Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HCP Vol XX Special Number

1968 No 2- 58

(07700)

of Xahweh lie ver fight against warship, the religious institutions or the ■ priesthood 'as such but against the false interpretations of these. The religious institutions, ceremonies and the priesthood are God-given instruments in the life cf Israel in crder to keep alive at all times the consciousness of Yahweh's gracious withal judging presence which calls on the people to live in a manner worthy of their being chosen as God's own people and thus to discharge their duty as a "people cf priests" among the peoples« "God is in the midst cf us! " *• the proclamation of this fact is the task of the priests and this it the nnaning of the ceremonies and religious institutions# When, however, the false faith began to prevail in the religious institutions and in the midst of their custodians, the priests, that the meaning of God;,s presence is God's unconditional help against everybody, by means of a priestly technique and irrespectively of the people's unfaithfulness, then the prophets raised theix voice against the priests and the religious institutions. It is at this time/tlie prophets deliver the message of God's judgment which is classically formulát ed especially in the books of Amos and Jeremiah: if the religious institutions and ceremonies fail to induce in God's people the love cf the neighbour without hypocrisy, faithfulness to the Covenant, then these institutions, as empty of meaning, are ripe for God's judgment (Cf.: Amos 5: 21-27, Jeremiah 7)a

The prophets' fight against false worship has ’7ery important socill consequences# Their fight, in this case, is directed against the inhumanity cf the religious cult which no longer exposes sin and evil but puts the cloak cf righteousness on lawlessness and injustice# It is precisely agiinst the religious renaissance brought about by the cultic reform that Jeremiah mokes his attacks in the Temple, since, under the cloak cf the reformed cult, the acts to violate the Covenant, to exploit and oppress the poor wnnt on without interruption# Fron the social viewpoint the prophetic protest against false worship is a revolutionary action#

b) Historical Concreteness of the Prophetic Message

The prophet proclaims the laws of God's kingly rule in the specific historical situations, under the specific social conditions of Israel, The social pessages cf the prophets have a constant feature in that they always call on the people to be faithful to the Covenant and to fulfill the horizontal, that is, social requirements of the Covenant# With this abiding trait of the prophetic ministry, we note the changing forms in which the prophets, in the various historical situation«, make their protests against the arbitrary actions of the kings and the acts of injustice perpetrated by the class society#

c) Law, Justice and Peace

In order to understand the public and social ministry of the prophets, we must attach very great importance to the prophetic interpretation of God's Law#Si) In their view, the ultimate source of every law is the Covenant will