Trans-Hermeneutic Unity

Level 4

Statement for Unity As Being Primary

Further Thoughts on Fostering Trans-Hermeneutic Unity in Today’s Reformed Church 

by  

 The Rev. Dr. A. Rand Peabody  

 Specialized Minister, retired 

 Classis Rockland-Westchester, Regional Synod of New York   Reformed Church in America  

A currently looming question regarding any movement toward RCA schism would seem to be this: with regard to our different hermeneutical styles, are we intent on playing a zero-sum game the way competing sides  would? Or rather, are we striving first and foremost to emphasize our  brotherhood and sisterhood in Christian faith, and in THAT spirit remaining  dedicated to “working out our salvation with fear and trembling”?  (Philippians 2:12) The zero-sum approach polarizes. It claims: I can only be completely right if you are totally wrong. Merriam-Webster defines  “zero-sum game” as being “a situation in which one person or group can  win something only by causing another person or group to lose it.” Hence, were we to take such an approach, it would lead inevitably to division and  typically to the denigration of those on the opposite side. And it would  quite obviously not be in the spirit of Christ.   

 However, is that what is really going on? My brother Herb Kraker  writes: “The task in front of us is to properly discern if disagreements over  same-sex marriage are simply harmful divisions, or if they are properly  seen as a matter of church discipline. Division or discipline, that’s the question in front of us. It seems that a number of times the thought of anyone leaving the RCA over this matter have been referenced in a pejorative sense, implying that such an act is a matter of division.”   It is the “either-or” aspect of this observation that I am attempting to address by suggesting that we do indeed have, through the grace of God, a unity in Christ that transcends ANY particular hermeneutical approach. 

So what I am asking is this: is what I would call “trans-hermeneutic unity” a possibility for our life together, going forward? And if not, why not?  

 One reason for the “why not” would appear to be the notion that there is only one possible way of concluding the “right” or “wrong” of same gender marriage. This seems currently to be presenting an impasse on both sides of the question. Yet is it on such shoals that our RCA Ship of  Christ should come to ruin? Rather, let those who would feel inspired to  turn aside from embracing denominational division therefore not require  others to exert or else not exert church discipline in a way that runs counter  to their conscience; and let none of us use conscience as a pretext for counseling division.

 Admitting, then, that we will not find full hermeneutical agreement on  the issue at hand, and especially to avoid sinking simply into zero-sum dynamics, it seems important for the cause of achieving a trusting and  respectful trans-hermeneutical Christian unity in today’s RCA that those  who would support same-gender marriage as being in line with their  thoroughly considered and well-exegeted Biblical understanding, and those  who would not, be able to explain HOW such a conclusion can be derived  on the basis of their own fair, full and conscientious appraisal of Biblical  texts. I have been attempting to do just that, in my previous papers, with  regard to Romans 1:22- 27, I Corinthians 6:9- 10, I Timothy 1:10,  Revelation 22:15, and the Council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15. In  making my several points, I am not expecting full agreement, but simply the  acknowledgment that this is the way some of us have come to understand  these texts— after, first, exercising due diligence with pains-taking  language-based exegesis, and second, undertaking the study required to  achieve an informed contextual perspective, and, at least as important as  the first two, striving prayerfully to include the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  For once we allow the dynamism (Greek: “dunamis”— “dynamite?”) of the  Holy Spirit to enter into our exegesis, that can and often does result in the  creation of a spectrum of understandings about exactly what it is that  warrants discipline. 

In such light, then, I think we can agree that the Bible NOWHERE abjures faithful marriage, even faithful plural marriages back in Old Testament times. Torah did not even shrink at concubine liaisons, if, as with Abraham and Hagar, they were entered into for the sake of child bearing. What it DID and DOES abjure are the sorts of sexual activities that run counter to faithful marriage. And so, along with forbidding three specific idolatrous practices common in the Mediterranean world, the Council of Jerusalem, per Acts 15:9, banned what it called “porneias”, a  generic word describing all forms of sexual immorality.  

Herb Kraker states: “if it is true that two people of the same-sex who are married. . . cannot enter eternal life, that. . . is clearly a huge matter”.  Indeed. I would totally agree. But no New Testament writer, certainly including Paul, spoke to that reality. Why? Because they never encountered it.  

In short, the apostolic leaders would have been focused primarily on  anti-marriage sexual expressions such as adultery, fornication, and incest  (incest being harshly condemned by Paul, for example, in I Corinthians 5:1- 9); secondly, sex that took the form of pagan-temple male prostitution  (the malakoi—arsenokoitai practice castigated in I Corinthians 6:9-10; I Timothy 1:10; Revelation 22:15); and, in addition, temple-based orgies  that allowed for every possible gender configuration and style of  intercourse, such as the practices of the cult of Isis in Rome which Paul  roundly condemned (Romans 1:22-27). Plus, based on Jesus’ crystal clear statement at Matthew 5:31-32, sex after divorcing a sexually faithful  partner would almost certainly have been considered adulterous, and  hence deemed porneias by the Council— and, unlike in many of our  churches today, disciplined accordingly. And yes, in the absence of any  societal institution of same-gender MARRIAGE in First-Century Israel, or in the wider Mediterranean world of the day, any and all same-sex activity  known to the Council would obviously have been deemed fornicatory, or  idolatrous. But if in the eyes of the leaders and writers in the earliest New Testament church, since monogamously maintained  MARITAL relationships were seen as being the only fit containers for sexual activity, the conclusion that the Council “would have” banned and  disciplined monogamous same-gender marriages, had they existed,  cannot, in my opinion, be stated with binding exegetical, contextual, or  even Holy-Spiritual authority. And if not them, why us?  

 Now, another significant divergence that seems to prevail in Protestantism today is related to our varied hermeneutical perceptions  about the weight granted to diverse parts of Scripture. For example, we  must consider whether a single verse of Old Testament Scripture like Leviticus 20:13 can be seen to weigh equally in the balance scale with  regard to the range of major New Testament teachings about loving, not  judging, and the Lord’s fervently expressed desire for the unity of the  faithful.  

 Any answer to such a question, from either side of the matter, must  surely consider what our understanding is of Matthew 5:17-18, where  Jesus is recorded as saying: 17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the  Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” So how do we understand whether the Law of Moses is still in effect, and if it is, in what specific ways? And how are we to apply Romans 10: 4 to this sphere of understanding: “For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (NRSV)? In addition, the writer  to the Hebrews puts it this way: 15 For this reason he [Christ] is the  mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the  promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems  them from the transgressions under the first covenant. 16 Where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who  made it is alive. (Hebrews 9:15-17, NRSV)

In other words, Jesus does not intend to say that the Law of Moses  will be destroyed through Him. But rather He is asserting that it will be fulfilled in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is the full meaning of “It is finished” in John 19:29-30: the Greek word there being tetelestai, “accomplished”. And Christ explains this “accomplishment”  further In Luke 24:44, where he says to his disciples prior to the  Ascension, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with  you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets,  and the psalms must be fulfilled.” (NRSV)

At the time of the Sermon on the Mount, however, Jesus was of course still speaking in a momentary “meanwhile”— for those saving events had not yet happened. The “will” of Hebrews 9 had not yet been  executed. And so the ENTIRE Law of Moses was still in full effect in Israel.  But not for long— at least not for long with regard to those whose faith in  Christ as the long-awaited “Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew  16:16, NRSV) would find fruition in the events of Easter and Pentecost.  SO— a pressing question for us current-day believers— which I believe is  a crucial one: what weight of authority do Torah commandments continue to wield for Christians, and especially those that are not directly part of the  seemingly universal tenets of the Decalogue, or else of Jesus’ own  Summary of the Law, drawn from Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18b? (And I have to consider: if the Lord had actually regarded all parts of  Torah as being of equal spiritual weight, why would He have directly answered the lawyer’s entrapping query about identifying “the greatest commandment in the law”— Matthew 22:35-40, NRSV?)   Regardless of what our hermeneutical answer to this question about Torah authority may be, this is a place where we seem to get really stuck, denominationally speaking. And that’s because different Christians have, and have ALWAYS had, different ways of understanding the authoritative nature of God’s special revelation via Word and Spirit. Some see all Scripture as being, in effect, frozen in time— and hence timeless in  possessing an authority that has been spiritually fulfilled but not legally  altered in Christ. Others seek to be attuned to what they perceive to be the ever-adapting mediation of God’s Spirit in the headlong course of human history (much like the prophets were). BOTH sorts of hermeneutical approaches can —and should— be seen as upholding our Belgic Confession, Articles 3 and 7. Semper reformanda need not undermine sola scriptura; rather, it can serve as a method of enlarging our ongoing  understanding of Scripture. Or not.

So what of Leviticus 20:13, and its companion verse, 18:22?   Many will simply say, “It’s in the Bible, it’s God revelation, and that’s  that.” Yet others of us will stress that God’s revelation is ongoing in the  Bible, and we can provide evidence that Biblical morality ITSELF “evolves”.  For example, in Deuteronomy 25: 5-10, which is either from the time of  Moses or at the latest from the reign of Josias (640-609 BC), we find approval for the institution of levirate marriage, according to which a man is  required to marry his brother’s widow if his brother had died without an heir.  That relationship would continue until a son would be born and named for  the brother, as a way of carrying the brother’s lineage forward. Well, would  we suggest that such a thing, though it’s “in the Bible”, should guide our  lives today? Leviticus 18:16 didn’t think so either! That verse is a blanket  prohibition against marrying one’s brother’s wife. So Biblical morality  “evolved” in the course of the century (or more) between the writing of  Deuteronomy and the compiling of Leviticus. And that is because God’s  inspired revelation evidently tailored itself to fit an all-encompassing  change in His peoples’ circumstances. Leviticus, circa 535 BC,  generally reveals a stricter moral code than the earlier versions of Mosaic  Law, the most probable reason being the need to satisfy Israel’s liberator, Persia, which was just then “incubating” a re-born Israel by allowing the people to leave Babylon and return to Jerusalem.  

 Persia by that time had come to be dominated by Zoroastrianism, a  religion that featured a theistic dualism, with twin gods representing the  powers of Light and Darkness. This dualism had spurred in Persia a far  stricter edition of older Assyrian, Babylonian, and other ancient  Mesopotamian laws. Particularly in Assyria, there had been a more liberal  view on matters of male same-gender sexuality, along with an  accompanying permissiveness of practice, including the institution of same gender marriage. But by the time of the liberator Cyrus, Persian mores  had shifted, and so it was incumbent for the post-exilic compiler of the  Leviticus Code to bring the Law of Moses into a form that would be deemed appropriate for a newly re-constituted vassal state. That meant that Israel  needed to demonstrate a higher degree of black-and-white thinking about a  matter such as male same-gender sexual expression. And so, in Leviticus  20:13, which appears to be the final iteration of Leviticus 18:22, even the  DEATH-penalty was applied!

In that light, let us press the query: did God instigate this sort of  hyper-punitive codification because of the precarious setting in which re born Israel found itself? It certainly seems so. God at the time saw fit,  in fact, to inspire the ENTIRE Holiness Code of Leviticus 17—26. But  does that mean that this sort of a now-ancient codification was meant to  remain binding on the Christian church centuries later? Or did God’s  revelation keep evolving? If so, it would not be because the nature of  God had changed, but because God was choosing to lead His people  onward, breaking into their lives in new ways. Ultimately, our Lord God’s  purposes of redemption culminated in the “amazing grace” of the Gospel  (the Good NEWS) of Jesus Christ.  

So I stress again: I am IN NO WAY denying what to me is the hermeneutical fact that the entire Holiness Code was deemed by God to be a necessity at the time! As with the ravens that fed Elijah, God has always given His people the information. the inspiration, and the tangible  support they have needed to survive intact, even if simply as a remnant.  God knew perfectly well about Israel’s precarious situation in the newly  minted Achaemenian Empire. But the Word and Spirit of divine revelation didn’t END there. And thankfully so!  

For example, civil constraints aside, would we find it to be in accord with the Spirit of God’s love revealed in Christ to seek the death penalty for  same-gender “offenders”, per Leviticus 20:13? I think we would all say,  “NO!” But if not, why not?  

Dr. Matthew Rasure, a Harvard PhD in Semitic studies, expresses a concern about “how unbalanced the interest is in the protasis [the first part  of a verse] to the complete neglect of the apodosis [the latter part]. We Protestants tend to fabricate current worldviews out of the collection of the  protases of verses . . . and to imagine that the apodoses are absurdly  barbaric and have no relevance, currency, and consequence.  “In the cases of the Leviticus prohibitions against ‘lying with a man as  with a woman’, the consequence is execution. These two things must be  considered together. We cannot embrace the world in which the protasis of  the verse is the “will of God,” but the apodosis is somehow a violation of  our understanding of God’s will.

“Put another way, if the collection of the apodoses causes us pause, causes us to imagine that God’s will must be sought in-between the lines or  in light of some other revelation, then would it not also follow that we apply  the same hermeneutic of nuance, revision and rethinking to our  understandings of the protases? Unless we are truly willing to cast the first  stone in the execution, we should probably tread lightly in imagining the will  of God is revealed so clearly in only the first halves of the sentences.”  

Some may cite passages like Exodus 21:17 (NKJV) as evidence  that the protasis can indeed be divorced from the apodosis: “And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” This chapter of Exodus 21 is what we might call “the Decalogue with teeth”,  since it is preoccupied with establishing legalized consequences, many of  them capital in nature. The Fifth Commandment of the previous chapter of  Exodus— Exodus 20:12 (NKJV): “Honor your father and your mother,  that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is  giving you”—- is expressed in the positive, and holds forth a very  beneficent outcome as a result of obeying it. But Exodus 21:17 casts the  same commandment in negative language, and appends a dire penalty.  So yes, this would be one particular case in which Christians might want to  accept the commandment without the penalty, perhaps by saying that, oh  well, the penalty was a necessary aspect of the “desert justice” of the time.  And we might leave it at that, and even see such an approach as creating a  paradigm, except for the fact that Christ Himself did NOT. For it is one of  the specific Old Testament verses that Jesus cites. And when he does, he  does not decry or abrogate its death-penalty. Instead, he introduces an  AMPLIFIED HERMENEUTIC. At Matthew 15: 1- 8 (NKJV) we see Jesus engaged in one of his continual confrontations with the Pharisees and their Phariseeism: “Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of  the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” 3 He  answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded,  saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or  mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father  or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to  God”— 6 then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. 7 Hypocrites!  Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 

Jesus expects something MORE than the sort of piety that expresses  his hearers’ legalized, but non-spiritual, obedience. He expects His faithful followers henceforth to follow His own perfect example by embracing the SPIRIT of the commandment, and not simply its letter.  

So what I say is this: in a phrase that I have only recently coined, I  seek to incorporate a “Christ-shift” into my exegetical conclusions. I seek  to understand what Jesus would counsel from the PERSPECTIVE of the  sola-gratia spiritual fulfillment He brings to the entire Law and the prophets.  

Though granted, even applying such a “Christ-shift”, we will still  have plenty of disagreements about how we understand and apply His teachings. But our Lord Jesus’ one “NEW Commandment is this: “Love one another as I have loved you”. (John 13:34-35). That’s the “mandatum” of “Maundy” Thursday. And THAT is, or ought to be, the unimpeachable source of our CHRISTIAN UNITY. For it is the unmistakable mark of the ever-developing covenant community which by  God’s grace we are part of— the ecclesia— our church. For “by this everyone will know that you are MY disciples”.

So if we are tempted to play a zero-sum game about who’s Totally Right and who’s Totally Wrong, let’s try something else instead. And let’s  do it in the Name and Spirit of Jesus Himself, striving to discover ways to renew, rather than simply to destroy, what has proved over four centuries  to be the admittedly TRANS-hermeneutic UNITY within which our  denomination has managed to persevere in witness and mission— here  in America, and far beyond. That long history of unity has remained ours  not because of who WE are, but only through Christ our Lord, in Whom,  alone, we see our parent God (John 14:9), and in whose Holy Spirit we  are gifted spiritually, and made fruitful.  

Seeking to affirm anew in the RCA of the 2020’s our essential  oneness through faith in Him would truly amount to our putting first things  first. So may we start with THAT, and then, in that light, prayerfully and conscientiously embody the conclusions of our own particular understandings when it comes to the varying ways in which we interpret God’s Word.  

 Saying that, I find myself returning indeed to the place where I  began when I wrote my first paper. And indeed I do so with even greater  conviction than before. That spiritual “place” is John 17:20- 21 (NKJV): where Jesus prays, “. . .not. . . for these alone [the disciples], but also for  those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be  one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in  Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Amen to that! 

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Response

Concerning a zero-sum game, this is not a matter of playing a board game on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Nor is it a non-consequential game where we both start out with 16 game pieces, then I capture five of your pieces, so you end up with 11 pieces and I have 21. What is being discussed here is a matter of either obeying God or disobeying Him. What is at stake here is nothing less than where people will spend eternity. Ever since Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible God’s people have understood the relevant Bible passages such as I Cor. 6 to teach that if two men engaged in sex they would not inherit the Kingdom of God, i.e. they would spend eternity in hell. When theological issues are disputed one often hears, well, it’s OK to agree to disagree because this is not a matter of salvation. Well, same-sex marriage is a matter of salvation. The stakes are very high.

As far as division or discipline are concerned, Dr. Peabody is certainly correct when he states that unity is important. We must work hard to maintain it. However, if God says two men who engage in sex will not spend eternity in heaven but some theologian says it’s OK for those two men to engage in sex, then Christians must obey God rather than following that theologian.  

Perhaps it would be good to include a clarification concerning my statement that Dr. Peabody quotes from an earlier paper. I said that two people of the same-sex who are married will not be able to inherit the Kingdom of God. It would be more accurate to state that this is about two people of the same-sex engaging in sex and whether or not they will inherit the Kingdom of God. The reference to them being married was a reference to current day practices, namely the topic of same-sex marriage. Making a distinction between marriage and engaging in sex would be of no value as probably very few of such marriages would not include sexual activity.

In this paper, reference to I Corinthians 6:9-10 includes a reference to pagan temple male prostitution. That was very likely relevant for some of the instances of malakoi and arsenokoitai, but those two Greek terms are not restricted only to pagan temple male prostitution. From other accounts where those two terms are used they refer to instances where masters engaged in sex with their slaves. Those terms are not limited to instances of abuse only. They simply refer to passive and active forms of homosexual activity. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that I Corinthians 6 only prohibits male prostitution at pagan temples. We certainly cannot be confident that it only prohibited those kinds of acts without exegetical background showing that it is limited to those acts only. Peabody’s statement that I Corinthians 6 is limited to only certain types of homosexual activity is basically a statement of opinion.

Peabody is right when he points out that what was acceptable in the Old Testament, as far as marriage was concerned, changed over time and was considerably different from what we would accept today. However, what is noticeably absent in this section is any comment on the New Testament passages that address same-sex acts. If Romans 1, I Corinthians 6 and I Timothy 1 do not prohibit same-sex acts, then it could very well be correct to say that we should no longer give weight to Lev. 18. However, if those New Testament passages do prohibit same-sex acts, then it gives weight to passages that are from the Old Testament, before significant changes took place, because the prohibition is taught in the New Testament as well as the Old, and, as such,  is God’s will for marriage for all time.  

Peabody’s view is that those who believe that Leviticus 18 is still relevant are inconsistent because they don’t believe in keeping the penalty for it. However, when Christ repeated Ex. 21 in Matthew 15, I do not believe He was teaching that those who curse their parents should be put to death in the New Testament era. If He was teaching that, the entire mainline New Testament church has been inconsistent. In Matthew 15 Christ was speaking to those who were still living in the Old Testament age with its laws. Perhaps He included the reference to the death sentence as a way of emphasizing the importance of honoring father and mother in contrast to the practice of the Pharisees. The Old Testament taught that if one really didn’t honor ones parents they were to be put to death while the Pharisees made light of honoring parents and found ways to work around honoring them.

One important matter to take note of here is the fact that the underlying premise of Peabody’s particular emphasis on the importance of unity is the position that there are viable alternative interpretations of the relevant passages that do in fact support same-sex marriage. This discussion of unity has now been going on for several months. As far as viable alternative interpretations are concerned, such alternatives were really only proposed once. Responses were given to those interpretations and the claim was made that they fell short, they are in fact not viable. No comment on those responses has been made. This leaves the impression that as long as an effort is made, that is good enough. These supposedly viable alternatives do not need to be able to stand up under examination. As long as an effort is made, that is good enough. These alternative interpretations have been stated to be the result of rigorous exegesis (Acts 15 paper). If they are the result of rigorous exegesis, then they would be able to withstand scrutiny. It is good to discuss hermeneutics, to talk about how hermeneutics should be done, but what is even more important is that we do good, sound hermeneutics. It is my estimation that such solid hermeneutics supporting same-sex marriage are still absent. If that is, in fact, an accurate evaluation, we can have little confidence, if any, that we will be obeying God by being supportive of same-sex marriage.

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Conclusion

This paper again strives to build a bridge of acceptance to those who would allow same-sex marriage. However, it runs into the same shortfall as the other papers in that it does not address whether or not I Corinthians 6 and I Timothy 1 require Christians to hold to morality and separate themselves from other Christians, even, if they commit immoral acts. Any attempt to build a “Trans-Hermeneutic” that permits those who accept same-sex marriage and who practice it to continue as good members in a denomination without addressing whether or not this is a moral matter cannot find full acceptance with those who disagree with the practice of same-sex marriage.

For this reason this point will not be elevated to Level 3. If there is an error in this line of reasoning, please let it be known in the comments below and those comments will be taken into full consideration.

Thank you.