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  • From: "rabbisaul" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] 'Faith working through love' Jewish versus Protestantview
  • Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:04:24 -0700

John Brand wrote,

We might profit most from keeping it simple (the K.I.S.S. principle)

Well, to be honest, John, I find your post to be an attempt to keep it too simplistic. You continue to impute views to me based upon your own assumptions, as well as to make assertions regarding historical theology which are simply untrue. This makes dialogue difficult.

I will simply comment on *one* aspect of your post here, because I don't have time to respond to everything you wrote.

You wrote,

"Indeed, your positing that to pit sacrifice against mercy is one-
sided is to disagree with Hosea who said it first 'I desire mercy,
not sacrifice' (6:6) and Jesus who quoted Hosea: 'If you had known
what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not
have condemned the innocent" (Matthew 12:7)."

This is precisely what I mean by trying to argue on a simplistic basis. For your interpretation errs on at least two levels.

First, the biblical idiom, "I desire this, not that" cannot simply be taken in complete antithesis. For example, Jesus also said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." Well, we know that He *did* come to bring peace.

Second, your question fails to differentiate between kinds of sacrifice. For Christ's sacrifice is a slf-offering, and once more, Paul employs the sacrificial categories with reference to Christ without apology. Clearly, he does not pit sacrifice against mercy or anything else.

Besides all this, your view requires an antithesis within Scripture that I find unacceptable. If you choose to chop up the texts and say that the prophets disagreed with "the priestly code," etc, that's your choice, but I have no inclination to follow you. If, on the other hand, you do not go that route, then you have to face the fact that sacrifice and mercy must not be so antithetical as you suggest above.

I stand by what I said. Paul sees no antithesis between mercy and sacrifice. But let's not simplistically suppose that all sacrifice is equal, and that once we say the word, we are speaking univocally. Despite your good intention to simplify the discussion, sometimes trying to draw your black/white lines are not going to generate the sort of sophistication necessary to understand the rhetorical point in the passage(s) in question.

tim

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church
(Conrad, MT)

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