Journey into Insight Chapter 5

‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ (Matt. 13:52)

Christ and the Scriptures

The Scriptures comprising the Bible span the time from the creation of the universe to around the first century AD from the Jewish and Christian points of view. The Old Testament, part of which formed the basis of the Jewish holy book the Torah, covers the period prior to the coming of Christ. The New Testament is the story of Jesus Christ and the earliest days of Christianity. As we do not assume that the reader is familiar with the Bible, a very brief summary may be helpful.

The legend is that human beings in their earliest days were misled, asserted their freedom and became alienated from their Creator. As a result they lost their ideal environment, and hardship, illness and death became an ongoing part of their natural existence. God, however, loved mankind and promised to send a saviour to reconcile them with Himself. The Old Testament relates how God prepared a particular nation for the arrival of this ‘Messiah’. However, Jesus Christ was not the kind of leader they expected. He did not come with great force and lead them to material success and political victory over their enemies. He did not overwhelm humanity with the omnipotent power of God, but invited every individual to the truth in the spirit of freedom. He taught love and gentleness, lived in humility and poverty and even died a shameful death by crucifixion at the instigation of the existing religious hierarchy who rejected him and saw him as a threat to their authority.

We will return to ‘the redemption’ in a later chapter. For the present, it is sufficient to say that if the legendary ‘Adam’ of the Old Testament, who represents the earliest of human beings, demonstrated that even under the most ideal conditions mankind will go astray (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:17-19), Jesus Christ proved that in the most unfavourable circumstances, he could still remain faithful to his purpose. He established a spiritual kingdom, not a material one, and defeated death, not by avoiding it but by passing through it and rising again.

Although he often challenged, surprised and astounded the ‘establishment’, Christ did not abolish what was written in the Old Testament, but came to fulfil the promises made by the prophets, and make it possible for mankind to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 5:17). He encouraged higher standards, emphasising that the spirit of the law takes priority over the letter of the law, that the greatest two commandments of loving God and our neighbours as ourselves override all other commandments and rules. and that no amount of meticulous attention to subtleties compensates for gross neglect of weightier matters such as justice. Christ put the law into its proper perspective - as the servant of mankind, not its inflexible master. This outlook is partly captured in his words, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ (Mark 2:27). In contrast to what the scholars of the day generally believed, Christ made it clear that a person cannot save himself merely by meticulous observance of every fine detail of the law, but that salvation is a cooperative task between God and mankind.

The people had long been taught that suffering was the result of their sins and those of their ancestors. However, instead of apportioning blame, Christ focussed his attention on the need to use the power we have to alleviate their condition. This was the basis on which our worthiness of the Kingdom of God would be assessed.
Through the teachings of Christ, God also came to be seen as close, rather than distant and remote, and a much greater emphasis was placed on friendship than on blood relationships.

The explanation for the change of emphasis lies not in any essential disagreement, but in the stages of development through which humanity must pass on its way to individual and social maturity.

The Process of Development

In many ways, the history of civilisation parallels the spiritual and social development of the individual:

The individual person begins life undisciplined. If this were allowed to continue without any order for long, the growing chaos would result in destruction, or at best, a very low level of existence. Rules and structure enforced by his parents and other elders, make his life more predictable, and enormously improve his prospects of survival and his attainable level of well-being.

As he matures, he can be given more freedom to make his own decisions together with greater responsibility for himself. He does not obtain a licence to lawlessness, but the recognition that he is also capable of making rules and applying them where they are appropriate.

It is unnecessary for us to argue the outcome of total social anarchy. Countless short-lived examples existed, even in recorded history, to show that it has no long term viability. Order and predictability are necessary to ensure survival and development. Law is not only the basis of order, but vital to fostering in the individual and the community an appreciation of orderliness. Without this sensitivity, freedom is dangerous and responsibility cannot be properly learnt and understood. The Old Testament is largely the history of God’s guidance of the Jewish people through this phase of their spiritual and social development. Other civilisations also had their ‘prophets’, or people of wisdom, whose enlightenment is just as likely to have come from God, although its real source might not have been revealed to them.

Christ takes man through the final phase of his growth - the phase of freedom without disorder. Law is not abandoned, but made subject to the supremacy of justice, responsibility and love. God, as the Spirit of good, comes to live within those who are receptive, and for them there is a declining need for order to be imposed from outside.

The Christian Church

Many mistakenly think that Jesus Christ founded a new religion. He did not. What Christ did was to fulfil the one which God established in the Old Testament with Abraham and his descendants. They became the ‘chosen people’, that is, the people selected to be the starting point from which humanity would eventually be reconciled with Him. With the resurrection of Christ, this religion ceased to belong to one race of people alone, and within the growing Christian community all who wished to practise its way of life were made welcome. Christ did not intend his followers to see themselves as an elite and exclusive group of people superior to the rest of humanity, but as workers helping to draw all people to the word of God and eternal life.

In its earliest days, the spread of Christianity was marked by the formation of small communities that shared a common basic belief and hope, and above all were noted for their loving behaviour and mutual supportiveness, not only in times of difficulty but on a day to day basis. As Christianity became more firmly established, formalised and centralised, it became politically more powerful, but this also opened the way for increased local apathy and complacency to the point where a significant majority were really Christian in name only. Part of the explanation may be that when a system becomes more complex and power becomes more remote and impersonal, so does the perception of responsibility, and this inevitably has an impact on the character of the individual and his relationships. Nevertheless, there were always groups of people who kept the original spirit alive.

Since the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Christianity has featured an increasing number of autonomous ‘denominations’. While for many of them, their theology is very basic and sometimes questionable, their local community spirit can be much closer to what Christ originally intended. By proportion the sense of belonging in the larger denominations tends to be much less consistent, but they too contain groups where faith and solidarity continue to be very strong. Perhaps God in His wisdom has allowed this variety to flourish for good reasons.

Ongoing Renewal

At various times in its long history, ‘Christianity’ slipped back into relying too much on tradition and law, which are easier to teach and enforce than love. The threat of damnation for those who disobeyed was used as an expedient means of social control in the cooperation between ‘Church’ and state, and there was often visible corruption within the ranks of the clergy, especially those who possessed political power. Other signs of decadence also emerged. Often the teachings of theologians seemed to take precedence over the Gospel, and several generations of people were never encouraged to read the Scriptures, which the clergy claimed to have the sole right to interpret. There were significant periods where ‘Christians’ persecuted other religious groups and alternative denominations, and some abominable atrocities were committed in the name of God..

From time to time, ‘Christianity’ finds itself in dire need of renewal. That is not surprising, for even the Jewish people in the Old Testament often went morally astray and had to be guided back. No community or institution is immune from the effects of human weaknesses, and forces such as vested interests, inertia, rigidity, fear, ignorance and complacency are ever present alongside everything that is beneficial. Unless an institution continuously re-examines itself, it inevitably experiences internal decay and declining relevance. The Christian Church is no exception.

Although major reforms tend to take place at irregular intervals, the process of renewal is really continuous and endless. Within every living religion, there is a dynamic interaction between the old and the new; a conflict between those who see a need for change and those who resist it for equally persuasive reasons; an ongoing process that inevitably results in some degree of internal disunity. This process has also been very evident in Islam, but it is perhaps even truer for Christianity because it must be guided by love and good which should take priority over tradition and law. Good often takes much longer to identify and enlightenment does not come on demand. However, through this process the Church continually re-emerges in the spirit in which it was intended by Christ.

Christianity and Other Religions

Throughout history, significant teachers and prophets have arisen in various parts of the world. They perceived reality from different perspectives and taught what they had come to see as the ideal way of life. They either did not know, or chose to disregard, many of the beliefs and practices of the established religions, and gave their people laws which were often more severe or more liberal. Were the structures that were being enforced within Judaism or ‘Christianity’ at the time, in conflict with the needs of practical survival in those environments? Could it be that these societies needed a more appropriate order at their stages of development? Were spiritual leaders such as Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed also sent by God? Like the prophets of the Old Testament, it seems very likely that they were.

With the expanding contact and dialogue, Christians are discovering much to be learnt from those outside their own community that is spiritually enriching and in complete harmony with the Gospel of Jesus. Incorporating such things into their own lives does not make them disloyal to Christ, but the contrary. Christianity is not exclusive of anything which is in harmony with the word of God, and any person who lives with responsibility and love, whether he calls himself a Christian or not, may be regarded like a disciple of Christ. [Read John 13:35]