"Come
unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly
in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (Matthew 11:
28-29)
In
the sometimes fruitless discussions we have with those who claim our
faith isn't Christian because we teach keeping the commandments of God, sometimes it helps to consider seemingly unrelated
scriptures from a different angle to add a fresh perspective to the
dialog (if it is real dialog).
Verses
that might seem more direct and to the point, such as Christ's direct
answer of "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments"
(Matthew 19: 16-17; an incident important enough to be included in
multiple Gospels) often have already been neutered by pastors and
teachers of those who are challenging us.
For
example, they may have been taught that Christ's reply to the rich
young man who wanted to know what to do to gain eternal life was just
sarcasm, aimed at teaching the impossibility of pleasing God through
obedience. It's an appalling response, in my opinion, but one that
has blinded some sincere people.
"Take
my yoke upon you" from Matthew 11 might be a helpful passage in
future discussions on the complex topic of salvation, faith, and
works. I think we LDS defenders rarely bring it up in that context,
but it could be useful.
The
easiness of the way that Christ speaks of should resonate with those
who have been taught that salvation is easy, for it is, but the image
of putting on a yoke and taking on a genuine burden, light and easy
though it may be, is one that can help clarify what Christ is asking
of us and how we must respond to Him.
Standard
commentary on this passage indicates that the yoke is a symbol of the
teachings of Christ, so taking His yoke upon us means accepting His
teachings. To us, that includes all that He has taught and given us,
including His commandments.
The
image of the yoke reminds us that while the decision to come unto
Christ may be immediate and instant, the commitment to pull for Him
under His yoke is life-long, and it's a decision that bearers of the
yoke can retract at any time.
A
yoke can be taken off as easily as it is put on, or one pulling a
burden can stop moving forward at any time. The yoke is tied not just
to which master we follow, but what we do after choosing that master:
we move forward, carrying our burdens for Him, light though they may
be.
If
we stop moving forward, we have rebelled. The yoke is a symbol of a
commitment, a relationship, even a covenant to serve.
To
those who object that salvation is not by works and taking on a yoke
sounds a lot like work of some kind, it might be helpful to recall
that we cannot escape one basic reality: we are either serving God or
somebody else. We are hitched to somebody's team in this life, like
it or not, and bear somebody's yoke.
Those
who refuse to take on the light and easy yoke of Christ are weighed
down by the much heavier yoke of sin and selfishness. Those who
reject light serve darkness, in spite of the common illusion that
they serve no master at all.
So
the real question is whom shall we serve? The choice of serving
Christ fully and properly is one that involves bearing burdens,
taking covenants upon ourselves and making sacrifices for His cause,
and though it may seem difficult at times, it is a liberating service
that brings joy. It is vastly easier than any alternative — in
the long run.
Christ
actually gives two commandments in this passage of Matthew 11. First,
be calls us to come unto Him. And then we are to take His yoke upon
us and learn from Him.
Believing
in Him, acknowledging Him, looking to Him is the first step. It is
not the completion of His plan for us. But it is a wonderful
beginning. First, we have faith in Christ and come unto Him. Then we
follow, serve, obey, and endure to the end. Thus, the yoke.
The
union of these two commands seems to fit well with an ancient
rabbinic teaching related to the symbol of the yoke. Jon Levenson in
Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis:
Winston Press, 1985, p. 84) writes:
What,
precisely, did the rabbis think happened when one recites the Shma
[or Shema Yisrael,
referring to Deut. 6:4]? We find an answer in the reply
of the Tannaitic master Rabbi Joshua ben Korhah to the question of
why Deut. 6:4-9 is positioned before 11:13-21:
so
that one might accept upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of
heaven first; afterwards, he accepts upon himself the yoke of the
commandments.
“Heaven”
in Talmudic language is usually a more delicate way of saying “God.”
Rabbi Joshua sees the Shma, therefore, as the acclamation of God’s
kingship. Only in light of such an acclamation do the mitsvot
[the commandments of the Torah]
make sense.
In
light of the biblical ideas, we can say that one must first accept
the suzerainty of the great king, the fact of covenant; only then can
he embrace the particulars which the new lord enjoins upon him, the
stipulations.
For
Latter-day Saints, we first exercise faith in Christ to come unto
Him, and then we take upon us His yoke as we covenant to follow Him
and keep His commandments.
This
view of Christ's words in Matthew 11:28-30 is not unique to
Mormonism. Alexander McClaren,
a famous "non-conformist" Scottish minister of the Baptist
faith (1826-1910), wrote something on this passage relatively close
to LDS perspectives. Speaking of the two adjacent commands, "Come
unto me" and "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me,"
McClaren wrote the following in his Expositions of Holy Scripture:
‘Come
unto Me,’ being translated out of metaphor into fact, is simply
‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’
And
still further, we have here, not only the initial act by which
companionship and union with Jesus Christ is brought about, but the
continual course by which it is kept up, and by which it is
manifested. The faith which saves a man’s soul is not all which
is required for a Christian life. ‘Take My yoke upon you, and
learn of Me.’
The
yoke is that which, laid on the broad forehead or the thick neck of
the ox, has attached to it the cords which are bound to the burden
that the animal draws. The burden, then, which Christ gives to His
servants to pull, is a metaphor for the specific duties which He
enjoins upon them to perform; and the yoke by which they are fastened
to their burdens, ‘obliged’ to their duties, is His
authority, So to ‘take His yoke’ upon us is to submit our
wills to His authority.
Therefore
this further call is addressed to all those who have come to Him,
feeling their weakness and their need and their sinfulness, and have
found in Him a Saviour who has made them restful and glad; and it
bids them live in the deepest submission of will to Him, in joyful
obedience, in constant service; and, above all, in the daily
imitation of the Master.
You
must put both these commandments together before you get Christ’s
will for His children completely expressed.
There
are some of you who think that Christianity is only a means by which
you may escape the penalty of your sins; and you are ready enough, or
fancy yourselves so, to listen when He says, ‘Come to Me that
you may be pardoned,’ but you are not so ready to listen to
what He says afterwards, when He calls upon you to take His yoke upon
you, to obey Him, to serve Him, and above all to copy Him.
And
I beseech you to remember that if you go and part these two halves
from one another, as many people do, some of them bearing away the
one half and some the other, you have got a maimed Gospel; in the one
case a foundation without a building, and in the other case a
building without a foundation.
The
people who say that Christ’s call to the world is ‘Come
unto Me,’ and whose Christianity and whose Gospel is only a
proclamation of indulgence and pardon for past sin, have laid hold of
half of the truth.
The
people who say that Christ’s call is ‘Take My yoke upon
you and learn of Me,’ and that Christianity is a proclamation
of the duty of pure living after the pattern of Jesus Christ our
great Example, have laid hold of the other half of the truth. And
both halves bleed themselves away and die, being torn asunder; put
them together, and each has power.
That
separation is one reason why so many Christian men and women are such
poor Christians as they are — having so little real religion,
and consequently so little real joy.
I
could lay my fingers upon many men, professing Christians — I
do not say whether in this church or in other churches — whose
whole life shows that they do not understand that Jesus Christ has a
twofold summons to His servants; and that it is of no avail once,
long ago, to have come, or to think that you have come, to Him to get
pardon, unless day by day you are keeping beside Him, doing His
commandments, and copying His sweet and blessed example.
Believe
in Christ and accept His grace with joy. Then serve Him in a covenant
relationship to the end of our lives, in growing joy and devotion.
Recognize, too, that the yoke we put on can be taken off, and we can
wander away under another yoke that easily slides onto our necks once
the easy yoke of the Savior is taken off.
Next
week, I'll discuss how taking the yoke of Christ upon us also points
us to the temple. I'll also mention a fascinating passage from one of
the early Christian fathers who urged the Greeks to replace their
pagan mysteries with the mysteries and sacred rites of Christianity
which he likened to taking the yoke of Christ upon us in order to
become more like Him in the presence of the Father.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.
