Transcript of a published teaching by David K. Bernard, transcribed from YouTube. An attributed primary source — not Acts 2:38 Life doctrine text.
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Summary
Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.
What God Wants Is Clear — and Love Settles It
- The question posed, following earlier episodes on 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and the apostolic teaching on hair: Paul says it's a shame for a man to have long hair — but he doesn't say it's a sin, so is it okay for men to have long hair? And the other argument frequently heard: Jesus had long hair — he is often shown that way. What is the response?
- Take 1 Corinthians 11 just as it states: God has given a woman long hair for her glory, and even nature teaches you this; and it says it's a shame for a man to have long hair. It's very clear what God's will is: he wants a woman to have long hair because it's her glory; he wants a man to cut his hair short — at least distinctively short from the typical woman in his culture — because the whole point is to make the distinction between male and female, which the Apostle Paul says goes back to the creation account, when God created male and female.
- The quibble — it doesn't say it's a sin, it doesn't say I'll go to hell; what if I don't want the glory and don't mind the shame? — is a legalistic argument: treating the Bible like a book of laws, and if I can find a loophole I can ignore what it clearly says. We're not supposed to be legalists; we're not supposed to live by the law; we aren't earning our salvation by our works. And when people accuse us of legalism, they seem to assume the alternative is do whatever you want — license. But that's not the right alternative: the right alternative is love. I'm motivated because I love God; I want to do his will. I'm motivated by faith — I believe God's word is right. I'm motivated by the Holy Spirit — God's Spirit works in me to desire what is right. It's like arguing with your wife: 'I don't have to do what you say' — but if you love her, you want to please her; it's not about whether she can force you or divorce you, it's do I love her, is this important to her? When we read the Bible we're not asking, 'What's the legalistic loophole that I can get out of doing what the Bible says?' We're asking, 'What does God want me to do?' In 1 Corinthians 11, it's very obvious what God wants me to do. That settles the question.
Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 11
The Evidence of History and the Old Testament
- To the historical point: the depictions of Jesus having long hair come from the artists of the middle ages and especially the Renaissance, because that was the custom at that time; when you go back to ancient history you cannot find that at all. Visual depictions of Jewish males are very rare — there was such a strong prohibition against idolatry and making a graven image that the ancient Jewish people did not want to make any physical depiction of a human. What you do find is foreigners, the enemies of Israel, making depictions: the famous reliefs produced by the Assyrians when they conquered ancient Judah — they conquered the city of Lakish, which is mentioned in the Bible — carvings on rock of these Jewish captives. They show beards, but cropped hair for the males, conforming pretty closely to the head — shaggy by our standards, maybe — and for the women, long hair hanging down to the waist or longer. That's probably the clearest example in antiquity of what Jewish people looked like, Jewish males.
- At the time of Christ, some of the rulers named Herod put themselves on coins, and again the men's hair was pretty close to the head; and if you look at Roman coins and statues of the time, you see that's uniformly the case — typically curly hair, shaggy by our standards, but not hanging down, not considered long, not like a woman. All the secular evidence, all the physical evidence, would say Jewish males from antiquity, Jewish males of the first century, and the other males of the first century in that same Greco Roman culture, all would have short hair. There is no evidence of the kind of long hair depicted in the medieval and Renaissance paintings of Jesus; that would be totally contrary to everything we know in history.
- Biblically: in Isaiah 50 you do have a prophecy of the Messiah plucking his beard — Jewish males are always mentioned as having a beard, usually a cropped beard, as in the Lakish examples, whereas Romans in the first century typically would not have a beard. There is also an obelisk, which he thinks is also Assyrian — a king paying tribute to the Assyrian king, depicted with a beard and somewhat long hair, but it's hard to tell what's a headdress versus what's hair, and there's debate among scholars whether it's literally that king or just a figurative representation. So while you do see Jesus having a beard according to Isaiah 50, there's no reference to him having long hair.
- And if you go back to the Old Testament, number six talks about the special Nazerite vow that would set apart a male — Samson was unusual in that it was lifelong; most of the other cases were temporary — and one of the points of separation that would mark this person distinct is that he would have long hair. Just think about it: if that was the standard for Hebrew males, it wouldn't have been a mark of distinction; the very fact that this indicated a mark of distinction means it was unusual, different from everybody else. Another example: Abselum, David's son, is particularly mentioned in scripture as having long hair — again, why make such a big deal of that if all the males were like that? He was different; he was unique. The biblical evidence and the historical evidence all indicate that Jews from ancient times, including through Christ's time, would not have had long hair.
Scriptures: Isaiah 50; Numbers 6
Paul Could Not Have Written It If Jesus Had Long Hair
- Perhaps a conclusive argument is going back to 1 Corinthians 11 again: imagine first-century Paul writing, and he says all the churches of God have this custom — not just Corinth; the churches of that day included Jewish people, Samaritan people, Greek people, Roman people; this is what all the churches practice. Let's say that was not true — let's say only Jesus had long hair. The classic answer would say: 'Paul, your own Lord had long hair — what do you mean?' There were people alive who actually had seen Jesus, who knew Jesus, and the other apostles had been with Jesus — the simplest answer in the world would have been, 'Paul, that's obviously ridiculous, because Jesus Christ himself had long hair.' The fact that Paul could write this and expect it to be a convincing argument tells you: just common sense, as reading the scripture, will let you know the Bible is pretty clear that Jewish males of that era, and Jesus in particular, did not have long hair.
- When we say long hair: they did not have the same type of modern barbers and instruments — which is one of the reasons for the beards as well; it was relatively difficult to have a clean shaven face, especially for an ordinary common person. The hair would have been shaggy compared to what we're used to in our typical 21st century western culture, but still noticeably short, more or less around the head — not streaming down the back, not hanging over the eyes or over the ears. And in a day when it was universally expected that women would have long hair, if a man's hair was somewhat shaggy, or what we would consider long, but clearly shorter than all the women's, they would have considered that short. Whereas today, so many women cut their hair very short that it behooves us as men to have our hair noticeably short, so we still have that distinction from the majority of the women in our culture. As far as Jesus having long hair: that is just plainly historically and biblically false.
Scripture index: 1 Corinthians 11; Isaiah 50; Numbers 6.
Transcript
Let's take 1 Corinthians 11 just as it states and it says God has given a woman long hair for her glory. And it says even nature teaches you this. It also says it's a shame for a man to have long hair. Now the it's very clear what God's will is. So if if you want to know what God desires, he wants a woman to have long hair because it's her glory. He wants a man to cut his hair short, at least distinctively short from the typical woman in his culture.
Because the whole point is to make the distinction between male and female, which the Apostle Paul says goes back to the creation account when God created male and female. Now, some people will quibble, well, it doesn't say it's a sin. Doesn't say I'll go to hell. What if I'm a woman? I I don't I don't want the glory and I don't mind the shame. What if I'm a man and I don't care about the shame? My answer to that is that is a legalistic argument. That is treating the Bible like a book of laws. And if I can find a loophole, then I can ignore what it clearly says.
So it doesn't say I'm going to hell, so therefore I can safely ignore it. But we're not supposed to be legalists. We're not supposed to live by the law. We aren't earning our salvation by our works. And when people accuse us of legalism, by the way, they seem to assume the alternative is do whatever you want, license. But that's not the right alternative. The all right alternative is love. I'm motivated because I love God. I want to do his will. Uh I'm motivated by faith. I believe God's word is right. I'm motivated by the Holy Spirit. God's spirit works in me to desire what is right.
So if you look at this as a legalistic code book, you could say, "Yeah, I can get away with not obeying." But if you look at this from the point of view of faith, love, and the spirit, it's obvious what God wants. That settles it. That'd be like arguing with your wife. You know, I'm I don't have to do what you say. But if you love her, you want to please her. So, it's not about whether she can force me or if I don't do what she says, she can divorce me. It's a matter of do I want to please her. Do I love her?
Is this important to her? And so, if you really love God, you'll want to do what he says. is obvious what he wants. That should settle the question uh right there. Now, so I think we easily dismiss that. When we read the Bible, we're not asking, "What's the legalistic loophole that I can get out of doing what the Bible says?" We read the Bible saying, "What does God want me to do?" In 1 Corinthians 11, it's very obvious what God wants me to do. That settles the question. Now to the historical uh point uh the depictions of Jesus having long hair come from the artists of the middle ages and especially the Renaissance because that was the custom at that time.
But when you go back to ancient history you cannot find that at all. Now it interestingly you it's very rare to define to to see a visual depiction of Jewish males because there was such a strong pro prohibition against idolatry and making a graven image that the ancient Jewish people did not want to make any physical depiction of a human. Uh but so I did a little research and uh what you do find is the u foreigners or the enemies of Israel would somehow make depict sometimes make depictions. So there's a very famous um uh some reliefs uh uh produced by the Assyrians when they conquered ancient Judah.
They conquered the city of Lakish which is mentioned in the Bible. This battle is mentioned and we have some reliefs of these where the Assyrians actually did carvings of on on rock of these Jewish captives. And so I looked it up just to double check and it does show beards but it shows uh cropped hair for the males which would look like maybe shaggy by our standards but look like conforming pretty closely to the head. And then for the women, it has long hair going down just hanging down to the waist or longer. Uh, and these were captives. And so there's several of these. So that's probably the clearest example in antiquity of what Jewish people look like, Jewish males.
You also have at the time of Christ, you have several um rulers named Phil uh Herod. There's Herod the Great, Herod Phillip, uh, Herod Antipus, u, there was Herod Agria one, Herod Agrippa 2, and some of them did have coins. And those that did, I think it's Herod Phillip and Herod Agria had themselves put on coins. And again, the men's hair was uh, pretty close to the head. Now, if you look at Roman coins and statues of the time, you see that's uniformly the case. They would have typically curly hair, again by our standards, shaggy, but not hanging down, not considered long, not like a woman.
And so all the secular evidence that we have, all the physical evidence would say that Jewish males from antiquity and even Jewish males of the first century and the other males of the first century in that same uh Greco Roman culture all would have short hair. Uh so there is no evidence of the kind of long hair that you see depicted in the medieval and renaissance paintings of Jesus. That would be totally contrary to everything we know in history. But now uh let's think about the Bible. So in Isaiah 50, you do have a prophecy of the Messiah plucking his beard. And that that does seem to be a uniform thing you could see.
Whereas Romans in the first century uh typically would not have a beard. It's always Jewish males are always mentioned as having a beard but usually a cropped beard and the lakish examples cropped beard. Also there is an obelisk um which I think is also Assyrian or king Jahu um paying obesence paying tribute to the Assyrian king. And there's a debate among scholars where it's literally Jay Hugh or just a figurative representation, but he is depicted with a beard and he is depicted with somewhat long hair, but it's kind of hard to tell what's a headdress versus what's a hair. And and as I said, we're not sure if that is a stylistic rendition by the Assyrians in general or specific.
But anyway, um, so while you do see Jesus having a beard according to, uh, Isaiah 50, you there's no reference to him having long hair. Now, thinking of it biblically, if you go back to the Old Testament, number six talks about the special Nazerite vow that would set apart a male. Um, and Samson was unusual in that it was lifelong. Most of the other cases were temporary, but one of the points of separation that would mark this person distinct is that he would have long hair. Well, just think about it. If it if that was the standard for Jew Hebrew males, then it wouldn't have been a mark of distinction.
So, the very fact that this indicated mark of distinction means it was unusual and different from everybody else. Another example is Abselum, David's son in scripture is particularly mentioned as having long hair. Again, why would they make us such a big deal of that if all the males were like that? He was different. He was unique. So, I think the biblical evidence and the historical evidence all indicates that Jews from ancient times, including through Christ time, would not have had long hair. And I think perhaps a conclusive argument is going back to um 1 Corinthians 11 again and that is let's imagine the first century Paul is writing and he says all the churches of God have this custom.
So it's not just I'm not just talking about Corinth but the churches of that day included Jewish people, Samaritan people, uh Greek people, Roman people. And so he said, "This is what all the churches practice." So let's say that was not true. Let's say that most males or let's say let's say only Jesus had long hair. Well, the classic rejoiner would say, "Paul, your own Lord had long hair. What do you mean?" So the fact that Paul could write this and expect it to be a convincing argument be because there were people alive that actually had seen Jesus. They knew Jesus. And of course, the other apostles had been with Jesus.
And so the the simplest reputation in the world would have been well Paul that's obviously ridic ridiculous because Jesus Christ himself had long hair. So I think just common sense as reading the scripture will let you know. Um the Bible is pretty clear that Jewish males of that era and Jesus in particular did not have long hair. Now when we say long hair uh they did not have the same type of modern barbers in instruments which by the way is is one of the reasons for the beards as well. It was hard relatively difficult to have a clean shaven face especially just for ordinary common person.
So, the hair would have been shaggy compared to maybe what we're used to uh in our uh typical 21st century western culture, but it still would have been noticeably short and more or less around the head, not streaming down the back or, you know, shaggy hanging over the eyes or or over the ears or things like that. Um, and in a day when it was universally expected that women would have long hair, if a man did have somewhat we would consider shaggy or long hair, but it's clearly shorter than all the women, then they would have considered that short. Whereas today, of course, so many women cut their hair very short that I I think it behooves us as men to have our hair noticeably short so that we still have that distinction from the majority of the women in our culture.
But as far as Jesus having long hair, I think that is just plainly historically and biblically false.
Scripture references as spoken: 1 Corinthians 11; Isaiah 50; Numbers 6.