“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. … And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” (John 1:14, 16-18)
Fr. Paul Tarazi’s THE NEW TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION: JOHANNINE WRITINGS offers an interesting look at the close parallels between the writings of St. Paul the Apostle and of St. John the Theologian. Fr. Tarazi makes a strong case for the idea that we actually can see the influence of St. Paul in the writings of St. John. Some might think this is backwards: didn’t St. Paul become a Christian after St. John? But historically St. Paul wrote his letters before St. John wrote his Gospel and the Book of Revelation. Tarazi sees in the writings of St. John the influence of the Pauline writings and an effort by St. John to reaffirm the Gospel proclaimed by St. Paul. As Fr. Paul shows both writers were building upon their knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures and the promises of God in their own proclamation of the Gospel. One idea that Fr. Paul presents that I would make a brief comment on:
“However, Jesus is not simply a ‘new Moses.’ He is the goal that Moses looked forward to, the promised one envisioned by Moses, not a mere successor to Moses. As John points out, no one else-including Moses-‘has seen God,’ so no one else-including Moses-could ‘interpret’ God for mankind (the Greek of verse 18 [John1:18} has ‘interpreted’ where the RSV renders ‘made him known’). Jesus’ role as the sole and unique representative of God the Father before mankind makes him effectively theos (God, divine) just as the Father of the Torah is and in a way Moses never could be. He is the content of ‘the word’-as promise before and fulfillment now-and, as such, he is the sole interpreter of who God is and the sole interpreter of the Father’s word contained in the Torah. Laying out this understanding of the role of scripture and the relationship between the old and new written expressions of God’s word is what John’s Gospel is all about.” (pp. 144-145)
What St. John is saying in 1:14-18, is that both the Law and the incarnation of the Word are God’s grace to humanity (”grace upon grace” which in the Greek reads “grace instead of grace”). The Law (the old grace) served its purpose in preparing humanity for the full revelation which God was going to make known in Jesus Christ. But now an entirely new grace has been given to humanity in the Word become flesh. Moses gave God’s Law to the people of God, but He didn’t interpret it or reveal its full purpose and meaning. It is Jesus Christ who interprets (”has made him known”) God, God’s Law and God’s Word to us. Jesus Himself reveals the true meaning of the Law. He doesn’t just interpret each of the 613 Laws of the Torah, but He reveals what the Torah was all about – what purpose the Torah had/has, how it fits into God’s plan of salvation. The Torah wasn’t God’s plan of salvation for the world, but the very thing that would help make that salvation known, and now Christ has revealed what the Torah was pointing to – namely Jesus as the Messiah. We had the Torah, but didn’t have the full understanding of it. Thus St. Paul said we were trying to use the Torah to make ourselves righteous, whereas the Torah was there to reveal God’s righteousness to us – namely His Messiah and the free gift of salvation.
The Torah was to help God’s people be a light to the nations. In Christ the Light has been given to the world.
For another blog on Fr. Tarazi’s book see my Harvest is Plentiful: Send Me Lord to do the Labor
July 23, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Q. Based on what is extended in this post, what would be the purpose of the Law now? Or, what kind of relationship, if any, does the believer have to the Law of God?
July 24, 2008 at 2:44 am
Good questions. If you read Acts 15 you see that the Council of Apostles (who were all Jews) imposed almost nothing of the Torah on Gentiles who were embracing Christianity. They rejected any notion that you have to become Jewish in order to be Christian. St. Paul is the one who seems to most forcefully state that the Law cannot save – and if you try to keep any portion of the Law you are obliged to keep the whole Law and this is a rejection of Christ. The question which Paul’s Christian opponents harped on is as soon as you declare the Law as unessential for salvation, are you not then arguing that Christians are free from all moral restraint? Are you not giving license to sin? St. Paul vigorously denies that Christians are now free to sin and his argument seems to follow two paths: 1) there is a “natural law” that is ingrained in all humans that helps them know right from wrong which is not dependent on the Torah and Christians are obliged to also keep this natural law and 2) the law that guides Christians is the law of love: love your neighbor and never do anything that offends, scandalizes or tempts or misleads them. St. Paul seems to have thought this last law – the law of loving neighbor and always considering the neighbor’s good before one’s own good – was far more morally restrictive than the Torah. St. Paul as do the rest of the Apostles in Acts 15 does say that the Torah was a temporary tutor for humans which did not in fact make the human heart holy. The Law was meant to help us recognize the Messiah, and now that the Messiah has come, the Law has been fulfilled and is no longer essential for following God. St. Paul argues that the Law was given as a way for Jews to demonstrate their absolute faith in God – they believe God and what God promised and ordered: obedience to the Law is the sign of faith. Unfortunately the Jews (in Paul’s opinion) turned the law on its head and said instead that keeping the Law is what made them God’s holy people – so whether or not they believed in God and His promises as long as they kept the Law God favored them. Paul argues the Jews were wrong, and by sending the Messiah God returns to His first command: believe God. If you believe God and God’s promises you will live and act accordingly, but keeping Law will never make you holy.