The Vultures of Faith
Sunday, March 9th, 2008“Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” Matt 24:28
Tasker’s commentary on Matthew (IVP, 1978) suggests a couple of interpretations for this verse.
First, we can understand it based on the more immediate context in the passage of Christ’s return. Thus, according to Tasker, “when the world will become rotten with evil, the Son of Man and His angels will come to execute the divine judgement”. In this interpretation Christ and His cohort are understood to be the vultures.
A second interpretation is that it may refer to the fall of Jerusalem, foreshadowed in v22. Hence, the passing of the Old with the New Covenant meant that the rotting corpse of Judaism would naturally attract the eagles of Rome, depicted on the standards carried by the Roman armies.
A third option is that the passage conveys a general meaning that, when life passes from something, vultures take liberty with what remains. Perhaps it can describe how the working of sin in us, in concert with the powers who are eager to co-operate, is both to expedite death and to prey on that which is under its power. Their operation is so insidious that they will utilise anything to bring on this process, including the good things God has shared with us.
Luther describes this corruption of gifts in the Heidelberg Disputation. In thesis 24 he accounts that “man misuses the best in the worst manner”. The best which Luther speaks of is the law, which is “not of itself evil, nor … to be evaded”. However, once our confidence in the Cross is weakened, the law, intended to be a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, becomes a tool for corruption.
Romans 2:15 describes how the law, which is written in the hearts of all men, alternately accuses and defends them. The law accuses us, becoming a mainspring of guilt, and we respond either through the Cross or by defending ourselves in self-justifying thoughts and works.
The work of the Cross is to free us from accusation and unite us to God through Christ. When we turn to self-reliance, and not to Christ, in our response to accusation then our faith becomes lifeless and the vultures gather for more.