Inform Your 'Faith'

   Thanksgiving as it was initially and originally observed was about more than a recreational feast.  In our day, inauspiciously, Thanksgiving has more or less devolved into just that.  Frankly, it would probably be more accurate to say it has taken on the form of a more hedonistic festival wherein folk engorge themselves beyond appetitive norms while inordinately entertaining themselves.  Within this construct participants aim to satisfy their basest and most animalistic cravings.

    If Thanksgiving hasn't taken on those characteristic's, where it is still observed anyway, it has been reduced to an anthropocentric praxis whereby God has been displaced and removed from memory.  Within this construct the resounding  egoist chant, "eat, drink and be merry" is only surpassed by another complimentary ditty" "meat is for the belly and the belly for the meats."  

   This was not how Thanksgiving originally took shape.   The early God fearing colonists regularly and customarily participated in days of "Thanksgiving". Interestingly though these were primarily days of prayer not of communal feasting. The national holiday of Thanksgiving finds its inception at Berkley, Virginia (1619) and Plymouth, Mass, (1621) where the pilgrims and Wamponoag convened to celebrate a successful harvest. Herein lies the reality and profound truth behind Thanksgiving in contradistinction to the contemporary moorings of a commercialized and consumerist sense and practice of titillating nostalgia. To be sure Thanksgiving {not turkeyday} originated as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to God. Not surprisingly the countries early trailblazers regularly recognized the One who preserved and sustained the warp and woof of their existence.  The pilgrim Edward Winslow expressed thanks by saying, "by the goodness of God we are so far from want." These humble Christian's maintained a posture of thankfulness and gratitude towards God the likes of which we have not seen in our day.   

    This is an extraordinary legacy considering the rising prevalence of the European Enlightenment and deism which had made inroads into the early colonies.  Exponents of these burgeoning perspectives and philosophies were very self-oriented and self-centered.  This milieu espoused a scientific and rationalistic modus vivendi that arrogantly elevated man to a place of primacy or better deified man in his world.  Man became the object of glory, adoration and attention. 

    Against this ideological backdrop the pilgrims consciously exerted unabashed effort and energy to maintain an attitude of dependence Godward expressed especially by way or organized and deliberate times of prayer and thanksgiving.  Prayer and thanksgiving was then and needs to be again the hallmark of our Thanksgiving {not Turkeyday}.

    Prayer continued to be the impetus behind an emerging United States. When undertaking the construction of the Capitol directions were given to create a room to facilitate prayer and meditation. In this "prayer room" a stained glass window portrays George Washington kneeling in prayer against the backdrop of an etched prayer which reads, "Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do put my trust" I believe this is from Psalm 16. Also etched are the Latin phrases, annuit coeptis, "God has favored our undertakings", and novus ordo seclorum, "A new order of the ages is born". Moreover the first Continental Congress convocation opened in prayer. Secular history documents the lives of the pilgrims and the founding fathers but fails to acknowledge their highly Christian cultus. Prayer and thanksgiving was an integral part of this countries formative era.

    Amid the many things I could and do give thanks to God for I am especially thankful for the quintessential expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving offered by the Pilgrims and the unparalleled commitment to prayer expressed by the founding fathers.
    May we reclaim this attitude of prayer this Thanksgiving, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20). "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks is all circumstances..." (I Thess. 5:16-18) " Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 118:1)

    If nothing else give thanks for so great a salvation as this that God has so graciously bestowed upon us in, through and by Jesus Christ.

    I recently stumbled upon a rather astute article on Phariseeism and from there stumbled into exerting cognitive energy to consider the topic.  Nothing like working of a mental sweat for the glory of God. Soli Deo Gloria.

     There ostensibly appears to be two prevalent polarities surrounding Phariseeism. 

    The first position advances a stance that claims to be "literalist" oriented.  Within this epistemological nexus credence is given to a strict adherence of scripture  in categories of "ethical imperatives", "lawfully binding" and the like.   To be sure these categories are not inherently wrong or adverse to scripture.  They are biblically appropriate.  But bear in mind that the Pharisee's also exemplified this "literalist" mentality.  In one place Christ even commended their "righteousness" in juxtaposition to the non-Pharisaical ilk, "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees , you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven" (Matt.5:20)  The crux though lies in what this posture invariably engenders:  ethical superiority, discriminatory piety, quasi-spiritual religiosity, self-confidence, self-reliance.  Need I say more?  These characteristics can be subsumed under the sin of "self-righteousness".  This mentality consequently displaces the grace of God and the need for God.  Man becomes the object of esteem and veneration while God is reduced to an afterthought.  These types tend to glory in their achievements, revel in their externalism/formalism and condemn anyone not meeting the standard they espouse.  The latter becomes true because they, themselves become the standard and object of attention as well as religious affection.

    Moreover, the Pharasaic ilk relish recognition as well as routine veneration from those around them.  Instead of leading by example they "manage" those around them while being unwilling to acknowledge any wrongdoing or sin. 

    The Sadducee is akin to him to a degree.  They hold to biblical inspiration to an extent.  The Sadducee's of Christ's epochal period especially approbated and adhered to the Pentateuch but not so much to the rest of the Old Testament corpus.  This manifests in our day when a person elevates a certain portion of scripture  or certain personalities within scripture over others. For example,  when persons elevate Pauls' letters to a place of primacy over and against the gospels or the Petrine epistles, et cetera.

  The second position advances a position that claims to be "grace" oriented. Within this construct a passive posture precipitates a laissez faire perspective.  Grace is employed as an excuse for sinful practice.  Exponents of this modus operandi tend to avoid scripture as functionally and practically normative.  They seem to exhibit a more or less libertarian ethic.  They would suggest that any effort to maintain a biblically ethical norm or ontological standard has been displaced by the application of grace; at least  pneumatologically.  The Corinthians would amorphously seem to personify this category.  Such maleversations tend to be undisciplined amoralists without scruples for authority. 

  Inauspiciously, though the Pharisee in our day uses the existence of this libertarian as justification for their existence; even when the libertarian isn't present.  This is a logical fallacy, arguing from a false premise of causation (non causa pro causa) and affirming the consequent.  The existence of one class of scriptural contrarian does not necessarily validate the role of another scriptural contrarian.

    The Pharisaical minded person is inordinately concerned with everyone else's morality while ignoring their own!  The Pharisee's of Christ's day accussed Him of unrighteousness.  Interesting.  

    To be sure holy writ gives more attention to the dangers of Phariseeism in the form of Judaizer's within the construct of the New Testament corpus and community.  Scripture is clear that the Pharisee is more concerned with addressing the outward and external phenomena of a person than their internal condition.  Christ on the other hand placed more emphasis on the inner condition of a person than external formalism and superficial ethicalism.  The moralist is our modern day Pharisee. They do not understand the gospel and grace because they cannot due to their ethical 'righteousness."

  The proceeding are excerpts from Martin Luther, J.C Ryle and Ligon Duncan III on this very subject of Phariseeism.  Pay attention especially to the characteristics of a Pharisee articulated by these men.

11. Such is the reproach of this fine man and rogue, who is great before the world. Would to God that this one were the only one, and he had not left so many children and heirs. For the whole world with the best there is in it, is altogether drowned in this vice; it will not and cannot forsake it. Where it knows of any good it possesses, it exalts itself, and despises others who have it not, and exalts itself above God and man; and even though they pretend to keep God's commandments they transgress them, as St. Paul says of his Jews, Rom. 9:31, that they truly, in striving after the law of righteousness, have not attained to righteousness.

   What a wonderful thing it is, that those who diligently hold to the law, and worship God to a great extent, are not those who keep the law, as Paul in Gal. 6:13 says: "For not even they who receive circumcision do themselves keep the law," etc. Those are strange saints indeed, who even in doing according to the law, do not keep it but violate it. Who then are those who keep it?

12. This Pharisee and those like him, with their fine discipline and honor, which is truly an excellent, glorious and beautiful gift, which must be praised and esteemed in the world above everything else as the greatest gift of God, more beautiful than all other beauty and ornament, gold and silver, yea, than even the light of the sun. Of him, I say, the sentence is spoken, that before God he is worse than a robber, a murderer and an adulterer.

14. This is already the great sin and vice where he runs counter against God himself, of course blind and hardened, like an unbelieving heathen or Turk, who knows nothing of God, is without repentance, and on account of his great holiness will know nothing of sin, and fears not the wrath of God. He presumes to stand firm by his own works, and does not see that he and all men, even the true saints themselves with all their own righteousness and life, cannot stand before God; but are guilty of his wrath and condemnation,

15. Now since he sins so monstrously against the first and highest commandment, in shameful and horrible idolatry, presumption and defiance, depending on his own holiness, and as there is here no fear of God, neither trust nor love, but he seeks only his own honor and praise, we must conclude that he does not honestly and from the heart observe any of the other commandments, and all is false and lies that he pretends with his prayers and worship, and thereby in the highest degree misuses and disgraces the name of God to adorn his lies, and thereby only brings down upon himself God's wrath and severe condemnation; as God has declared that whoever taketh his name in vain shall not go unpunished.

    For what else is it, but to blaspheme and defy the lofty majesty of God, when he prays and says: I thank thee, God, that I am so holy and good, that I never need thy grace; but I find so much in myself, that I have kept the law, and you cannot accuse me of anything, and 1 have deserved so much, that you are bound to repay and reward me again for it in time and in eternity, if you would keep your own honor, and be a just and truthful God.

18. If in bodily ills it be said of a physician who claims to be an honorable and good man, who when he visits a person sick unto death, instead of giving him good advice and helping to restore him to health, does nothing but laugh and make fun of the wretched man; who would not take him for the most desperate villain that walks the earth, in that he not only withdraws his assistance from an unfortunate person in his greatest distress, but even laughs at his sufferings and wreaks out his anger upon him? How much greater villainy is that of a false saint, who sees his neighbor's soul in danger and in the fear of eternal condemnation, whose duty it would be to risk his body and life to save him; but he refuses not only to do this when he could save him only with one word or a sigh of sympathy, but instead casts it up against him and as much as he is able gladly plunges him still deeper into condemnation.

"Be careful," Jesus said to them. Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." (Matthew 16:6)

I. First of all, I ask my readers to observe "who they were to whom the warning of the text was addressed."

    Our Lord Jesus Christ was not speaking to men who were worldly, ungodly, and unsanctified, but to His own disciples, companions, and friends. He addressed men who, with the exception of the apostate Judas Iscariot, were right-hearted in the sight of God. He spoke to the twelve Apostles, the first founders of the Church of Christ, and the first ministers of the Word of salvation. And yet even to them He addressed the solemn caution of our text: "Be careful and be on your guard."

    There is something very remarkable in this fact. We might have thought that these Apostles needed little warning of this kind. Had they not given up all for Christ's sake? They had. Had they not endured hardship

for Christ's sake? They had. Had they not believed Jesus, followed Jesus, loved Jesus, when almost all the world was unbelieving? All these things are true; and yet to them the caution was addressed: "Be careful

and be on your guard." We might have imagined that at any rate the disciples had little to fear from the "yeast of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." They were poor and unlearned men, most of them fishermen or

tax collectors; they had no desire to follow the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees; they were more likely to be prejudiced against them than to feel any drawing towards them. All this is

perfectly true; yet even to them there comes the solemn warning: "Be careful and be on your guard."

II. I propose, in the second place, to explain "what were those dangers against which our Lord warned the Apostles." "Be careful," He says, "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and of the Sadducee's."  The danger of which He warns them is false doctrine. He says nothing about the sword of persecution, or the love of money, or the love of pleasure. All these things no doubt were perils and snares to which the souls of the Apostles were exposed; but against these things our Lord raises no warning voice here. His warning is confined to one single point: "The yeast of the Pharisees and of the Sadducee's." We are not left to conjecture what our Lord meant by that word "yeast." The Holy Spirit, a few verses after the very text on which I am now dwelling, tells us plainly that by yeast was meant the "doctrine" of the Pharisees

and of the Sadducee's. Let us try to understand what we mean when we speak of the "doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducee's."

(a) The doctrine of the Pharisees may be summed up in three words: they were formalists, tradition-worshippers, and self-righteous. They attached such weight to the traditions of men that they practically

regarded them of more importance than the inspired writings of the Old Testament. They valued themselves on excessive strictness in their attention to all the ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic law. They thought much of being descended from Abraham, and said in their hearts, "We have Abraham for our father." They fancied themselves because they had Abraham for their father that they were not in danger of hell like other men, and that their descent from him was a kind of title to heaven.

    They attached great value to washings and ceremonial purifyings of the body, and believed that the very touching of the dead body of a fly or gnat would defile them. They made a great deal about the outward parts of religion, and such things that could be seen by men. They made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the fringes of their garments. They prided themselves on paying great honor to dead saints, and garnishing the graves of the righteous. They were very zealous to make converts. They prided themselves in having power, rank, and preeminence, and of being called by men, "Teacher, Teacher." These things, and many things like these, the Pharisees did. Every well-informed Christian can find these things in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (See Matthew 15 and 23; Mark 7). Remember, all this time, they did not formally deny any part of the Old Testament Scripture. But they brought in, over and above it, so much of human invention, that they virtually put Scripture aside, and buried it under their own traditions. This is the sort of religion, of which our Lord says to the Apostles, "Be careful and be on your guard."

(b) The doctrine of the Sadducee's, on the other hand, may be summed up in three words: free-thinking, skepticism, and rationalism. Their creed was far less popular than that of the Pharisees, and, therefore, we find them mentioned less often in the New Testament Scriptures. So far as we can judge from the New Testament, they appear to have held the doctrine of degrees of inspiration; at all times they attached greater value to the Pentateuch [first five Books of the Old Testament] above all the other parts of the Old Testament, if indeed they did not altogether ignore the latter.

I. The Pharisee sets his own standard of holiness.

II. Pharisees do not understand the true nature of holiness.

III. Pharisees major on minors and neglect the major issues.

IV. Pharisees love reputation rather than real holiness.

V. Pharisees appear holy on the outside but they are not on the inside.

VI. Lawyers place religious demands on the people but don’t help them to live.

VII. Pharisees pay lip service to the Scripture but ignore it.

VIII. Lawyers actually make it harder for people to believe and understand God’s word.

   And what’s the remedy to that? There’s only one remedy to that and the remedy is the Gospel. The only remedy to Phariseeism is the Gospel, that we would understand it. We have all rebelled against God in sin and pride and we’ve decided to worship ourselves rather than God, and as a consequence we’ve become idolaters and thus we’re under God’s just judgment and we’re guilty and under a proper sentence of death. And in response to that we can’t pretend like we’re not sinners or cover up our sins with external acts of ritual and ceremony. Our sin has to be dealt with some other way and we ourselves cannot forgive ourselves of that sin. We can’t get ourselves out of that predicament. What do we do then? We look to what God has provided in the Good News. We look to Jesus. By faith we trust in Jesus Christ because “God so loved the world that He gave His own Son that whoever believes on Him will not perish but have eternal life.” Those who are born again are saved from the just judgment of God against their sin and they turn away from sin and self in repentance and turn to the Savior in faith for salvation. And then God by His Spirit works in their lives to deal with sin. But sin cannot be dealt with in the superficial external ways that the Pharisees are attempting to deal with it with in this passage. So Jesus here shows us the marks of the Pharisees, but the marks of the Pharisees all get back to one fundamental point - that they do not understand the predicament and gravity of sin and therefore they give the wrong solution.

    So how about you? Are you a person who can really say, “I know my sins,” and deal with those sins not by excusing them, not by diminishing them, not by denying them, not by trying to cover them up, not by doing ritual ceremonies, but deal with those sins in the only way that they can be dealt with and that is fleeing to the cross and saying, “Lord, I am unclean. I am sinful and I can’t clean myself up. Only You can clean the inside of me and You can do that in Your Son who is my only hope”? May the Lord help us to see ourselves and see the Savior.

  We are well served to take note of the complex portrait of the Pharisee and Sadducee in order to insure that whenever we take a glimpse into the mirror we do not see the reflection of either of them looking back at us lest we become them.  The leaven of the Pharisee is especially to be guarded against because the longer we hold citizenry in Christendom, the more we learn of the Scriptures and the longer we walk the road of sanctification the more prone we become to postures of self righteousness and an empty external formalism.

  Those of the clerical ranks need not be so dismissive and incredulous so as to think we are an impenetrable citadel of spirituality and holiness; for the moment we entertain that thought is the very moment the leaven of the Pharisee has made entry. J.C Ryle gives voice to this danger:

"Our office and our ordination are no security against errors and mistakes. It is true, that the greatest heresies have crept into the Church of Christ by means of ordained men."

Credo ut Intelligam

Thomas Aquinas:

    Aquinas’ doctrine of original sin is rather complex as he delves more analytically and philosophically into the minutiae of detail pertaining to that respective subject matter. Worthy of note though is that he essentially articulates Augustine’s position; although it is a more meticulous and exhaustive advancement. There are a plethora of references to Augustin interspersed throughout the Summa Theologica that he pointedly employs to underscore his position on original sin. As it was with Augustin so Aquinas resoundingly asserts the role of tradition and orthodoxy as official support for the position he was enunciating regarding original sin for, “According to the Catholic faith we are bound to hold that the first sin of the first man is transmitted to his descendants by way of origin.”

    For Aquinas our primordial parents existed in a state of original righteousness that included a fixed bias of the will towards God or to use Thomistic phraseology "the mind of man was in subjection to God." Mans soul was in puris naturalibus prior to the fall. This status is irrevocably changed as our progenitor directs his will away from God and subsequently human nature incurs penal defects and physical deprivation. It is through Adams initial act of disobedience that the original righteousness and/or original justice is compromised and to be sure vanquished, “because it destroyed the innocence of our original state, and by robbing it of innocence brought disorder upon the whole human nature.”

    This compromised condition or this corruption of original sin is caused, “by the sin alone of our first parent through carnal generation.” The transmission of original sin for Aquinas is more conceptual or incorporeal from a causal standpoint though it is effectively corporeal from a punitive and practical standpoint. That is, “Original sin can no wise be in the flesh as its subject, but only in the soul.” He says elsewhere that the, “soul is the subject of original sin and not the flesh.” while the, “the flesh is subject to the punishment.”

    Inasmuch as Aquinas speaks of a carnal generation his emphasis is not on physical perpetuity as much as it is a “movement of generation”. The soul of man in which original sin is seated is a continuation of the original form found in Adam as he pontificates, “The soul of any individual man was in Adam, in respect of his seminal power, not indeed as in its effective principle.” In other-words humanity was present at the scene of the crime and subject to its effects in a formal sense and subsequently in a physical sense. Adam’s posterity proceed successively from him with the same condition of soul not through a symbiotic connection as much as a diachronic connection. According to this methodology Adam would serve as an antecedent cause or the first of his type that would produce other comparable species or particulars, “Our first parents were made by God not only as particular individuals, but also as principles of the whole human nature to be transmitted by them to their posterity, together with the divine favor preserving them from death, Hence, through their sin the entire human nature, being deprived of that favor in their posterity incurred death”

    Suitably, then for Aquinas all succeeding particulars or individuality's proceed out of the original form. This formulation is very congruous with Augustinian vernacular. All of humanity then is imbrued with what was characteristic of Adam. In accordance with this logical rationale, then, “All men born of Adam may be considered as one man, inasmuch as they receive from their first parents.” There is to be sure an inextricable organic and collective connection.

    By necessary extension then all humanity suffers from a collective fault or corruption as the originally good human nature, out of which proceeds a naturally good inclination, is resigned to a corrupt human nature out of which proceeds the habits of sin. For Aquinas this aforementioned “good” of human nature is threefold. First, “there are the principles of which human nature is constituted, and the properties that flow from them. This aspect of human nature is unaffected. Secondly, “man has from nature an inclination to virtue,” and thirdly, “the gift of original justice,” that was originally bestowed upon man. It is these two aspects of human nature that are now riddled with corruption. Aquinas posits that our inclination towards good is categorically diminished while it is now characterized by, “ an inordinate disposition, arising from the destruction of the harmony which was essential to original justice.” This corrupt condition reverberates throughout the continuation of humankind not through the generative power of the child but, “by the act of the parental generative power” as Aqunias concludes, “original sin is not the sin of this person, except inasmuch as this person receives his nature from his first parent, for which reason it is called the sin of nature.”

 

Credo ut Intelligam