Judaism

by T.M. Hyland, Birkenhead | Category: Departure From The Faith | Feb 1972

The New Testament begins:

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham" (Matt; 1:1),

indicating that the Person announced was born in accordance with the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The first of these prophecies declared that the Coming One would be the Seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15). And as God revealed His plan to implement this promise He disclosed that Messiah would come through the nation of which Abraham was the father and that He would be born of the house of David, Israel's illustrious king.

The Abrahamic covenant:

"I will make of thee a great nation ... and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:2,3),

was a crucial intervention in human history. The call of Abraham was God's reply to mankind's rebellion at Babel. It was a milestone in Old Testament revelation, giving early notice of God's saving purpose and the direction it would take.

Then, 430 years later, came the Mosaic Law. For the purpose of this short study it is necessary to enquire, Why the Law? What place had it in the overall plan of redemption? In order to understand the Christian Faith aright we must view the Law in its dispensational setting, and grasp the teaching of our Lord and His apostles as to its meaning and relevance. We cannot deal with this matter in detail here but because of misapprehension and distortion of Scripture doctrine on the subject it is necessary to make some reference to it.

The principle of justification by faith on the ground of divine grace was firmly established in God's dealings with Abraham (Rom. 4:13-16). But before Messiah came the age of Law was interposed by God, not to displace or disannul the Abrahamic covenant (Gal. 3:17), but to expose, through many centuries of human history, man's complete bondage to sin, and to demonstrate that divine grace was the only basis on which he could be freed from that bondage. Paul wrote, "The Law ... was added because of transgressions, 'till the Seed should come to whom the promise hath been made" (Gal. 3:19). Again, "the Law came in ... that the trespass might abound" (Rom. 5:20). Such statements as these show that the chief purpose of the Law in relation to sinful man was to awaken him to his desperate need of deliverance and to prepare him for the coming of the Saviour. Paul states this important truth with great clarity: "The Law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:24).

Nevertheless "the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous and good" (Rom. 7:12). It was God's gift to His people Israel and it occupied an important place in divine revelation, manifesting the holiness and majesty of God as well as the sinfulness of man. Our concern here is to emphasize the impotence of the Law as a means of justifying the sinner. Paul says categorically, "By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified" (Gal. 2:16). This lesson was taught clearly throughout the Old Testament writings. Acceptance with God was never on the ground of law-keeping but only by means of blood sacrifices, thus foreshadowing the coming great Sacrifice. Those sacrifices "received all their virtue only from the one Sacrifice of Golgotha. They were powerless and yet effectual, impotent and yet dispensing blessing, as it were bills of exchange of a national bank, which in themselves are only paper, and yet-in view of the day of their redemption-even before their due date of payment possess value as cash. Then Jesus Christ, by His sacrificial death on the Cross, has met all those Old Testament 'bills of exchange' to their full value" (Sauer).

"The Law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). But Israel, the custodians of the Law, blinded by unbelief and spiritual pride, failed to recognize its Fulfiller-the great Messiah in person. The grace and truth He brought were despised, and He was hounded to the Cross. The covenant people "who received the Law, as it was ordained by angels, and kept it not" now became the betrayers and murderers of the Righteous One (Acts 7:52). The apostle Paul devotes three chapters of his epistle to the Romans (9,10,11) to this great mystery of Israel's fall. He deals with the matter in its dispensational setting, discusses the great principles underlying God's dealings with mankind, and then goes on to show that Israel, "beloved for the fathers' sake", after the period of divine chastisement, will yet be saved:

"There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer: He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom. 11:26).

Until that coming day Paul's appraisal stands, "they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,. For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10:2-4).

And yet, as Paul shows in Romans 11, there was a remnant which dissociated itself from the action of the nation. The first Christians were Israelites, and on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them they formed the spearhead of that great movement which was to reach to the uttermost part of the earth.

Jerusalem was the stronghold of Judaism. We use this term to describe what Paul called "the Jews' religion" (Gal. 1:13). Judaism, with all its ancient forms and traditions, was now devoid of divine authority, an empty shell; its priesthood superseded, its Temple forsaken by God. A divine movement had been established in Jerusalem which challenged Judaism at its very heart. No power on earth could halt the onward march of the new Faith. Very soon the number of the disciples increased from 120 to 5,000: then, "a great company of the priests were obedient to the Faith" (Acts 6:7). The elders of the Jews quickly recognized that if they were to retain their power and prestige they would have to take drastic steps to crush this new movement, and the fury of their attack fell on Stephen, the first Christian martyr. His death was the signal for a mounting wave of persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem. But it was all of no avail. Scattered by persecution, the Christians spread the new Faith wherever they went, turning the battle against their powerful adversaries. Then young Saul of Tarsus, the arch-persecutor himself, was captured by the risen Christ on the Damascus road, and was transformed from the Judaistic bigot, zealous for the Law, into the great preacher and defender of the Christian Faith. The battle was lost by the Jewish leaders because, to use Gamaliel's phrase, they, were "found even to be fighting against God" (Acts 5:39).

But if persecution failed to subdue the Christian Faith, a new and more subtle attack on it lay ahead. This struggle took place within the Christian churches themselves and threatened to rob them of their glorious liberty in Christ and bring them under the yoke of Judaism. By this time Paul and Barnabas

had returned to Antioch after their first missionary journey and had given an account of their experiences, and how that God "had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles". Then certain men came to Antioch from Judaea and taught the brethren, "Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1). The boldness of this assertion may be startling to us now that we have the full light of apostolic teaching in the New Testament writings. But that this and other heresies should raise their heads in those early days should not surprise us. "There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor. 11:19), wrote Paul on a later occasion. One result of heretical teaching was that it gave occasion for the true doctrine of the Lord to be expounded with greater clarity against the background of the error it exposed. God had His chosen men ready to meet this heresy and foremost among them was the former Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus. From his pen came the great treatises on salvation by grace in his epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans.

Acts chapter 15 is a landmark in the history of the early churches. The question of the Judaisers was referred to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. This was a wise step. Paul and Barnabas perceived the crucial importance of the matter and the need to expose the false teachers and to bring the weight of apostolic authority to bear on them. The false teachers were forced into the open and revealed their position. Certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed said of Gentiles who had accepted the gospel, "It is needful to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses" (Acts 15:5). Here the challenge was thrown down and had it succeeded the Christian Faith would have become a mere adjunct of Judaism.

It is not our intention at this time to comment on the conduct of the Jerusalem conference of apostles and elders, and the principles underlying it. For a fuller treatment of the subject readers are referred to a very helpful article which appeared in this magazine in September last, entitled, "The Jerusalem Conference", by L. Burrows. We are mainly concerned here with the result of that conference. The Judaisers were labelled as trouble-makers without apostolic authority, and their teaching as subversive. The decision of the conference brought great joy to the church in Antioch and was the signal for a great forward movement in the work of God.

This, then, was the first of the heresies which attacked the Christian Faith in its infancy; there were others. We have placed it at the beginning of this series of papers on departure from the Faith, not only because of its historical importance, but also because the same error is a constant menace to the great fundamental doctrine of salvation by grace. What was the inherent error of Judaism? In a word the doctrine of salvation by good works. Scripture everywhere condemns this as deadly error, nevertheless there is widespread belief that it is orthodox Christian doctrine. This shows how deeply entrenched is the error that good works are necessary to salvation. Paul's great statement in the Epistle to the Ephesians sets forth the doctrine of salvation by grace with complete clarity:

"For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, that no man should glory" (Eph. 2:8,9).

Later papers in this series will deal with the rapid departure from the Christian Faith which took place in the early centuries following the apostolic age, and culminated in the union of Church and State and the beginning of Christendom. It was not only that there was serious departure from the simplicity and purity of apostolic teaching in the matter of church constitution and practice, there was also the abandonment of Scripture as the supreme authority for Christian doctrine, and the enthronement of an apostate Church claiming the monopoly to dispense favours from heaven through a mediating priesthood. The glorious doctrines of grace for which the apostles fought so valiantly were discarded. Priestly power dominated, and those who sought deliverance from the bondage of sin were shackled with numerous observances and ordinances "beggarly elements", as Paul described them-many of which were accretions of heathenism. Such was the tragedy of the relapse into the error of Judaism-salvation by works.

During the dark ages the bitter tyranny of the professing Church held sway but light from heaven began to dawn toward the time of the Reformation. Martin Luther's work in the recovery and restatement of the great Christian doctrine of justification by faith was monumental. None more sincerely than he had sought deliverance from the bondage of sin through good works. His biographer comments: "Never did the Church of Rome possess a more pious monk; never did convent witness more sincere and indefatigable labour to purchase eternal happiness. When Luther had become a Reformer, and said that heaven was not to be bought, he well knew what he said. 'If ever', he wrote in a letter to Duke George of Saxony, 'monk had entered heaven by his monkery, surely I should have so entered it. If I had had to endure this longer, I should have died a martyr to prayer, watchings, readings, and other labours'" (D'Aubigne). What brought deliverance to Luther? The voice of God in the words of Holy Scripture-"the just shall live by faith!" Light and liberty came when he turned from the ordinances of a church to the authoritative voice of Scripture. And this was precisely the battleground of the Reformation-the Bible or the Church? The great achievement of the Reformers was the restoration of Scripture to its proper place as the supreme authority for the Christian Faith. Salvation by works, the basic error of Judaism, cannot stand the light of God's word.

A distressing feature of our times is the sacrifice of the liberating truths for which the Reformers fought and the departure from Scripture in the cause of ecumenism by many of the Reformed churches of Christendom. And the rapid growth of heretical cults adds to the confusion. It will be found on careful examination that these cults, from so-called Jehovah's Witnesses down to Seventh Day Adventists, and the more recent Robert Armstrong cult, are based on the error of Judaism. Sometimes the heretical teaching of salvation by works is cleverly concealed but nevertheless is basic to the whole elaborate edifice these cults present to the public.

What we need today by those faithful to God's word is increasing emphasis on the great Reformation watchwords Sola gracia (by grace alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone), Sola fide (by faith alone).

T.M. Hyland, Birkenhead | Feb 1972
Departure From The Faith