Where Everybody's Crazy

OK, enough technological tomfoolery, it's back to work for me.

I'm preaching on Sunday (of course), and every time I write a sermon, I find myself going down a line of thought and thinking "Uh, not sure I like where this is heading," and I decide to change tack and hope nobody asks me about it afterwards. And in our English service, guaranteed at least one of two people will ask me the question I'm dreading. Given that I know one of them reads this blog, (Hi V!) let's see if I can pre-empt the awkward question...

I'm preaching about Amos and also giving a general introduction to the role of the OT prophets. One of my main points will be that prophets generally operate within the people of God. Their job is to remind people under the covenant what the covenant requires of them; it is not to tell people who are not under the covenant what the covenant requires of them. In other words, I think it is prophetic to call the Church to repetance; I think it is pathetic to try to call the nation to repentance.

Now there are two prophets (Amos and Jonah) who look very much like they are prophecying to other nations, but my contention is that this is chiefly rhetoric to display how far off track Israel has got. Jonah is easy - the faithless prophet who is amazed at how quickly a foreign country listens to God compared to Israel. Amos, chapters 1 and 2, is a bit more tricky.

Amos talks about a bunch of countries and what they've been doing wrong, and then, seemingly with no distinction, turns to Israel and Judah and has a go at them too. I think this "seemingly with no distinction" is the key part here. He's saying "You're just like all the other nations":

“You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” says the LORD. “Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir.”

One distinction is that when God talks about the other nations, he mentions what they've done wrong, and then what will happen to them. Many translations use the word "sins" for what the nations have done wrong, but this is a mistake. The word "sin" in the Old Testament (‏חָטָא‎) is a technical term for a breach of the covenant between God and his covenant people. But the word Amos uses for the other nations is ‏פֶּשַׁע‎, a transgression or crime. From the context of these verses, I think "war crime" is a reasonable translation. God is not talking about punishing sin; He is talking about restoring justice. Evangelicalism tends to blur that distinction, but I think it's an important distinction. So for instance, here's my translation of Amos 1:9:

This is what the LORD says: "Because of the three war crimes of Tyre - actually four! - I will not take them back. They deported a whole community of exiles to Edom, and they reneged on their international treaties."

This is about big geopolitical injustices. It is not God offended that His people have breached their relationship with Him; it's God offended that other nations and political actors could possibly be so damned inhumane to each other. Perhaps it still offends Him today.

So here's the line of thought that I didn't want to go down: If this is not referring to "sins" of the nations, and if, as I claim, "sin" is a term referring to breaches in the covenant relationship between God and His people, can people who are not under a covenant relationship with God sin? Am I saying that those who are not Jews or Christians cannot sin?

Well, it's a huge heresy but let's have a think about it anyway.

The first important thing to remember is that I don't actually need to know how God deals with people who aren't me. Puzzling deeply over how He treats those outside the covenant does not excuse me from how I am to live now that I am inside of it. That's sort of what the Amos 8 quote was about above: Israel has this relationship with God, but Ethiopia has another. Jesus has sheep of other sheepfolds that we don't know about. If he wants someone to remain alive until he returns, then what is that to me? Do I think there is salvation for those who are not Christians or Jews? Absolutely yes, because of what Jesus has done! Can I say who is "in" and who is "out"? Absolutely not, and it's not my job to judge. It's my job to (a) get my bit right, which includes (b) serving others, and (c) inviting them into a secure covenant relationship.

(The second important thing to remember, of course, is that it's probably unwise to build a theology on fine distinctions between Hebrew words in one chapter of one book of the Old Testament. Particularly with Hebrew being such a, uh, fluid language. Still, people commit worse exegetical crimes, so let's press on...)

I keep talking about covenant relationships, and I think that's pretty key here. From the start, God used local cultural expressions to demonstrate that He wanted a bilateral relationship with His people: "They will be my people and I will be their God". The Old Testament covenant relationship and Jesus' invitation-and-response were cultural forms of agreement and contract between two parties. In Revelation, there's the symbol of a marriage, which again symbolizes a two-way contract. (I think it's still a two-way contract in that culture, right?)

God does not act unilaterally in choosing His people. (This is not a cue to talk about predestination versus free will; I knew you were going to do that. He gives His people the impression that they're entering into a bilateral relationship, and I'm not going to accuse Him of deceit.) So it was never a "He is God and you shall submit to Him", as some Abrahamic offshoots and overbearing evangelists may try to claim.

(OK, so possible NT counterexample: Paul. That'll break your brain. Paul didn't "convert", God forced his hand. Oh great, another road I didn't want to go down.)

Anyhow, the predominant relationship type is certainly two-way, invitation and acceptance. The Bible is predominantly a book about, by, and for people who have accepted that relationship, and it delimits sin, certainly in the OT, as breakdown of that relationship. Because of this focus, it says almost nothing about those who have not accepted that relationship. Are you getting me?

Paul, writing to Greeks and Jews in Ephesus, makes a similar distinction to Amos: "dead in your transgressions (παραπτωμασιν) and sins (ἁμαρτιαις)". While in a sense, it doesn't matter, they were both "dead", I think that it is fair to say that those who are not in a covenant relationship with God cannot sin.

The eagle-eyed will spot a circular argument here: I have defined "sin" in terms of a particular relationship, so of course it only applies to those within that relationship. If there's anything to attack here in my argument, it's the definition of sin. But if you have a better one, please be prepared to show working! Etymologically in Greek and in Hebrew, the word for "sin" refers to missing the target, and so I think that one person can only say to another that they have missed the target if the target is mutually agreed. (Particularly if the one doing the saying turns out to be a mutually-agreed kinda guy.)

But I think this does help to explain something. Jesus tells us not to judge others. Yet the epistles are full of people correcting, rebuking and so on. I think the same distinction is at play. Those under the covenant, and who wish to remain under the covenant, are liable, and even grateful, for reminders of how they should live under that covenant. Those who are not under the covenant, we can't speak for.

So my takeaway from all this is that I can't call out those who have not agreed to our rules for not following our rules. Sounds pretty simple, but the louder edge of the Christian faith don't seem to have grasped it yet. The corollary, of course, is that I do have a right to call out those who claim to have accepted our rules but then don't follow them.

Of course, first we'd all have to agree on what "our rules" are, and I don't see that happening this side of the Parousia...

Update: Yeah, OK, I hear you. I hereby recant the major idea of this, which is that sin only applies to those who have a relationship with God; thanks to Alan, Daniel and others for pointing me at bits of Paul I haven't spotted. (That said, funny that when Paul said that Jews and Gentiles were alike under sin, he didn't say whose sin. It's almost like he's saying that the Jews' sin, breaking the covenant, made them just like the Gentiles who didn't have the covenant relationship. But no, I'm not going there, I really do recant this.) I still hold on to the idea that the prophets only spoke internally, and that God's relationships are fundamentally bilateral.

Also it's worth noting that these are the thoughts that didn't make it into my sermon, precisely because I wasn't sure about them. The blog's for experimentation, not for finished products.

Amusingly, I preached the sermon again today, and my pastor heard it for the first time. He said "That's your testimony, isn't it?" About right.