Ephraim My Dear Son, My Firstborn

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the LORD.
~Jeremiah 31:20

There have been some interesting discoveries in archeology recently. The ossuary of James the Just is a curiosity; the so-called “tomb of Jesus” is a farce. Most recently though, has been a discovery that actually informs and helps to fill out the picture of what the first century Jewish context might have looked like. The Hazon Gabriel (Revelation of Gabriel) tablet isn’t garnering as much attention as the previous two discoveries mentioned, but in my view it’s a more important find.

First I want to take a brief look at prophetic language in the Bible itself, particularly references to Ephraim. A professor of mine once suggested that the apparent special affinity of Yahweh to Ephraim in the Old Testament is simply because the tribe of Ephraim lies at the heart of Israel geographically. So speaking of Ephraim is a sort of poetic short hand for referring to Israel as a whole. Sure. Sounded plausible at the time, and I didn’t have any better explanation, so I accepted that. It sort of makes sense of passages like Jeremiah 31:20, though it doesn’t necessarily make sense of the fact that Judah and Ephraim are often mentioned side by side. It also doesn’t explain why Ephraim would seem to be singled out as opposed to the rest of Israel in passages such as Jeremiah 31:9:

I will make them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble,
for I am a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Poetic language? Perhaps. But when we begin to look at the literature of the period, we find that those of Jesus’ time did not read references to Ephraim as simple prophetic short hand. As messianic expectations intensified under first Greek then Roman occupation, the name Ephraim came to be closely associated with Messiah.

In the Hazon Gabriel, Ephraim is even portrayed as ranking above David. We see phrases like “My servant David, ask of Ephraim [that he] place the sign; (this) I ask of you.” The current issue of Biblical Archeology Review does a good job of highlighting messianic references to Ephraim in the literature, and brings them to an interesting conclusion. The reference to Ephraim here in a messianic context ties in with post Second Temple Jewish sources that scholars had always attributed to Christian influence. For who is Ephraim of the Old Testament?

Genesis 46:20
In Egypt, Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph . . .

That’s right. Ephraim is the son of Joseph and a type of Christ. He is Joseph’s younger son, specifically. However, Jacob blessed Ephraim before his older brother Manasseh (Genesis 48:14-20), echoing the blessing of Jacob before Esau.

Because of the messianic references to Ephraim throughout the Old Testament, many Jewish scholars began to look for and refer to the Messiah as the “Son of Joseph.” The BAR article theorizes that the Messiah the Son of Joseph historically becomes associated with a suffering servant Messiah, whereas the Son of David is the conquerer.

Until recently, many modern scholars had dismissed “son of Joseph” references as Christian corruptions of or influences on Jewish texts. But artifacts like the Hazon Gabriel are making them think again.

Another interesting feature of the Hazon Gabriel is the reference to “three days.”

77. Who am I? I am Gabriel …….. [ ]
78. You will rescue them………….. for two [ ] …[ ]
79. from before of you the three si[g]ns three .. [ ]
80. In three days, live, I Gabriel com[mand] yo[u]

It’s the first known pre-Christian and extra-biblical reference to a resurrection on the third day. Biblically, third day resurrection has its roots in Hosea 6:1-2.

Come, let us return to the LORD;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.

Chrismation, Confirmation, and Excommunication

Liturgists throughout the ages have long recognized the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi. The law of prayer becomes the law of belief. So if you want to reform the theology of the church, first reform its worship. Belief will follow. The same holds true of the reverse. A little superfluous drama or symbolism, a little unwarranted addition to the service of worship, can have far reaching negative consequences. In this short article I want to address the question of how children came to be barred from participation in the Lord’s Supper.

In the early church, the newly baptized were admitted immediately to the table. There is a great deal of evidence from the writings of the church fathers that this was the case even for infants.

At some point in the first couple centuries of the Church, someone had the slick idea to add a little oil to the waters of baptism. More precisely, a small element was added to the rite of baptism in which the newly baptized was anointed with oil to symbolize the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This anointing, called chrismation, was originally viewed as simply a part of the baptismal rite. It is an extra-biblical addition to the sacrament. It must have been a fairly early tradition, since it is found everywhere in the ancient churches, and also in denominations today that hold claim to the ancient church. So the alien element of oil was interposed between water and supper.

In the Eastern Orthodox churches, we can see something similar to what this rite might have looked like in the ancient church. Baptism is immediately followed by anointing with oil, and the newly baptized and chrismed is immediately admitted to the Eucharist. This immediacy in administration of the sacraments is maintained in the East because any priest could both baptize and chrismate, and then administer the elements. In the West, the story is quite different.

Conscious to guard the hierarchy of the bishopric, which it considered to be essential to the doctrine of apostolic succession, the Roman church ruled in the West that while the priesthood could baptize and administer the Eucharist, chrismation required the services of a bishop. Without the anointing, the baptism was deemed incomplete. As the church spread throughout the empire into more rural areas, it became hard to come by a bishop. Priests could administer baptism, but without the authority to perform the rite of chrismation, they could not complete the initiation of converts or their children into the new faith.

More and more, chrismation had to be delayed until a bishop passed through the area. Because chrismation was technically a part of the baptismal ritual, the baptism was not complete until this anointing of oil had been given. The result was that administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was also withheld from those who had been baptized but whose baptism had not been “confirmed” by a bishop in chrismation.

Often it could be years before the services of a bishop were available. A traveling bishop would pass through, chrismate all those who had been baptized but not confirmed, and then admit them to the table of the Eucharist. By then, those who had been baptized as infants but had never been chrismated would be old enough to be aware of what was taking place. In order to prepare these children for the anointing of oil and the partaking of the Supper, a system of catechism was introduced. The baptized would be instructed in the doctrines of the church and so made ready for chrismation and communion.

And so the Western rite of Confirmation was born. As chrismation was increasingly separated from baptism in the greater part of the Western church, confirmation came to be seen as a separate sacramental rite—one that drove a man-made wedge between baptism and communion. If you consider that chrismation with oil, whether in baptism or years afterward, is an extra-biblical practice, then the fact becomes unavoidable that this later development amounts to the unnatural and unlawful excommunication (barring from the table) of baptized Christians.

It is a curious thing that this rite continues even in Reformed churches today, albeit without the oil. Granted, they don’t consider it a sacrament, and Confirmation as such is sometimes optional or simply called something else. But the essential idea continues that there must exist a period of instruction between baptism and communion, at least for those who are baptized as infants, and a “credible confession” must thereafter be made in order to gain access to the table.

By introducing catechism as a prerequisite for chrismation, the Western Roman church placed an emphasis on understanding as a requirement for confirmation (of baptism), and thus for communion in the Eucharist. When the Reformed church rightly did away with the oil of chrismation, they nevertheless retained the rite and all its implications for the sacraments. I find it ironic that a controversy regarding the communication of children today in Reformed churches has its roots in two erroneous Roman practices: the chrismation of oil in baptism and the safeguarding of apostolic succession in the hierarchy of the church by requiring that a bishop must confirm a baptism administered by a priest.

The lex orandi of the Roman church has become the de facto lex credendi of of Western Christianity, including many Reformed Christians.

Bibliographic Sources:

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“Does God Exist” Bahnsen vs Stein Debate at University of California, Irvine

Okay, everyone, don’t miss this! For a limited time, Covenant Media Foundation is giving away recordings of the classic debate between Dr. Greg Bahnsen and Dr. Gordon Stein, held at the University of California (Irvine) in 1985. Here’s the link:

https://www.cmfnow.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=23

Everyone, on either side of the debate should either order the CDs or download the mp3 files, free of charge (shipping is even free). If you have ANY interest at all in the issues, you won’t want to miss hearing this one.

Dr. Bahnsen was a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary, a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and had a Philosophy Ph.D. with a concentration in Epistemology from the University of Southern California.

Dr. Stein was the Senior Editor of Free Inquiry Magazine, Director of the Center for Inquiry Libraries, Consultant on the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal, Editor of the American Rationalist Magazine, God Pro and Con: A Bibliography of Atheism, and the Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism.

Both were uniquely qualified to argue their positions.

There was a slight glitch with CMF’s ordering system, which would not allow transactions of $0.00, so you now have to pay $0.01 ($0.02 if you download both parts of the mp3 version). Believe me, it’s worth every penny.

Order yourself a copy and pass the link along to all your friends!