"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matthew 5:17-18
Having laid the foundation of the message in the summary statements of the Beatitudes, Jesus shows the superiority of His message to that of the law of Moses. He makes it clear that He had not come to destroy the law. That is, the New Testament gospel is not contradictory to the Old Testament Law ~ rather it is the ultimate fulfillment of the spiritual intention of the law. Where the law had degenerated into legalism among the Pharisees, Jesus takes the law beyond mere outward observance to the inner spiritual intention of God.
The cross of Christ is the only real corrective for legalism. In Matthew 5, James rescues the law from the legalists. We human beings have discovered several ways to reject God's law. We can defy the law, taking the antinomian stance, "I am my own person, I do not need law." Or, like the scribes and the Pharisees, we can reduce the law to hundreds of rules we can keep. Legalism begins with reverence for God's law and ends in making the law trivial and absurd.
The legalist runs the risk of at least three sins. First, they lose sight of the Lawgiver in reducing the law to rules. Second, they reduce God's great claims upon us to manageable rules they can keep. Then, they lose sight of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. The holy law of the Holy God can not be watered down so easily as you think. Anyone who reduces the great claims of the law is least in the kingdom. For example, you do not kill ~ but do you hate? You give your spouse a legal document of divorce ~ what about your commitment to live with them until death do you part? You live by "an eye for an eye" ~ but do you love your enemies and pray for them? We must not reduce God's great claims upon us to a list of rules we can keep!
In view of Jesus' teaching about the holiness of God and this law, what do we see in the cross of Christ? The cross was the sin of sins. But why? Because the Jews and Romans broke the law. "Thou shalt not kill"? Yes, but is that all? Was there not also a law which said that blasphemers must die (Leviticus 24:16), and did not many in Israel sincerely see Jesus as a blasphemer? What happened that day outside the walls of Jerusalem was not only the breaking of God's law, it was also the rejection of the holy and loving God who gave the law, the prophets, and even His own Son. The sin was not just the breaking of the law, but the breaking of the Lawgiver's heart. Jesus was crucified by the most conscientious legalists in town.
As we stand before the cross we see a love so wide, so deep, so high that all human beings come within its reach. In the cross, God reaches out once again to those who refuse to acknowledge His law and to those legalists who trivialize His law and declare themselves righteous. All our human pride and pretension is shattered on the rock called Golgotha. The cross is the only real correction for legalism.
May God bless you as you come before the cross today.
Love in Christ Jesus, Sandy |
