Falling Dominoes

Saul of Tarsus was not a friend of The Way (as the followers of Jesus were then called).  Saul was a Pharisee and a strict one and like many other Pharisees he regarded Jesus of Nazareth as a deceiver, a false prophet, a false Christ, a Sabbath-breaker, a renegade from the Torah and a danger to Israel.  As far as Saul was concerned, Jesus’ crucifixion was the best thing that could have happened because God commanded that false prophets must be killed and driven out from Israel (Deuteronomy 13:5).  Now, unaccountably, Jesus’ movement was spreading and the number of His followers was multiplying.  This dangerous and deluded movement must therefore be snuffed out, extinguished as soon as possible. 

A beginning had been made:  two of the ringleaders had been arrested and threatened and then re-arrested and flogged (Acts 4:3-22, 5:17-40) and one of their prominent leaders had even been brought before the Sanhedrin and then stoned to death (Acts 7).  That caused many of the movement in Jerusalem to scatter throughout Judea and Samaria and a kind of reign of terror began as officials, led by Saul, entered house after house, dragging the followers of Jesus out into the street and into prison.

It seemed—or at least Saul hoped—as if the new movement was on the run and was doomed.  Saul was determined to stamp it out and he asked for and received letters from the high priest to the synagogues of nearby Damascus denouncing the movement and empowering Saul to arrest any of its members he found in those synagogues.  With a fiery zeal for God, Saul set off to Damascus.

Then, outside the city gates of Damascus, Something Happened.  A light from heaven flashed around and Saul fell to ground and heard the seven little words (six in the Greek) that entirely and forever after changed his life:  “Saul, Saul—why are you persecuting Me?”  When he tremblingly asked who was speaking to him and accusing him of wrongdoing, the answer came back like a thunderclap: “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

For the next few days in Damascus Saul was as blind physically as he had been spiritually.  He fasted and prayed and tried to make sense of it all. Those few words had turned his entire universe upside down.  Everything—absolutely everything—that he thought he knew and that he had been so sure of now needed to be radically rethought.

Before, as a Jew, everything had seemed so straightforward: God had promised Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan and under Moses and Joshua they received this promised Land.  The Torah given to Israel through Moses insisted on circumcision and Sabbath and food laws—all meant to keep Israel separate from the nations surrounding them.  Israel was to be a people set apart and therefore had to be careful to avoid the Gentiles as much as possible. Because their sin and idolatry Israel was exiled from the Promised Land. The prophets predicted, however, that God would bring them back to the Land—all of them, not just a few—and would manifest Himself in Shekinah glory in His Temple (see Exodus 40:34, 1 Kings 8:10-11). Then all the world would acknowledge Yahweh their God as supreme and come to visit the Temple in Jerusalem to worship Him.  All this would be accomplished through their King, the Messiah.  Saul waited for the Messiah to arrive. Many Jews thought that a more repentant heart and a more zealous keeping of the Torah would hasten his arrival.  That was why, of course, apostates like Jesus of Nazareth could not be tolerated.  Anyone who led Israel astray like that endangered and delayed the coming Kingdom.

The picture was glorious and all the pieces fit together:  King Messiah would reign from Jerusalem in which was the Temple.  The country would have enlarged and secure borders, the Torah would be kept faithfully in all its provisions and commandments, and all the nations would be subordinate to the glorified nation of Israel.  Each piece of this vision presupposed the others: king, land, Temple, the Shekinah, Torah.  It all fit together in one coherent glorious vision of national restoration and victory.  This was the Kingdom of God.

What became clear to Saul that day outside the city gates of Damascus was that all this vision had to be rethought—and all because the crucified Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah as He and His followers claimed.  This truth was an earthquake, upsetting and up-ending everything.  It could all be summed up in one sentence:  God intended the Messiah be crucified and raised and ascend from earth to heaven.  This meant that every single thing in Saul’s understanding of what the Kingdom of God would be like fell down one after another.  A crucified Messiah changed absolutely everything and left nothing in Saul’s (and Israel’s) world untouched.

For think about it:  if God’s plan was for His Messiah to be crucified and raised then Messiah would not reign as an earthly King in Jerusalem.  And that meant that there would be no international supremacy for Israel. And that meant that the Temple would not become the focus of international pilgrimage and devotion, the global focus of religion.  And that meant that the religion focused upon the Temple, the Torah with all its many provisions and commandments, would also lose its central place in the Kingdom of God.

The vision of the coming Kingdom was essentially a national vision, with king, land, capital, Temple and Torah all playing their parts in a unified whole.  The loss of one part meant the loss of all.  If Messiah was not to be a victorious king on earth, then all the other elements of the vision fell to the ground:  if no earthly king, then no glorified capital and no supreme Temple.  If no supreme Temple in the midst of a separate people, then no supreme Torah.  The Shekinah glory that was promised for the Temple was not coming. Without an earthly King reigning in Jerusalem, all the other pieces fell down like dominoes. A Messiah that was crucified altered everything.

And what was replacing it?  If the Kingdom of God did not center on a glorified nation, then of what did it consist?  The answer: a glorified Messiah.  Rather than the people and nation standing center stage, the Messiah stood in the center.  The glory expected to rest on the nation and its Temple rested upon Him.  Messiah was everything.

Instead of an earthly Temple in the center of the capital city of a supreme nation, Messiah was the new Temple.  The Shekinah glory of the Spirit, the divine Presence which once rested upon the Tabernacle and the Temple, now rested upon Messiah (Mark 1:10, John 1:33, John 2:19).  He was also the true priest and the true Sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-12).  In the old Jewish vision of the Kingdom, the people were saved by being part of a victorious and glorious nation.  In the new Messianic vision, the people are saved by being part of the glorified Messiah, by their union with Him. 

The displacement of “nation” by “Messiah”, the replacement of “salvation through being a part of the Jewish nation” with “salvation through being united with Christ” meant that the things which defined and preserved the nation had also been displaced from the center. 

The Torah with its insistence on circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws was meant to preserve the separation of Jew from Gentile and keep Israel separate and distinct from the nations as they awaited their glorious destiny under Messiah.  Now that nationhood was no longer a factor in salvation, the Torah also had no further place in that salvation.  It had served its purpose in keeping Israel together until Messiah came, but it no longer had that same function.  That was why St. Paul was insistent that salvation did not come through “works of the Law” such as circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws—i.e. by participation in Jewish nationhood.  If Messiah was not an earthly king then Jewish nationhood (and the Law that preserved it) was no longer significant. 

This union of Messiah and His people was effected by becoming His disciple (i.e. through baptism) and remaining His disciple by weekly reception of the Eucharist.  What now mattered was not being a part of a nation (i.e. the Jewish nation) but being part of the Body of Christ.  This is what St. Paul meant by being “in Christ”—to be “in Christ” meant being a part of His Church and thus being one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17).  It was this union that brought salvation, regardless of one’s nationhood.  And if one’s national identity was irrelevant to salvation then that meant that Gentiles as well as Jews could both fully share a union with Messiah and His salvation.

For there was a profound union of Christ with His people.  When St. Paul spoke of the Church as “the Body of Christ” he didn’t just mean that Christians shared a close relationship with Jesus.  He meant that in some way the Church was Christ.  The term “Messiah” for Paul meant not only the person of Jesus of Nazareth but also all of His followers through whom He manifested His presence when they gathered together in His name as His ekklesia.  That is why Paul referred to the Church as “the fullness of Christ”, the One who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:23).  It is why when Paul was explaining to the Corinthians that the Church had the same diversity as did a human body he said, “As the body is one and yet has many members, so also is Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12)—note: not “so also is the Church” but “so also is Christ”, for “Christ” here meant the not just the person of Christ, but His people as well.

This is hardly surprising.  When we look back to the very first encounter that Saul of Tarsus had with Jesus we see that the Lord did not say, “I am Jesus whose followers you are persecuting” but rather “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”  Jesus was radically identifying Himself with His followers so that to persecute them was to persecute Him.

This radical identity of Christ and His Church continued:  St. Augustine would refer to totus Christus, the total Christ, consisting of both head and members. 

We can see now how the original vision of the Kingdom of God had been totally reconfigured by the single fact that God’s plan for salvation involved a crucified Messiah.  Before it was thought that the Kingdom would consist of a victorious nation headed by a king ruling from Jerusalem and all the nations coming to the Temple to support a glorious Jewish state obedient to Torah.  Now Saul knew that the Kingdom consisted of a victorious Messiah who embodied in Himself the Temple with its priesthood and sacrifices and upon whom rested the Shekinah glory of God.  Salvation consisted of union with the Messiah through becoming His follower. And since Jewish nationhood (and the Torah which preserved it) had no role in this, Gentiles could share this saving union with Messiah equally with the Jews.

For Saul it was an inner earthquake indeed, a shattering revelation that in his zeal for God He had actually been fighting against Him.  It was a measure of God’s love for him and for all that Christ not only forgave him for this but even called him to serve as His specially-chosen instrument to bring this faith to others (Acts 9:15, 1 Timothy 1:16).  On the road to Damascus, a blinding light dawned for Saul and all the pieces of his life that were once so secure fell down one after another like dominoes.  This catastrophic collapse was for Saul (and for us) the mercy of God.