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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for collecting daily manna), make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Friday, February 17, 2017
Today's Passage : Subject :Sermon on the Mount - Fulfillment of the Law Bible Verse :Matthew 5:17-20 (ESV) "“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes 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 does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”" Message:
The general reaction to today's Scripture, simply stated, is that it bounces off the reader's mind. Some Christian sects, beginning shortly after Christ's death and continuing today, ignore it completely. With apologies for using a ten-dollar word, the general term for ignoring this passage is “antinomialism”.
Almost everyone agrees that Christ's message was one of “justification by faith”, as opposed to “justification by works”. We are not saved by our actions. We are saved by our faith, because if we have faith in Christ, our sins will be forgiven. It is the only way to get to heaven.
Spinning this out, we discover that no matter how grievous our sin, the power of Christ can erase it. It is then only a short logical step to antinomialism: We can commit any sin we want, because we will be saved by our faith.
Christ, however, did not abolish the law. He says so, right here, in black and white. That is fine with most Christians, but what comes next is downright scary: “not one iota, not one dot.” We have had some problems with idiomatic expressions, but this one is the same today as it was then, because we still dot the letter “i”, and this means, not one dot on an “i” has been changed. If that is not clear, Christ tells us that we must not relax the “least of these commandments.” Our starting point, in learning the lessons that Christ teaches, is that the law of Moses applies to us, down to the tiniest detail.
To fulfill means to complete. We fulfill a contract with a car dealer, for instance, by making the final payment on our loan. Contrast this with, say, the government passing a law that debts to car dealers are null and void, and you get the meaning of the difference between abolishing the law and fulfilling it. Christ's intention is to make us fully obedient to the law, even if he has to make some of the payments himself.
Any Christian will read the final paragraph with some sense of irony, for we know that trying to attain righteousness by compliance with the law is futile. Christ is not going to tell us, in the end, that we will find salvation by trying harder. But let us not lose the main point of today's Lesson.
Jesus Christ did not abolish the Old Testament or the moral law it contains. The Old Testament, and more materially the precepts of Moses and the later prophets, are the Word of God. That is our starting point. Where we do not follow a particular law to the letter, then, we must have a specific reason. The Christian tendency to regard the Old Testament as abolished wholesale, purely historical, not relevant to us, is a wide door for us to rationalize conduct contrary to Christ's intention, when we find obedience inconvenient.
Meditation : Prayer : Now, oh heavenly Father, I ask to be called as a witness to your love by the love I extend to others; a precursor of your justice by my unfailing commitment to what is right and good; a lamp set on a hill, reflecting the light of Christ in my forgiveness, mercy and compassion; and a harvester of souls through my humble and dedicated servanthood. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen |
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