Author: KingdomLink

Jesus has been teaching His followers a better and deeper understanding of God’s Law.   All their lives they had been told that they should not murder, and all their lives they had been told that they should not commit adultery. No doubt everyone knew those things, for they had heard the teachers of the Law speak of God’s commandments many times. But (very sadly) some of His listeners would say that when the Law says “Do not commit adultery” that the Law does not speak against lustful viewing. In so doing they would try to use the Law as a defense of their own shameful behavior.

Like anger, attraction of and by itself is not something that is inherently wrong. It’s just emotion. But if that attraction is fed by unrighteousness – that is, if it cannot be met within holy matrimony, then it must be dismissed quickly and not dwelt upon. To dwell upon unrighteous attraction is the very definition of lust, and lust is not love. It is a corruption of love. And corrupting what love is – well that is a very serious crime indeed, because Scripture tells us that it is the overarching characteristic of God. So much so that 1John 4 tells us that “God is love.”

That doesn’t mean that love is God, for God is not an emotion or a force, but a person. Rather, it tells us that love is so much a part of Him that it would be fair to describe God by that one attribute alone. Therefore, any corruption of love must be seen for what it is – a most ungodly attempt to distract us from our God, creator and purpose. Such things must be dealt with harshly, for time spent dwelling upon them is an affront to the face of God Most High.

Jesus then affords us this prescription, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” 

That sounds horrible. Of course, it should be obvious that Jesus is not prescribing self-mutilation. The student of God’s Word surely understands that Jesus does not want His followers to be partially blinded or worse. Even the atheist knows that amputation of a working body part is not a holy act. To mutilate our bodies – which God made in His image and for blessing – is surely a spiritual as well as physical crime! Yet what Jesus prescribes is utterly masterful – for in one stroke He imparts to us the severity of the crime of unrighteous attraction, and at the same time He makes a very witty and sarcastic comment against a legalistic literal interpretation of the Law. 

We must remember the context. He is saying, “You have heard…but I tell you…” Jesus wants His hearers to think again of how they’ve heard God’s Word taught, because they’ve heard it taught from a legalistic standpoint, and only from a legalistic standpoint. But that is not the right way to consider God’s Word. Jesus wants all of His hearers to know that the reason God said, “Do not commit adultery” is not just because that particular act is evil. It is because God Himself does not commit adultery of any kind. The command is but a coarse reflection of His character. The Father doesn’t set His love on someone only to then abandon them because someone else comes along! What kind of love would that be? What manner of salvation would we have, if God so quickly abandoned the objects of His affection?

Legalism does not consider that context, nor does it look at what God says as a reflection of His character, nor does it consider how to gracefully teach God’s character. It looks only at how to justify itself. Jesus’ masterful prescription for sin then becomes a stumbling block to any who take such an approach to God’s Word. It causes them to choose; Either they re-think their hermeneutic, or they self-mutilate in what they consider obedience to it, or they face being condemned by their own preaching as a hypocrite for ignoring it.

Thankfully, God is perfect in integrity and holiness. He is ever loyal in His affection to us, and at the same time He gives no space to inappropriate thought. What Jesus teaches is that as God’s people, we ought to reflect God’s perfect holiness with our whole being – not just with our physical being! Our thoughts and even the intentions of our hearts are part of who we are, and they too need to be brought inline with who God is. Amen.

The Bible leaves no question that God is completely just. Our problem is that we don’t look at things the right way. Our problem is not that we have been given too little. Our problem is what we have done with what we’ve been given.

Henry and Richard Blackaby

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Take some time today to meditate on God’s purity. In what ways do your habits and actions reflect His purity?

Jesus has been teaching the crowds and the disciples about a better interpretation of the law. That interpretation is based on understanding what the law says about God, and then reflecting that truth in how we as God’s children should act. He had noted that, “…it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’” His long explanation of what that really means is that we should not have any unrighteous anger in our lives – not enough to kill – and not enough to slander, either. In fact, Jesus says that we should not even enough unrighteous anger to so much as make a flippant unkind comment. That is because God does not harbor unrighteous anger, and so God does not murder. God does not kill anybody or anything unrighteously. God is holy.

Certainly we can understand that a holy person would never make a binding commitment to one person and then ignore that commitment when faced with a different person. Even in our sin-stained culture we understand that as a blatant lack of integrity. God calls it what it is – adultery. For this reason He told His people, “You shall not commit adultery.” That is the 7th commandment, following on the heels of the 6th commandment, “You shall not murder.” As He did with the 6th, Jesus now fleshes out the 7th commandment; “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” 

Jesus is saying that while everyone knows that adultery is wrong, the thoughts that lead to adultery are just as wrong. Effectively, He is using the 10th commandment (“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,”) to interpret the 7th commandment (“You shall not commit adultery.)” 

God calls coveting a sin. Coveting is thirsting after something – it is unrighteous jealousy. “To covet is to desire inordinately, to place the object of desire before love and devotion to God.” Likewise, to look lustfully is to place the object of your desire before not only your love for your fellow human being, but before your love and devotion to God. To do that for even a few moments is to shred the wholeness of your love for God – and that is the very definition of un-holiness! 

Jesus is making it clear that we need to understand the Scripture as revealing God in His wholeness. As God’s people we need to subsequently act according to that revelation. If we do that we will never get to murder, for we would never allow unrighteous anger to take root, and we will never get to adultery, for we would never allow unrighteous affection to take root either. In fact, if we followed that hermeneutic and wholeheartedly avoided all that Scripture plainly reveals God is not about, and wholehearted embraced everything that Scripture plainly reveals He is about, we would be rather a lot like Christ.

To look at another is no sin. But to lingeringly look while thinking an unclean thought obviously is. That is because the line between looking and lusting is a very thin line indeed. Yet there is a line, and it is the line between holiness and unholiness. 

Surely we all know that no words need to be said and no physical action needs to be taken for sin to enter our hearts. Eve was already sinning when she agreed with Satan to put the fruit to her lips, and Adam was already in need of repentance when he agreed to join her in doing likewise. The seed of desire needs only to be fertilized by our own unrighteousness to produce sin. For this reason the Word says, “After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

Only when desire “conceives”—is allowed to produce offspring—does sin come into being.

Douglas J. Moo

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Take some time to examine your heart. Ask the Lord to reveal any unclean desires. Crucify any that come to mind.

In the days Jesus walked, many judges and officers of the court were corrupt.  In fact, in the land of Israel, it had been so for a long time. Over time, God had sent prophet after prophet to tell Israel that such was incompatible with His kingdom. Isaiah had cried, “Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.”  Jeremiah had levelled God’s charge, “Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor.”  Micah also, “Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money.”  In fact, most every prophet of God said something to Israel along these lines. It is literally an understatement to say that the judges and rulers of Israel did not have a consistent track record of honesty and righteousness in passing sentence. Moreover, in Christ’s day the government officials consisted largely of Roman aggressors and Jewish conspirators. It was poisoned through and through with corruption for personal gain. 

In such an environment, someone who was being dragged to court had much to fear. For it was at least a significant probability if not a certainty that the judge and the court officials (who were appointed by the government) were dishonest. That meant that even if you were clearly in the right, if your adversary had means to bribe them, you were going to loose – and losing often meant financial bankruptcy and debtor’s prison.

It was in that environment that Jesus gave His Sermon on the Mount. 

In expanding our understanding of murder, Jesus preached a dramatic escalation of the 6th commandment. He told us that while the act of murder is  subject to human judgment, the unrighteous anger that leads to the act to start with is so offensive to God that even flippant comments made because of it put us in danger of the fire of hell. The Lord would rather that we delay worship than come before Him with such unrighteousness in our hearts.

So speaking of two of God’s people who do not get along, Jesus says: “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” 

Jesus deliberately uses an example that avoids mentioning why the two parties are at odds. It is almost as through exactly why someone has something against you is irrelevant. The offended party will still cry out to God for justice, and we who have offended them will be named in God’s court. Except in God’s court we cannot bribe our way out of a legal claim against us, and the outcome of God’s court is far more predictable than any human court. If the other party has a case against us that has any merit at all, He will surely rule according to what is right. That is a foregone conclusion – you can know it long before you get to the courtroom. He who is righteousness will not rule for us who are holding onto unrighteous anger. Consequently, the priority for God’s people must always be on making it right, and doing so quickly. For what does it take for one of God’s people to call to the judge? Just a moment of prayer!

God’s people must never tarry to make amends to those we have offended. Moreover, the example Jesus uses with a corrupt human court is a comparative one. And what is the comparison between us and Him? Paul wrote, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If God would die for us while we were His enemies so that we might inherit eternal life, how much more should we be willing to make a sacrifice for the betterment our fellow man in this life? That is a question well worth considering every time we baulk of the cost of making it right. Amen. 

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

The Apostle Paul (speaking in Ephesians 5:1-2)

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Do you have anything against a fellow believer? If so, how can you make it right? 

If not, how can you bless someone today?

Jesus has been teaching about the need to have a clear conscience when we come   before God in worship. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”  

We’ve already looked at His main point. Worshippers of God must not even have something between each other – let alone something between them and God – when they come to the altar in worship. But in saying that, Jesus is making a very important observation. It’s not His main point, but it cannot be missed in His example.

Giving is worship. 

After all, Jesus could have said, “When you are on your way to the temple and remember…” or, “When you first walk into the temple and remember…” or, “When you are singing songs of praise in the temple and remember…” or, “If you are listening to a sermon and remember…” or, “If you are ministering to another and remember.” He could have used any number of illustrations about worship. For all that we do when we go to the temple (church) is an act of worship – how much more so what many believers call ‘worship’ – the singing of praise to God. But the example Jesus uses is “offering your gift at the altar”. Not singing – even though singing is worship (Ps 68:4), or playing instruments – even though making music is worship (Ps 33:2) or testifying – even though that is worship (Ps 145:21) or listening to the message – even though that is also worship (Deut 31:12).

Long ago, God commanded the Israelites, “No one is to appear before me empty-handed.”  Giving to God was never an optional part of worship. After all, we give to that which we love, and the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Even small children demonstrate their love by drawing a picture for their parents (the gift of time). How could anyone love our heavenly Father and not seek to give Him that which costs time, talent or treasure? 

The idea of making a sacrifice – of giving to God that which costs us – must be embedded into the life of every believer. The offering of a gift is worship. Pure, unadulterated worship, and therefore of significant value to God. So much so, that it’s something He actively wants to receive from us. Something He looks to receive from us, and something He wants to see us offer to Him without stain. 

Just as a parent would not receive their child’s drawing with gladness knowing that the same child just punched their sibling and refuses to say sorry, so also the Lord does not receive that which we offer Him if it is stained with unrepentance. Moreover, just as a child can only give a parent that which they made with a piece of paper and crayons their parent gave them, all we could ever give God is what He gave us to start with. The real value of the gift then, is not intrinsic to what we physically offer. The real value of the gift we give Him is a reflection of our hearts. If we give with clean hearts, even if we have little to offer – it means much. If we give with unclean hearts, even if we have much to offer, it means little. For this reason the Lord looked on a widow giving her last two cents and said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.”

Amen. 

God is not holding out or holding back. It’s not in His nature to withhold any good thing from us. He most certainly won’t bless disobedience, but He most certainly will bless obedience. And His capacity to give is far greater than your capacity to receive.

Mark Batterson

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Listen to what is in your heart this week as you give.

In every beatitude He gave to the crowd, Jesus expanded our understanding  of the value of godly emotion. Humilty, godly sorrow, mercy and longing for righteousness and purity are not mere emotion, but indications of God’s present blessing. As such they should be sought. Not just for our benefit, but so that the light of God’s blessing can be clearly seen in our lives and all about us can ‘taste’ His presence. Jesus then expanded our understanding of the purpose and value of Scripture; to demonstrate the way to God through repentance and obedience, that we might live in righteousness far exceeding that gained through legalism. In everything He’s taught the crowd, Jesus has taken an old subject and given it fresh and expanded meaning. 

Jesus then taught that slander is not a core problem, but a drastic symptom of unrighteous anger. Now He moves to the best application of that very truth, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” For any disciple of God, worship is a priority. Jesus makes two observations about worship in the that statement that ought to have a drastic impact on us as worshippers. 

His main point is that worship – which is crucial to our lives as His followers – must be secondary to purity. God does not want us to worship Him with guilty consciences. Remember Richard Roberts’ famous observation – “Repentance is the first word of the Gospel.” Repentance always comes first. Not even worship can take its place. So if one is about to engage in worship and the Holy Spirit brings to mind something that we need to deal with, we need to deal with that before we continue in worship. 

Unrighteous anger has no place in sacrifice to God. It did not when Cain got angry with Abel, and it still doesn’t. Moreover some have noted, “Has something against you” probably implies a “just claim.”  So Jesus is speaking of something we are guilty of. Something that someone else is holding against us, but we have not yet dealt with. To have something against a brother or sister means there is unforgiveness and/or unrepentance in our hearts. How can that be? Surely God’s people know that unforgiveness and unrepentance are spiritual millstones around the neck of any worshipper of God Most High. 

Even brand new believers can understand that to worship God as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, past wrongs need to be set right. In Luke 19 we read of Jesus walking through Jericho. A short man named Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see Him. “When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’ ” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.”

Bitterness is nothing more than old unforgiveness. Bitterness is what grows from a seed of injustice, planted and watered in the garden of what-might-have-been.

David Chotka

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Is there a wrong you need to put right? Someone you need to speak to before your next worship gathering?

In every country in the world, committing a murder is a crime. That doesn’t mean that   no one does it, or that it is always successfully prosecuted. But it is still a crime. So everyone can relate to Jesus as He begins, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’” That is true everywhere in our modern world. Even in ancient Israel, that was true. The Jew more than anyone knew that God the Father HAD said, “You shall not murder.” In fact, God had written it in stone by His own finger. It was one of the ten commandments – the only things actually committed to writing by God’s physical hand, so it was unavoidably true. And it was in fact true, that those who murdered were subject to judgment. The Law specifically stated, “Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death.” (Ex 21:12). “But” (Jesus says), “I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” 

Now if you were listening to Him, you would immediately think – that’s not exactly what the Law had said. It said that if you murder you will be subject to judgment. Not if you were merely angry. Having an emotion is never a crime. One can almost hear the thoughts running through the crowd. “I have not committed a murder, but I have been angry. So that verse cannot possibly apply to me, right?” In fact, most of us reading this passage today probably think the same. Jesus must be mis-speaking, or He is digging a theological hole for himself. If so, He goes on to make it much deeper, “Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin.” And again, that was true – you could be charged with slandering a fellow Jew. “But” Jesus continues, “anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”  

Here in Canada, no one goes to jail for being angry. Emotions are never right or wrong – they are amoral (without prejudice). It is what we do when we are angry that brings us into conflict with the law. But we can all recognize that one gets angry long before one commits murder, and we can all recognize that we only slander another when we are angry with them. Our anger is a mere emotion, but Jesus says when we act out of our anger – even in a callous statement like, “You fool!” we are very thin ice indeed. 

Anger is a God-given emotion. But it is not given to us that we should misuse it. Surely it is a misuse of something God gave us to take up a sword – even a verbal sword – to destroy that which God has made in His own image. 

That principle is clearly imparted to us way back in Genesis 4:6-7; “Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” 

Clearly feeling anger is not the issue. Anger – of itself – is a cue to prayer. It is given to us that we might realize we need to seek God’s face and wrestle with why we feel the way we feel. It is never to be hoarded or misused. Holding onto anger always results in mapping out vengeance, and misusing it by acting in anger is a clear and obvious sin. Amen.

There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.

Francis DeSales

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Are you angry? What are you doing with your anger?

Jesus has been teaching about the value and importance of the Word of God.  Now He  summarizes just how key it is to the life of the disciple of God in Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  

The word Jesus uses for righteousness is the Greek dikaiosynē – meaning adherence to what is required according to a moral standard. The key in question then is our ability to live according to the Word of God. 

Many in society think that they are pure before God – both in our day and in Christ’s day. But a human standard of righteousness will never cut it, because the righteousness that Jesus speaks about is a right-ness before God, not in our own eyes. It is not even a right-ness that society attributes to us as we speak about the Law of God. If it were that, the Pharisees and teachers of the law would’ve been the high mark for sure. But just because we know about the Word of God or teach the Word of God or believe we are approved by the Word of God doesn’t mean that we are righteous. It that was the mark of righteousness, the Pharisees and teachers of the law would’ve been looking great from Jesus’ point of view. Yet they are so far off that He doesn’t even suggest we start there and try to get better. Instead, He says that off the start we need a righteousness that is higher in quality. 

One commentator writes, “Clearly the Pharisees and teachers of the law had a particular interest in tithing, ritual purity, and sabbath observance. They had committed themselves to a set of shared views as to how these should be best lived out, which included the desire to apply aspects of temple purity law to society at large. The intensity of their interest in these matters is likely to relate to their concern to maintain the purity of Jewish faith against the inroads of Hellenistic culture. They functioned as a political interest group seeking to influence the governing classes and society at large, with sometimes more and sometimes less success, but with a level of public credibility which gave them the potential of being important opinion formers.”

Certain interest groups in our society do the same thing. But Jesus says that the resulting right-ness that the Pharisees and teachers got from their efforts is far too low a standard. That’s because the judge of their rightness was themselves. It wasn’t God. They did what the Word said and then said to themselves, “I am now righteous.” It was really just a form of mankind’s approval, and simply put, it was a right-ness that was not right-enough. To gain heaven we must surpass that, right out of the box. But if those who taught about the law of God were not attaining rightness before God, how can we hope to attain it?

The answer surely includes living a holy life, and that surely includes reading, studying and obeying the Word of God. But it means living that life with and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and not depending on ourselves – or even others to do it for us. We can listen for the Lord’s voice through others, but we have to learn to discern what they are saying as people speaking to us vs what God is saying to us through them. That means putting God far ahead of the person(s) representing God, and certainly not mistaking their approval for God’s approval. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law should’ve known that, because even before Moses, and even before the establishment of the covenant marking out the Hebrew people,  the Word said, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

Abram believed what God had said to him. That was enough to be considered righteous before God then, and it is still enough today. Seek God with all your heart, wherever you are and whatever you are doing – and lean not on your own understanding of right-ness. For the righteousness that God credits us with is real right-ness. And that is enough. Amen.

Righteousness is the grace that equips us to live a moral life. It not only sets a standard but grants the freedom to live up to this standard.

Donald G. Bloesch

APPLICATION: Worship 

Today, worship God by following His leading. Praise Him for the forgiveness He gives us, and the righteous He bestows on us on account of Jesus Christ.

At a church planting congress one expects that all the presenters are very   successful church planters. Usually, each planted a church that has reached at least a thousand in attendance. In 2013, Bruxy Cavey was a presenter during an one such event in Oakville. Bruxy is a very accomplished preacher and founder of The Meeting House (a church of at least 5000 at the time). He stood up and told all those in attendance that he did not expect to be at the head table with Jesus at the great wedding feast at the conclusion of history. He noted that instead, we should expect that particular table to be full of regular ordinary servants of God who likewise persisted in faithful service all their days, but likely didn’t get to see the same kind of results. God would favour them, for they had been faithful in spite of the lack of results.

Bruxy suggested that God is actually not enamoured with results, because the real results of ministry in His Name are entirely His work. Our work is to be faithful to our calling, not to produce a particular result. He noted that the one who faithfully sowed seed and netted a 30-fold increase gets the same reward as the one who sowed seed and netted a 60-fold increase, and many are those in the “hall of faith” of Hebrews 11 who did not see a glamorous result at all. It was a very teachable moment for everyone there, seeing as most had come with the hope of finding out ‘the secret’ that enabled these few to gain such significant success by human metrics. 

Jesus said, “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

In other words, to be great in God’s sight is to simply practice and teach the Word of God in its entirety. That’s the whole thing. God does not judge us based on how many are in the church, or how much we spend on a particular ministry. He does not care to measure us by the number of people we welcome into membership in a given year, or the number baptized in that big public service we held in the park that summer. He does not mark down next to our name how many kids we drew into the Vacation Bible School that one summer. The number of Sundays we preach is never a metric He uses to establish eternal reward.

That reality is completely counter to how we see things. But we do well to consider that Job was a great man of God. Yet he started with many and a huge income and lost everything mid-career. Samuel was a great man of God. Yet he was rejected as leader of Israel in favour of a king. Noah was a great man of God. He started with tens of thousands and finished with eight. The result of our ministry is not up to us. It is up to God. What matters is the faithfulness with which we carry out the ministry God assigns to us. 

That’s not to say that church metrics are not important. They are very important to the life of the local church and the community it is part of. Every elder board does well to measure a pastor’s performance in ministry by some kind of metric of discipleship. These things determine salary, the size of the ministry expense budget and other practical realities that affect our day to day schedules and responsibilities – but they do not determine God’s favor, nor will they guarantee His approval. 

Only obedience and faithfulness do. Amen.

It is one thing to be faithful and quite another to be popular.

Warren Wiersbe

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Be encouraged. God is not going to judge you on a metric your peers apply. Only be faithful to the calling He gave you.

It is said that the Law of Moses has 613 mitzvot (commands). These range  from the well  known ten commandments to far more arcane sayings long considered irrelevant by modern society. From “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13) to “If a man dedicates to the Lord part of his family land, its value is to be set according to the amount of seed required for it—fifty shekels of silver to a homer of barley seed.” (Lev 26:17). Just like in these two examples, some are negative (you shall not) and some are positive (you shall). 

Someone once counted that there are 248 positive mitzvot (“the Do’s”), and 365 negative ones (“the Don’ts”). In addition to the 613 laws of Moses, the Prophets added additional requirements, often in the form of pronouncements of blessings or woes. Witness Isaiah, “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.”  and Habkkuk, “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk, so that he can gaze on their naked bodies.” 

Obviously, God’s moral law is always applicable and always valuable. One needn’t question if the Christian should apply the ten commandments. But while the Christian who is under the New Covenant needn’t literally obey the Jewish ceremonial law, these other laws, commands and decrees (and woes and blessings) also have value. We just need to translate the principle behind them into our own culture. 

For instance, what Moses said about land is a sound principle to avoid both speculation and profiteering (consider the value of the land based on the use you can apply to it). Isaiah’s warning has value for any who look to expand their living space at the expense of others (community is more valuable than comfort), and the warning Habkkuk gives is highly relevant in an age when so many young people go out for social drinks. The Law of God is always relevant and always useful, even far beyond the context of the people to whom it was originally given. That is because what is most important is not the wording of the law as we read it (that changes every time we read it in a different language or translation), but the spirit in which it is given. We ought to obey the spirit of the law because “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” The best worship starts with obedience.

So while the Christian is not under any obligation to obey the Jewish mitzvot to the letter, the Christian also must know that God’s law is always good, and that breaking the law of God is always a detriment. It is as Paul said, “I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law.”  That is because breaking His commands is not only damaging to your faith, it lessens your own sense of blessing. The peace of God flees from you, the presence of God becomes almost impossible to discern, and the power of God unavailable. Effectively, you become diminished and not blessed. If you persist in that state, and if you exacerbate the situation by teaching others to do the same as you are doing, you eventually become spiritually blind. Nothing good will come of that! “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” 

Jesus’ warning must then be taken to heart most carefully: “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

To come to Christ is to be under a yoke. It is an easy yoke, but it is nonetheless a yoke.

Michael P.V. Barrett

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

How are you fulfilling Christ’s law today?

In Matthew 5:18, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth  disappear, not  the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” 

Here in Canada, our federal government typically sits and debates changes to our laws for over 120 days every year. Many of the new changes are subtle and go largely unnoticed by all except the subsets of our society that they are specifically crafted to apply toward. A few will impact everyone. Other changes are actually repeals of laws previous governments enacted, because the law of Canada is in a near-constant state of flux. 

That is because the culture of the country is constantly changing and because the government of our country is made up of people, for the people. This is the case in every nation that practices democracy. Point of fact, the laws constantly change when and where a nation practices any form of government – for every form of human government is limited by the human lifespan and impacted by external change. Simply put, because the culture keeps changing as the population and rulers age and new generations come up, the law must keep changing to keep up with the times.

But this is not the case with God’s government. His government is firm, for He is unchangeable and all powerful. His government is forever, for He is eternal. His Law is therefore also unchangeable and eternal. It cannot be repealed or modified until His purposes are accomplished. That is what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:18. He said that God’s law is eternal truth. Scripture can always be trusted, unlike human laws and ideas that come and go with the times. Jesus said that that Scripture will outlast every human law, even both heaven and earth! What God has said, God has said. His Word – which created the entire universe we exist in – is more powerful than anything we could assemble out of the created world. It therefore outlasts everything, even matter itself. 

Moreover, Jesus said that not even the smallest of the characters used in Scripture is irrelevant. That is because the addition or subtraction of a single character can change the overall implication of a passage, so every character is important. For instance, if God wrote, “The Word was with God and the Word was God,” than that’s what God wrote, and that’s what it means. Not “the Word was with God and the Word was a God,” as some cults try to phrase it. Perhaps that is what Jesus had in mind when He said that the dots that change the pronunciation of the characters – the least strokes of a pen – have eternal value!

One could say that:

By faith in Scripture we gain salvation.

By the truth of Scripture we live rightly, and so gain righteousness.

By the permanence of Scripture we stand on solid footing and so gain confidence. 

By the relevance of Scripture one can make appropriate decisions and so gain wisdom.

By the minutia of Scripture one can study and so gain understanding and knowledge of His way and Kingdom. 

Amen.

Let the scriptural text make its own point and sell itself. And we can trust Scripture to make its own point because the Spirit is already working in people before they even come to the text.

Palmer Earl

APPLICATION: Worship 

Meditate on Romans 10:17, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Praise God for His infallible Word!