Peter & Paul: Apostolic Odd Couple

The split between evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics in the Episcopal Church today can be traced all the way back to the strained relationship between Peter and Paul in the first century church. This personal friction becomes explicit in Galatians 2 when Paul confronts Peter about an act of hypocrisy. But the strain between these two Apostles can be seen operating just beneath the surface of the New Testament. One represents an institutional Christianity teaching that God works through tradition and human agency; the other represents a direct personal encounter with God that proclaims the death of the Jewish law in favor of the grace of Christ. One understands merited righteousness by good works; the other, imputed righteousness by faith alone.

Peter was one of the original Twelve; with James and John, one of Jesus' inner circle of three. By the Day of Pentecost Peter appears to have been acknowledged among the Apostles as the "first among equals." Peter preaches the great Pentecost sermon of Acts 2. It's likely that Peter or others early on began to interpret (or misinterpret as the case may be) Jesus' affirmation at Caesarea Phillipi ("You are Petros and on this rock I will build my church ..") as legitimizing the primacy of the Big Fisherman. For a generation following Christ's ascension, Peter lived and taught in Jerusalem. He was not a theologian. His was the conservative, relatively simple faith, that Jesus was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament.

Saul of Tarsus was a persecutor of Christians until he met the risen Christ on the Damascus Road(Acts 9,22,26). Not only does his name change to Paul, but his whole life is radically altered. Paul is a theologian, a thinker. Paul writes in Galatians 2:17 that immediately after his conversion he spent three years in Arabia. We don't know what he did there, presumably being taught by the Holy Spirit. Isn't it interesting that he spends exactly the same amount of time studying Jesus as did Peter and the others who walked with the Lord during his earthly ministry? Paul returned from the desert and spent about two weeks with Peter in Jerusalem. Interestingly, Peter keeps him isolated from the churches in Jerusalem. The only other Christian Peter lets Paul meet is the Lord's brother, James. This, I think, is where the problems between Peter and Paul began.

For the rest of Paul's ministry he will be criticized and his calling questioned by Jewish Christians, people who come from Peter's territory to "spy on our freedom" (Galatians 2:4) . Who else would raise questions about Paul's apostleship if not Peter? First, Peter believed he was the one originally chosen to preach to the Gentiles. Beginning in Acts 15:7, we read: And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: "Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe." Peter is referring to his encounter with the first Gentile convert, Cornelius, recorded in Acts 10. So, imagine Peter's reaction when Paul showed up covered in the dust of Arabia claiming Christ had called him as an apostle to the Gentiles!

In addition to questioning Paul's apostolic credentials, Peter was likely responsible for generating some misinformation about Paul's conversion. Acts 9 preserves one of those attempts to minimize the call of Paul. There we read that Paul receives his sight and his commission from a Jewish Christian man named Ananias. Paul vehemently denies this version of events. In Galatians 1 Paul says he consulted with no man after his encounter with Christ and immediately went to Arabia. In Galatians 1:1 Paul goes so far as to identify himself as an Apostle, "not from a man or through a man, but through Jesus Christ ..." Acts 26 preserves what is likely Paul's own account of his conversion. It says nothing about Ananias. Paul's gospel is about grace freely offered directly by the living Christ without need of human mediation and he never waivers from that proclamation. In that first decade after the resurrection, Peter seems to hang on to more traditional Jewish ideas -- that righteousness is by adherence to the law (when he's with Jewish Christians anyway) and that God mediates his grace through special people.

Here's another residue of the conflict between Peter and Paul. In his surviving letters, Paul never refers to Simon as Peter (the Rock) but always calls him by his Aramaic name, Cephas. This fact is overlooked in many new translations that turn Cephas into Peter. But the name issue is significant. Paul does not acknowledge Peter as the rock (petra) on which Christ builds his church. In fact, Paul boldly declares, "The only Rock is Christ" (I Corinthians 10:4). I think it fair to surmise that Paul did not accept the myth of the primacy of Peter.

When you read the Book of Acts, the history of Peter and the history of Paul don't overlap except for the story of Paul's conversion in chapter 9 (which is probably linked to Peter). I have often wondered whether the clear separation of their ministries in Acts reflects the condition of their relationship in the early church. Each went their own way until they both met their death in Rome, Paul first and then a few years later, Peter. Thankfully what the Holy Spirit has preserved for us in Scripture is amazingly consistent. I think following the Jerusalem Council in 49 AD Peter and Paul stayed clear of each other, each preaching and teaching as inspired by the Holy Spirit. They do not represent a divided Gospel but a tension that has continued down to this very day between the evangelical who focuses on the gracious work of Christ and the institutionalist whose focus is on tradition and and good works.

Gathering of March 20

We enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by Janice and Berry with help from Rebecca. Our study commenced with a review of Belcher's chapter 4, "Deep Truth." We discussed the importance of our worldview, or philosophy, and used this as a jumping off point for our continued study in Colossians 1. In verses 15-23 Paul answers the question Jesus put to his disciples around the campfire in Cesarea Phillipi, "Who do people say that I am." Of course, Simon Peter responded with the affirmation, "You are the Christ(Messiah), son of the living God." This affirmation made perfect sense to Jews, but as the Gospel spread into the Gentile world of Greece and Asia Minor, a new answer was needed that fit their worldview. Some had infiltrated the Colossian fellowship with an answer that Jesus was the Spirit-being sent by the Good God to provide the way of escape from this wicked world and our unwholesome bodies. They came to be known as Gnostics. Paul counters their wrong-headed conclusions with the great cosmic significance of Christ in verses 15-23. Who is Jesus? In verses 15-17, Paul affirms Christ is the perfect image of the invisible God, the one through whom and for whom the world was created. In verse 18-19 Paul declares Jesus is head of the new creation, the ekklesia, the called-out ones. Verse 20-23 lay out the specifics of how these truths about Jesus impact our lives.

Our prayer time was precious and full of the Holy Spirit's leading.

We missed several who were traveling for spring break and welcomed some who were new to our Gathering.

Our next Gathering is April 10 at the Hutchens.

How Will We Recgonize Each Other in Heaven?

Approaching Easter, I'm always a bit uncomfortable with those resurrection accounts where people don't at first recognize Christ. It happens three times in the Gospels: Mary who supposes Jesus to be the gardener (John 20:11-16), the two on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:13-31), and the disciples hauling in a big catch on the beach (John 21:4-13). Why didn't they recognize Jesus right away? Post-Biblical Xianists construct an entire argument against the bodily resurrection of Jesus from these incidents, citing that Jesus is reborn in us -- we are the resurrected Jesus. So, the unorthodox answer is that these "appearances" were disciples recognizing the Savior's imprint on Larry, and Roscoe, and Suzie (notwithstanding the appearance to Thomas in the upper room at which Jesus shows the holes in his wrists and the let's Thomas actually reach into the open gash in his side).

Let's ask three questions: Why didn't the disciples recognize Jesus at first? How did they realize it was Jesus? What does this mean for how we will come to recognize each other in heaven?

Why didn't the disciples recognize Jesus at first?

Obviously they weren't expecting to see a dead man. We see what we expect to see. I encounter this reality every time I have to proof-read something I've written. I'll catch some errors, but there have been times when a third party editor will point me to the very line in some paragraph and I still can't see it. That's because my brain knows what is supposed to be there and, being the master of efficient recognition, that's what my brain processes.

Another reason is that grief blinds us to reality. The loss of a beloved turns the soul upside down. Psychology enumerates the stages of grief. Spirituality feels a black hole, a vacuum, into which everything tumbles and loses definition. Coming to the garden tomb, Mary is lost in grief. Nothing is making a lot of sense at that moment. She's in that daze that only the grieving know. Who else would be walking around in the garden at that time of the morning except the gardener? It's actually a pretty rational answer for someone so deeply grieving.

But something has changed about Jesus. His body is different. The Scriptures tell us that in the resurrection we put on an incorruptible body (I Cor. 15), a spirit body. This does not mean ghostly or evanescent. What came out of Jesus' tomb had a continuity with the previous Adamic life (hence the marks of slaughter), but Jesus' glorified body is something new in all creation. Jesus appears suddenly in locked rooms, but this is no ghostly specter. He proves his link to humanity by eating a piece of fish. Poltergeists don't do perch. The fact that in all three appearances he is mistaken for what we can only think of as an ordinary human at the very least shows that he is not a 900 foot flaming phantasm. He is the second Adam, the first-born from the dead. He's not a freak.

It's possible the disciples may not recognize Jesus because he can assume different countenances. I think it is more likely that Jesus covers his face with his garment as middle-eastern men do to this day. It's important to recognize that Jesus does not reveal himself to the world, but only to those whom he has chosen. There is no attempt to visit Pilate or the Chief Priest and use his resurrected presence as a polemic against their unbelief. Of course it would only make sense that his resurrection appearances would be to those who had known him in the flesh. What can strangers testify to? But the pattern of discipleship is the same then as now -- Jesus chooses and we respond.

So, there are many reasons why the disciples didn't recognize Jesus.

How Did The Disciples Finally Recognize Jesus?

One thing is clear: Jesus opens their eyes to his true identity on his terms. The disciples do not reason their way to knowing him in his resurrection. Jesus is intentionally revealed. It's not by experience that they recognize Jesus (bye, bye three-legged stool). It's not the sound of his voice that tells Mary Magdalene it's the Lord. He asks her several questions before she knows his identity. But when he says her name, she recognizes him instantly. Did Jesus have an affectionate way of saying her name? Or did he simply turn and face her, perhaps removing the cloth from his face on that chilly morning? Or is it as John says earlier in his Gospel, "He calls his sheep by name...and they hear his voice and follow" (John 10:3-4).

Jesus probably talked with the two on the Emmaus Road for hours, but it was not until they went into the house and Jesus blessed and broke the bread that they recognized Jesus, alive and present one moment, vanished a split second later. Luke tells us their eyes were opened (passive verb tense). They don't so much recognize Jesus as they are permitted to "see." The resurrected Christ is not discovered by anyone; he is revealed.

On the beach it was John who first recognized that the man helping them catch fish was Jesus. We're not told how he knew. But by evening all those disciples on the beach knew it was the Lord.

How do the disciples recognize Jesus? Only after the sovereign Lord wants them to know it is truly him.

How Will We Recognize Each Other in Heaven?

So, what do these stories teach us about our own resurrected bodies and how will we know each other in the afterlife of God? How will families recognize children who were aborted or died in infancy? What about people who live to great age, what about their resurrection bodies? Thomas Aquinas thought everyone in heaven would be thirty-three years of age, the age Jesus died. But age is a concept born of time and this world, not of eternity in the next.

I'm intrigued that many of the people with whom I went to high school are re-connecting via Facebook. It's been 45 years since I've seen most of them. Many classmates include pictures of themselves. If I were to meet almost any of these folks on the Emmaus Road I wouldn't have the slightest idea who they were. We have all changed so very much. But in spite of sagging jowls and graying hair (where there still is hair), there is nevertheless something in each face that transcends time. A lot of it is the eyes, I think. We're born with the adult-sized eyes through which we view the passing world for as long as we live. Eyes are the window of the soul. But there is still a sense in which I only recognize these faces because they took the initiative to post a picture of themselves, revealing themselves to me.

I think Jesus' looks changed after he was resurrected from the dead. No one ever drew his picture while he lived, but the prophets said the Messiah would not be attractive to look at. But in his glorified body his skin would have been unflawed by any imperfection caused by disease or privation. His formerly sinewy, emaciated body was strong and perfectly proportioned. His hair, previously matted with blood, shone with new luster or may have completely disappeared. Did Christ appear as someone from the end of the time? We know homo sapiens is still changing, dare I say evolving. People are getting taller. The circumference of heads is getting larger as the brain continues to adapt. Or maybe Christ appeared more like the original Adam before the Fall?

However Jesus appeared, that is how we will look on that day when the dead in Christ shall rise. We will be very real, very three dimensional (at least), with recognizable continuity with our mortal bodily, but freed from the imperfections and anomalies of disease, genetic mutation, and bad living. We will be as God made us to be.

I believe the Scriptures support the idea that we will recognize each other only as we are introduced. Who introduces us? Of course, only Jesus people will enjoy heaven, people Jesus has chosen and called. The Holy Spirit of God will bring us together and reveal us to each other in joyful reunion. In the same way Jesus introduced John to Mary, the Holy Spirit will say, "Mother, behold thy son; son, behold thy Mother."

We will make new friendships such as we could never experience in this life, friendships that are without anxiety, without self-consciousness, without any of the barriers with which we struggled in the flesh. We will work together (yes, we work in heaven) with teams of capable and cooperative individuals such as we have never dreamed possible.

We will worship together forever. We will probably still celebrate the Lord's Supper. We will sing, oh how we will sing. And all songs will praise God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We will praise Him for our work and in praising find new answers and new solutions to problems. As we give more is given to us. We will dance and in dancing find the truth of giving and receiving. We will rejoice and in serendipity know each other even as we are known.

Hallelujah! Maranatha!

Priests and Masses

As an Anglican, I am trying to break myself of the habit of referring to worship as "mass." The Book of Common Prayer, even the heterodox 1979 Episcopal Prayerbook, never uses the term "mass" but Holy Eucharist. And yet Anglo-Catholics insist on calling it "the mass." What's the big deal?

Anglicans do not celebrate a mass because we do not believe that we are re-sacrificing Jesus over and over again. Mass means sacrifice. This is why Episcopal ministers are called priests, because priests preside over sacrifices. The Roman Church and their agents inside the Anglican church today, in contrast to historical Anglicanism, have transformed The Lord's Supper as remembrance into an act of sacrifice. This is most clearly seen when the priest lifts the big communion wafer (called the host) for all to see and venerate (aka worship) and says, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us."

I was reading my 1837 copy of the Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church as it was then called. The Lord's Supper is almost word for word the same as the current Rite I except there was nothing about lifting the host and proclaiming Christ is sacrificed. That's because the church, when it still believed the Scriptures took seriously Hebrews 9:25. Contrasting the practice of the Old Testament priesthood in which the priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement for sin, we are told Jesus himself enters heaven to appear before God on our behalf.

Christ did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the High Priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

It is clear that the New Testament Church did not practice the Lord's Supper as a sacrifice. For one thing, there is no mention of priests in the New Testament Church. In all the texts that mention the spiritual gifts and the offices and qualifications of church workers, priest is never mentioned. That is because the Apostles taught that Jesus is our High Priest who has made priests of all believers who are called to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). It doesn't say spiritual sacrifices of Jesus Christ. Using the principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture, we discover that spiritual sacrifices are "a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart..."(Psalm 51:17). In the New Testament, our spiritual worship is defined as giving our whole lives to God (Romans 12:1). Believers offer up a sacrifice of praise to God for the finalized atoning work of Christ (Hebrews 13:15-16).

Not only does Scripture undo the Mass, but it is clear from Anglican history that there was no understanding of sacrificing Jesus over and over again each Sunday for the forgiveness of our sins. If by the sacrament of the Lord's Supper we could be forgiven of our sins, why does my 1837 Prayerbook (and all others until this most recent Episcopal one) spend half the ink devoted to the Eucharistic service warning the unrepentant not to dare approach the Lord's table lest they eat and drink damnation to themselves? (1 Corinthians 11:27-30).

Jesus intended The Lord's Supper to be a commemoration of his death and coming again, a remembrance. Celebrating the Mass not only ignores the clear teaching of Scripture, it blasphemes against Christ and turns bread and wine into superstitious magic, idols before which we genuflect, depriving Christ of his sovereign and eternal priesthood in favor of man-made traditions. The priests like to claim as authoritative traditions that go back to the first century. It doesn't matter how old the traditions are, but how faithfully they adhere to the Apostles' teaching preserved in the New Testament. If we set a mass upon the altar, we overthrow the cross and make a lie of our Savior's last words; for if His death on the cross was not once and for all then Jesus was wrong when he said, "It is paid in full" (a better translation than "It is finished").

Rite I gets it right when it ascribes to Christ's death upon the cross as "his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." But as it is now constructed Rite I is clearly illogical, self-contradictory, and unaligned to the witness of Scripture. How can the priest proclaim the re-sacrifice of Jesus and then pray, "And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits (a clear refutation of Roman theology), but pardoning our offenses, through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

What a mishmash, what confusion, and what a mess the mass makes.