Morality, the Torah, and a Transcendent Standard: Further Clarification

Before I begin my extended book analysis of Dan Barker’s Mere Morality, I wanted to write a post in which I clarify a number of points I’ve made, both in my three-part series on John Walton’s Lost World of the Torah and my post on Morality and a Transcendent Standard. The responses I’ve received have been quite interesting and altogether understandable for one basic reason: we all have more or less been conditioned to view the Bible in general, and the Torah in particular, through a certain pharisaic/legalistic lens. And the thing is, we really don’t see it, precisely because it is the lens through which we view the Bible. If you wear glasses, you realize that you don’t actually see the lens; you look through them. This actually lies at the heart of what a worldview is, by the way. It is the lens through which you view and interpret reality, and it often doesn’t occur to you that it might be time to get a new prescription because things have gotten fuzzy.

And let’s face it, when it comes to the Torah, most people really don’t have any idea what to do with it. We really don’t: Why should we not murder? “It’s God’s law.” Does that mean we shouldn’t wear clothing with two different kinds of fabric as well, since that’s in the Torah as well? “Oh, no—that’s different.” Why? “Well, just because.”

I’m not trying to be flippant, mind you. I’m just pointing out something we already know—when it comes right down to it, most people don’t know what to make of the Torah. And so, we are content with just the generalizations we’re all familiar with: The Bible/Torah gives us God’s moral laws and guidelines—that’s where we get our morality from, and we’ll just ignore all those places in the Bible that don’t make sense.

The Basic Question…and the Apostle Paul’s Response

In any case, the comments I received basically boiled down to this question: “If we don’t get our morality from the Bible, if the Torah isn’t a codified moral rule book, then where do we get our morality from? If there is no definite, objective list that clearly spells out what it right/wrong, moral/immoral, then how can we resolve anything? Doesn’t that make everything rather subjective?”

Now, those are legitimate questions. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t ask those questions. But note this: those questions are more or less based on the assumption that morality comes from law. Or better yet, morality is a matter of whether or not you obey rules. This, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is almost exactly the same issue that the Apostle Paul was addressing in both Galatians and Romans, albeit in a slightly different context.

Without going into everything, what Paul is combating in those two letters is primarily a Jewish misunderstanding and misapplication of the Torah. Essentially, the pharisaic understanding of the Torah was that it was more or less a list of moral rules and commands that God demanded His people to keep, and unless Jews kept all those rules, God would never send His Spirit back to them and dwell with them again. In other words, they felt they had to prove to God they were good and moral before He would really like them. Sure, “God is love”…blah blah blah, but you’d better shape up or else you’re going to burn in hell!

But Paul’s experience with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road changed his entire perspective. After all, he was a Pharisee—he was really good and keeping all the rules in the Torah—and yet at that moment on the Damascus Road, he realized that he—a good, Torah-keeping Jew—was an enemy of God. By all standards, Paul was a really “moral” guy, and yet, was hopelessly sinful and deserving of God’s judgment.

As a Pharisee, he had thought that “keeping the rules” and “being moral” was how one became righteous. After his encounter with Christ, though, his entire thinking changed: the kind of morality that comes from rule-keeping doesn’t count for anything in terms of righteousness. In fact, obsessing over rule-keeping and Torah observance was a sign that one was still “living according to the flesh.” And what “the flesh” means in Paul’s theology isn’t so much simply our material bodies, but rather the sinful, “old age” mindset that thinks it is possible to appease and manipulate God/the gods by obeying rules.

The pagans would make sacrifices to their gods, not because they loved them or because they thought the gods were moral, but because they were afraid those petty gods would squash them if they didn’t. Shockingly, Paul said his fellow Jews approached the Torah the same way—as a way of appeasing an angry God, of manipulating Him into doing what they wanted, just like a child might say, “Dad, I cleaned up my room. I’m a good boy, so can you buy me a candy bar?”

Paul is adamant: that way of thinking is “living according to the flesh.” It is having a fleshly mindset. And, as he clearly states in Galatians 5:16-18: “Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law [i.e. Torah].”

By way of example, think of the Torah as a fence in a corral that prevents wild horses who haven’t been tamed yet from escaping. As long as the fence is up, sure, those horses won’t run wild, but that’s really not their choice. They’re still wild at heart. You only know if they’ve really been tamed after you take the fence away and they stay where they need to be. Thus, to bring the analogy around to morality, the source of morality isn’t the fence; it is the changed heart within the horse.

The problem with what I’ll call “Torah/Law-based morality” is that not only is its very view of God wrong, but it ends up leading to self-righteousness, arrogance, and division. It says, “I don’t really think God is loving. I really think he is an ogre I need to somehow impress or manipulate by my moral actions. Look at me and how I am able to keep the rules better than you!” In short, that kind of morality doesn’t reflect a changed heart. It reflects the mentality of a teenager in youth group who, when told he shouldn’t have sex before marriage, says, “Okay, if that’s the rule, then how far can I go without it being sinful?” It is the mentality who really wants clear rules so that he’ll know just how far he can get to the fence without being immoral.

We all know people like that: people who are very “moral” in terms of rule-keeping, but who are just eaten up with pride and self-righteousness. It is that kind of mindset that is what “living according to the flesh” looks like. And Paul is clear: that mindset is utterly opposed to the Spirit and can never inherit the Kingdom of God.

And so, in Paul’s day, certain Judaizers were telling Gentile believers that it was immoral to eat meat in the marketplace because that meat had passed through and been butchered by pagan priests. Paul’s response was essentially this: “It’s just meat. If your conscience doesn’t bother you and if you give thanks to God for it, go ahead an eat it. But if a pagan points it out to you that it passed through a pagan temple, don’t eat it, because for that pagan it clearly is an issue, so don’t let your freedom be the cause for him to stumble and think, ‘Oh, that Christian is eating IDOL FOOD!’ And if you are eating with a Jew who sees that meat as ‘idol food,’ then don’t eat meat in front of him. Don’t let your freedom cause him to stumble in his faith.”

In essence, for Paul, the dynamics have changed. “Morality” wasn’t a matter of keeping rules. For Paul, true “Spirit-empowered morality” was a matter of doing whatever was needed to build the other person up, to not being the cause of him stumbling. “Spirit-empowered morality” seeks to build people up into full maturity in Christ so that they can further reflect God’s image in the world.

The Torah, Children, Slaves, the Spirit, and Sonship

So what is the Torah, if it isn’t God’s moral rule book? Well, Paul equates the Torah with a guardian—or better yet, think Nanny McPhee. Specifically, he gives the analogy of someone who is going to leave his inheritance to his child, but who hires a nanny to look after the child. So yes, the nanny gives rules and tries to raise the child to become a responsible adult. The nanny has a purpose: to raise the child and discipline the child when needed. But the goal of that discipline is to get the child to grow up to where he doesn’t need the nanny anymore. If the child grows up and is still asking the nanny if it is okay to do something when he’s 30 years old, something is dreadfully wrong.

While a child, Paul says, even though he is due to inherit everything from his father, that child still needs to be taught and still needs discipline—and for that matter, that child is, for all practical purposes, a slave who has to obey the nanny. But the heart of the good news of the Gospel is that through Christ, God has sent the Spirit of Sonship into the hearts of those who have put their faith in Christ. The gift of the Spirit has been given, those in Christ are no longer children in need of a nanny, they are no longer slaves. They are sons who have received the inheritance, and now that the Spirit dwells within them, they don’t need the nanny to tell them what to do.

For that reason, Paul would never say that morality has its source in the Torah. Sure, the Torah (and the Bible) contains moral teachings. But, as my former professor Gordon Fee would say, “It’s not right because it’s in the Bible. It’s in the Bible because it’s right.” The reason we know it is wrong to commit murder or commit adultery isn’t because we never knew that before we were told those things were wrong in the Bible. It is because we, by virtue of being created in God’s image, have a sense of right and wrong within us, given to us by God. It is one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Still, that “moral compass,” if you will, will either become more accurate or less accurate, dependent on our relationship with God and our openness to the Holy Spirit.

That is why Paul differentiates “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit.” The goodness and morality that is the result of walking in the Spirit is the fruit of a relationship with God. The “goodness and morality” that is the result of having the mentality of “I need to keep the rules in order to be good” is one of slavish works and a childish understanding.

One Last Thing

The final thing to emphasize is that we have to remember that the legal material in the Torah was primarily to establish a framework for an orderly and just society, given the customs and traditions of the ANE, just like our constitution seeks to establish a framework for an orderly and just society in America today. Neither example provides a source for morality. In both examples, they seek to reflect a sense of justice and morality within each one’s own culture and society. Furthermore, laws—any laws—be they in the American legal system or in ancient Israel, can be manipulated and corrupted. That is why would should not say that the source for morality is found in the Torah, or in any legal system really. The source of morality is found in God’s empowering Spirit.

In any case, I hope that helps a bit.