2008-10-17
Good Morning Dear Ones,
While it seems a long time that I’ve been comparing MT 7: 1-5 [Christ’s Sermon on the Mount words on judgment] with RO 2: 1-6, 17-24, [Paul’s criticism of hypocrisy in the Pharisees], the Holy Spirit leads me to continue with all that needs to be written here about it. Remember MT 7: 1, “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you,…” Compare that to RO 2: 5-6, “But you have a hard and stubborn heart, and so you are making your own punishment even greater on the Day when God’s anger and righteous judgments will be revealed. For God will reward every person according to what he had done.”
The Pharisees were steeped in their legalistic approach to the practice of Judaism. That was more emphasis on form [ritual] than on the content of God’s teaching, something which righteously angered God then and still does today. His teaching is clear that we are to be His “ambassadors for Christ, who implore people on Christ’s behalf to be reconciled to God” [2 COR 5: 20] and who “speak the truth in love” [EPH 4: 15]. Taking a legalistic approach to doing this has the opposite effect, because it draws lines between the person sharing his faith and the one to whom he is speaking. In addition, the one listening feels judged against and not welcomed at the time. The meaning of RO 2: 5-6 is clear. The more judgmental the person sharing his faith is, the harder such a stubborn-hearted person will have it when the God Day of Judgment comes and his legalism is placed on the table, so to speak. RO 3: 25-26 is a good explanation of why God must draw the line, after a compassionate period of time, against the legalistic person who refuses to change his ways to conform with God’s will. “God offered Him [Jesus Christ], so that by His death He should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in Him. God did this in order to demonstrate that He is righteous. In the past He was patient and overlooked people’s sins; but in the present time He deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate His righteousness. In this way God’s shows that He Himself is righteous and that He puts right everyone who believes in Jesus.”
The major point being made in this comparison is that we have a fair amount of control over the outcome on the Day of Judgment. The control we have is a measure of how faithfully obedient we are to God’s teaching. Christ has made the issue clear, in JN 13: 34-35, “An now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are My disciples.” Does this mean that traditional Jews don’t love one another? That depends on the individual and how he conducts his life. Some do, and some don’t know how to be loving or even that being loving is the Lord’s priority. A person who is a hypocrite or who is highly critical of others runs the risk of angering God and making it harder for himself on the Day when God is to judge all. Making all of this clear to us is, in itself, a demonstration of God’s compassion. He wants to make His will clear, so that each person who is trying to cooperate with Him in the Covenant of Grace and His efforts to sanctify us has the maximum chance of being deemed worthy of entrance into heaven. Remember Christ’s mission statement, in JN 6; 39-40, and note how it’s worded. “And it is the will of Him Who sent Me that I should not lose any of all those He has given Me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last Day. For what My Father wants is that all Who see the Son and believe in Him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last Day.”
People who act as hypocrites and refuse to stop this behavior are ones who will eventually suffer condemnation. In MT 7: 5, we are told, “You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Legalistic people boast about the Law. They may know what the Law says, but they have no idea how to wisely put it into practice. RO 2: 19-21, “You are sure that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in darkness, an instructor for the foolish, and a teacher for the ignorant. You are certain that in the Law you have the full content of knowledge and of truth. You teach others-why don’t you teach yourself? You preach, ‘Do not steal,’ –but do you yourself steal?” If my experience has any value, it is the folks that think they know it all that have the most to learn. In my own background growing up as a traditional Jew, I saw the results of not teaching humility, especially humility before God, and forgiveness. I remember the rabbi at the synagogue never spoke to me as if I was a worthy individual. He always made me feel that I was the least important member of his congregation. Later, when I was older and began to ask theological questions, I was made to feel as if I could never understand things as well as he did. His time to bother with me became shorter and shorter, until I came to the conclusion that as soon as possible, I would need to leave this congregation and find one that would make me feel welcome. Whatever happens to this rabbi when God’s Day comes is none of my business. All I can do is to pray that he finally realizes how many souls have been wasted spiritually under his leadership and that he will humble himself before the Lord.
PRAYER: O Lord, as we study Your word and compare passage to passage, verse to verse, how can we miss the picture of Your patience and compassion that arises? You are a righteous God, Who loves His human creation and wants as many as will listen to the truth to be saved. For this to happen, You spend all our lives trying to perfect us, so that we might come back to You for a life of blissful eternal fellowship with You. This is so important to You, that You allowed Your only begotten Son to be scourged, mocked, disrespected, and hung on a cross to die, taking on the sins of the world [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. On the surface it may seem cruel that You temporarily separated Yourself from Him during His time in the Garden of Gethsemane, His arrest and trial, His suffering on the cross and physical death, and through the events of the three days when He descended to hell. Yet You never stopped loving either Him or us. Your will to have Him suffer more than any other being before or since had a righteous and loving conclusion. We who believe in Him and have repented of our sins have been saved and deemed acceptable to You [justified-RO 4: 3; GAL 3: 6]. He became the “first among many brothers” [RO 8: 19] to be resurrected on that third day to a place of honor in heaven. All of that was only a first step in our maturation. Every moment of every day and night, You are participating in the toughest job of all-sanctifying us. You are “constantly renewing us in Your own image, so that we may have a greater knowledge of Yourself” [COL 3: 10]. Any hypocritical behavior on our part is to stop, which means that we must, without guilt, be constantly evaluating our lives against the teaching in Your word. We must be looking for You at work in our lives and have an intimate, on-going, growing, and open-hearted relationship with You. We offer You praise and thanks forever, for being the loving God Who wants most of all to bring us back to You. Thank You, Dearest Abba, for making Your will so clear to us all. In Christ’s holy and mighty name, we pray. Amen.
Next week our comparison of MT 7: 1-5 and RO 2: 1-6, 17-24 continues, as we look at parallels between them. Each study session I have, the Lord is teaching me about the continuity and the connections between one part of the Bible and another. As many books as I have read and heard of, no book is as consistent in it’s content as are the Scriptures. No other book has that supernatural quality of bringing the reader hunger for more study in the same way. I’ve been studying the Scriptures for 45 years now, and have gone back countless times to the same verse or passage in different contexts. I learn something new every time! That is one of the ways that our loving God will forward our maturity and “give us a greater knowledge of Himself.” How fascinating and faith-building it is to know that we can never know everything He has to teach us. This means we can dip into the bottomless well of His teaching and it will never run dry. Study, piety, service, and prayer are great ways to live. PR 3: 5-6,”Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and He will show you the right way.” Christ empowers us to make righteous choices and live according to God’s will. RO 12: 1-2, “So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by the complete renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good and is pleasing to Him and is perfect.” What a blessing knowing Him is! Praise be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn