| To prophesy is to
speak for God. St. Paul in writing his epistles to the church in
a real sense is acting in his office as a prophet. Based on his
personal experience of Christ, he is instructing, exhorting, and
admonishing the church on issues which deal with church administration
and organization, and theology. Of particular importance to St.
Paul, given his Jewish background, is his appraisal of the value of
Abraham, Moses, and David in the Old Testament for the New Testament
church. In God’s dealing with Abraham, Paul sees a
fundamental concept that he applies to Christian teaching.
"Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as
righteousness." This notion that righteousness rested on faith,
trust in God, rather than works is Paul’s basic theme of
Galatians and Romans. Since the Gentiles do not follow the Torah,
their salvation had to have a different basis than the Mosaic
covenant. In embracing the Abrahamic covenant rather than the
Mosaic covenant, salvation becomes the product of faith not keeping the
Law. "By the works of the law shall no man be justified." In the book of Habakkuk, further evidence is found which coincides with Abraham. Habakkuk’s claim "the just shall live by faith" is a conclusion synthesizing much of Old Testament prophesy. After the death of Solomon, the Jewish kingdom was divided by Israel in the north and Judah in the south. With the northern kingdom, prophesy centered around the Mosaic covenant because the 10 northern tribes did not wish to be ruled by a monarch (the Davidic covenant). Amos and Hosea are two northern prophets who chastise the people for their sinfulness in not keeping the Law of Moses. The plight was a direct consequence of sin. The Southern kingdom, Judah, had as their Major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. Though these prophets also felt that the plight of the Jewish people was the consequence of sin, there is an overtone of hope. This hope is based on God’s covenant with David, not the morality of the people. Because God would honor the Davidic covenant, the people would not perish. During the reign of Josiah when Deuteronomy was written around the turn of the 6th century BC, the philosophy which still persisted endorsed the idea that if you did good, good things would happen to you, and if you did badly, you deserved the hardships which would come your way. With Josiah reform was the norm. Judah under Manasseh had allowed severe pagan worship to infiltrate the practices of the people, after his death Josiah quickly began to reinstitute orthodox practices in the land. But with the premature death of Josiah, the people quickly went back to pagan worship and idolatry. It is in this historical milieu that Habakkuk makes the radical shift to faith apart from works. "The just shall live by faith" This changes the direction of the Jewish philosophical system. Regardless of fortune, whether good or bad, salvation hinged on faith, not on works. St. Paul in Galatians and Romans takes up this position with respect to salvation for the Gentile world. Yet if faith is the basis for salvation, on what basis can we expect people to live holy lives and how is it to be accomplished? This for St. Paul is the value of love and it is addressed in his letter to the Corinthians. In Galatians and Romans, Paul is emphatic in his position that Law can not save. Neither the Mosaic Law nor the law of nature, our conscience, is capable of putting us in right standing with God. We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians). Yet the issue of holiness and perfection still remained. Paul in Corinthians meets this challenge. The Corinthians were a born-again, spirit filled community. They had faith and the evidence of the Holy Spirit, yet the community was still very carnal. It is in this context that 1 Corinthians 13 is written. Sandwiched between Paul’s cataloguing the gifts of the spirit in 12 and his discussion of tongues in 14, Paul writes the famous love chapter. Why would St. Paul place this chapter here? It is because it is love which perfects, faith working by love. The transformation of the church demands not only an adherence to ritual, not only salvation by faith, not only by being filled with the Spirit, but ultimately, by walking in love. Love never fails. Tongues shall cease. Prophesy shall fail. Faith without love counts for nothing. Neither faith alone, nor the Holy Spirit alone perfects, Christ is our model of sacrificial love which can bring about a holy people, a people perfect in the sight of God. If we are obedient to church and scripture and love as Christ loved us, the end product will be a church which transforms the world. It is not self-will or no will that brings about this conversion, but rather, a will yielded to the Spirit of love. That for St. Paul is the ultimate experience of being a Christian in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word. Love is the perfection of the law. As we experience a life of love, the mystery of holiness and perfection will become apparent and our lives will change. This will bring about the reign of God and a church perfect in the sight of God, the true value of love. Amen |