The Entitled Magi

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." With these words, the founding fathers endorsed a belief that all people are provided with certain rights by their Creator that are not to be taken away. The founding fathers were correct, human beings were created in God's image, and this entitles us, as image bearers of God, to certain privileges and expectations. I believe these words have also produced a question that lurks within the depth of American Christianity: "Do we have an unalienable right to salvation?" and "Are we entitled to God?" I believe (and I could be wrong) that our culture has answered this question affirmatively. We do believe we have an unalienable right to salvation and we are entitled to God. We must address this question for as our society continues to affirm their divine entitlement, more and more people will seek to change the doctrines and traditions of the church by asserting their unalienable right to God.

Epiphany, the day commemorating God's revelation of Jesus to the Magi through the heavenly star, offers two important insights to this pressing question; two insights that will cut across the grain of our cultural opinions. First, the Magi were not entitled to worship Jesus because their knowledge of Jesus came from God's revelation or Epiphany. Second, the Magi did not have an unalienable right to Jesus because the Magi were aliens to God and his covenantal promises.

First, the Magi were not entitled to worship Jesus because their knowledge of Jesus came from God's revelation or Epiphany. An epiphany is defined as an appearance or a revelation of God. An epiphany originates in God and is not something created by man. This means that the Magi's knowledge of Jesus was the result of God's gracious gift and not a knowledge that the Magi acquired through their own skills using reason, logic, and empirical deductions. This implies that the Magi were not entitled to know anything about Jesus, that they did not own their knowledge because their knowledge was the result of God's gracious revelation/epiphany.

The same is true today. All knowledge of Jesus, particularly knowledge our salvation through his atoning sacrifice, comes only through God's gracious revelation. As St. Paul said in Romans 1:17, "For in the gospel righteousness from God is revealed." St. Paul did not say we know the gospel through empirical deduction, reason, logic or experience. He said it is known through revelation. Therefore, since God's salvation is known only through revelation, we (just like the Magi) are not entitled to know the gospel nor are do we have an unalienable right to a saving knowledge of Jesus

Second, the Magi did not have an unalienable right to Jesus because the Magi were aliens to God and his covenantal promises. The Magi were gentiles from Persia who probably were part of an ethnic tribe responsible for the care and maintenance of Persian paganism. The Magi had no right or entitlement to Jesus for two reasons. First, the Gentiles were excluded because of their ethnicity. The Gentiles were not physical children of Abraham and thus excluded from God's covenantal promises.¹ Second, the Gentiles were pagan idolaters whose rejection of the true God and embrace of idolatry excluded them from God's covenantal promises (see the 1^st and 2^nd commandments for an explanation). For these reasons a sign was placed in the Jerusalem temple warning any Gentile that he would die if he entered.

Just has the Gentiles were excluded from God in the temple, so many of the early Christians tried to exclude the Gentiles from Jesus. St. Peter was very reluctant to go into the house of Cornelius, a Gentile Centurion, and only went when God clearly commanded him to go. After visiting Cornelius, St. Peter was rebuked by his Christian brothers in Jerusalem who said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them." Or consider St. Paul's dispute with St. Peter in Galatians. St. Paul boldly chastised Peter for excluding the Gentiles and treating them with contempt by refusing to eat with them. Finally consider St. Paul's description of Gentiles in Romans 11 as wild olive branches whom by their very nature did not belong on a cultivated olive tree of Israel. The biggest problem in the was how to handle the Gentiles! The Season of Epiphany reminds us that the Gentile Magi had no right to come and worship Jesus, God incarnate. This means, contrary to prevailing cultural opinion, that we Gentiles do not have an unalienable right to God.

Yet, the season of Epiphany reminds us that it was the Gentile Magi who worshipped and adored Jesus, while his own Jewish people refused to see him and then tried to kill him. The story of the Magi reveals that through Jesus Christ, the Gentiles now have full access to God and thus full access to salvation. St. Paul called the inclusion of the Gentiles in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ the great mystery of the world, a mystery only revealed through the Gospel. As St. Paul said, "This mystery [not made known to men of other generations] is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promises in Christ Jesus." The great mystery hidden through the ages is not the incarnation, not the relationship between divine sovereignty and human free will, it is our salvation. Through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, God has destroyed those barriers that separated the Gentiles from the promises of the covenant. Through the work of Jesus Christ, Gentiles are no longer second-class citizens or aliens to grace for in Christ they are co-heirs, co-members, and co-sharers of the promises of Christ. The story of the Magi reminds us that while gentiles were once alienated from God, entitled only to God's judgment, now through God's grace in the atoning work of Jesus Christ Gentiles can be saved.

If God saves Gentiles by grace alone, how does he save Abraham's physical descendents? Are they saved by grace or are they entitled to salvation because of their ancestry? To be sure, there is a great advantage in being a descendent of Abraham as St. Paul said in Romans 3:1, "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God." There is a great advantage in being a descendent of Abraham, but that advantage is not enough to make an entitlement. For St. Paul continues, "What shall we conclude then? Are we [Jews] any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. … There is no difference [between the Jew and the Gentile] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3: 9, 23) Because of sin no one is entitled to God; no one has an unalienable right to God because all people have alienated themselves from God through sin. Since no one is entitled to salvation, salvation is only by God's grace.

Our founding fathers were right, we, human beings, have been endowed with certain unalienable rights and entitlements, but we do not have an unalienable right to God. The only religious entitlement we have is God's judgment for as St. Paul said in Romans 11:32, "All men are disobedient so that God may be merciful to all." St. Paul also said, "All of sinned and fall short of the glory of God." St. Paul however does not end with our entitlement to condemnation, for he continues, "And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

The story of the Magi and the season of Epiphany remind us that no one is entitled to salvation; everyone is excluded from God's covenantal promises because of sin. Yet, Epiphany also reminds us that God demonstrates his love toward us by saving us through his undeserved and unmerited grace. We do not know the grace of God by our own skills of reason, empiricism, or logic; grace is known only through God's merciful revelation. We do not have an unalienable right to grace for we all have alienated ourselves from God through sin. However, through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, God mercifully reveals his love for us so that through grace and grace alone, alienated human beings can be made unalienable children of God.