Moses theology and Aaron theology

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025357490

 

These days, ideological disputes continue in our country. Even here (in Dong-A netizen forum), some netizens criticize one another, saying, "You're bigoted conservatives," or "You're radical progressives." Seeing that they treat the others as sinners, we understand that old-new conflict is a serious problem. This divides human beings into new-people and old-people. A little thought, and they can realize that they dont need to regard the others as foes. They need to get an education that makes their thought flexible.

 

In Christianity, too, there was continual struggle between the progressive and the conservative (the orthodox). One party, announcing they were fulfilling God's will, regarded the others as sinners and made war upon them. However, looking back into history, most conflicts took place because the orthodox could not tolerate the progressive. The point of the orthodox was why they should change what hadn't had any problem until then. They said that the law that God had given them before should be an eternal law. The orthodox Christianity attacked the progressive thinkers when they added something new to the old, because it was nothing but a challenge to God's authority in the sight of them. But the progressive said that the law of God should be changed when the situation changed. They say that it's not justified to apply the standards of past culture, custom, and knowledge to Christians living in a new era, in a changed environment.

 

Then, who is right? Whose hand will God raise? This question can be answered by considering Moses theology and Aaron theology. Moses theology is a new theology based on God's revelation. Moses' thought and Paul's thought can be classified into this kind; the two persons had received the apostolic gifts. Luther, Calvin, and Wesley are included to this, too. Moses was the first man in history who received the law directly from God and wrote it as the law of Israel. Paul received the revelation of Jesus Christ and wrote the Pauline Epistles. The Pauline Epistles are the law of grace of God that the saints and the church of Christianity, which would be a world religion, should keep in new situations. Like this, God gives us new words in a new situation. These new words are the Moses theology. Aaron theology is a theology that adheres to the words the Moses theology has received from God. This is a theology that should never misuse even one word of the Moses theology, nor should it add one's thought to it or take away any words from it.

 

Therefore, both theologies are necessary to the kingdom of God. These two theologies are complementary. It is necessary to receive God's word in a new era and to make it a doctrine; and it also is necessary to keep it exactly as it says. However, dangers lurk in Moses theology and Aaron theology. If you call something not from God's revelation but just from your mind the word of God, you are a heretic. Your thought is a Pharisee theology, if you stick to the old, refusing the new and calling it a heresy; when God has given his servant a new word because a new era needs a new word and a new theology.

 

So, dispute took place when the orthodox theology became Pharisee theology which condemned a new Moses theology as a heresy, persecuted it and sought to kick it out of the church. And some people arbitrarily misinterpreted and distorted words of the Bible without having received revelation from God, and became heretics who tried to destroy the truth and the church of God.

 

In order to solve such disputes, we must always be sensitive to the work (the activity) of the Holy Spirit. And we must understand the true meaning (the real purport) of the words of the Bible. A literal interpretation of the Bible ignoring the contexts leads to a Pharisee theology, while a theological thought that ignores the present situation of the church, the glory of God and the good (the profit) of his kingdom and his people, to a heresy.

 

I'd like to say a word to the conservative orthodox fundamentalist theologians in Korea. A lot of theologians who have emerged in the modern and contemporary times do not deny the theology of the past. Most of them acknowledge the past thoughts but tell of new gospels (new theological thoughts) as well in new situations. If you call them heretics, you become Pharisees, so you do not have to recklessly slander and condemn them. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (Jn 8:32)" The fundamental principle of truth remains the same, but the truth changes its clothes in new situations. The abolition of the circumcision of the Old Testament is a good example. Come to think of it, Jesus (because he cried out for freedom) was a liberal theologian, and the Pharisees, the so called orthodox conservative theologians. God acknowledged a sound liberal theology as a new orthodoxy and made the established Pharisee theology and its followers step down from history.