact on meaning? Let’s consider the question.
We encounter the first occurrence of our negative statement in Matthew 12, which taken in context spans from verse 22 to verse 32:
Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.” And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”
Our second, parallel occurrence of the negative is found in Luke 11:14–28:
And Jesus was casting out a demon, and it was mute; when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed. But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” Others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven. But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters. When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.” While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”
It is interesting to notice that the negative accounts are both given to the Pharisees when they accuse Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Beelzebub. The account in Matthew leads into a warning against the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; the negative account in Luke leads into a talk about an unclean spirit passing out of a man only to return later with seven spirits more odious than itself. So then, we can see that in these two negative occurrences, Jesus is speaking out against the Pharisees. But before we spend too much time examining the implications of this teaching in the negative, let’s take a quick look at the same basic phrase in its larger positive context. In Mark 9:38–41, we read:
John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is for us. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.”
Again in Luke 9:46–50, we read:
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them might be the greatest. But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by His side, and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.” John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you.”
We can see that these two positive occurrences were communicated to the disciples, both instances recording what appears to be the same account of John questioning the authority of persons casting out demons in Jesus’s name. This phrase is the same one that when reversed and spoken in context to another group of people—the Pharisees—meant something entirely different. Jesus says in effect, “These men whom you would turn away, though they lack knowledge, yet believe. The Pharisees, though they have full knowledge, profane even that which they know to be true.” Put another way, the men who are for Jesus (though they appear, at first glance, to be rather far away), walk in all the light they have available. The Pharisees, who appear at first glance to be scrupulously devout and dedicated to God, are actually light years apart, perverting the very light that they do have; to add insult to injury, not only are they death to themselves, but they go miles out of their way to make a single convert who they in turn transform into twice the son of hell as they themselves.
So you see, with a child’s understanding we can say that those who are not with us are against us and that those who are not against us are for us and come out with a child’s truth. But if we are to look at it through the eyes of the spiritually mature adult, we see a much deeper level of truth revealed. There is a world of difference (quite aside from the change from first person to third person) between: “If you are not with Me, you are against Me,” and “if you are not against us, you are for us.” The difference involves not only the change in meaning presented by the word order, but the audience and the intended heart message. To the unbelieving, hard-hearted Pharisees, Jesus spoke words they needed to hear: “You are not with Me.” Conversely, to the disciples, He spoke the words they also needed to hear: “Do not judge those who work in my name; they are with us.” The Pharisees did not believe in Jesus; the disciples did but were limiting His power.
Father Richard Jaworski of the Online Catholic Forum (since removed, but archived version available) offers an interesting answer to Noel, a man intrigued by one of these very same passages, namely that of Luke where John tells the Master that he saw a man casting out demons in Jesus’s name. Noel asks: “If this someone is not in the Lord’s company, then how could he be ‘for you’? What is Lord Jesus’s meaning of ‘not against you’?” Father Rick responds (in part):
If someone is doing good works, doing God’s will, then, in a sense, they are on the same side, they are allies, they are “for you” implicitly (though perhaps not explicitly). These individuals may not have been part of Jesus’ inner circle or even disciples of Jesus or believers that he was the Messiah, but they did believe that people were healed/delivered through/by him, and so used his name to cast out demons. The[y] did show a respect for Jesus, some acknowledgement of Jesus, just as those who said he was a prophet, a holy man from God, a rabbi, the Messiah, were all according him respect and clueing in to pieces of the puzzle.
* * * * *
One point of this little story seems to be the proper attitude to have towards outsiders of this sort. A parallel today would be work that not only other Christians but even non-Christians might do together with us. Recall how the Catholics and Muslims worked together at world conferences to try and preserve the family and morality. We believe that others may have arrived at portions of the truth, and their belief in these truths and living them out is a good thing. (There is one God. Murder is wrong. And so on.) . . . (Whoever is not against you is for you?)
Sometimes, however, our exposition suffers not because we have failed as careful readers, but because we do not have the original manuscripts at our disposal in their native language. (Of course, even if someone like myself did, I couldn’t read them anyway; I can barely read French, much less Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic.) In any event, when I was in preparation for The Wind Bloweth Where it Listeth from two mailings ago, I had been reading from the original (pre-1986) New American Bible the same passage from John that supplied that newsletter with its title. I did not reference this version there, but I noticed that the wording was unusual and determined to write on the matter when the occasion next arose. John 3:3 and 3:6–8 read:
Jesus gave Nicodemus this answer: “I solemnly assure you, no one can see the reign of God unless he is begotten from above.” . . . Flesh begets flesh. Spirit begets spirit. Do not be surprised that I tell you you must all be begotten from above. The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound it makes but you do not know where it comes from, or where it goes. So it is with everyone begotten of the Spirit.”
Curious about the usage of “beget” and “begotten” when most translations read “born” or “born again,” I referenced the footnote on John 3:3. It implicated the following:
Begotten: the Greek verb can mean “born” from a female principle, or “begotten” by a male principle. As in 1, 13, John primarily means it as “begotten,” though many early versions translate it as “born” or even, with heightened baptismal symbolism, “reborn.” From above: the Greek term anothen means “again” and “from above.” V 31 below shows that Jesus means it as “from above,” but Nicodemus misunderstands. (A misunderstanding that brings out Jesus’ teaching is a common literary device in John.)
This footnote offers a most fascinating insight. We read in the very famous sixteenth verse of that same chapter that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Thus, Jesus is born of a virgin but begotten of the Holy Spirit of God. And in a similar way, Nicodemus was not being instructed to be born again—born a second time from his mother’s womb as he supposed—but was rather being taught that if He wished to see God, he must be begotten from above. Of course, this examination of the original Greek is not to say that when we hear others speak of being “born again” we should necessarily correct them—remember, “he who is not against us is for us!” (Big, crooked, toothy grin.) But I do think that if we will meditate on the difference the original language reveals, we will have a deeper, richer understanding of what it means to be begotten of God. And now, I need to “be gotten” away, for it is finals week and the reason this newsletter is late (not to mention likely as rough as a cobblestone) is because I spent my morning writing about Epicurus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Plotinus and then changed gears over a couple hundred centuries and floundered inelegantly along about different theories associated with the philosophy of modern law, a final every bit as brutal as it sounds. My week prior to this day of compulsory writing (when I haven’t been writing other fine-quality finals) has been spent in preparation—now I am the one spent, so, until next time, be begotten while I “be gotten” a way away from this silly computer today.
God bless,
Eric
“If the world were a well-tuned instrument played in rhythm, I would not worship the instrument but him who made it and played it.”
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