Did God reckon Abraham's heart as faithful? (Nehemiah 9:8 and 13:13)

As you probably know, Protestants claim that since Abraham was "ungodly" he couldn't be justified before God by his sinful actions, and instead had to use his faith to receive the "imputed Righteousness of Christ" in order to appear righteous before God. While there are numerous proofs against Protestantism's perverted reading of Genesis 15:6 (Rom 4:3), I want to present two 'new' Biblical proofs that Protestant scholars and apologists quietly ignore. Both texts are from the book of Nehemiah, which is a fascinating new use for this book in apologetics.

The first text is:

Neh 9: 7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

The term "faithful" here is the same term used in Genesis 15:6 - and in fact is the only time the term is used of Abraham in Genesis. The Hebrew term often means "faithful" and not merely believing. The connection to Abraham's "heart" being good further suggests that Abraham was not "ungodly" in the Protestant claim of being morally depraved, but rather being merely a Gentile (cf Rom 4:9-12). Also, the verse ends with God keeping his Promise (cf Rom 4:13), because God is "righteous". The connection with Promise Keeping and Righteousness suggests that the Righteousness in question here is more of a "faithfulness," rather than the Protetant error that claims Biblical "righteousness" means a lifetime of perfectly keeping the commandments (which doesn't even make sense when speaking of the Father's righteousness).

Why could Moses not enter the Promise Land?

We all know that Moses was one of God's most beloved and important servants of all Salvation History, yet there is something unsettling about God excluding Moses from entering the Promise Land. We know from Numbers 20 and Deuteronomy 32 that God's reasoning for not allowing Moses to enter was because Moses lost his temper at the Israelites and in frustration struck the rock from which water flowed. 

Deut 32:48-52 & 34:1-12. The Lord spoke to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel for a possession. And die on the mountain which you go up, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there.” Then Moses went up to Mount Nebo. And the Lord showed him all the land of Judah as far as the western sea. And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. So the people of Israel obeyed Joshua.

This seems unfair to us that Moses had to put up with so much sin, complaining, and drama from the Israelites for 40 long years, and that he devoted his heart and soul to serving God, that this one time that Moses slips up he loses everything. It just doesn't sit well with us. Many people over the years try to rationalize it, explaining why God was justified in punishing Moses. But I think there's a more satisfying explanation that the Catholic tradition has long been aware of.

As a rule of thumb, when something strange, outrageous, or even troubling happens in the Old Testament, this is often a sign that there is a New Testament lesson hidden therein (this is called Typology). A good example is when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only-begotten son Isaac, which is an outrageous command for God to tell someone to do. Yet, we see from this outrageous event that it was preparing us for an even more outrageous event, namely God giving His Son die on the Cross. In this case of Moses not being able to enter the Promise Land, there's a wonderful Catholic Youtube / blog called Reason & Theology (subscribe to it!) wherein the host Michael Lofton explains:

It was fitting that God prevented Moses from entering the Promised Land, so that we would know the Law of Moses could not bring us to the eternal Promised Land, but merely pointed us to it. It was, in fact, Joshua who brought the people to the Promised Land, so that we would know another Joshua (Yehoshua) would bring us to our eternal reward.

The second-in-command for Moses was Joshua, which in Hebrew is the same name for Jesus. He was ordained by Moses to become the new leader of Israel, who will mightily lead them into the Promise Land. So hidden within this apparently unfair narrative of excluding Moses is the bigger lesson that the Law of Moses only gets us to a certain point in Salvation (e.g. recognition of our sinfulness), and it is up to Jesus to take us the rest of the way (i.e. Heaven). If you don't see this New Testament lesson as the primary point of Moses being excluded, then I don't think you can ever come to a satisfying answer.

 

As a funny but very relevant side note, today the Times of Israel published a story of some "controversial remarks" from Pope Francis! It turns out some Rabbis were upset with what Francis had said in a homily! Here's the relevant portion: 

Francis said: “The Law does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter… Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ.”

Rabbi Arusi sent a letter on behalf of the Chief Rabbinate to Cardinal Kurt Koch, whose Vatican department includes a commission for religious relations with Jews. “In his homily, the pope presents the Christian faith as not just superseding the Torah; but asserts that the latter no longer gives life, implying that Jewish religious practice in the present era is rendered obsolete,” Arusi reportedly wrote in the letter. “This is in effect part and parcel of the ‘teaching of contempt’ towards Jews and Judaism that we had thought had been fully repudiated by the Church.”

In a humorous twist of events, this is a time when Pope Francis says something controversial that all Christians and Protestants can agree upon!

 

Moses ordaining Joshua as his successor

 

 

King David and the Sacraments - a beautiful example of typology in the OT

I came across a passage which I believe testifies to the Catholic approach to reading the OT, namely seeing New Testament signs hidden therein. This is known as OT 'typology', which some Protestants might cringe at but I think is perfectly legitimate:

2 Sam 12: 19 But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David understood that the child was dead. 20 Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate.

David was being punished for his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, and had been fasting while his infant son was sick. When the fasting/penance period was over, David got up, washed, anointed, changed, worshiped, ate. This to me sounds like the traditional Christian practice of conversion, namely fasting as you desire to leave your old life behind, then baptism, anointing with oil (Confirmation), and putting on clean robe (Baptismal Garment), then gathering for the Mass to receive the Eucharist. I'm sure that I'm not the first to notice this, but strangely enough I've never seen anyone mention it. I just 'accidentally' came across it recently while reading the narrative. This is all I have to share for now, but I think this passage fits within my "reconsidered" understanding of the Justification narrative of Romans 4:6-8, which I've discussed (here).

Nathan telling David, "You're the man!" (not a compliment)

A quickie apologetic on Papal Infallibility

I was in a discussion with a Protestant who was arguing that Catholic converts have a mental disorder because they seek a level of certainty that only God is capable of. His goal was to show that seeking after a Infallible Magisterium is nonsense because nobody can know the Bible the way God knows the Bible. Admittedly, that's a bizarre way of objecting to the idea of Infallibility, but it led me to show him how his claim was bogus. I asked him if Peter was infallible when he interpreted various OT passages in his epistles 1 & 2 Peter. He was forced to admit Yes, Peter was infallible when interpreting the OT. I then explained that he just refuted his main thesis, because Peter was able to infallibly interpret the OT on behalf of others.

This Protestant got very embarrassed and to save face kept bringing up that Peter acted sinfully and followed false authority (Judaizers) in the incident at Antioch when Paul rebuked Peter (recorded in Galatians 2). I merely had to reaffirm that Peter acting sinfully in one circumstance doesn't mean he couldn't be infallible in other circumstances, as was already proven. I then pointed out that the Peter example actually supports the Catholic claim on infallibility, whereby we see in the example of Peter that acting sinfully in certain circumstances does not preclude a person from being infallible in other circumstances. The Catholic claim has always been the Pope is only infallible under certain circumstances, never under all circumstances! 

I'll hopefully have another post this month in a week or two.

Is Peace (Shalom) unconditional in the Bible? (Romans 5:1)

Protestant apologist James White has a few claims he regularly brings up against Catholicism, and which many Protestants blindly repeat. The two most common claims I've seen him make are asking Catholics "who is the Blessed Man of Romans 4:8?" and "Roman Catholicism cannot provide the true peace which the Gospel provides us". White says in his book and website (see here):

There can be no doubt what lies behind Paul’s use of the term peace in this [Romans 5:1] passage. The Hebrew steeped in Scripture knew full well the meaning of shalom. It does not refer merely to a cessation of hostilities. It is not a temporary cease-fire. The term shalom would not refer to a situation where two armed forces face each other across a border, ready for conflict, but not yet at war. Shalom refers to a fullness of peace, a wellness of relationship. Those systems [e.g. Roman Catholicism] that proclaim a man-centered scheme of justification cannot explain the richness of this word. They cannot provide peace because a relationship that finds its source and origin in the actions of imperfect sinners will always be imperfect itself. The phrase "we have peace" [Rom 5:1] in regard to God, properly means, God is at peace with us, his wrath towards us is removed.

This all sounds well and good, but all too often it turns out that things that sound good to human ears are often not actually what the Bible teaches (cf 2 Tim 4:3). White's lack of Biblical analysis in his presentation of how the Bible uses the term "peace" was suspicious to me, so I decided to see for myself how the Bible uses the Greek/Hebrew terms Peace/Shalom (here). Does the Bible speak of Peace/Shalom as something that is permanent and unconditional the way White makes it out to be? Here are some texts I've found that use the same Greek/Hebrew term "peace" as in Romans 5:1 that I think cast serious doubt on White's bold assertions: