parashat qorach Election vs Manufactured Identity
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The Torah portion read in synagogues around the world this week is parashat qorach. Parashat qorach runs from Numbers 16:1 to 18:32. Even though he gets a Torah portion named after him, Mr Qorach is not a hero. Parashat qorach homes in on the ugly consequences of Qorach’s rebellion. Let’s read the description of the plague which followed Qorach’s rebellion. Numbers 17:6-14 In English this will be Numbers 16:41-49. The versification is different.
“The next day the entire congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moshe and against Aaron, saying, ‘You two have killed the people of HaShem.’ It transpired when the congregation gathered against Moshe and against Aaron that they turned toward the tent of appointment. And behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of HaShem appeared. Then Moshe and Aaron came before the tent of appointment. HaShem spoke to Moshe, saying, ‘You two elevate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.’ They fell on their faces. Moshe said to Aaron, ‘Take the censer, put fire on it from the altar, add incense and go quickly to the congregation and expiate on them, because indignation has gone out from before HaShem; the plague has started. Aaron took as Moshe said and ran into the midst of the congregation. And behold, the plague had started among the people. He put the censer and expiated on the people. He stood between the dying and the living, and stopped the pestilence. The dead by the pestilence were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died in the Qorach affair.”
The Final Portion of Scripture picks up Israel’s murmuring and the swift destruction which followed. In the Final Portion of Scripture this sad chapter in Israel’s history serves as a warning to non-Jews. Corinthians 10:1-11.
“For I don’t want you to be ignorant brothers and sisters, that our fathers all were under the cloud and all passed over through the Sea. And all were immersed into Moshe by the cloud and by the Sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Mashiach). But God wasn’t pleased with the majority, for they were killed in the wilderness. These things have become examples of us, that we might not lust for evil things, as they lusted. Neither become idolaters, as some of them. Just as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.’ Neither let us fornicate, as some of them fornicated, and there fell in one day twenty-three thousand. Neither tempt HaShem, as some of them tempted Him, and perished by snakes. Neither murmur, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer. But all these things happened to them by way of example, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
At the time of the Apostle Shaul, the story of Israel’s interaction with God, as recorded in Israel’s Scripture, has become the Gentile’s story too. The Gentiles who first entered this story saw themselves as one people of God in continuity with Israel. Most Christians have rightly understood that by entering Israel’s story, Israel’s blessings belong to them too. The Apostle Shaul says the Gentiles now share Israel’s spiritual food and Israel’s spiritual drink and Israel’s immersion. That much of Israel’s experience Christians are glad to make their own.
But participation in Israel’s story doesn’t stop with Israel’s benefits. The Apostle Shaul further says,
“But all these things happened to them by way of example, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
To the same extent that Christians share Israel’s blessings, Christians also share Israel’s admonitions. When the Apostle Shaul says all the things that happened in Israel’s story are now examples for Gentiles, he recounts several of Israel’s national disasters. Israel’s history is not confined to a string of blessings. Israel’s history is also a string of disobedience and disaster. Israel worshipped the calf, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Israel tempted HaShem, and perished by burner-snakes. Israel murmured after the rebellion of Qorach, and perished by the destroyer [Numbers 16:41-49]. Christians get in on all those sad chapters in Israel’s history too.
Before God called the Gentiles to serve him, he had overlooked their lust and their idolatry. But when the Gentiles became a part of Israel’s story, they too became accountable. Jesus-confessing Gentiles share Israel’s sins and Israel’s punishments. Adopted sons and daughters can’t be immune from punishment. When the Gentiles joined God’s family, they became liable to family discipline.
Christians today often look at the record of Israel’s punishment as an indication that God has rejected Israel, but a little reflection should put that fallacy to rest. Punishment is actually indicative of a familial relationship. Hebrews 12:5-8.
“And have you completely forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons? ‘My son, do not despise HaShem’s discipline, neither give up under his rebuke. For whoever HaShem loves he disciplines, and whips every son whom he receives.’ If you endure discipline, God treats you as sons. For what son is there whose father doesn’t discipline him? If you are without the discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate, you are not sons.”
When my kids pull some dumb stunt with the neighbor’s kids, who do I punish? Do I wade into the neighbor’s kids? Of course, not. I only punish my own kids. If you pay attention to who I punish and who I don’t punish, you can sort out who’s mine and who’s not. The fact that I punish my kids doesn’t prove I’m disowned them; on the contrary, it proves I’m taking responsibility for their upbringing.
Israel’s prophets also understood the relationship between family and punishment perfectly well. The prophet Amos [3:1] declared to Israel,
“You alone have I known from among all the families of the earth, therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.”
The reason the Gentiles didn’t get punished was God had no formal covenant relationship with them at the time. During the time of Amos God didn’t “know” the other families of the earth; God knew only Israel. As the Psalmist [147:19-20] put it,
“He declares his words to Yaaqov, his statutes, and his judgments to Israel. He has not done so to any Gentile; regarding judgments they have not known them.”
From Father Avraham and Mother Sara until Mashiach, Israel was an only child, and Israel alone received remedial correction. But no matter how grievous the sin and severe the correction, God never rejected his people. The prophet Hoshea compared Israel to an adulterous wife from whom her husband separated for a time, but whom he never stops loving, and whom he eventually takes back. God never divorces Israel. The prophet Isaiah represents God as a husband who runs out of patience, a husband who packs his wife off to her parents. Having gotten rid of her, his anger subsides, and he resolves to bring her back home. Isaiah 54:6-8.
“For as a wife forsaken and forlorn in spirit, HaShem has called you. As a wife of youth when she is rejected, says your God. In a brief moment I forsook you, but with great love I will gather you. In a foaming fury I hid my face from you, but with everlasting loyalty I have loved you, says HaShem your redeemer.”
The Bible emphasizes that beneath his outbursts of frustration, beneath “the foaming fury” of which Isaiah speaks, flows the undercurrent of God’s love — deep and strong. God’s anger with Israel lasts for a brief moment, but his love and loyalty are everlasting.
Israel’s relationship with God has been a very up and down thing. Israel hasn’t always been faithful, but there’s never been a question of God dumping Israel. As the Apostle Shaul says in Romans 11:28, 29.
“As regards divine choice they are loved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and choice of God are irrevocable.”
The Apostle Shaul is saying that God’s choice of Israel was not conditional on good behavior. God’s election was never dependent on what Israel brought to the table. God’s election has always been a matter of unconditional love. Pure grace. Our Torah is very upfront about this. Deuteronomy 9:4-6.
“Do not say in your heart, that when HaShem your God pushed them out in front of you, ‘On account of my righteousness HaShem brought me to inherit this land.’ Rather on account of the wickedness of these Gentiles HaShem is disinheriting them in front of you. Not on account of your righteousness or on account of your uprightness of heart are you entering to inherit their land, but on account of the wickedness of these Gentiles HaShem your God is disinheriting them in front of you and in order to realize the word which HaShem swore to your fathers, to Avraham, to Yitzchaq, and to Yaaqov. Know that not on account of your righteousness is HaShem your God giving you this good land to inherit, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
Unfortunately, Christians have frequently appropriated Israel’s story in an inappropriate way. Christians have expropriated Israel’s benefits, but not Israel’s admonitions. Instead of applying “all these things which happened to them by way of example,” Christians have been very selective about which examples in Israel’s story to apply to themselves. During the Middle Ages Christians had a rule for reading Israel’s story. Rupert of Deutz [Patrologia Latina 167:1379] expressed it,
“All good things in the Bible refer to Jesus Christ and the Church. All bad things in the Bible refer to the Jews.”
Even when Christians didn’t express their procedure in a formal rule, in practice they read the Bible schizophrenically. Christians lifted the admonitions, threats, exhortations, and punishments from their context and took them as a general characterization of the Jews. According to this schizophenic reading, Israel’s history is just one apostasy after another: the Jews never responded to God’s love and never paid the slightest attention to the prophets he sent them. Christians turned the Jewish record of self-criticism into a remorseless denunciation of the Jews. According to this schizophrenic reading, the stories of repentance, the expressions of hope, the deliverances, and the blessings are either stories about proto-Christians who lived prior to Mashiach or they are promises to future Christians. The positive aspects of the biblical record are strictly Christian; the negative aspects are strictly Jewish. The schizophrenic reading made for a Church beyond criticism and an Israel beyond redemption.
How did Christians ever come up with such a one-sided way of reading Israel’s story? Basically, it was because Christians didn’t view themselves in terms of God’s election. They viewed themselves as a voluntary association, not as a community called out by God for special service. Because Christians didn’t define themselves in terms of God’s election, they sought their own marks of identity.
Some Christians sought to distinguish themselves by a particular sort of psychological conversion experience. Other Christians sought to distinguish themselves by their superior moral standards. Some Christians sought to distinguish themselves by their particular interpretation of Bible prophecy. Other Christians sought to distinguish themselves by their heritage of the most self-sacrificing missionaries and martyrs. Some Christians sought to distinguish themselves by their record of miracles and the most effective spiritual warfare. Other Christians sought to distinguish themselves as those possessing the most unchanging ideas, the oldest traditions, or the purest doctrines.
Now granted, in and of themselves any of these distinguishing marks are quite useful. Subjective experience helps you internalize your relationship with God and to bond to your family. High moral standards are useful if they inform your interactions with other human beings. A pioneering heritage is useful if it inspires you to follow God into new territory. A formal creed is useful if it articulates your relationship with God in terms that are coherent to your contemporaries. But pegging Christian identity on any of these useful items was not a smart move.
Whichever mark of identity Christians chose for themselves, the net effect was to exclude Jews and most Christians from their fellowship. When a given group of people sets themselves as the standard, most others don’t measure up. The price of self-identity has been divisiveness. Christians have felt compelled to delegitimize anybody who doesn’t share their particular mark of self-identity.
A few months ago I was speaking with a fellow Seventh-day Adventist pastor. In the course of our conversation we discovered our approach to the Book of Romans was quite different. He blurted out, “Well, if you don’t read the way I do, you have no business belonging to my church!” I hope he really didn’t mean it like it came out, but it illustrates a common enough attitude. Christians often assume membership in Mashiach’s body means we should somehow read the same way or think the same way.
Now on the personal level, all Christians admit they sin, but that God is eager to forgive us and set us straight. Because we realize God’s love is unconditional, we’re free to openly confess our personal sins without fear of rejection.
But unfortunately, Christians don’t think God treats churches and synagogues with the same unconditional acceptance as he treats individuals. Christians suppose that God’s acceptance of churches and synagogues is conditional on perfect faithfulness and flawless teaching. They equate institutional error with rejection. That’s why most Christians find it impossible to recognize that churches and synagogues in serious theological error are still God’s chosen instruments entrusted with a vital mission to a dying world.
The price of self-identity is not only divisiveness. The price of self-identity is also impenitence. Christian communities are impenitent because they don’t believe God forgives communal sin. With their theology, owning up to communal sin is tantamount to saying that God has already dropped them and moved on to somebody else.
When people with this fear of rejection are convinced that change is absolutely necessary, what they do is break off from their parent body and start a new denomination. A fresh start gives them a clean slate. The only mechanism people who think correcting error spells rejection have is to disconnect themselves from their institutional past. Since they don’t believe God forgives institutional sin, they arrange to forgive themselves.
Where does that terrible fear of rejection come from? It goes back to supersessionism, back to replacement theology. Replacement theology teaches that Israel messed up once too often, and God replaced Israel with Christianity. When Christians mess up once too often, they’re in for the same treatment. Replacement theology teaches God’s love for communities is conditional on performance. Replacement theology teaches that when the elect community is in error, God unelects them and starts over again with some different bunch. Replacement theology teaches that God rescinds his everlasting covenant when his partners don’t hold up their end of the bargain. According to replacement theology God’s holy bride is always on the verge of divorce. According to replacement theology God’s sons and daughters are always about to be disowned and kicked out of the house. Election is precarious. Maybe God will treat us like we imagine he’s treated all those who’ve gone before us? With replacement theology we live in constant fear.
I’ve spoken elsewhere on how replacement theology has caused Christians to delegitimize Judaism, to degrade and to demonize Jews, and ultimately to exterminate Jews. But replacement theology has also damaged Christians’ own self-image. Replacement theology has warped ecclesiology; it has skewed the way Christians view their own Church.
If God is about ditch the Church and pass our mission on to somebody else, then obviously we need to be ready to jump ship at a moment’s notice. We don’t want to invest ourselves too heavily in this ship if it’s about to go down. Whenever Christians disagree among themselves they should quickly disengage and disentangle themselves from those God is rejecting. The logic of replacement theology leads to factionalism.
When Christians view one another as competitors, we don’t bear one another up, we don’t correct one another’s faults in love, and we don’t exercise mutual accountability. We don’t weep and rejoice together. When another group of Jews or Christians falls into sin and error, it’s hard for us to be very sad. Whenever the competition slips up, it increases our chances that we’ll pick up some of their disgruntled members. How can we be sad when their loss might be our gain?
In order to understand biblical election, you need to pay attention to the difference between a religion and a family. A religion is a voluntary association of like-minded individuals who agree to serve a certain god a certain way. You can opt in or out any time you so desire. If you don’t like what people are doing, you can join some other group doing something else. Belonging to a voluntary association is conditional on circumstances. People drift in and out of voluntary associations as their interests and ideas change. You can always change your religious affiliation by changing your mind. The decision is yours.
Belonging to a family is different. You can’t opt in and out of your family. Right or wrong, family is family. When your family prospers, your standard of living improves. When your family’s hurting, you hurt too. Even if your family abuses you, you don’t have the option of joining some nicer family down the street. Belonging to a family is permanent and unconditional, because the decision to join wasn’t yours in the first place.
I don’t think it’s accidental that when the Bible talks about God’s relationship to his people, the Bible speaks in terms of family, not in terms of a voluntary association. The children of Israel are God’s sons and daughters. Israel is God’s bride. The Bible talks about the house of Israel. These are all family relationships, not voluntary relationships. These relationships are all terribly permanent.
Israel has always been more a family than a religion. Evidently, God desired a family who could not easily walk out on him. He commanded the sign of their relationship to be involuntary and irreversible. Infant male circumcision is the permanent sign that Israel didn’t volunteer to be the chosen people. We Christians too have been called by God to serve him whether we like it or not. We are Christians whether other Christians like it or not. We are brothers and sisters when our family makes us proud, and we are brothers and sisters when our family makes us ashamed. We’re God’s children when we’re basking in the smile of his face, and we’re God’s children when we’re getting punished. As Jesus tells his disciples,
“You did not choose me, but I have chosen you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” [That’s in John 15:16]
We are Christians because of what God has done, not because of what we’ve done. Mind you, sometimes the treatment we receive is a consequence of our own behavior. But our identity is based on God’s choice of us, not on our choice of him. As the Apostle Shaul said in 1Corinthians 10, the good things and the bad things that happened to Israel are all examples for Jesus-confessing Gentiles. The Church gets in on the whole story of Israel, not selected episodes alone.
The fact that our identity is in God’s hands is actually a big favor. This means we don’t have to manufacture our own. We don’t have to have the cleverest missionaries or the oldest traditions or the toughest moral standards or the most steadfast martyrs or the most spectacular miracles or the most infallible teachers. We don’t have to put anybody else down or outdo anybody else or surpass anybody else to have a special place in God’s plan. We don’t have to worry about maintaining some supposed monopoly. We can rejoice in the marvelous way God has led us in the past and get on with the special mission he’s entrusted to us. If we have institutional sin, we can confess our institutional sin, and God is able to forgive us our institutional sin without us having to disband. We don’t have to tear our family apart in order to get our house in order! How about that? Isn’t that great news?
Because our identity is in God’s hands, it’s not under threat. Our identity isn’t coupled to our current theological understanding or to our current behavior or to our current level of spiritual performance. Those sorts of things are all subject to change (We trust all changes will be for the better). But who God has chosen us to be is bigger than any of that. God isn’t going to reject us for retracting our errors. The Church isn’t going to disappear because we fix something or make improvements. We’re actually free to do whatever needs doing!
For people whose sense of identity has been forged in an atmosphere of winner-take-all competition, divine election may take some getting used to. How am I supposed to cooperate with God’s other worshipers when they don’t always think the same as I do? How am I supposed to interact with people who have different cultural assumptions than mine? How am I supposed to participate in a community where apostasy is wide-spread? How can I identify with Christians who pursue a false-christ?
My answer to you is that as the catalyst of the endtime remnant, Seventh-day Adventist Jews and Seventh-day Adventist Christians must follow the example of the biblical prophets.
In ancient Israel, the prophets expressed their loyalty by sticking by the disintegrating people of God. Because they remained insiders, the warnings which the prophets delivered were eventually taken to heart. But during their own lifetime the prophets suffered punishment for precisely the sins they had warned against. Ezekiel was deported and died in exile. Jeremiah was kidnapped by Jewish rebels and died in Egypt. The prophets didn’t claim diplomatic immunity. The prophets didn’t ask God for special treatment, and they didn’t receive special treatment. The prophets didn’t go off and start a new Israel or a reformed Israel or a more pure Israel. The prophets didn’t leave Israel in the lurch. The prophets didn’t disassociate themselves from apostate Israel. The prophets stuck by God’s disobedient children and suffered the consequences right alongside the culprits.
The same is true of the apostles. According to 2Corinthians 11:24 on five occasion the Apostle Shaul underwent the synagogue punishment of forty stripes save one. Forty stripes save one was the maximum discipline the 1st century Jewish community could impose on its members. Have you ever stopped to wonder why the Apostle Shaul submitted to the pain and humiliation of a public flogging on five separate occasions? Most Christians today would say, “If that bunch has so little appreciation, I’ll just take my membership someplace else where my talents can be put to better use!” Why did the Apostle Shaul stick by the synagogue and suffer for the privilege, when synagogue leaders were obviously in the wrong and he was in the right?
The answer is because for the Apostle Shaul synagogue was home. For the Apostle Shaul the synagogue was not a religion or a voluntary association. It never entered his head to resign because he was misunderstood and mistreated. You don’t resign from family. Right or wrong, family is family.
The same is true for Jesus. Jesus was executed by the Romans as a political insurgent. Crucifixion, you know, was the punishment reserved for insurgents. Jesus was crucified between two captured insurgents, what are termed ληστη,j in Greek and in rabbinic Hebrew. But Jesus wasn’t an insurgent and Jesus wasn’t captured.
Jesus voluntarily took up the cross. Jesus chose to identify with the messianic fanaticism of his generation. Jesus identified with the misguided attempts to bring the kingdom of Heaven by murdering collaborators and suicide tactics against the occupation forces. During the 1st century Israel was racked by a long series of such messiahs. The night he was betrayed his own disciples were carrying swords to slit Roman throats. The Galilean crowds who followed him hoped this charismatic miracle worker might be such a violent messiah. They hoped the God of Israel might honor this Jew’s willingness to die for the Torah. But rather than withdraw his candidacy, Jesus voluntarily chose to be a failed messiah. He set his face for Jerusalem to confront the powers that be and lay down his life. Although he was not guilty of insurgency, Jesus totally identified with rebellious Israel. He would not abandon his friends and family, however mistaken they might be about God’s way of inaugurating his kingdom. Jesus died for the sins of Israel right alongside the culprits.
Like Jesus, we Seventh-day Adventists must stick by our brothers and sisters, even when our family is wrong. I should say especially when our family is wrong, because our brothers and sisters need us the most when they’re wrong. Look what God was able to accomplish because Jesus, Shaul and the prophets continued to identify with Israel when Israel was wrong! We must learn to function within this dysfunctional family. Trying to help from outside isn’t effective. We are the yeast that leavens the whole loaf; we are the salt that makes the whole meal taste good. We can only effect change from within. For his own inscrutable reasons, God has committed himself to redeem us within the framework of this particular family. In the great scheme of things, this is our place.
This understanding of ourselves as a family also has important ramifications for our witness to the Jewish community. As Seventh-day Adventists we can’t present ourselves to Jewish people as Mr. Clean, because they know better. Along with other Christians, Seventh-day Adventists have been purveying the theology of fratricide. When the theology of fratricide got six million Jews killed and many other Christians stopped short in horror, Seventh-day Adventists went merrily on preaching the same old message of delegitimizing Israel as though ethical consequences meant nothing to us. At best we can only present ourselves to the Jewish community as God’s forgiven people.
But isn’t that the best witness we can present in any case? God’s forgiven people. Not only has God forgiven our individual confessed sins, God has also forgiven this broken family. We serve a God who can forgive institutionalized sin!
We don’t have to exclude anybody else in order to be loved. We need no longer be dominated by our fear of rejection. In Mashiach, the God of Israel has forgiven this precious family and called us to himself. Not that all of us are on the path of rectitude yet, but Seventh-day Adventists are repenting of supersessionism and it is God who is turning us around! What could be a more powerful witness to God’s transforming power? What could be better news for God’s people Israel? If the Church is repenting; Israel’s turn will certainly be next. Redemption is drawing nigh.
