Committed Critic

A friend of mine from seminary rejects Christian claims of exclusivity because he says it amounts to God giving humanity a multiple choice test, whose “correct” answer is essentially arbitrary, with heaven and hell on the line. With so many religions that are similar in so many ways, would God really damn us just for happening to pick the wrong one?

Now personally, I think God can do what God wants; adjusting our theology until God satisfies our sensibilities only guarantees that we’re worshiping a God we have essentially invented, so I don’t believe in ruling out these kinds of things too quickly.

Yet my friend’s question is legitimate: How is the traditional Christian belief, offering heaven to those who choose Jesus and hell to those who choose some other religion, different than an unfair multiple choice test? Is there any clear reason a person should be expected to choose Christianity over some other religion?

I don’t have a full answer, and I’ll admit at the outset that my argument will sidestep the nuances of what salvation can mean in different religions. However, I want to look at a passage from Romans where I think Paul explains why the Christian faith is a particular kind of faith and why this particular kind of faith is necessary for the kind of salvation that is promised in Christ.

The text is Romans 4:13-25:

For it was not through the law that Abraham (or his seed) received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. For if the heirs [were determined] through the law, then faith would be emptied and the promise would be done away with. After all, the law produces wrath. (Though where there is no law, neither is there transgression [of that law].)

Therefore, [heirs were determined] from faith, so that [they would be determined] by grace, and so that the promise would be confirmed to every seed, not only to those of the law, but also to those of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all –– just as it is written, “I will make you father of many nations,” at which point [Abraham] put his faith in the God who brings to life those who are dead and calls the things that don’t exist as if they do.

This is the man who, with hope upon hope, had faith that he would become father of many nations according to what had been said, “Thus shall your seed be.” And he didn’t weaken in faith even though he knew [the state of] his own body, which had already died, being about a hundred years old; and he also knew that Sarah, the mother, was dead as well. But he did not waver by losing faith in the promise of God, but was strengthened by faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that he was able to do what had been promised. Therefore indeed “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

But it was not written for him alone that “it was reckoned to him,” but also for us, to whom it would later be reckoned, to those who have faith in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead –– Jesus, who was handed over for our mistakes and was raised for our righteousness.

What strikes me here is that Abraham’s faith, as Paul describes it in this passage, wasn’t just a general kind of faith that God existed, or that God is good, or even that God would keep God’s promise. It was faith in the resurrection from the dead.

Translations tend to obscure this point by translating Sarah’s condition as “barrenness,” which is surely what Paul meant but which hides the fact that the word Paul uses for her condition is simply deadness. Paul could have used the word barren easily enough, just as he could have referred to Abraham simply as old.

I think the reason he didn’t is that it wasn’t enough to say that Abraham’s faith was in a God who can overcome old age or barrenness or long odds or anything else –– except for one thing: bodily death.

Jesus wasn’t rescued from the cross; he was raised from the dead, and in order for our faith to be like Abraham’s, Paul is claiming, both our faith and Abraham’s must be faith in a God who raises the dead.

Just checking the right box?

Certain streams of Christian tradition do appear to treat faith as a box-checking exercise, but I’m arguing here that Paul would reject such a position. And he wouldn’t just reject it with the arguments we most often make today, that faith in God is a relationship rather than a religion, or anything like that.

What is key, at least in this passage, is that there is an explicit connection between what we have faith in and what we receive. The logic is not, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, so I will go to heaven;” instead, it is, “I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, so God will raise me from the dead.” Whoever has faith in the one who brought about Christ’s resurrection will receive that same resurrection.

Resurrection and rebirth, in certain senses, were hardly rare ideas in the religions of antiquity. However, they typically made reference to cyclical events such as the seasons of the year. People had plenty of experience with death and new life, but there was little in their experience to make them expect a one-time resurrection of the kind Paul described, and this explains the resistance Paul is said to have met among Greeks in Acts 17:32.

People might suggest today that resurrection happens every time a new generation replaces another, but that kind of cycle just belies the finality of death: people who die have to be replaced, because they do not return from the dead, almost without exception.

And there’s the point. Paul believed that Jesus rose from the dead, in a particular place at a particular time, and many witnesses testified to it. I can’t prove that Christianity is the only true religion, but I can point (with Paul) to a very particular way in which the faith we are called to is not arbitrary, but is wrapped up in the kind of salvation we hope to receive. We will receive our resurrection because we have faith in Jesus’s.

Many will argue on naturalistic grounds that a dead person, after a certain point, simply cannot be raised. That may be the case. But for those who would deny that Jesus could have risen from the dead, I’m not quite sure what kind of God they’re worshipping or what kind of salvation beyond death they think there is to be had.

A story:

A wealthy rancher was at home one day, when a local brigand showed up at his door with a gang of bandits.

“What do you want?” the rancher asked.

“My men need provisions,” came the reply.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything to spare.”

“Might I point out, sir,” the brigand said slowly, “that my men have been very respectful of your land and your cattle; they haven’t harmed any of your sheep or damaged any of your property. Surely it would be unfortunate if anything –– unfortunate were to happen.”

“Just who do you think you are?” demanded the rancher. “Get off my land!”

“Very well,” replied the brigand. “It seems you’ve made your decision.” At that, he turned, nodded to his men, and walked away.

The rancher’s wife, who had been listening from inside the house, was alarmed by her husband’s response, and she knew she needed to act immediately. She grabbed several large bills from the household money reserves, slipped out the side door, and met up with the brigand, out of earshot of her husband.

“Sir, you’ll have to excuse my husband,” she said quickly. “Sometimes he makes choices without taking all considerations into account.” Handing him the money, she looked at him with a glimmer in her eye and continued: “Please accept my apology on his behalf, and know that I wish you the best of success in your further ventures. And keep me in mind –– I suspect we’ll see one another again.”

“Clearly, you’re smarter than your husband,” he said. “Thank you for preventing me from doing anything –– rash. You have no need to fear any harm from me.”

The woman returned home, and shortly thereafter, the rancher died of unexplained causes. Hearing about the death, the brigand showed up at the house. “I understand your husband experienced a bit of poor fortune,” he said. “My sincerest condolences.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s a pity, but fools tend to get what’s coming to them.” She stood and held out her hand, which he took, and the two of them walked from the house together.

OK, now read 1 Samuel 25 and tell me what you think.

(This reading follows John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 228–29.)

NOTE: From time to time, I hope to do one-page introductions to topics related to the Bible and Christianity that people may not know about. (Since I’m long-winded, for each one I’m limiting myself to one double-spaced page in Word.) You can see my previous one-page take on biblical theology here.

Beginning in 1947, fragments of hundreds of scrolls were found in 11 caves near the Dead Sea in Israel, apparently hidden there by a group that lived nearby at Qumran. Some of the scrolls are Old Testament manuscripts, but others are sectarian texts revealing a group of “Covenanters,” a pre-Christian Jewish reform movement who obeyed Torah as interpreted by their “Teacher of Righteousness,” and who believed (much like early Christians) that their community fulfilled OT prophecy.

Above all, the Qumran Covenanters were Jews, and their concerns were those of second temple Judaism. The Temple was all-important, but God’s presence there (Deut 12:5-7) depended on the Temple’s holiness –– requiring ritual purity, a correct sacrificial calendar, and a proper priesthood. The Covenanters saw the Jerusalem priesthood as (ritually) corrupt, so they moved to the Dead Sea, where their Community functioned as if it were the Temple. Righteousness (i.e., strict obedience to Torah) replaced animal sacrifices to make atonement for the land. Much like Paul, the Covenanters believed that humans were incapable of righteousness on their own, but that God, in his righteousness, forgave them and led them to righteous conduct.

The covenanters were harshly apocalyptic. God had predestined humanity into two groups: Sons of Light (themselves) and Sons of Darkness (everyone else). At the end of days (which they expected imminently), the Sons of Light would march forth and conquer the world, destroying everyone from the “dominion of Belial.”

The scrolls have a twofold significance for Christians: (1) the OT manuscripts are a thousand years older than what we had before; and (2) many of the ideas are startlingly similar to later Christian teachings. Against the common tendency to contrast Christianity with Judaism, the scrolls show just how Jewish the New Testament really is.

Feel free to ask me any questions, factual or otherwise.