Greater Expectations

Sunday, 10th August 2008

As we come to the last 6 days of the 40-day fEast, I will spend each one of those days reviewing a best-selling title found at the fictional Mt Sinai Resources.

Today's title is a "play" on a famous novel by Charles Dickens.
One of ROOTSS readers, Mango Chin, recently brought up the following passage in Matt 5

The Fulfillment of the Law
17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18I 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.
19Anyone 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.
20For 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."

As a youth growing up, I remember reading Matt 5 and feeling a great sense of despair and hopelessness. If the numerous rules and regulations found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy wasn't enough, here was Jesus telling us that even getting angry was considered to be murder, or looking at a woman with lust was considered to be adultery, and even going to the extent of asking us to pluck out our eye or chop off our hand if those parts of the body caused us to stumble.

If the standards set through Moses wasn't already tough enough, here was Jesus setting an even higher standard that was impossible to meet!

But what got me really got my goat (and I say this reverently, at the risk of sounding blasphemous here) was that even though Jesus had set for us all these high standards, it seemed that He Himself would bend (or even break) them at His own whim and fancy, as and when it suited Him.

For example, when the Pharisees and John's disciples fasted and He was asked why His own did not (Matt 9, Mk 2, Lk 5), He came up with this fanciful answer about He being the bridegroom, and the guests not needing to fast. On another occasion, when the Pharisees caught His disciples helping themselves to grain on the Sabbath (Matt 12, Mk 2, Lk 6), He justified Himself with another fanciful excuse about King David eating consecrated bread meant for the priests and then claiming that He was Lord of the Sabbath!

And the Holy Spirit saw fit to inspire the authors to have these recorded in all 3 synoptic gospels...

Had it been an ordinary human being who behaved like that, setting one set of rules for others but another for himself, I would have lost all respect for him. But this was Jesus, and however unfair I felt the situation was, another part of me told me to just accept it because "God is God", and if I did not want to end up burning eternally in hell, I had no choice but to play by His rules.

I don't know about you, but these were some of the many questions at the back of my mind, but I did not dare to ask them or voice them aloud, for fear of being accused of being irreverent and blasphemous.

Well, I praise and thank God for the grace gospel, because the seemingly "difficult" passages in the Bible have now all begin to make perfect and absolute sense!

I understand why God had to destroy mankind during Noah's flood.

I understand why Abraham was not punished when he lied about Sarah being his sister.

I understand why Abraham was asked to kill his very own son Isaac.

I understand why Lot's daughters were allowed to commit incest with him.

I understand why Jacob was allowed to cheat his elder brother Esau of his birthright.

I understand why Tamar was not punished even though she disguised herself as a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law Judah in order to be with child.

I understand why Rahab the harlot was not punished for harbouring illegal immigrants.

I understand why God told the Israelites to take no prisoners but to totally kill every single man, woman and child when they battled to enter the Promised Land.

I understand why David was not stoned to death for committing adultery with Bathsheba.

The list goes on and on... (and will be the subject matter for future blog entries, so stay tuned)

Oops sorry, for digressing, but let's now come back to the subject about our righteousness having to exceed that of the Pharisees.

One of the things I have learnt since embracing the grace gospel is to "rightly divide the Word of Truth" (2 Tim 2:15). What this means is that we must understand when it took place and to whom it was written for.

When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, His primary audience were the Jews, and that took place during the Covenant of Moses (the New Covenant only came into being when He shed His blood on Calvary's cross, and the veil of the temple was torn in two). When He set those high standards, it was to bring the people to the end of themselves, so that they would cry out to God for a Saviour and Redeemer.

And that is exactly what Jesus is to them, and to us -- a Saviour an a Redeemer. Those of us who are New Covenant believers, are in Christ and have Him as our righteousness (2 Cor 5:21). As a result, our righteousness (which is Jesus) has now far exceeded that of Pharisees and the scribes, and the kingdom of God is our inheritence without a shadow of a doubt.

Jesus also said that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill them. What does "fulfill" mean? Supposing a person owes the bank $100,000, and someone else comes along and pays the bank that $100,000 on that person's behalf. Does that person need to pay the bank anything else after that? No, because the obligation has been fulfilled. What that person should do is to say "thank you" to that other person for settling the debt on his behalf.

Similarly, Christ has fulfilled the requirements of the Law and the Prophets on our behalf. Our part now is to say "thank you Lord" and rest in His finished work.

P.S. As to why Jesus "broke" those Laws regarding the Sabbath and fasting, as well as to other passages about what He did which was previously puzzling to me (like when He made His earthly parents hunt for Him high and low, or when He spat into the blind man's eyes), I am prompted to start a series entitled "Why Did Jesus Do That?" and blog about them in future posts, so stay tuned...