Some
have sought to understand the life and ministry of Jesus, either as the man
Himself, or as the divine Savior of the world. I am going to make a statement that might be startling to
some, revolutionary to others, and almost downright blasphemous to a few. It’s not hard to get into the head of
Jesus as one reads the Gospels. At
one point the Pharisees ask Jesus whether David was the son of God. Jesus responds by saying that King
David didn’t call God his Father, but his Lord. If King David called God Lord, how could he be His son? Then Jesus confronts the Pharisees, as
they are about to stone a woman for prostitution. Jesus picks up a stick and writes in the dirt. There has been so much speculation
about what Jesus wrote with the stick.
I would insist that Jesus wrote nothing in the dirt with the stick. All He wanted to do was to draw the
attention of the Pharisees away from the woman and focus the attention on what
He was doing. The Pharisees seemed
fascinated with Jesus in regard to anything He did. It’s so easy to understand what Jesus was doing because all
He did was to create a diversion and then He disarms the Pharisees by saying,
“He who is without sin cast the first stone.” The Pharisees depart and then Jesus turns to the woman and
asks, “Where are your accusers?”
Then He says to her to go and sin no more. What Jesus is saying here is that the next time she is
caught, He just might not be around to save her and the next time, they WILL
kill her.
Jesus
simply didn’t want to be a witness or even be accused as an accessory to
murder. All He wanted the
Pharisees to do was to drop their rocks and leave, which is exactly what they
did. Now, the problem is, that
Jesus could NOT accept the Law of Moses ad the Pharisees did and that too King
David was a warrior and this was something Jesus couldn’t have been. It was part of the temptation on the
mount that Satan comes to Jesus and tells Him that everything He sees would be
His. But Jesus knew He would then
have to become a warrior and this was something He couldn’t have done.
It
is easy to understand why the Jews hated Jesus so much because while being one
of them in birth, He wasn’t one of them in thought. He had just about total disregard for the Law of Moses. If one can understand this, one can
understand how much the Pharisees hated Jesus. I was in Times Square not too long ago and a group of
Hassidic Jews held up a sign that said that Jesus was the anti-Christ. I can understand how they would think
this way. Jesus knew that obedience
to ANY law of ANY kind did NOT save a person. And yet today, there are believers who think that Law is
more important than Grace. Jesus
broke just about all the Jewish Laws to make a point: Nothing is more important to God than Human Life. The disciples had a hard time grasping
what Jesus was saying because in a sense they understood enough about the Law
to know that Jesus could be in big trouble for breaking laws. At one point He and the disciples are to
pay tribute to Rome. So, He sends
His disciples to the sea of Galilee and tells them to cast a net and they will
catch a fish. In the fish’s mouth
would be a coin where they would then be able to pay their tribute. Jesus knew that disobedience to the
laws of Rome would be enough to get Him in trouble. But Jesus’ purpose was to tell the Pharisees that they were
wrong to kill people who were disobedient to the Law of Moses.
So,
what Jesus is saying is that the laws of ANY nation only matter in terms of
jail sentences for disobedient to laws.
But He knew that the Pharisees wanted to maintain strict adherence to
the Law of Moses. And this was
something Jesus couldn’t do, because the Law required them to murder in God’s
name. So, Jesus basically does
away with Jewish law and sets the precedent for Grace.
All
this begs the question as to why we seem to think that repentance is so
important for salvation. Well, I might give a new definition to the
understanding of repentance, but while it means to turn from sin, the sin of
the Pharisees was to murder. If
the Pharisees were to teach that Grace is more important than obedience to the
Law of Moses, there would no longer be anyone left to murder, because just
Jesus being the Messiah made the Law of Moses obsolete. But we know that the killing hasn’t stopped
and that in fact, many people today aren’t any different from the Pharisees
Jesus confronted 2,000 years ago.
We know there is no Grace in Law.
But when the government demands certain things of us, it is incumbent
for us to obey or suffer the consequences if we don’t. The only thing that God asks of us is
simply to never purposely take a human life, including that of our own. Peace. Brother Ralphie for The Angels of Life Institute
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