Essay 32

 

LAW AND GRACE IN THE STORY OF RAHAB THE HARLOT

 

Harlots have a rather odd, even contradictory, role in the Bible. A priest could not marry a prostitute, "playing the harlot" was a metaphor of unfaithfulness on the part of God's people, and "the great harlot" was a symbol of institutional rebellion against God. Upon entering Canaan the Israelites were warned against the prostituting ways of the natives. Jephthah, one of the judges of Israel, was discredited for being the son of a prostitute. In both Testaments it is listed as a sin against God, and Paul warns that if a man joins himself to a harlot he becomes one flesh with her.

 

  And yet Hosea, one of the great prophets, was told -- in order to illustrate God's love for his wayward people -- to marry a prostitute, and to keep her as his wife even when she was unfaithful to him. Jesus allowed that prostitutes and tax collectors -- among the most despised of society -- would enter the kingdom of God before the elders and the chief priests among the Jews. And there were harlots named in the genealogy of Jesus.

 

  Moreover, Jesus permitted a harlot -- identified in Luke 7:37 as "a woman in the city who was a sinner" -- to wash, anoint, and kiss his feet, and to wipe them with her hair. And he forgave her sins right on the spot, as he did the woman in John 7 -- who was "caught in adultery, in the very act," who may also have been a harlot. In associating with such outcasts of society, Jesus was criticized as being "a friend of tax collectors and sinners" -- the latter being a term that included harlots.

 

  Prostitution was an established profession in the ancient world.  It dates back to the earliest of times, and it was not necessarily a profession of ill repute. It was accepted as a fact of life, and it was usually legally licensed by the state -- as it is in many non-Western countries today. It was a source of income for the state, especially since the house of a harlot served also as an inn. Sexual favors were among the inn's offerings. Harlots were often slaves. Discarded female infants were taken and reared to be harlots. It was such circumstances as these that marginalized them more than their profession as such. There were occasional harlots who gained higher social status.

 

  Rahab may have been one of these. That she was on speaking terms with the king suggests this. She was probably a business woman as much as a harlot. But she was almost certainly a harlot, as the story makes clear -- despite efforts to sanitize her story by making her only an inn-keeper. We are not to judge her by Christian or even Western standards. Nor are we  to suppose that the spies went to her home for sexual purposes. The spies were on a mission to reconnoitre the country, and Rahab's home was a place to stay and be in seclusion -- and possibly to elicit information. Harlots do have a way of knowing what's going on, you know!

 

  It is at this point -- when the two spies are alone with Rahab -- that the story gets exciting (Joshua 2:8-21). I see it as a story of how God deals with humankind -- a story of law and grace. New Testament writers have also seen it that way.  James 2:25 says, "Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?"  James is talking about law  -- what she saw to be her duty to God. She not only believed in the God of the Israelites, but she acted upon that faith. There is law in the story, which we can equate with light. Rahab somehow received certain information about Yahweh God -- light or revelation -- and when the opportunity came she responded to that light. James says that's what saved her -- not faith only, but works or law.

 

  But Hebrews 11:31 says, "By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she received the spies with peace." The writer is talking about disbelief -- rejection of light -- on the part of others in Jericho, who must have received the same light as Rahab. But unlike her, they rejected the light. God rejects only those who reject him!  When Rahab received light, she did not reject it. The others in Jericho received the same light, but they rejected it, and the writer of Hebrews says that is why they perished.

 

  When James says Rahab was saved by works and Hebrews that she was saved by faith, the statements are contrary (different) but not necessarily contradictory. Because both can be and are true.  She was saved by faith because believed the testimony she had heard about Yahweh. She had a heart for God -- or she was open to light in whatever form it came -- and so, when she heard she believed. The writer of Hebrews is saying that is what saved her, but he also recognized that she acted on that faith by receiving the spies.

 

  While James and Hebrews are both right -- that Rahab was saved by both faith and works (law), strictly speaking she was not saved by either, but by God's grace. It was all by the lovingkindness of God. The law (the light or revelation Rahab received) was by grace. The faith she demonstrated by the treatment of the spies was also by God's gift of grace. No one is ever saved -- anywhere in the Bible -- except by grace. Law is given and faith (obedience) is elicited as a response to the grace.

 

  Grace is always unconditional in its offing -- it was offered to all of Jericho unconditionally -- but it is conditional for its enjoyment.  Rahab enjoyed the grace because she responded to such light as she had. All others in Jericho -- insofar as we know -- rejected grace by rejecting the light.

 

  Rahab's story -- as remarkable as any in the Bible -- gives us a clue to the relationship between law and grace. The story allows us to conclude that Rahab was first of all a woman with a heart open to truth (light) in whatever form it might come. She had heard -- perhaps from her travelling customers -- about Yahweh, the God of Israel. She told the spies, once she realized they were from the surrounding Israelite army: "I know that Yahweh has given you this country, but we are afraid of you and that everyone living in this country has been seized with terror at your approach."

 

  She goes on to reveal that they had all heard particulars about what Yahweh had done for his people Israel: "We have heard how Yahweh dried up the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you put under the curse of destruction." This indicates that a certain knowledge of Yahweh had spread over Jericho and that there was widespread fear.

 

  She goes on to make a remarkable confession: "When we heard this, our hearts failed us, and now no one has any courage left to resist you, since Yahweh your God is God both in heaven above and on earth." Here is a pagan, one steeped in the idolatry of Canaan, who has come to faith in the God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. She now believes there is but one God -- who rules over heaven and earth -- and she puts her faith in him. She sues to be saved, she and her family, from the wrath of this God who is set upon destroying idolatrous Canaan -- just as he had destroyed the Amorite kings.

 

  You know the rest of the story. She had already lied to the king about the whereabouts of the spies, having hidden them on her rooftop. Now she was ready to help them escape from the king's search team. "So, swear to me now by Yahweh, since I have been kind to you, that you in your turn will be kind to my father's house; and give me a sure sign of this: that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters and all who belong to them, and will preserve us from death."

 

  Her trust in God is now secure -- "swear to me by Yahweh," she says to the spies. She was persuaded that Yahweh was able to spare her and her family from death through the grace of his people Israel.

 

  The spies pledged with their lives that she would be spared, but there were conditions: she was to be quiet about their mission, and she was  to put the scarlet cord -- that was used to let them down the wall -- in the window as a sign for the Israelites as they entered the city. The spies made their escape and returned to report to Joshua, the general.

 

  At this point the storyteller gives us a poignant line: "She then tied the scarlet cord to the window" (Verse 21).

 

  Wow! how telling that is. And you can be sure that in the interim she kept her mouth shut -- however many customers came to the house --  even when she had a great story to tell!  In my mind's eye I can see her securing that scarlet cord to the window. Faith. Works. Law. Obedience. They are all there. And yet it was all by grace. But she had to put the cord in the window!  Law. The law led to grace, and even the law was given by grace.

 

  In Joshua 6:22 the story ends with Rahab and her kin being spared once the city was stormed. "Joshua said to the two men who had reconnoitred the country, 'Go into the prostitute's house, and bring the woman out with all who belong to her, as you swore to her that you would.'" They were taken to a safe place while the city was destroyed and everyone killed.

 

  Saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8).

 

  (We don't know what happened to Rahab, whether she became a proselyte to the Hebrew faith and lived among them, or whether she remained a believing "stranger" somewhere in Canaan. According to Jewish tradition, she became known as one of the four most beautiful of all women, and she married Joshua, the conquering general. It is likely that the Rahab listed in Jesus' genealogy in Matt. 1:5 is the Rahab of our story, but we can't be positive.)

 

Personal Notes

 

  Ouida is recovering slowly from her knee fracture. She is beyond the brace and even the walker, but still limps about the house. Being the right knee, she still cannot drive. She has several sessions a week with a physical therapist, who says she will eventually recover completely. She's had a tough time of it.

 

  She will go with me to Calico Rock, Arkansas next week where I will be in an old-fashioned gospel meeting for four days. Later in June I will fly to Jacksonville, Florida for several sessions with African American Churches of Christ on Restoration history.

 

  We appreciate hearing from you and your good wishes. We are well aware in our advancing years that we have blessings to count.