I have an essay due soon and I need a quote from the New Testament critiquing people putting an excessive emphasis on texts as opposed to just being good people through their human spirit. I’m blanking out…I would be much obliged!
(I could just reference the parable of the good samaritan and that’s what I’ll do if I don’t get anything before class, but I’d prefer a straight-up verse or two)
“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” (2 Cor. 3:5-6)
What makes you think the New Testament says anything like people can “just [be] good people through their human spirit.”?
Even the Parable of the Good Samaritan is used as an illustration of how to obey the Law of Moses; not a repudiation of the religious texts in favor of the human spirit. Here is the introduction to the parable:
Maybe this is as close to a clear critique of “religious text versus action” as you’ll find in the NT:
Of course what acts are justified by such “love” has been open to many interpretations in history. Smiting the unbelievers, for example, is well documented as something God loves to see in the Old Testament…
Wait, okay, how about Romans 3:20-22:
That last sentence is important. Paul, especially, does not have a particularly favorable view of “the human spirit.”
Skammer, I wrote hastily (wanted to get this essay done), maybe I didn’t phrase my question just right – but I just meant excessive emphasis on textualism.
But I think I disagree with your reading of the Parable. Why a samaritan as opposed to a levi or a cohen? Where did the samaritan get his love from? Surely not the law? I thought that was the point.
Galations 5:14 KJV * For all the law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.*
Galations 5:18 KJV *But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
*
The references to “the law” must be understood in context. There was controversy in the early church as to whether gentiles who had converted to Christianity had to adhere to the Jewish Torah. What Paul states in Romans is that, while it is not necessary for converted Gentiles to follow the Torah, neither is is necessary for converted Jews to abandon it either. In fact, Paul states that if converted Jews believe it to be a sin to violate the jewish law, then for them is still a sin, even if it isn’t for others.
Christ’s admonishments of the Pharisees had to do with the fact that they followed the outward commandments of the Torah scrupulously, but did not otherwise act with kindness and compassion, and were quite proud of how devout they appeared. Jesus’s beef with them was not with how they kept the law, but with their character and other behaviour.
I suspect you will be hard pressed to find a part of scripture that says that it’s ok not to pay too much attention to scripture, as long as you mean well.
The point is that the Samaritan, of all people, was the one who followed the Law to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus was not dismissing the Law; he was upholding and expanding upon it by broadening the difinition of “neighbor.”
I searched through the Gospels (quickly of course) and could not find anywhere where Jesus dismisses the Law of Moses. He almost always rebukes people for reading it too narrowly or not following it at all, or replacing it with other traditions.
Correct you are. I should have clarified, if it wasn’t clear from the reference to “testament,” that the “spirit” referred to in the passage from 2 Cor. was not the individual’s happy fun unicorn spirit, but the “spirit of the law” as opposed to the “letter of the law,” which Jesus repeatedly butted heads with the disciples as well as the Jewish priests over when he saw overly literal or counter-productive focus on the trappings rather than the spirit of the religious laws. None of which meant he questioned those laws in the least or wanted a loosey goosey feel-good application of them:
Matt. 5:17-18 – “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
It says nothing about the human spirit, but it is in the spirit of what you want.
That’s a good one, puddleglum (love your username btw). Jesus is warning against legalism, or following the Law for the sake of the Law, while ignoring what he elsewhere called the “greatest commandments” – love God with all your mind, heart, strength, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.
A few more quotes from Galatians, which may be pertinent…
3:11 *But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. *
3:23-26 *But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. *
*Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. *
*But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. *
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
I realize that I’m equating “faith” with “spirit” here which may seem a theological streatch to some. But there is a principle in christian doctrine which states that people of faith are imbued with the “spirit of Christ”, which renders them capable of making moral judgements without reference to the letter of the law.
Actually, the entire 3rd chapter of Galatians addresses this.
SS
Bpelta, when you say “textualism” do you mean “legalism”? The New Testament is frequently critical of people who are legalistic. The Good Samaritan is an example - Jesus is explaining that a narrow, legalistic definition of “neighbor” is totally missing the point of the law. And the fact that Jesus honors a Samaritan is another way of criticizing legalism. One of the major disputes between Samaritans and Jews was over where one could worship and offer sacrifices.
But your use of the phrase “human spirit” makes me think you’re also missing a key point in the New Testament - it is absolutely NOT a human spirit that makes people good in any way. It is the Holy Spirit which is able to do good through people as long as the people don’t get in the way.
Not New Testament, but perhaps Jeremiah 31:33-34 may be of some help:
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
Maybe Wikipedia’s article on Antinomianism might be of interest.
The Samaritan may have gotten the love from following the law of Samaritan Pentateuch - Wikipedia :-). This parable is not about the law being invalid, it is about people who verbally acknowledge the law but don’t follow it.
I always assumed the point of the parable was yet another creed about how being high in the religious order does not necessarily mean you are a righteous person.
I do know that the two people who refuse to help are valuing their own uncleanliness (which can be resolved fairly easily) over helping their neighbor. It’s not that they are too stuck up to help, as some people assume. It’s the opposite of what Paul said in Romans 9-2-4a (NIV): "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart./For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race,/the people of Israel. "