Irrelevant Antagonism
W. Carl Ketcherside
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The both mentioned here includes Jew and gentile. Between them there had existed deep hostility. The nature of it was such that no purely human power could overcome it. It was augmented by national pride, prompting each to regard the other with ill-concealed contempt. The passage of time had only served to imbed it more deeply in each succeeding generation. By the time of Jesus it was a festering sore, an open ulcer in the social tissue.
Jesus did not heal it by insisting that one move over and become like the other. The Jew did not have to give up being a Jew and become a gentile. The gentile did not have to become a Jew. The circumcised remained in his circumcision; the uncircumcised in his uncircumcision. The real problem was not their relationship to one another, but their relationship to God. The way they regarded each other was simply a reflection of the way they stood with reference to God. Their hostility to one another was a symptom of a deeper malignancy.
Jesus did not try to unite them to one another for to bring together hostile forces is simply to precipitate conflict. What he did was to reconcile them both to God. The Jew was reconciled to God and so was the gentile. Such reconciliation freed them both from a guilt complex. It lifted the burden of sin and made possible a sense of security which could not be threatened by any external force. In God there is no national or sectarian rivalry, no conflict of interests. God is love. Thus there is no need for ambitious strife, no clamoring for advantage.
This state was achieved by the sacrifice of one body on the cross. One body was sacrificed for both Jew and gentile. There was not one body for the Jew and another for the gentile. The same body made reconciliation for both. If the Jew claimed reconciliation at all it had to be by the same body as the gentile recognized. Since both were reconciled by one body, as reconciled ones they had to be in one body.
So the cross was the instrument of reconciliation. And the cross is a monument to man's weakness and futility. It is the "final solution" to the problem of disunity and disharmony. Thus the cross is superior to any system or method of man. It is the only creed available to those who labor in conjunction with heaven's purpose to bring about unity in the universe. If anything else could produce harmony the cross would not be
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The cross is the place where one act made irrelevant the antagonism between bitter rivals. It is stupid for two men in death row awaiting execution to engage in fisticuffs over the relative merits of their political parties. Of what avail is it to two famished souls struggling across a trackless desert to come to blows over their understanding of a problem in mathematics. Measured by the circumstance of Calvary all else is rendered insignificant. It is meaningless.
The cross is the answer to all partisan hostility. And the fact that it could unite such divergent elements as Jew and gentile provides hope for removing all other barriers. None of our partisan problems can even begin to approximate in severity that which separated Jew and gentile. If that schism could be healed all lesser breaches can be bridged. Our "circumcision" today takes many forms. Circumcision, in principle, is anything external which is less than the cross but is the ground of such pride as to make the cross seem inferior. It is anything in which man trusts as a symbol of his covenant relationship with God.
Such "circumcision" automatically renders everyone who does not trust in such a condition of rightness as uncircumcised. It places him outside the pale. It makes him a member of a rival tribe, an object of hostility. So long as men glory in externals, in that which they perform in Christ as a criterion of faithfulness, the cross is made of none effect. The circumcision will create alienation and nullify the purpose of the cross. It will cause men to forget grace and attempt to be justified by law.
Once the meaning of the cross breaks into the human heart and enlightens the mind, it is seen that neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision. One becomes part of a new humanity. He does not turn over a new leaf but is turned over to a new life. He no longer walks in legal justification. So long as man trusts in law as the basis of his hope others will be regarded as "lesser breeds without the law." It makes no difference whether the law is humanly contrived or divinely revealed. It is the very nature of law to divide. It will create a wall whether written by the finger of God or by the hands of men.
At the cross every man is seen for what he is. Here he is stripped of all externals. He is made naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. He is revealed as helpless and hopeless, unable to keep law perfectly and abjectly in need of coming within "the circle of God's love." Here his little mental meanderings, his rationalizations, his cute little complex schemes of doctrinal orthodoxy are shown to be cobweb ladders which he has built to try and achieve reconciliation, always too short, always ineffective. He cannot even attain to his own ideals.
The cross changes all of this. The blood of Jesus nullifies it. But it is accomplished, not by altering circumcision or uncircumcision, but by elevating our relationship to a wholly different plane. Those who continue to argue about the relative merits of their "circumcision" demonstrate that they have not grasped grace nor seen the salvation which is in him.
The cross does not make us alike. It does not alter externals. We continue in circumcision, or uncircumcision. We are simply reconciled to God and our being right or wrong about every point of doctrine has nothing to do with it. This does not produce the shared life. "But even though we were dead in our sins God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, gave us life together with Christ -- it is, remember, by grace and not by achievement you are saved -- and has lifted us right out of the old life to take our place with him in Christ Jesus in the Heavens."
Think of this. It is not by our achievement, intellectually, mentally, or morally. We are given life together with Christ. Given it! We did not earn it. We did not deserve it. It did not come through
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We no longer receive one another because of attainment or achievement. The question is no longer how one stands on this or that, or what his views are on one point or another. The question now is whether one has been lifted right out of the old life to take his place in Christ Jesus. If one is in Christ, if he has been given life together with Christ, this is the ultimate criterion. If he has not he can be right about everything else and still be lost. All of his attainments about which he boasts are symptoms of vain pride.
Obviously it is good to be right on as many things as possible. To be correct is infinitely better than to be mistaken. Facts at the fingertip are manifestly superior to guesses at the mental gate. No one desires to be voluntarily ignorant but knowledge may puff up rather than build up, and man is expected to be a babe in Christ, not a balloon. But this has nothing to do with our reconciliation. The apostle says, "No one can pride himself upon earning the love of God."
What this does, then, is to make "utterly irrelevant the antagonism between us." Antagonism is not necessarily irrelevant under a legalistic system. It is the nature of law to create such. Legal arguments belong to law, gracious acceptance belongs to grace. It is unthinkable that Jesus would make antagonism irrelevant between Jew and gentile to bring them together and then make relevant antagonism between them to divide and fragment them.
The party spirit operates to produce conformity, the Holy Spirit to encourage community. The party spirit begins with recrimination, the Holy Spirit with reconciliation. The party spirit makes antagonism inevitable, the Holy Spirit makes it irrelevant. If we are to be workers together with God we must help men see the cross purpose of God and cease to be at cross purposes with one another.
We are reconciled by one act. The parable of the prodigal is a good illustration. He was not welcomed by the father because of his knowledge. He was ignorant of many things with relation to the father's house. In that respect he was far behind his older brother. But he was reconciled by a single act. He came to the father. He may have become a problem at home after his return because of his ignorance of what had transpired while he was away. But he had been lost and now he was found. He had been dead but now he was alive. It would be tragic if, like the older brother, we should continue our antagonism which has been rendered irrelevant by the one great fact of our reconciliation to the Father.