Eating Things Has Consequences

When God commanded Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and simultaneously provided a Tree of Life for their proper food, he was placing a covenantal meaning onto physical objects. The warning was that in the day they ate of the wrong tree, they would surely die. Did God follow up on his promise of consequence in a real way? Certainly. The day that Adam and Eve ate of the Tree, they died spiritually and became subject to physical death.

So in what way did the fruit of the Tree convey death to Adam and to the human race after him? Was the fruit toxic? Did it carry in it a hereditary disease? Not at all. The fruit itself was good for eating, for God created all things good. It was covenant commandment that was attached to the fruit that conveyed with it consequences. Adam brought death to himself and to his race by eating the fruit, but it was not the fruit that killed him. It was the covenant sanctions attached to disobedience that brought death.

Today, the Church also has a covenant food. A meal with blessings and curses attached to it. It has become common among even Reformed Christians to say that in the Lord’s Supper, nothing actually happens. The bread and wine do not physically become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and therefore it would be superstitious to think that the bread and wine are anything special or that eating them might actually do anything to or for you, right? After all they are only useful as means to help us to remember Christ’s sacrifice.

But that is not how covenant food works. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that those who eat and drink unworthily eat and drink judgment to themselves. The reciprocal is also true. When we eat and drink rightly, we have true fellowship with Jesus Christ. Is it anything inherent in the bread and wine that brings this about? Not at all. But that does not diminish the use of bread and wine, for they are covenant symbols (there is nothing “mere” about a symbol) of what they represent, namely the body and blood of Jesus Christ. To dishonor the elements or to use them lightly is to dishonor Christ himself. Not because the elements have been mystically changed, but because they represent him as their covenant function.

A good analog might be the Reformed doctrine of imputation. When God justifies and declares us righteous, he does so on account of Jesus’ righteousness, in commendation of a righteousness we do not have in ourselves.  Even so, the covenant food is imputed or reckoned to be to us Christ’s body and blood.  It is the God the Holy Spirit who applies the reality of the sign so that it is as if you had eaten his flesh and drank his blood, as he says we must do in John 6.

Just as it is the Spirit that applies the reality of the sign, it is the Spirit that judges the use of the sign.  When Adam misused covenant food it was not the food that judged him, but God himself.  So also if we misuse our covenant food it is God who judges, not the food. There is no active causality in the food, but there is direct correlation.

But the Table of the Lord is intended for life. God has given us an easy enough guideline to follow for worthy partaking that even a child can do it. One who eats of the Church’s covenant food need not be sinless or especially knowledgeable. They must simply eat in faith and in fellowship, waiting for and upon one another in love. This is no forbidden fruit to bring us death. The covenant food is intended to bring life to those who eat it in covenant.  It must be taken in faith, yes, but also God strengthens faith through it.  Surely even faith so small as a mustard seed.

Created in Covenant

Much has been made of the two “variant” accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, especially the use of the name YHWH for God in chapter 2, when the more general Elohim is used in chapter 1. This has led to speculations about different writers from different times in history.  I’m not going to get into all the textual criticism here, but I operate under the assumption that the two chapters have the same human author.

With that assumption, I believe there is a good reason that chapter 2 names God as YHWH.  The name of God is a covenant name.  When we read things from a broader viewpoint in chapter 1, there is a distance apparent from the reader to this God.  But when the writer of Genesis takes a closer look at the creation of man, he gets personal.  YHWH is supremely personal.  It is a name, and it not only tells us what God is, but who he is.  The creation of man in chapter 2 is extremely personal.  God breathes life into him.  He gives them a place to live and food to eat.  In short, he creates man in covenant and gives a commandment together with sanctions and blessings.

In chapter 3 we have an interesting development.  The serpent is deliberate in its way of addressing God, not as YHWH, but merely as Elohim.  The serpent’s words are the only part of the section that address God in general, rather than personally.  In so doing, he seeks to draw Eve away from the personal nature of God and portrays him merely as a despot.

It is as if the serpent told Eve, “God is not near.  He is a domineering power who seeks to keep good things from you, and so there is no covenant with him worth keeping.”

That Your Days May Be Long

Every Lord’s Day my church recites the Ten Commandments, acknowledging the God’s Law as the standard to direct our lives. The fifth commandment in particular is something I’ve wanted to write a bit about for a while. “Honor your father and mother,” the commandment says. But then, as Paul points out in Ephesians, it adds something. It is the first commandment with a promise attached to it: “that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

This is saying something quite different from how it is rendered in some translations. The NLT, for instance, says “Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”  While it may be true as a general principle that those who honor their parents and heed the wisdom of the past generation are more likely to healthy, prosperous, and long-lived, I don’t think that is what the promise is getting at.

God is addressing His people as an assembly in Exodus 20.  The third commandment is followed up with an expression of God’s wrath and blessings upon generations.  We see immediately that God is very concerned about covenant faithfulness over generations.  And now, when we come to the commandment that is addressing the relationship between two generations, are we to presume that the blessings are primarily individual in nature?

I would argue that the blessings promised are also generational, to fit the commandment and the concern that God shows repeatedly in urging faithfulness.  That is, in this commandment God promises not so much that you’ll have long life if you honor your parents as an individual (which nevertheless may be true), but He is promising that a nation or assembly (or church) that is characterized by covenant faithfulness and honor from one generation to the next will likewise be blessed over generations.  If Israel were to be faithful in honoring past faithful generations, God would extend their days in the land.  That your days may be long in the land.

Today, this applies to the Church just as much.  If we as a Christian culture disregard the wisdom of our parents and are characterized as rebels, thinking we know better and have nothing to learn from those who have gone before, then we may forfeit blessings.  God’s kingdom will march on, but we or our children may be left out.  A generation of rebels will beget a generation of monsters.

But if we honor past faithful generations and teach our children to do likewise, then God’s promise is that He will bless in a broad generational way through His covenant with us.  Our days will be long and He will prosper us.  God’s blessings are not for individuals only.  They are from one generation to the next.

Regarding Race

This post is prompted by an article that I saw posted a little while back regarding mixed marriages.  I gave it some time to ruminate, and after much thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is my firm belief that one should indeed marry only within his or her own race.  Now, before you start picking up stones to throw at me, please read on and see if you agree.

It is fashionable today to say that “there is only one race—the human race.”  Things like ethnicity, culture, faith, etc. do not matter.  What matters is one common humanity.  After all, our DNA is pretty much 100% identical no matter what ethnicity you are.  The accidentals like dark or light skin are just that.  Accidentals with no meaning beyond aesthetics.

In a biological sense that’s true.  All mankind does share the same basic physical makeup.  And if physicality was all there was, they would be right—there is only one race, the human race.  But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

On the other hand, we have the reaction against these modern views of anthropology.  There are some who believe that ethnic groups constitute race, and that these races ought to remain distinct and separate.  As such, there should be no marriage or mixing between the various ethnic groups.  Some even appeal to the Bible for such a position (yes, the article I saw was from this site).  After all, God divided the peoples into many tongues at Babel, and thus created ethnicity.  Who are we to try to reverse that?  That would be like trying to rebuild the tower of Babel.

I would propose what I believe is a more Biblical view—that there are only two races.  There is Adam’s old humanity which fell with him into sin and death, and there is the new humanity in Christ that is raised to life and righteousness.  For in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free.  All are one.  In Adam all die, but in Christ are all made alive.

To be in Christ is to be not only a new person as an individual, but a member of a new humanity, born of water and Spirit.  The old man and the former race is no more.  For the believer is a part of that New Creation.

As for Babel, that was a curse upon the old Adamic race.  God reversed that curse at Pentecost, when the confused languages of the many peoples became no impediment to the spread of the Gospel.  The scattering of nations is finished for all united in the Church as the Bride of Christ.  Any attempt at a united humanity apart from Christ as the old Adamic man is indeed a rebuilding of Babel.  Because only in Christ can true legitimate unity be found.

And so, I say again, one must not be joined to another outside of one’s own race.  If you are a member of the new humanity in Christ, how can you even think of being united to one of Adam’s lost race?  And if that person from across the Pacific is your brother, how can you even think of him as a foreigner to you?