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God’s loving action is the touchstone by which law is to be discerned, obeyed or

superceded--activities which Jesus and his disciples have in common with the law and the

prophets (cf. Hos. 1-3; Isa. 40-55). So Jesus tests the practice of capital punishment in

his day (stoning), and finds it wanting (cf. John 8:2-22). Jesus said to the woman,

Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again. Although

Jesus and Hosea are forgiving, neither are permissive. Hosea places himself and Gomer

under appropriate discipline; Jesus commands the woman, Do not sin again (cf. Paul,

Rom. 6:1).

Jesus, though he begins a new era of fulfillment, still stands in the tradition of the

law and the prophets. He is indeed the New Moses, with a final (eschatological)

interpretation of covenant law. His law is founded upon a future act of God rather than a

past act, a future act which becomes present in the disciple’s walk with Jesus. The

disciple has participated in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and absolute commitment

to covenant law as principle is love’s demand.

Decisive to Sinai law is Yahweh’s prophetic covenant, founded upon God’s act of

deliverance from state slavery, an act which becomes paradigm and motive clause for

both policy and technique law. In this code the ground of covenant law is a past act of

God’s grace, a law mediated not bya “king of justice” but by a prophetic figure who

communicates and actualizes Yahweh’s covenant word in the present. Such acts may be

defined in the Bible as those of the warrior God Yahweh (Exod. 15:3) or even of the

Lamb’s war (Rev. 6, esp. vv. 16-17).

Decisive to Elijah’s Sinai/Horeb ordeal is his experience of the Center which

distinguishes between the Warrior God Yahweh and the warrior god(s) Baal, between

law as power politics and the prophetic whisper or “sound of sheer silence.”This

whisper or “sound” in Hosea’s experience displaces retribution by Yahweh’s redemptive

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action as motive and paradigm for technique law, to heal his broken relationship to

Gomer, his wife.

In the Servant Poems the prophet is called to establish covenant law among the

nations, not by war and violence, but by proclamation of Yahweh’s word, and by taking

upon himself the violence of the nations. This nonviolent Servant is Yahweh’s

representative to establish justice in the nations rather than Cyrus who, though

representing Yahweh in returning Israel to its land, does not know Yahweh.

Decisive to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is the Lord’s prayer, petitions for the

Rule of the Father and for divine forgiveness even as disciples forgive others—petitions

which the Antitheses concretize:

∑

by the law of reconciliation in worship as exchanged for the law of murder and

retribution in contemporary law courts;

∑

by the law of faithfulness from the heart, for the lustful look which leads to

violation of the law against adultery;

∑

by the law of nonresistance, for the law of retribution in technique law.

∑

Love for the enemy has little precedent in Sinai law, but may find a precedent in

the Levitical law of love for the alien, especially as exposited by the prophetic book

of Jonah.

Surely the saga from law as retribution to law as covenant love, begun decisively

at Sinai and perfected finally on the Galilean Mountain, has been the narrative of a long

journey. And it has been an even longer journey from that small band on theGalilean

Mountain--a band sent out to disciple and teach all nations--to the ecclesia (church) of the

third millenium. The church fathers of the first three centuries, monastic orders of the

Middle Ages, the Waldensians and Wycliffites of the late Middle Ages, Felix Mantz and

Anabaptists, Menno Simons and Mennonites, Quakers of the early modern period, the

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early Wesleyans, the Catholics since the second Vatican Council; Catholics: Quakers,

Mennonites and Wesleyans of the 21stcentury against the death penalty—few are even

aware of this journey!

The journey of Elijah to Sinai to distinguish between the Warrior God, Yahweh,

and the warrior god, Baal—how many “disciples” have even begun this pilgrimage? The

law and the prophets! Perhaps the dysfunction of the 21stcentury is not so much that of

the state as it is of the church!. We cry out to the future, “How long, O God?”We

petition the Father, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth ”.... “And forgive us

our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors!”

Forgiveness is not the end, but a new beginning. What may happen when the

world’s one billion baptized Christians begin discussing with each other what the Sermon

on the Mount might mean now?

The Sinai covenant code is givento Israel that it might be an exemplary

community, leading the nations as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod. 10:5).

They, led by a Prophet from their holy community, are called to proclaim Yahweh’s

justice to the nations; this Prophet accepts suffering as part of his vocation, and finally

gives his life a ransom “for many.”Every prophetic book of collected oracles in the OT

except Hosea,includes in its oracles a message to the nations. The book of Isaiah

envisions the conversion of the nations, where Yahweh’s teaching and arbitration will

replace war and retribution (Isa. 2:2-5). Ezekiel presents by divine oracle that the nations,

experiencing God’s acts of judgment upon evil and seeing God’s redemption for the

covenant people, will acknowledge that: I am Yahweh. Ezekiel leaves it somewhat open

as to whether these nations become full disciples, or whether they acknowledge that the

God of the covenant community is leader of world history (Ezek. 39:21-24)--and so they

come into some kind ofrelationship with that community and with its God.