(Some quotes from James Dunn, chapter 3 in The Living Word, SCM 1987).

The Pharisees regarded Jesus as dangerously minimalist or reductionist with regard to the law - too casual, by half. Dangerously liberal in fact. (See, eg. John 10:34-36, Matthew 5:17-18).

In the (Mark 12:24-7) dispute between Sadducees and Pharisees it was the Sadducees who were being more fundamentalist: only what was clearly written in the law should be part of faith. But Jesus here sides with the Pharisees.

A sharper example is the lex talionis in Matthew 5:38-41. The law said clearly, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But Jesus sets this law aside as relativized by a higher principle - that of love of neighbour.

The issue of whether Jesus thought the law was eternal and eternally valid cannot be settled by reference to John 10 and Matthew 5. He certainly seems to have thought that some at least of the law was not so... He is remembered as encouraging others to sit loose to some laws and to abandon others.

Jesus was open to friendship with 'tax collectors and sinners'. 'Sinner' was a favourite word used in the various factions within Judaism... to describe those who were outside their group... For the Pharisees the non-Pharisee was a sinner, including the Sadducee. For the Essenes the non-Essene was a sinner - including the Pharisee!

But with Jesus there is none of that. He frequently crosses the boundaries drawn by others. He refuses to draw any such boundaries for himself: unlike John the Baptist he did not even require baptism of his would-be disciples... Jesus' ministry was marked by inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. To disciples who want him to tell off an exorcist who exorcises in Jesus' name but who does not follow Jesus, he says, 'Do not forbid him... he that is not against us is for us' (Mark 9:38-40). [Thus] in his relations with wider circles with whom he came in contact his attitude was remarkably relaxed - or should we say 'liberal'?

The command to love the neighbour as oneself is evidently a 'canon within the canon' by which other laws are to be interpreted. Matthew... makes explicit use of Hosea 6:6: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice' (Matthew 9:13; 12:7) - [again] relativizing in terms of applicability some commands of the law by reference to a higher principle.

What, after all, is a 'liberal'? It is a relative term... A conservative's primary concern is to be as faithful to the great truths of earlier days... A liberal in contrast will feel free from such a blanket obligation; he will want to be free to make distinctions between what is more important and what is less; he will not feel bound equally or bound in the same way by all scriptures. The conservative will tend to emphasize the wholeness and integrated character of the revelation: to abandon one part can lead too easily to abandoning all. The liberal will want to say that only by making some distinction between essentials and non-essentials within the whole can the essentials be defined and the whole retained. He will want to sit loose to some beliefs and formulations which the conservative regards as important, perhaps even as fundamental.

If this is a fair characterization, it is hard to deny Jesus the title 'liberal'. Within the religious context, in relation to the dominant traditions and beliefs of his day, Jesus was certainly not conservative. [But] Jesus clearly was nurtured in his own faith and self-understanding by the scriptures we call the Old Testament. He used these scriptures in teaching and debate. He commends them... as a guide to living (Mark 10).

Paul and the Old Testament

One of Paul's primary concerns is to validate his [theological arguments]

from Scripture. For Paul it was a matter of fundamental importance to be able to demonstrate... that his Christian faith and gospel were fully consistent with the OT. [Note also] his use of the formula 'as it is written'. The gospel was 'preached beforehand through the prophets in the sacred writings' (Romans 1:1), and in Christ the promises of the OT have been fulfilled (Romans 4) and in the gospel of faith the law has been properly understood and confirmed (Romans 3:31). Many of the arguments for a 'strong' view of scripture from Paul are good: in Paul's eyes, what scripture said, God said. For Paul scripture was the word of God written.

But Paul's work, more than anyone else of the NT writers, resulted in the separation of Judaism and Christianity. His hostility to 'Judaizers' is reflected in Galatians, 2 Corinthians 10-13 and Philippians 3, not to mention Acts 21. Paul dismissed Judaizing missionaries as preachers of another Jesus, purveyors of another gospel, peddlers of another Spirit...

So was Paul faithful to his Jewish heritage?

(a) Food laws were a matter of great importance to Jews of Paul's day (e.g. Peter's reaction to the vision of clean and unclean animals - 'I have never eaten anything common or unclean' Acts 10:14). But Paul was more relaxed. In 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14 he wants the stronger members who have dispensed with or disregard such food laws to be considerate for the weaker brethren who still want to observe them... but 'all foods have been provided by God richly to be enjoyed' (1 Corinthians 10:25-6).

(b) Re sabbath law: something even more fundamental for the devout Jew. Here was a clear commandment - one of the Ten Commandments - but Paul in Romans 14 speaks of those Christians who regard all days alike, no day as special - an attitude which no devout Jew could espouse. There is no clear word in the NT which validates the abandonment of the sabbath law or transformation of it into a Sunday celebration. Here is an interesting test case for the Reformation principle of the perspicacity of scripture - the rule that the unclear must be interpreted by clear.

(c) Above all, there is circumcision - so clearly affixed to the promise to Abraham (Genesis 17:9-14). But Paul resisted in this issue more fiercely than in any other. How can you foolish Galatians want to be circumcised? Don't you see that if you receive circumcision you destroy your faith in Christ? You are cut off from Christ! Any good Jew would conclude Paul had 'gone off the rails'. The law was the great mark of God's electing love of his people Israel.

Paul is calling in effect for the abandoning of the three distinctive Jewish rituals/traditions which marked God's electing love of his people - circumcision, sabbath, particular food laws. It was bad enough that Jesus broke down boundaries between factions within the chosen people. But Paul was now breaking down the boundaries round the chosen people.

Conclusions

Over against the current religiosity and system of faith and religion, Jesus was liberal, and Paul was a heretic.

To take Jesus' actions with regard to the sabbath law as in effect a new law (what may or what may not be done on the Sunday) is to set oneself at odds with the spirit of Jesus' ministry and to corrupt Jesus' liberty into a new form of Pharisaism.

Both Jesus and Paul stand at the interface between two great religions - Judaism and Christianity. They broke old paradigms, and formed a new one. Of Paul it was said fifteen centuries before Luther, 'Are you alone right and a thousand years wrong?' For like Luther, Paul was one who stood for what had grasped him as divine truth even if that meant standing in the face of certainties of centuries-old truth and tradition.

As Christians the Old Testament continues to exercise normative authority for us only when we read it in the light of the revelation of Christ. Which means that a Christian operates with a canon within the canon, like it or not - the New Testament, or more precisely, the revelation of Christ as presented in the New Testament.

But do we relativize now the authority of the New Testament? Here we must be careful lest we erode the definitive role of the NT for Christianity. However we can now define the canon within the canon - even beyond the NT (as in the case of slavery, and the subordination of women to men), allowing that canon to exercise a similar sifting and evaluating function in our faith and lives.

Was Jesus a liberal? Was Paul a heretic? We answer Yes. God's revelation is a 'living word'. God still speaks to us today, so we must save ourselves from the old mistake of erecting what has been the word of God to us into a restrictive and stultifying dogma for others. Only so can we rejoice in 'the living word.'

Rowland Croucher

June 2005