CHRISTIAN
INTERMEDIARIES – PAGAN CONCEPT
Hugh Fogelman, et al
Christians
and Jews approach God differently. Long before the birth of Jesus, the Jewish
people experienced an intimate and loving relationship with God. Thus Jewish
prophets always stressed that all could approach God directly, without an
intermediary.
In
trying to find why Christians feel a need to approach God through an intermediary,
Jesus, there could be a deep-seated root of the episode of the Golden Calf. Non-Jews
cannot phantom a concept of worshipping a god they cannot see.
If
Christianity grew out of the Torah, which was given to the Jewish people, then
why did Christianity abandon the Torah's direct approach to God and begin to
stress that people can only approach God through Jesus?
Christians,
perhaps feel that God is too awesome and remote to approach directly. So too,
many people of the ancient world felt that God was too awesome and remote to
approach directly. Christians felt the need for intermediaries between them and
God, and this attitude led to the spread of idolatry. The founders of
Christianity, i.e. Paul, were seeking followers among the idol-worshiping
nations, and they understood their mentality. Thus, they taught their followers
that Jesus would serve as their link to God. In this way, the founders of
Christianity hoped to make their religion more acceptable to the pagans, whom
they felt were not yet ready for the pure monotheism of the Torah that stressed
a direct approach to the One and Only God.
For
as Maimonides wrote, it is forbidden to pray to God through any intermediary,
as it is written (Exodus 20:3), "You shall have no other gods before Me" (The Thirteen Principles of Faith).
For
the pagan peoples, God was too high, proud, and remote to be concerned about
"lowly" human beings. This was why they began to pray to the various
forces within nature. Christianity, through the teachings of Paul therefore
offered the pagan nations the comforting message that God had sent his
"only son" to redeem them.
The
Jews, however, were not impressed with this message for they knew that God has
many children, as Moses proclaimed to the People of Israel: "You are children to the Compassionate
One - your God" (Deuteronomy 14:1). As the children of the
Compassionate One, they had always approached their loving Parent in Heaven
directly, so why would they now need an intermediary?
From
the very dawn of their history, Jews experienced the direct and loving
redemption of the Compassionate One, and at each Passover Seder, Jews remind
themselves of this close relationship by chanting words from the Passover
Hagaddah (a book read during Seder).
In
their search for loving, feminine comfort, the pagan peoples would bring
offerings to various forces in nature, which they viewed as
"goddesses." Even the earth became a goddess. At a later stage of
history, the Catholic Church provided people with "Mother Mary" who
would intervene with "her son, Jesus." Like the goddesses,
"Mother Mary" was a comforting figure, as the Beatles sang in their
famous song, "Let it Be,” "Mother Mary, comfort me." Christians may claim they are not going
through any “intermediaries,” then why MUST they end every prayer in
Jesus’ name?
The
Jewish people, however, know that they are to receive motherly comfort from the
Compassionate One, Who proclaimed: "Like a person whose mother comforts
him, so will I comfort you, and in
Throughout
biblical history, the Jewish prophets protested against pagan teachings that human
beings need to worship the forces within nature to receive help and redemption.
As part of their protest, the prophets emphasized the idea that the
Compassionate One is close to all who are suffering and in need. For example,
the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed the following Divine message:
"For thus said the High and Exalted One, Who abides
forever and Whose Name is Holy: I abide in exaltedness and holiness, but I am
with the despondent and lowly of spirit - to revive the spirit of the lowly and
to revive the heart of the despondent." (Isaiah 57:15)
As one of our great writers wrote: “You take Jesus, we’ll take God.”