New Thoughts (04/04/13-04/05/13)
The reason for Matthew’s inclusion of this scene is abundantly clear. It is right there in verse 15. The soldiers had spread this tale, and the locals had repeated it to the point that it was largely accepted as fact without question. So many had said so. It must be true! And, Matthew is writing primarily for the benefit of the Jews, who were most likely to have heard and heeded the story. This accepted truth would be a major impediment to faith. It needed countering, and Matthew has now provided the counter argument.
Of course, this results primarily in a he said / she said sort of argumentation. Yes, you have lots of folks spreading this version of events. But, let me tell you where that version has come from. Of course, those folks are saying much the same: Yes, these Christians claim their Messiah rose from the grave, but we have the report from the guards who were there: His body was stolen, not resurrected! So, who are you going to believe?
This is the question of the ages! Who are you going to believe? And, here’s our problem in this age of scientific inquiry and instant information: We cannot arrive at an iron-clad, irrefutable answer. Not to the satisfaction of the scientific mind. This is going to be something of a theme for this study, I think. There is a fundamental issue with the whole mindset that rejects anything that cannot be proven absolutely. In the end, there is little to nothing that can be proven absolutely. At some point, every scientific inquiry must hinge on what remains theorem. That theorem may have a truly substantial pile of evidence behind it. But, it remains a theorem. Why? Because the absolute proof cannot be arrived at. How can one absolutely prove the identity theorem, apart from testing it against every possible number? But, then, how can it be tested against every possible number when there exists the infinite series theorem? If there is always another number after this one, then one can never complete the proof. We must take it on faith.
Oh! That hurts! Science taken on faith? Well, yes. Of course! It must be. The only reason it hurts is because we have taken to assuming an absolute dichotomy between science and faith. But, this dichotomy is built on a failure of definitions. Faith, by the popular conception of it, is a matter of simply deciding to believe a thing without any reason for doing so. It is assumed to lack even the first shred of evidence. Speak of faith and the majority of folks will automatically tack the word ‘blind’ to the concept. What other sort of faith is there, but blind faith? But, this falls entirely short of the reality.
Coming into this particular study, there is the promise made by the priests to the guards. “If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will win him over.” We will convince him that you are innocent of any act deserving punishment. We are looking at the Greek peitho, which is a matter of convincing by argument. It is, for all that, exactly what they are attempting to do with the guards themselves. They seek to convince the guards by argument of both monetary gain and of promised defense of their honor, that they should dispose of their honor. They seek to convince the guards by the argument that they, themselves, shall talk to the governor should it become necessary, that they have the wherewithal to keep these guys out of trouble.
Well, consider: These guards have watched the priests pretty much tie Pilate in knots for the last several years. That will count as evidence for the priests’ argument. They also know that governors tend not to last too long in Roman practice. That will count as evidence for the priests’ argument. The odds look good for them. Big cash bonus, limited period of risk, and even should they be caught out and the priests prove incapable of keeping their bargain, the money’s still there, and how much trouble would they really be in, anyway? A bit of punishment, maybe a revocation of privileges for a time. But, the money’s still theirs. What’s to lose? It’s a winning argument. What facts they have, and what they can surmise or infer from those facts says they can, ahem, have faith in what the priests are saying. They are convinced.
I trouble myself with this development of thought because that same concept of peitho lies at the root of the concept of faith, pistos. Linguistically, pistos derives from peitho. Philosophically, faith derives from convincing evidence. This is the linkage that we need to reclaim. Faith doesn’t pop into our heads from nowhere. It is built upon evidence. The evidence may not be 100% conclusive. But, as with any scientific theorem, what evidence we have is still 100% in concord with the theorem, no conclusively counterfactual point has been discovered. And, the body of evidence supporting the theorem is substantial.
Considering the factual, evidentiary foundation for faith, it might trouble the reader to come across this statement in my notes: He reigns, and if our senses report otherwise, we must needs remind ourselves of His Truth. Isn’t that, you might be saying, exactly the sort of blind faith you’ve just said is not the stuff of Christian faith? Well, no. I admit it has that ring to it. A cynic, or a pop-culture aficionado would perhaps paraphrase it as, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?” But, there’s a grain of truth in that sarcasm. Our eyes are perfectly capable of lying to us. The whole art of camouflage counts on that fact. Naval men of old understood quite well just how inclined our senses are to report to us just exactly what we expect to see or hear.
This is built into our pattern recognition circuits. Think about it. They have shown that our capacity for unraveling misspelled words is so great that if only the first and last letters are right, we’ll probably arrive at the intended word practically on auto pilot. If we have seen a particular location often enough, we are likely not to notice something which may have changed in that scene. We know what we expect to see, and that tends to be what we see until somebody points out the aberration. This is part of why, in my trade, we frown on designers verifying their own work, at least not to the exclusion of outside validation. What we verify tends to take on our own suppositions and intentions. We intend it to work this way, and it does, and therefore it must work. But, if our suppositions are wrong, then we have a dead circuit. This is also at least a part of why the scientific method insists on reproduction of experimental results by a third party. It is an effort to eliminate self-delusion from the results.
Take that back to my potentially troubling statement. If our senses report otherwise, we must needs remind ourselves of His Truth. What does this mean? It means, my friend, that there exists the vast body of evidence to which we can refer. There is the evidence as to the trustworthiness of what He has caused to be written, what He has recorded as His promise. There is the evidence of history. There is the evidence that for all the skepticism which has been brought to bear on the matter of Christian doctrine, for all the claims that have been attempted to discredit the historicity of the record, the record has emerged unscathed. The evidence in support of historicity is too great. There is also the evidence of experience, and that is no small thing! Our faith is not built solely upon dusty records and what some would pass off as myths from the ancients. Our faith is built upon personal experience and encounter. We have had our experiments, if you will. We have seen our own experiments echoed and reproduced by the experimental work of others. Faith is theorem just as theorem is faith. There is a sufficient body of evidence to back either, and there is insufficient evidence to discredit either.
So, consider Matthew’s purpose here. Both sides of the argument as to the reality of resurrection have put forward their evidence. Equally important, both have put forth their argument as to why the other side ought not to be believed. Let us consider.
On this side, the disciples. They are a scraggly lot, for the most part. They are out of towners, Galileans, Jews, yes, but rendered suspect by their constant interaction with the Gentiles around that region. They claim their Teacher, Jesus, who was undeniably put to death by Pilate, has risen from the dead, ascended to heaven, and so on. They claim He is God, even while claiming to adhere to the tenets of Judaism, particularly, the “God is One” clause. But, look at them! They have no training, and without this Jesus, they have no influence. Of course they have motive to fabricate some fanciful tale about Him. For our part, we have the soldiers who were there that night. They admit they fell asleep on the job, and that’s entirely believable isn’t it? Long watches, dark night, pointless mission; why wouldn’t they? They say the disciples (who have good cause to promulgate this resurrection nonsense) stole the body by night. Who are you going to believe? Soldiers willing to face punishment for admitting their failure, or a bunch of ragtag Galileans seeking to make a name for themselves?
On the other side, the disciples. They are religious disciples, let us recall, and the public will have heard quite a bit of what they were taught. They are accused of coming to the grave by night, on the Sabbath, on a high Sabbath, to defile themselves by contact with a dead body. But, then, they say they did no such thing. Can they produce witnesses to attest to their whereabouts? Perhaps the owners of whatever place they’ve been staying. Or, are they still going out to the Gethsemene place? But, consider their version of events. Angelic visitations, bodies risen, the soldiers not asleep, but knocked out by what they are witnessing. OK. That’s all pretty hard to take. But, this description Matthew puts forward. Soldiers taking payola. That’s certainly believable. And, the idea of the priests being behind this is sadly not going to be particularly unthinkable either.
So, the question becomes which is more likely. Is it likely that a group of very religious Jews decided to completely violate the Sabbath, defile themselves, steal a corpse and stash it so well that none has ever found the remains, then lie about the whole deal by making up so fanciful a tale? Is it likely that they would keep bringing up all these witnesses, hundreds of witnesses? Is it likely that some goofy conspiracy for the sole purpose of creating a religious sect was able to suborn that many people to back up these outrageous claims?
On the other hand, is it believable that the priests who sought to destroy this Jesus, a thing well known to us, the priests who have been profiting off the sacrificial markets, who are politically dependent on Rome and show no real belief in God, were able to bribe some Roman soldiers, who are well known to enjoy a bit of extra cash, to spread some story about this dead man in whom they have no stake, and less interest?
Either way, the answer must be taken on faith, in the end. But, it’s best taken on a faith that has weighed the evidence such as it is. We can get into the whole matter of how these gospel accounts differ in what they report. I am quick to admit that it is exceedingly difficult to fit the accounts together into a single, coherent picture. But, it’s not impossible. Even this jumble of events around the unsealed tomb, while reported in very distinct fashion by each author, is not impossible to envision as a single series of events. I have done what I could to lay out one possible sequence of events that would admit of the disparate accounts. There are others.
One could argue that the disciples, and their Teacher, had long since demonstrated their disdain for the legal restraints of Judaism, particularly of the Sabbath. They had been seen healing on the Sabbath – work! They had been seen taking their food from the fields on the Sabbath – work! So, is it so hard to suppose that they might also be out rolling stones aside and stealing bodies on the Sabbath? No, perhaps not.
It is, however, very hard to believe they could have done so without waking the supposedly slumbering guards. What? Was it a particularly well-oiled stone, that it could be moved aside without a noise? Was the area so free of loose gravel that the feet of those doing the work would not scrape? Honestly, how many were in that guard contingent? Is it even convincing that every last one of them were asleep, and to a man, they slept so deeply as to hear nothing of the commotion that must have ensued to achieve such a thing? That cave entrance: It was low enough that those who wished to see the aftermath had to stoop down to even look within. By some accounts, it would have been low enough that those going in would need to be on all fours to do so. And they’re going to drag out an adult body, with the added weight of those 75 pounds of ointment plus the bandages, without making enough noise to wake any of the guards posted there? That, my friend, is unbelievable.
I have noted in previous studies that the priests were well aware of the truth of Jesus. When they went to Pilate seeking these guards, they made plain that they understood His meaning when He had spoken of the temple torn down and rebuilt in three days (Mt 27:63). We remember what He said… Now, they have sufficient proof that what He said He also did. They were guarding against any attempted deception by His followers, but faced with the fact that His followers had no need to deceive, they determine to deceive themselves. You may take that last in whichever way you like. They certainly determined to deceive the masses as to the person of Jesus, thereby condemning them to an eternal death.
They were also deceiving themselves. They would have to do so in order to proceed. They knew what this meant. They knew that it meant they had indeed turned the Messiah over to God. They knew that this Messiah they had thus treated was the very Son of God. And here’s the kicker: They knew He was not in the grave! They knew He was risen from the dead. And yet, they managed to talk themselves into thinking they could still get the upper hand on Him.
How is that even possible? Thus asks the heart of faith. But, a bit of introspection may serve to answer the question. Cognitive dissonance is the term applied to the disorder, but it’s a disorder so common to man as to be very nearly universal. For all that we live amidst a glut of information, we are very much uninformed on almost every topic. We are uninformed because by and large we do not seek out Truth, we seek simply to filter the data sent our way.
An example: To a believer in Anthropomorphic Global Warming, whatever evidence is brought to bear, whatever data is presented, however strongly it contradicts the premise, it is seen to uphold the premise. To an unbeliever, that very same pile of evidence and data, with all those points that can be construed as supporting the premise, are written off as proving nothing, even proving the contrary.
If we look at the current political state in the US, we can see a similar pattern. Those who support Obama cannot see any wrong in his actions, however corrupt or inept. Those who oppose him can see no right in his actions, however well-meaning or effective. Bring evidence that contradicts the chosen narrative and it will be either ignored or interpreted as upholding the narrative.
It is the same game of mental gymnastics that we often play with God. That passage from Romans cannot but apply here. The ungodliness and unrighteousness of men leads them to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. In spite of the clear evidence of God all around them, testimonies He Himself made evident to them, they refuse to see. God’s invisible attributes are clearly discerned in the pattern of that which He has made. He is not beyond understanding, and they have no excuse who claim such ignorance. They knew God. But, they refused Him the honor and thanks that are His due. They chose futility and speculation. Their hearts were darkened by their own foolishness. For all their claims to wisdom, they are fools. They exchanged the glory of incorruptible God for corruptible man, for animals! So, God allows them their lusts, indeed, leaves them captive to their own lusts and impurity, that they may dishonor themselves (Ro 1:18-24). I could go on.
The present day is entirely recognizable in that condemnation. We have those who view humanity as little better than a plague upon the earth, and in some ways, I suppose they’re not far wrong. But, they miss the cure. They elevate the rights of animals – even of plants! – to the detriment of their fellow man. This is not anything particularly new, just reaching a new virulence.
These priests, then, are not so stunning as all that in their capacity to act against One Who has risen from death. They only demonstrate a corruption common to us all. But for Christ, there am I. Were I to consider my earlier years, when I was young enough to know everything, as I supposed, I would see in myself these same efforts to ignore God’s existence; better still, to disprove His existence, or replace Him with a more palatable alternative. In honest assessment, I think my explorations of alternate religions had more to do with seeking entertaining, and preferably hallucinatory experiences than with any desire for finding some being to worship. I had me, after all. What more did I really need? Worship, so far as I was concerned, was something reserved for musicians of particular skill. And even there, while there were those for whom I knew a degree of devotion and awe, I don’t think I would have accepted the idea of worshiping them. No. There was me. I and I alone occupied the highest place in my estimation.
Was there evidence of this God I was ignoring? Oh, yes. I do not, really, count my youthful experiences of church in that category. There may have been something planted in me by our pastor out in Hawaii. But, if so, it is well beyond my capacity to recall. The church I grew up in? Not really. Some moral training, perhaps, but a sense of God and of His exclusive claim on me? No. And I was far more inclined to consider the evidence of those who, by taking their seats in His house, claimed to represent Him. Poor proof, that, as far as I could see. If this was what following Him was about, why bother? I had friends with better morals and character.
So, what was this evidence? Well, I have probably commented on many of these points in other studies over the years, but they bear repeating. I could point, for example, to that night when, in the depths of my foolishness, I was prepared to join my ‘friends’ shooting up on cocaine. Arm bared, veins exposed, ready to go. Except, they couldn’t seem to manage to get the needle in. Hmm. Why was that? They’d certainly had enough practice, and several medical procedures since have shown that my veins are not terribly difficult to work with. What stopped the needle on that one night? More properly, Who? And what a difference that has made to the course of the years since!
I could point to that night driving home from work, down the long miles of 495. Cruising at 70 on a highway coated with black ice; the sudden recognition of the situation, the pickup truck sliding backwards across my lane ahead of me – and across the next lane. The way my car was able to neatly cut across two lanes of highway, still well above 60 mph, and settle into the third lane with almost no sign of traction lost: Oh, I was so proud of myself, so proud of my little car! Most impressed with me. It took a few years to recognize that neither I nor my vehicle were really that good, really capable of finding such a grip on a solidly frozen surface. It wasn’t my great skills that kept me off the guardrail that night.
I could look a few miles further down the road that night, when, cut off by a Camaro that decided to come straight from the entrance ramp into the one lane that was currently in use, and then settle in front of me at a significantly lower rate of speed than my own. How is it that I not only moved to swing my car into the median and get around this guy, but that there was a drivable median there to use, rather than rails or curbs or snow sufficiently deep to halt my forward motion?
These may seem minor proofs to you. They certainly weren’t sufficiently grand to make me immediately shed all my misconceptions and break out in awed worship of my God, my Creator. But, they were data points. They were data points which I very carefully, or very nonchalantly, wrote off to my own great skills, or to chance, or to whatever else would keep me from having to consider Him with Whom I ought to have been dealing.
Eventually, in retrospect from the place of having been met with God’s grace, filled with His Spirit, and made absolutely aware of His being, I could look back upon these events and see. I wasn’t all that. It needed more than me to see me safely through those things. For me, it boiled down to Providence. I didn’t know it at the time, that this is what I was understanding. All I knew was the pressure upon my soul, upon my mind, to accept the premise that there’s no such thing as coincidence. All I knew was that weekend in which so much coincidence had piled atop coincidence that it became illogical in the extreme to continue supposing that everything had been mere chance. It wasn’t until years later that I came to the theological subject of Providence and learned of its premise that indeed, there’s no such thing as coincidence, for God is upon His throne and sets all things according to His purposes.
Comes a time, if we are so blessed as to experience His grace upon us, when we finally see this, when we finally recognize our limits, and how very lowly those limits are. Comes a time when we look back upon the course of events in our lives and not only recognize that there was a Hand upon our lives along the way, but we begin to contemplate why. Why did He stop that needle? Why did He keep me on the road and alive? Why does He continue with me to this day? Why did He decide to save me?
Even here, there’s that tendency for cognitive dissonance isn’t there? Even in this state, there’s that within me that wants to suggest that I’m just that important to His cause. It’s stupid! It is an assessment to be rejected at its first mention. But, such is the fallen man. No. He didn’t save me because of what I was, nor even what I am. But, I can also say this much: He didn’t save me for no reason. Yes, it is for His good pleasure. But, let us understand that His pleasure is indeed good. It is not frivolous. It is not simply self-gratification on His part. His pleasure has purpose. My life has purpose. I dare say that even today I struggle to know what that purpose might be, what exactly it is He would have me to be doing. Is it really no more than to be an engineer, to study His Scriptures as best I may, and to serve the church in such capacity as they will have me? Is that it? I rather doubt it. But, I can rest in knowing that He shall, in His good time, make known to me what I am to do with all these years of preparation.
I have one other aspect of this matter which I feel I must explore. See, it’s all well and good to look at those priests and shake my head. They knew, and yet. They sought a Messiah, but when He came, they wouldn’t accept Him. They were, if we consider the scribes and the Pharisees, experts on Biblical theory. And yet, when theory came to practice, they failed utterly. But, it cannot be left there. The Bible is not a history lesson. It’s a guidebook for Godly living. Their stories are not set down to make us feel superior, but so that we might learn from them.
So, then, I look at my own situation. After years amongst the Pentecostals and Charismatics, I have come to a very conservative church in the Reformed tradition. And yet, there’s that matter of the spiritual gifts, the charismata. I find that in many ways I’m rather in that place Martha found herself. Yes, I believe the theory. Resurrection? Sure, Jesus, I buy that. I just don’t expect to see it. The concept is fine. But, I don’t see it happening in practice. Dead is still dead. Are we any different? We read the miracles recorded in Scripture. Some, at least, among us accept that those miracles that were recorded were true. Honestly, I can’t see why anybody would be following Jesus in this day and age if they didn’t believe He had done as is written of Him. If He didn’t walk on water, if He didn’t calm the seas, if He didn’t multiply the loaves, if He didn’t walk out of that grave after being most assuredly dead, then why are we wasting time on Him?
But, turn the coin over. If He did do these things, if He truly is very God of very God, seated on the throne of heaven and in full control of every last thing in all of creation, not just in this universe, but in any other that might exist, then how is it that we reject any suggestion that those same sorts of acts might be transpiring in our own day? Let’s review the case for just a moment. We see that throughout His ministry, Jesus chose to have His miracles attested to by some of the least reliable witnesses, so far as society was concerned. Shepherds attest to the angelic announcement of His birth. But, they are the lowest of the low in society, and their word of no value. Women attest to His rebirth. But, they, too, are not accounted as legitimate witnesses in society. His followers: Galileans to a man, now that Judas is gone. They’re but one step above the Samaritans, and they’re an untrained lot as well! On what basis should anybody be taking religious instruction from them? Who knows what sort of heathen practices have informed their thinking? Point to the school from which they matriculated! Oh, there isn’t one. Fishermen, tax collectors! This is your model of righteous training? Please!
And on what basis are we so inclined to discount the reports that come to us today? Somebody in Africa claims one of his parishioners was dead and in the coffin, but they prayed and now he’s alive. Sure, buddy. Where’s the coroner’s certificate? Somebody goes to a healing ministry and rises from his wheelchair. Yes, but how do we know he wasn’t a plant. That healer’s probably just out to fleece the masses. And you know? We may be right. On the other hand, we may be wrong. There are times when I have to ask myself whether, if somebody rose from the dead in my very sight, I would accept the evidence of my senses. I think about Jesus’ comment, and for all that, the proof He Himself presented. Even were one to rise from the dead and bring them word, they would not believe. He did just that, and they did not believe.
To a closed mind, no proof is sufficient. And, for all that we claim to honor knowledge, the fact is that most of us pursue knowledge with a mind closed tightly against the Truth. Put a Christian in a college setting, and he will be accused of that very thing. Why, you’re so conditioned by the propaganda of your church that you won’t even consider the facts set before you! Of course, those raising such complaints have already closed themselves off to the possibility that it wasn’t propaganda that brought you there, but rather the sound evidence of both experience and honest thought. Indeed, there is more than sufficient evidence that the colleges of today are largely in the business of propagandizing rather than educating.
But, let us, who have considered the Truth of God and found Him utterly reliable, then ask ourselves why this reaction to the charismatic gifts? Let us ask ourselves if our response comes from careful consideration of His Word, or whether it is more to do with the anti-spiritual influence of the age in which we live? Do we reject prophecy because God has withdrawn it from the market, or because it’s too inexplicable for us? Do we reject tongues because God has declared the age of tongues passed, or because it sounds silly to our ears? Do we, for all that we pray for healing, really believe God can and does heal, with or without doctors, with or without medicine?
I’m not sure of the answer for myself. The theory’s fine. Yes, in theory I believe those gifts are still available and operational. Of course, I also believe that in practice the lion’s share of what is passed off as the gifts is falsified. But, I believe I must be very careful here, for I see often enough that my natural skepticism leads me to immediately any and every account of some such activity. Oh! I went to this ministry and now my neck feels better. Sure. Whatever. Probably wasn’t anything much wrong with your neck to begin with. But, if it makes you happy. And, those reports of medical situations gone suddenly right, all but in spite of the professionals?
There’s our elder, who should be getting worse as the doctors see it, because they have no treatment for him. Yet, he’s getting better. They don’t understand it. But, the tests show it is so. There’s our friend who was just in hospital. Doctors in confusion, heart condition or brain aneurism? What to do? If it’s the brain, we ought to operate lest it do permanent damage. But, if we operate, her weak heart makes the outcome dicey. Yet, in spite of a great deal of pressure, surgery was held off until a heart specialist was heard from, who was able to spot the real issue. Is it because he’s so smart that she was spared? Well, he played his part, to be sure, but Who ensured that he was given the chance to do so?
The list goes on. And yet, hearing these reports, I confess my first reaction is not to be awed by God, but to blandly accept the coincidence. Hey, that’s great that your condition’s getting better. Hey, that’s good news that she’s going home to her family again. I see, in short, that I have become false to myself and to God. I have developed a knee-jerk reaction to things supernatural that is not so very unlike those priests confronting a missing corpse. There must be a natural explanation for it, and therefore, no matter how compelling the evidence for the supernatural, I’ll just write it off as natural. Oh dear. Somewhere, there’s a balance point that has not been arrived at, but rather overshot. Somewhere, the pile of falsity has precluded seeing the reality. I recall very early on discussing such matters and recognizing that, whatever the case, we must needs avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater, which is our tendency.
On the one side, we have the camp that would throw out everything that smacks of doctrine or theology because so many churches that clung to such matters had become dead, godless places. On the other side, we have the camp that would throw out all that super-spiritualized charismatic nonsense because it might lead to bad doctrine. It’s been abused, so it must be avoided seems to be the rule for both sides. But, if we follow that line of thought, we are left with nothing at all. Everything has been abused. Shall we therefore avoid everything?
Rather, our mindset ought to be that if a gift of God has been abused, we ought to set about putting it to rights. If the Bible has been taught poorly, let us be about teaching it well. If there has been a tendency towards watered down and incorrect doctrine, let us seek to reform our doctrine and teach the Truth. If there has been an abuse of the charismata, let us rather set about demonstrating their proper use and application. If there has been a tendency to make the whole religious experience an intellectual exercise, let us be about putting faith into action. If there has been zeal without knowledge, let us inform that zeal. But, let us not fall into rejecting God’s gifts wholesale. It’s too easy an answer. It has the appearance of safety and piety, but it is neither safe nor pious. It is foolish in the extreme, and leaves us exposed to all manner of evil that we needn’t have faced.
