Post by Mark on Oct 23, 2009 4:08:05 GMT -8
Salvation is free to everyone, right? What ever happened to the popular Christian adage, "Come as you are!"?
John’s response to these religious sects (not necessarily leadership but members) is a bit startling. He said to them, "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."
(Mat 3:7-10)
Maybe it would help to know a little about who were these people that John was so hostile towards.
When Alexander the Great came, about five hundred years earlier, he introduced Greek philosophy and thought to the region. Not only so, but he ordered an entire garrison of Roman officers to marry Hebrew women and settle down in the region (a direct contradiction to
). Sadly, at this point in Jewish history, the whole idea didn’t seem so bad. In fact, since Israel had been suffering for hundreds of years from tribal warfare and continual hostilities from her neighbors (sound familiar?), Alexander and Rome offered the one thing they longed for but had never known since Solomon’s rule: peace. They made concessions… a lot of them.
A group of fellas were really concerned about what they were seeing; but understood the political climate would not support any sort of revolt against the status quo. They found a method of biblical exegesis that accommodated Roman culture but retained as much of the distinctive Jewish identity as they could. They considered
to be absolutely exact and concrete in its interpretation- thus what doesn’t specifically condemn or demand was a matter of preference (accommodating many if not most of the Roman ways). Because at this point, this position was the moral high road (all things being comparative), they referred to themselves as Benai Tzadakim, or "The Sons of Zadock" in reference to the High Priest who ruled under King David: the Sadducees. Then came the Syrian conquest and the Maccabean revolt that we know as the Hanukkah story. The prevailing opinion that has endured is that this holocaust against the Jewish people was God’s judgment against Israel for allowing Greek ideology to take root and dilute the Jewish identity. The Sadducees were largely considered responsible. Were it not for their favor with Rome enduring and strengthening over the next hundred years, they likely would have disappeared. A new philosophy rose in contrast to the "live and let live" principle of the Sadducees. These scholars went to the opposite extreme, making every detail of life a practice of obedience or rebellion to the principles of
. Rather than cohabitate with the Romans, these taught that it was necessary to be absolutely distinct and separate. Their chosen name (chosen for them) identified them as "the separatists", or in Hebrew, "Parooshim": the Pharisees. Over the past hundred years, these opposing doctrines had jockeyed for power. The Pharisees largely had the support of the religious majority: the common people. The Sadducees held the authority granted to them by Rome. The tension between them and their distinction from one another, by the time John came onto the scene, became the distinction of their identity. They became known and thought of themselves more on how they were different from the other as opposed to how they were drawn in worship to the Most High. In effect, they had made themselves the definitive authority on truth and righteousness instead of God.
It’s so easy to get distracted from truth when find ourselves continuously battling against error. The scenario is uncomfortably familiar. We can spend a whole lot of energy chasing after those we see who are in error and find ourselves getting no closer to the truth ourselves. In fact, in our passion draw others closer to us, we find ourselves farther away from God.
It reminds me of the children, when I tell them to get loaded up in the van. Invariably, one or two of them takes the burden upon themselves to round up all those disobedient brats who are failing to follow the instruction. The result is that no one is buckled up in the end. They have all rebelled and gone their own- just some feel self-justified and indignant against their siblings for "not obeying and getting them in trouble." I’ve repeated it more than once, "I didn’t tell you to get all the other kids into the van. I told you to get yourself in the van." Or, as Messiah Yeshua said, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Mat 7:5)
It’s way too easy to replace our relationship with God with arrogant religiosity. It’s way too common of us (of me) to come to worship bragging to God about who I am not. It’s time to step back and bring forth fruit meet for repentance.
