The Wandering Heretic

I have examined the evidence in the Old Covenant relating to interest rates. There I found that Israelites, when making charity loans to poor Israelites, if they were Jewish or otherwise a long term resident in the Land, were restricted to an interest rate of zero. If the lender was not Jewish and the recipient was not a poor long term resident of the Land, then there was no limitation on interest. It could be as high as the market would bear.

That was the Law of God as it applied to interest rates. I therefore concluded that if God did not restrict the interest rate outside the Holy Land, then laws in the United States should not do so either. They should be controlled only by the laws of supply and demand, risk and reward, just like any other commodity.

However, the more discerning reader may be led to contest this view. After all, my case was made on the basis of the Old Covenant Law. Since we are now in the New Covenant, we are held to standards of mercy far and above those written in the Old. Therefore, as an act of mercy for the poor “victims” of the Payday Lenders, we are justified in seeking a limitation on the interest rate so charged.

Such a case would be stronger if a person could find an explicit statement about interest in the New Testament; however no such passage exists. In fact, as I have already noted, the only passages that do mention interest are contained within parables, which makes specific application difficult. Also, to make matters worse for the interest limiters, the parables appear to be favorable toward charging interest, and a lot of it.

So just how do these provisions apply in the New Covenant? Has the Law in its entirety been done away with? Do these provisions only apply to Israelites living in the Land of Israel today? (If so, I have a feeling the national Israel is in for some trouble.) Have they been put on some sort of hiatus from 132 C.E., when the Romans disbanded the Jewish Nation after the Bar Kokhba Revolt, until 1948, when the Jews in Israel declared their independence?

To go back to the series which I interrupted, the Council of Jerusalem appears to answer in the negative to all of the above questions. As I noted in one post within that series, in even considering the issue of the applicability of the Law to the Gentiles, they were operating under two underlying assumptions: 1) the believing Gentiles were connected in some way to Israel; and 2) the Law has some significance in that relationship.

I now anticipate my conclusion to that previous series for purposes of expounding on this one. Jesus, in recapitulating and fulfilling all of the history, sacrifices, and scriptures—including the Law—in his own life and ministry, transferred the context of that history, community, and Law from the Land of Israel to himself. As such, he was the fulfillment of all that the Land promised; therefore, what applied to the Land in the Old Covenant applies to Jesus in the New. As such, what is no longer significant is that you reside “in Israel;” what is significant is that you are now “in Christ.” To phrase it another way, Christian is as much a territorial term in the New Covenant as Israelite was in the Old.

This assertion has many more applications than I want to expound here; however, one factor does apply to the subject of this post. Barring the sacrificial laws—which have been made unnecessary by the forgiveness granted in the Sacrifice of Christ’s death—the other provisions of the Law (properly understood) still apply to the Jews today. However as a corollary to that assertion, since Gentile Christians are now full time residents of the New Israel (that is, they are “in Christ”), the laws that applied to the Gentile “neighbor” or “long term resident alien” apply to them—that is, to us—today. By obeying these laws, they are signs to the outside world of our Covenant relationship to our God.

These include the provisions given in Acts 15:20, but are not entirely limited to those provisions. This reasoning can be applied to the interest provisions of the Torah (Old Covenant) as well.

First, since the Law in the Old Covenant applied only to lenders who were genetic Israelites, this implies that this stipulation was a “law of separation.” As such, it marked a boundary that was drawn not only between the Jews and the Gentiles, but between the Jewish and Gentiles residents of Israel itself. It is specifically these “laws of separation” that Paul declares were done away with “in Christ.” (Gal 3:28; Eph 3:6; Col 3:11).

In this case, therefore, the rules that apply to Jewish lenders will transfer over to include Christians as well. As such, Christian lenders are as obligated to make zero interest charity loans to the poor as were the Jewish Lenders under Moses.

However, before the users of Payday Loans come running to the closest Christian with their hands out, I submit that the recipients of such loans are also limited by these same provisions. Not only must they be “residents” of “Christ,” they must be “long term” residents! As I noted in my previous post, it was the “long term Gentile resident in Israel” (ger in Hebrew) who was under the protection of the Law in Israel. The short term resident or visitor (ben nekhar in Hebrew) was not. In the same way, in the New Covenant, it is only the poor, long term local church member who is entitled to the interest free loan. Those who are “visitors” or even more, those who are not members, have no such claim. Loans to them are therefore subject to whatever interest rates they contractually accept.

Therefore, in the New Covenant time, the Payday Lenders—who are not under any church authority or authorization—are “outside the Land.” God’s Law does not restrict, and therefore does not declare “immoral” any interest rate they charge.

All of the above is not to say that being subject to high interest rates is a good thing. Obviously, at least for the poor, it is better to be “in Christ” than subject to the forces outside. Herein lies a hint of a solution to the current HB 333 debate.

Next Post: A Suggested Solution

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 6:20 am and is filed under Subversive Verse of the Month. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Or, if you wish, you can find all the posts Caine