Sermon on the Mount VI

Subtitle: Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God IV

Matthew 5:31-32.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 14, 2024.

We continue looking at the first section of the teaching of Messiah Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount.  He is comparing what the people were being taught by the leaders of his day with what he teaches.

Today, we look at the third section of the Law of Moses that Jesus explains.  The first was about the law against murder.  The second was the law against adultery.  It seems that Jesus moves to divorce next since he was talking about a marriage already. 

Also, I mentioned last time that Jesus focuses on moral, or ethical, laws, rather than on things that were intended to be symbolic, such as the sacrificial system and the dietary laws.  He does speak to these in other contexts.

So let’s look at our passage and talk about divorce.

The law of divorce (v. 31-32)

It is easy for people today to take potshots at the Law of Moses without respecting just how revolutionary it was for the surrounding culture and times.  Jesus is not castigating, or destroying, the Law. Rather, he is taking the religious leaders to task for not understanding the heart of God in the Law.

A case in point is how people laughingly disparage the principle, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20).  “All that will do is create a world of one eyed, toothless people!”  Of course, this law cannot change the hearts of people, and God never intended it to change their hearts by itself.  The point of this principle is to forbid overkill.  If someone injures me, it is easy to want to do even more back to them.  We see this in Genesis 4 with the story of Lamech.  He justifies his killing of a man who “wounded” him by pointing to God’s grace towards Cain.  “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”  Of course, he neglects to mention the curse placed upon Cain.  If you lived in those days, you would have learned to fear getting on Lamech’s bad side.  The whole earth became a place of overkill for infractions upon each one.  It was a revolutionary concept to limit punishment to the same degree of the infraction.  The point is not to be punitive, but to reconcile, to make things right.

In our case, we are looking at a law about divorce.  It allowed divorce, but required a certificate to be given to the woman who is divorced by her husband.  This comes from Deuteronomy 24.  In this passage, the cause for divorce is described as, “…and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her…”  There are actually two phrases that are tied together with a word translated as “because” that further explains the first general phrase.  “She finds no favor in his eyes” is a very broad term that could be interpreted as anything you want it to be.”  However, it is qualified by the next phrase, “because he has found some uncleanness in her…”  Uncleanness is a word that generally has a sexual connotation to it.  It would definitely include adultery, but could also incorporate sexual improprieties with another man that may not have gone as far as adultery.

The certificate of divorce may seem stupid to people today, but it served a real purpose.  The man could not divorce on a whim, but would need to make the divorce public, and issue a certificate to the woman.  The details of what was needed on the certificate, whether there was a witness, or the cause be stated, is not stipulated in the Law, but was left up to the people of Israel to determine.  This added requirement would give second thoughts to a man, and keep him from taking advantage of the Law of marriage.

It would also be a protection to the woman, if she remarried.  It would be proof that she is not worthy of death, but is truly divorced from her previous husband.  Notice that this doesn’t fix anyone’s heart, but it restricts the ugliness to which their actions could go if unrestrained.

It is worth noting that Jesus is asked about divorce by the Pharisees in Matthew 19:1-10.  They ask him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”  This is important because there were two schools of thought on this in those days.

In the first century BC, two rabbis named Shammai and Hillel argued over what was an acceptable cause for divorce.  Shammai argued that the word for uncleanness governed the passage, and so divorce was only acceptable in the case of sexual immorality.  Hillel saw pointed to the first phrase and taught that divorce was acceptable if a wife no longer found favor in her husband’s eyes.  Over time, the school of Hillel developed the idea of no longer finding favor from a woman being a bad cook, to the husband simply not finding her appealing, and instead, finding someone else more appealing.  On top of this, by the first century AD (the days of Jesus), their were far more disciples of the school of Hillel in power.  By the way, Saul of Tarsus and his Rabbi, Gamaliel, were of the school of Hillel.

Jesus does more than just say that he agrees with Shammai.  He does something greater.  He responds in Matthew 19:4-6 by pointing to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve.  It was God whom made us male and female.  When a man and woman come together, it is also God who makes them one flesh.  Jesus then caps the teaching with a powerful command that blows past divorce to the whole purpose for marriage:  “What God has joined together, let not man separate.”  This challenges both people in the marriage with the purpose and actions of God.  Are you resisting and rebelling against God’s purpose and work?

Of course, this gets a shocked response from the Pharisees.  They ask why then did “Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”  Jesus answers that Moses did not command, but rather “permitted” divorce because of the hardness of their hearts (he is particularly addressing guys here).  Picture it.  If a woman is in a marriage where a man wants rid of her, but he can’t because it is against the law, what could happen?  He will grow to resent her, be angry with her, and he will be tempted to be abusive towards her.  He may even wish she were dead.   Some situations can become so cruel, wicked and evil that it is best for all involved to break it off.  Yet, Moses still placed some stipulations on it.

Notice that the lack of repentance and forgiveness is at the heart of such cases.  Whether lust, anger, frustration, or all of the above, if a husband and wife do not deal with the issues of their heart, then it will affect the marital relationship.

The teachers of Israel focused more on the proper way, acceptable causes, and form of a certificate of divorce, rather than on how divorce impacts God’s purpose for marriage.

The teaching of Jesus here highlights a fact of that day.  A woman did not have the right of divorcing a man.  It was something that was done to her.  Thus, Jesus points the man to think about what he is doing to his “ex-wife” when he divorces her.  The husband is putting her in a tough situation.  First of all, a woman’s ability to make a livable wage in those days was extremely limited.  She would most likely be force to find someone who would marry her, depending on her age.  This would often not be her fault, i.e., she did nothing worthy of divorce.  Jesus warns the men listening to him.  “I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.  He is causing her, i.e., forcing her, to be guilty of adultery.  Society won’t think so because she has a certificate of divorce.  So, why does Jesus see it as adultery?  He is referring to a divorce that is not legitimate.  Who determines if a divorce is legitimate?  God does.  Jesus is clear that God was not good with all the reasons they were concocting for getting a divorce.  These men were letting the lusts and vices of their heart mistreat these women.  They didn’t want to marry other men and become adulterers in God’s eyes, but they were forced to by an ex-husband’s hard heart.

Jesus doesn’t comment on the man who divorces here.  But, in Matthew 19, he states that the man who divorces and then remarries is also an adulterer, unless there was marital unfaithfulness by his wife.

This reminds me of Malachi chapter 2.  There, God takes Israel to task for covering his altar with tears and weeping.  He is particularly speaking about divorced wives who were hurt by the divorce and the tough situation that they were placed in by hard-hearted husbands.  In that passage, God makes it clear that He hates divorce.  It should only be a last resort when a partner refuses to stay faithful to the marriage bond.  Even then, God never commands divorce.  If a partner is unfaithful, we owe it to the LORD to attempt to heal the marriage.  Repentance and forgiveness are a hard road to walk out, but it can be done.  That said, once a person has been unfaithful, the percentages are very slim of those who truly repent and turn away from infidelity.

This is a very hurtful and damaging area.  There is no wound worse than finding out a spouse has been unfaithful.  Jesus recognizes this exception to what he is saying.  If a partner has been unfaithful, then they have broken the marital covenant.  The faithful spouse has to wrestle with the reality of whether or not the marriage can be saved.  Many times it cannot.  Notice that, in the case of a divorce, the unfaithful spouse is already an adulterer.  If they remarry, it is irrelevant if the marriage is considered adultery.  However, what about the faithful spouse?  Are they free to remarry?

It is good to remember at this point that though we are no longer under the law of Moses, we are still to seek to please the Lord Jesus.  Paul mentions two more exceptions in 1 Corinthians 7:15, 39.  The first is when you have an unbelieving spouse (not a Christian) who wants out of the marriage.  They want a divorce.  Paul says that God does not hold you accountable to the heart of the unbeliever.  Presumably a person would be free to remarry in that case.  However, if you read the chapter, you would recognize that Paul’s advice would be to remain single if you can.  The last exception was the reality that when a spouse dies, the living spouse is no longer bound to them in marriage.  The widow, or widower, is free to remarry.

So, in the case of divorce, we must always ask ourselves if God sees it as legitimate.  God knows if you tried to save the marriage and the other person would not cooperate.  It is probably best not to be too quick to remarry when you are divorced by a hard-hearted spouse.  You can pray for them to repent and change their mind so that the marriage can be resumed and lived out as God intended.  However, if they remarry, it is then time to move on, and let the Spirit of God lead you in what is next, whether singleness or remarriage.

God’s heart is that we stay faithful to Him, and when we do that, we will bend over backwards to be faithful to our spouse.  If a spouse continues to take advantage of that in unfaithfulness, divorce will become inevitable.  This is where we recognize that marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ’s marriage to the Church.

We should work hard to reflect this reality to the world through our marriage.  The Kingdom of Messiah calls us to repentance and imaging God. The question is never, have I done anything sinful.  The question is what will I do about it now that Messiah is calling me to follow Him into the Kingdom of God, where we are letting God help us to love one another, instead of sinning against one another.

Read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.  Notice this, “And such were some of you.  But you were washed…”  Kingdom believers are not looking for an excuse to continue in sin.  However, we are sinners who have been washed by Christ and His Spirit from our sins.  He is setting us free!  We are not looking for an excuse to get a divorce.  We are seeking to follow Jesus, and to image him to the world.

What am I displaying, imaging to the world?  I can’t go back and change what I did, or what another person did.  But, I can be washed and move forward clean before the LORD.

Some people married never intending to be faithful.  However, I believe that the larger number are those who married hoping and expecting it to be something wonderful.  They then find it to be hard work, and sometimes not as fun as we imagined.  We can be tempted to “want someone better.”  Perhaps, we just picked the wrong person.  Surely, the next person I pick will be the right one!

Yet, the truth is that we are kicking against the goading of God.  Marriage is God’s way of getting a hold of our heart, and teaching us to deal with some bad things in our flesh.  We can resist the work of the Spirit through our relationship with our spouse.  We can use the failures of our spouse (they are only human) as excuses to blame the failure on them.  Marriage challenges us to grow up emotionally, and spiritually.  However, not everyone wants to grow up.  Many reject God’s purpose for marriage, and continue down a path of an egoistic, even egotistic, focus.  Growing up is not easy, but it is not only good for us, but good for everyone around us.

It is sad that we can treat the holiest of things in life, like marriage, as merely another way to have a good time.  When we don’t take marriage seriously, we try to have fun with it.  Eventually, it will no longer be fun.  Thus, we have a high percentage of adults who have not grown up emotionally, and especially spiritually.  Let me just say this.  A perfect marriage is one that challenges me to grow up in Christ.  May we surrender to him.

I will finish by highlighting that God does hate divorce, but He doesn’t hate you if you have had someone divorce you, or be unfaithful to you.  Jesus, of all people, knows what it is to have a covenant partner reject you.  He was even put to death by his.  When you look back at a divorced marriage, you will see all the ways that you were not perfect.  You may feel guilt and even wonder if God can love you.  You might wonder how you can move forward.  I will just say this.  Jesus loves you, and knows how you feel.  Give yourself to him and he will pour his healing into your heart.  It will take time, but the Rejected Lord knows how to minister to a Rejected heart.

May God help us to take marriage seriously and shine the example of God’s heart for “Whosoever will” (John 3:16).

Divorce audio

The Sermon on the Mount V

Subtitle: Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God III

Matthew 5:27-30.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 7, 2024.

We continue in looking at the first section of the teaching of Messiah Jesus compared with that of the teachers of that day.  Jesus clearly raises the bar by emphasizing the internal implications of the Law that were being ignored. 

As I have said in the past, this can cause us to protest that it is impossible to do what Jesus says.  However, this is the whole point of his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.  It is also why the Holy Spirit has been made available to those who put their faith in the work and person of Jesus the Christ.

Last week, we looked at the sixth commandment of Exodus 20, “You shall not murder.”  Jesus then moved on to the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” (our subject for today).

As Jesus took the command against murder and showed the importance of dealing with the underlying anger and contempt for others, so he takes the command forbidding adultery and points us to the lust that underlies such action.

Let’s look at our passage.

The law of adultery (v. 27-30)

The teachers of Israel in the first century focused on the physical act of committing adultery.  They did not call people to any deeper work than this.

One way to think about this over-emphasis on the external is to remember that we were created to image God (Genesis 1).  This idea is not simply about the external shape of humans, nor simply their external actions.  This question regarding who we are imaging in our life lies behind the whole Bible.

If the external is the only thing that matters, then we can put on a really good act and God will be happy; He will be entertained.  Yet, God is not looking for award-winning actors who look like Him on the big screen of life, and yet, in their hearts, they despise His ways.  Perhaps, the acting may seem “award-winning” to us as humans because we cannot see what people think and desire.  Yet, for God, no matter how convincing to other humans such acts may be, it is a rotten fruit that is as far from imaging Him as one end of the universe is to the other.

Our imaging of God was always intended to include and to flow from a heart and mind that loves God and is coming to understand Him.  For fallen humans (I believe that is all of us), this creates a difficult situation that calls for God’s help and grace.

If you see the Law of Moses as your justifier, then you tend to read it superficially (in a way that focuses on externals).  However, if you see it as a mirror that shows us how much we do not look like God and His nature, you will then tend to see the depths of what it is saying and throw yourself on the mercy of God.

This is exactly what King David discovered.  He didn’t say that he would be blessed because he had imaged God so well.  Remember, David, who  had done so well imaging God, would later commit adultery and murder the husband (Uriah the Hittite).  David knew that he would be in big trouble when he stood before God.  Listen to his statements from Psalm 32:1-2.  “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.”  Basically, he knew that God had to forgive and cover his sin, somehow.  God should impute (calculate, count) David’s sins against him. 

God supplies both forgiveness and covering in Jesus Christ.

In his signature move, Jesus puts his finger on the root of the problem in verse 28.  Adultery is the fruit, the evidence, of lust in our hearts and minds.  The word translated lust here has the idea of a strong, heated desire.  We can easily imagine the driving passion that it involves.  In Greek, the word can be attached to good things, i.e., a strong, heated desire to do the right thing, and it is not limited only to sexual matters.  However, in the majority of situations, it is not good because it is similar to anger.  Strong passions tend to take the course that our flesh wants to take.  This is generally a sinful course.

Jesus is not telling men they should never look at women.  He emphasizes that the man looks at a woman in order “to lust for her”.  This would also be true for women.  In this context, we know that the strong, heated desire is a sexual one.  Lust never stays as an abstract desire.  It pushes to other sins such as imagining and fantasizing.  This is what Jesus means by saying that he “has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

We should note that adultery is a layered concept.  At its base, it is sexual immorality.  God created humans with the capacity for sexual relationship, but intended it for the intimate context of marriage, a life-long commitment between a man and a woman.  Any sexual activity outside of marriage is immoral.  Thus, adultery is a special kind of sexual immorality, a subset, in which a covenantal bond of marriage is transgressed.  This can be the case whether both are married or only one.  A man who lusts for another man’s wife is trespassing upon that covenantal relationship that she has with another.  If he happens to be married as well, he is also breaking his own covenant with his wife.  He is sinning against his commitment with her.

This is why God takes adultery so seriously.  If two unmarried people had sex with one another outside of marriage, it was considered wrong, but was “fixed” by them committing to marriage.  In fact, the man would lose the right of divorce in such a situation.  On the other hand, adultery deserved capital punishment.  This is how seriously God wants us to take the covenantal bond of marriage.

This does not mean that Jesus is saying that lust is just as bad as physically committing the act.  Neither should we see God as some cosmic IRS auditor that reconciles our thoughts and imaginations and holds us accountable for every nit-picking thing He finds.

The average person hears these words and throws up their hands in exasperation.  “That’s impossible,” they say.  Of course, the degree to which our society has hyper-sexualized everything does throw gasoline upon the fires of lust.  Even the idea that sexual activity should only happen within a life-long committed relationship called marriage is being rejected by our society.  This is not just a rejection of God’s law, but a rejection of His revelation about how and why He designed us as He did.

The Creator tells us that He created our sexual aspect to create a powerful bond between a husband and wife.  However, that which is powerful for the good can be just as powerful for the bad when it is abused or disrespected.  God is not just laying down a law.  He is warning us about the devastating path that our sinful flesh pulls us down.

How much pain, suffering and evil is going on in this world that is connected to sexual immorality?  How many rapes, abortions, divorce, wounded kids, sex-trafficking and even sex-slavery happens out of ignoring God’s warnings?  Even those who look at pornography tell themselves that they are not harming anyone.  Yet, the money they give to obtain a magazine, video, or subscription to a website supports all manner of trafficking and harm to society.  You are not only destroying others; you are destroying yourself. 

Our culture not only allows such things, but even worse, it promotes it.  Let us not kid ourselves.  Lust drives much of the evil in this world.

In verses 29 and 30, Jesus gives us two parallel “if” statements.  The first speaks of the “right eye,” referring to the strong or dominant eye.  The second speaks to the “right hand,” referring to the strong or dominant hand.  You will notice that the statements are exactly the same except for the right eye swapped out for the right hand.

Let’s look at the second part of the statement.  There, Jesus emphasizes the danger that lust presents.  Jesus warns his listeners that those who refuse to deal with lust, regardless of whether they committed physical adultery or not, could find themselves in Gehenna.  This is the same thing he did back in verse 22 with murder, speaking about the “Gehenna of fire.”  Jesus is pointing us to a judgment that is from God in which a person’s whole body is put into a fiery place. We see this in the book of Revelation referred to as the Lake of Fire (Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14, 15).

Of course, there is a lot that is not said here.  In fact, Jesus shouldn’t have to go into to much detail.  The idea that internal lust could put us in jeopardy of the Lake of Fire should let us all know that God is serious about this issue.  This would have seriously scared everyone in the crowd.  By the time Jesus finishes these six case studies in the law, everyone listening to him will recognize that they are in trouble with God.

Is God being unfair?  If we only understood how much evil, pain and suffering is caused through the refusal to nip lust, anger, and other vices in the bud, we would not be so concerned with God’s fairness.  In fact, there is no perfect response to this situation.  We will blame God if He is too judgmental, and we accuse Him when He is not judgmental enough.  We want Him to “do something” about the evil in the world, but we want Him to overlook our own evil, particularly because we don’t want to believe it is evil. 

This world is not full of wickedness because God made it that way, but because people reject the truth of God and go their own way.  God’s way brings life, but our fleshly way brings destruction.  You may think that it feels like life, but that moment always passes and destruction comes in the wake of our actions, whether internal or external.

Now, let’s deal with this idea of gouging out your right eye and cutting off your right hand.  Jesus does not intend for anyone to actually gouge out their eye or cut off their hand.  His statement basically begs the question, “What do I need to excise from my life in order to be free from the damaging effects of lust?”

There really is a genius to what Jesus is doing here.  The religious leaders who love to look at the law superficially, are here given a superficial solution to the internal problem of lust.  If you really thought that God hated lust enough to send you to the Lake of Fire, then you would be drastic in your measures to stop it before it led to judgment.  Jesus knows that losing your dominant eye and your dominant hand cannot remove lust from a person.  Even if you gouged both eyes out and cut off both hands, you can still lust. 

Others will say that Jesus is politely saying that they should cut off the true offending member, genitalia.  However, I believe this hinges on the phrase “If….causes you to sin (literally to stumble).”  That is the condition which causes any thinking person to meditate on what it is that actually stirs up lust in our hearts to the point of stumbling, sinning.

We do not lust simply because we have eyeballs, hands, and even genitalia.  Notice that it is the Creator who gave us these things.  In our desire to deflect responsibility, we can blame God.  “If You hadn’t given us eyes, hands, genitalia, we would never have sinned.”  Of course, such an argument never ends.  “If You hadn’t put the tree in the Garden of Eden… if you hadn’t created us as sexual being, material beings, or even carbon-based creatures, etc. ad infinitum go our attempts to blame God or others for our sin.

There are external things that I need to excise from my life, or at least place severe restrictions on them.  Pornography, or any place or medium in which pornographic activity exists, is a good place to start.  The eyes have been likened unto a gate into our soul.  Jesus will touch on this in Matthew 6:22-23.  What videos am I watching?  What apps do I have on my phone?  For some people, it may be that we ask if we really need a “smart phone.”  It is better to go through life without a smart phone than to be thrown into the fires of Gehenna.  This places a responsibility upon ourselves to recognize that lust does not image God and pulls us towards destruction.  We are often guilty of pouring gasoline on our base desires, and then pretending like it is God’s fault.  Job said that he had made a covenant with his eyes.  He would not look lustfully upon a young woman (Job 31:1).  Yes, if lustful thoughts are stirred, then avert your eyes and move on.

Proverbs 6:32 says, “Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; he who does so is destroying his own soul.”  If I truly believed that Jesus knew what he was talking about, then I would shut down lust quickly before it flares.

I imagine that there were a lot of people there that day, if not all of them, who were extremely convicted by what Jesus was saying.  I think about the woman at the well in Samaria.  She had been divorced four times and was living with a guy when Jesus talked with her in John 4.  Notice that Jesus does not pretend that she is righteous, and yet, he really does care for her soul.  This woman of five marriages and one “shacking up” had probably never had someone truly care for her soul.

The people there that day were not perfect.  They were just like you and me.  They all had something, probably multiple somethings, that Jesus was poking.  Jesus is not just loading them up with guilt.  The whole point is that the Kingdom is here, and they all needed to repent and put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah.  He would lead them in.  I don’t know if the woman at the well was adulterous, or she had a series of men who grew tired of her and divorced her to satisfy their adulterous lusts.  Regardless, she became an evangelist for Jesus that day.  The guys who should have been leading people to Jesus were contemplating how to kill him.  The ones who should have ran away from this “righteous man” are the ones who were drawn to him.  This is part of the mystery of the grace of God and the work of God.  It is not always done by people who had a righteous background.  Let’s just say, they knew that they were horrible actors and so they didn’t even try to act.

God wants us to understand that He isn’t satisfied with us only looking good.  He wants our heart.  By the time you are done with the Sermon on the Mount, you will find yourself in a place of tension.  I want to believe Jesus, but I don’t know how that would be possible.  It is done by faith.  They didn’t know about the cross where Jesus would pay the price for their sins, so that the Father could then remove them from us.  Nor did they understand that the Day of Pentecost would bring the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all who had put their faith in Jesus.  The Spirit of God Himself would help them to take possession of their destroyed souls, like Israel of old going against the giants of Canaan.

They couldn’t imagine just how great God’s love for them was, even in their fallenness.  So, what is our excuse?  We can imagine these things.  We have the New Testament that lays out all that God has done and will do on our behalf.  Is it not high time that we put our faith in Jesus, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and let Him lead us in victory against sin in our hearts and minds?  Yes, of course, it is!

Adultery audio

The Sermon on the Mount IV

Subtitle: Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God II

Matthew 5:21-26.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 31, 2023.

We will continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount today.

We looked at the Introduction that Jesus gives to the Kingdom in Matthew 5:3-16.  There he challenged his audience to quit looking at what they don’t have and to start seeing what they do have.  God was opening the door to the Kingdom for them in Jesus, in fact, he is The Door to The Kingdom (John 10:1-9).

Jesus then gave them three metaphors to help them see what God was wanting to do through those who entered the Kingdom.  He wanted them to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city on a hill.  Each of these speak to the spiritual impact believers in Jesus would have on the world around them.

Just like a door is a transitional spot between two different places, so the presence of Jesus brought Israel into a transitional spot between being the nation through whom God was primarily working to choosing to follow Messiah into a new reality.

In verse 17, Jesus begins to develop his first major point by stating his purpose to fulfill the Law of Moses, rather than destroying it.  In verse 21, he then points to six places in the Law of Moses in order to show how Israel’s leaders were missing the mark and how they could hit it.  Let’s look at our passage.

Six case studies in fulfilling the Torah and Prophets of God (v. 21-48)

Verses 21-26 are the first look at the Law, which focuses on the Sixth Commandment of The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.  “You shall not murder.”

Before we get into looking at what Jesus says about murder, there are some structural issues to take note of in each of these six case studies.

Jesus will always start out with what they have heard from their teachers in expounding the Law.  He will then contrast that with what he teaches them now.  Lastly, Jesus then moves to give some “therefore” statements, which highlight the fact that he intends us to think about the implications of what he teaches.  The therefore sections flesh out what it would look like to heed his teaching.

In each of these, if we treat Jesus like another rabbi, and if we approach his words like the Pharisees approached the Law of Moses, then we will only be focused  on the letter.  Jesus would simply be adding more laws to the 613 that they already had.  Yet, this is not what Jesus intends.  The words that he speak are a representation of him and what is in his heart.  They draw us into relationship with The One who spoke them so that we can be led by His Holy Spirit to “flesh out” his intention for us.

Another issue is this.  Any honest look at the Law of Moses will see that they are not all of the same kind.  There are different types of laws.  The most obvious are the moral laws, which say things like, “You shall not murder.”  Murdering is inherently wrong, evil.  It will always be wrong because we do not have the authority to murder people, any more than to rape them or take all of their things.

A second category are the ritual laws, sometimes called ceremonial laws.  These have to do with how the tabernacle, the temple, would work.  You will notice in these laws about sacrifices, etc., that there is nothing inherently good about killing a bull in a special way, and in a special place, every time you sin.  They were symbolically pointing to greater spiritual truths.  This is part of the tutor, or schoolmaster, purpose of the Law.  They are only a moral obligation because Israel covenanted with God to do them.  Like a parent telling a child what they should do, the moral issue is not something like what time you go to bed, but rather about whether or not you will listen to your parents, even greater, God.

Lastly, there are civil laws that described how Israeli society would operate and the things they would do to set themselves apart from the world around them, whether in diet or dress, etc.  Some of these categories have overlaps.

In the first century, Jesus had to qualify his teaching by stating that he is not trying to abolish the Law of Moses.  It is interesting to me that most would accuse me of trying to bring people back under the law.  This is not what I am doing.  To be clear, Christians are not under the covenant of the Law that began at Sinai.  Yet, we need to hear the heart of our master here.

The Law of Murder

There were laws that also talked about manslaughter and what to do in those cases, but let us stick to what Jesus is doing here.

Jesus begins with the phrase, “You have heard that it was said to those of old…”  As I said earlier, this points to the teachers that they are hearing in their day.  Jesus refers to their teaching in order to set up a contrast with his own teaching. 

More than contrasting, he is demonstrating that there is something that these teachers are doing that is in error.  On one hand, Jesus will show us how God intended the Law to be followed, and yet on the other hand, Jesus is preparing to cut a new covenant that would require his death and resurrection.  This gives us a dual point of how the law should be heard, but also moving on to the new thing that God is doing.

The shepherd of their day are not good shepherds.  So, what was their error?

Their teachers have been focusing on the letter of the Law, which over time had accreted a large number of precedents and rabbinical “case-law.”  They emphasized the outward conformity to the Law, but ignore that these are the instructions of a loving Father who is more concerned about the moral character that would drive their actions, than simply wanting outward conformity.

Have you ever listened to lawyers twisting every word that is said by someone in order to get their client off, or if you are the prosecutor, to nail the defendant to the wall?  To a lawyer, the law is merely a challenge.  It simply becomes something to be manipulated to your favor.  Surely, God could never be pleased by people twisting His words.

In the case of murder, they simply taught that you would be liable to the judgment if you murdered someone.  Of course, it is not bad to teach this.  The error is in what is missing, the heart of the One who gave the Law, and the heart of those who were receiving it.
It is interesting that the Bible begins with two chapters about the work of God in making all things “very good.”  However, the next two chapters are very bad.  Genesis chapter four is often seen as the first murder.  Cain murders his brother, Abel.  Notice that God sees that Cain’s heart is wrong (i.e., Cain hasn’t murdered anyone yet).  Like a good father, God speaks to Cain about what happened and what was going on in his heart.  He warns Cain to control himself because sin sought to have mastery over him.  Any true father is not content to merely have sons who don’t murder one another.  You want sons who have his heart for their brother.  He wants us to honor how He feels towards our brother, our neighbor, even our enemy.

By the way, Genesis four is actually a story about two murders.  Lamech kills a young man who had injured him, and we see him justifying himself.  The chapter ends with violence filling the earth.

Yet, don’t miss that Genesis three is also a story about two murders (or potentially, the murder of the human race).  The serpent, the devil, seduces Adam and Even into an action that brings death into their lives.  The pre-flood civilizations did not go deep enough.  They abused the mercy of God to Cain (not capital punishment) and refused to go deeper into their hearts.  In the end, the world was filled with murder because the hearts of men were full of murder.  All of this begs the Genesis :26 question, just who were they imaging?  It wasn’t their Creator, it was their own murderer, Satan.

After laying out what they were being taught, Jesus turns on the phrase, “but I say to you…”  Jesus does not have the kind of credentials that their teachers had.  Just who does he think he is?  Well, he is the One sent from God, and thus, he has credentials that none of them had.

Jesus gives three statements.  The first is about being angry with your brother.  The version that I have been using adds the phrase, “without a cause.”  This phrase is debated because there are some early manuscripts that do not have it.  The question then becomes, was it added or was it taken out?  There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to take it out.  But, if it wasn’t there, putting it in would soften a harsher statement.  I would simply say that the apostles would later teach us to be angry and sin not (Ephesians 4:26 quoting Psalm 4:4).  Anger isn’t so much the problem, as it is the source of our problem.  Anger has a lot of power and our flesh tends to use the force of anger in order to push us into sinful actions.  James 1:20 tells us that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

So, even if my brother did something that I am rightly angry over, I am still in danger of sinning.  I will come back to deal with the warning Jesus gives.

This first one had to do with internal thoughts and feelings of anger.  Jesus then moves to two outward actions that show contempt for our brother who has angered us.  Calling someone “Raca” was essentially calling them an empty-headed person, a numbskull, a dunderhead, an idiot, and I could go on.  It is contempt for them intellectually.  Calling someone “You fool! (the Gk is from the word where we get moron) also had a sense of poor intellect.  However, for Hebrews this word also had spiritual connotations (it generally doesn’t for us).  The fool is a person who willfully ignores the teaching and ways of God in order to make their own way.  Yes, it is foolish, but it is also a rejection of God.  There is a immoral component to it.  Thus, this is to have contempt for your brother intellectually and spiritually.

Notice that as Jesus moves through these three things that he starts with them being liable to the judgment, and then to the Council (the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem), and finally to the “Gehenna of fire” (my version says hellfire).  No human can put you in the Gehenna of fire, which was a phrase used to speak of God’s judgment.  This then begs the question of what judgment and what council he was speaking about before?  Regardless, something as small as calling your brother a name is coming from a dark place that God will not put up with.  They were definitely not thinking that they were in danger of God throwing them into Gehenna for calling their brother a moron. 

They should have gone deeper, but under the New Covenant that Jesus would cut with God at the cross and give to his followers, we do not serve as if following more stringent laws.  We follow and serve the purposes of Jesus by the help of the Spirit of God in order to do the spirit of the law.  We see this in Romans 7:6; 8:2,4; 9:29; and 1 Corinthians 5:7-8.

In verse 23, Jesus moves to his first therefore statement.  Notice that he has repeated the word “brother.”  It is reminding us of that first actual slaying of a human being, which was done between brothers.  Like Cain, our contempt and anger can push us to do heinous things against our brother, whom God loves.

This very same God desires us to reconcile and make things right.  Cain needed to see that he wasn’t imaging God and turn back from anger.  Even if there had been cause to be angry (in Cain’s situation, there wasn’t), Matthew 18 would later deal with what to do if you had cause to be angry.  You will notice there that Jesus is promoting the same thing that he does here, reconciliation.  We cannot come before God and pretend we are worshipping him while we know we have done our brother wrong.  Jesus actually puts the onus on the brother who did the offending.

We can’t force reconciliation, but we can do what Romans 12:18 says.  “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men…”  Then verse 21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

This is why Jesus boils the whole law and the prophets down to having a heart of love for God and our neighbor.  Such a heart of love will express itself in actions of love.  Yes, that is a hard task, but Jesus has done two huge things to help us.  He has removed our sins and their judgment from over our heads, and he has given us his Holy Spirit to help us battle sin in our life.  We first die to our own righteousness and then we die to our flesh.  We try to make things right with all who would have ought against us before approaching God in worship.

Jesus ends this section with a second practical therefore statement, even though he does not repeat the word. People who are angry do not always think well.  They are not as innocent as they may deem.  In such a case, you can end up getting yourself in a pickle.  Jesus envisions two angry men going to a judge and one of them is going to be shocked.  Jesus thus brings up the idea of settling out of court.  Would I push the issue if I was brought into court every time I became angry and ran the risk of a penalty?  Imagine how many times we become angry with people and don’t give it a second thought.  Yet, this is the turn of this small parable in verse 25.  Just who is your adversary?  Ultimately, your adversary is the devil.  He seeks to prosecute you before God.  You are even now on your way to the Judge of all men, the Lord Jesus.  Jesus is no respecter of persons.  You may win some judgments regarding your anger, but will you win them all?  Wouldn’t it be wiser to make your peace with your brother in this life while you can, before you end up at the judgment seat?  If something is settled out of court, then it seems that Jesus will not judge it.

Just as the fires of Gehenna were the danger earlier, here the danger is to be thrown into the prison.  The prison, the holding place of wicked spirits, is not a good place to go.  Some will point to the phrase, “you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny,” as hope that Gehenna is not without end.  Be careful of that.  It doesn’t say that you can pay it off.  Rather, it emphasizes that you won’t get out until you have.  This begs the question.  How does a person pay off a debt when they are in prison?  If the price for removing my sin was the perfect Son of God dying on a cross on my behalf, then it seems very unlikely that I will ever “pay it off.”  This is intended to scare the anger out of you, or at least, wake you up to the true dangers you face.

None of us would survive such a judgment.  Our only hope is to try and reconcile with our brother and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court, which is merciful to those who have shown mercy.

Instead of using the lack of a murderous action as a cloak, through Jesus, God is calling us to overcome evil by dying to our righteousness, and coming alive to his righteousness.  This is that righteousness which laid itself down that we might live.

May God fill us with repentance, and then with His Holy Spirit, so that we can live out the righteousness of God.

Fulfill II audio

The Incarnation of Jesus

Galatians 4:1-7.  This Christmas sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 24, 2023.

It is an amazing reality that the Creator of all things took on the nature of a human in the man called Jesus. 

It is called the incarnation as a reference to God coming in human flesh.  He did not come merely in the appearance of human flesh.  Neither did he materialize like angels do. I am referring to the fact that angels can take on material form, and when they do, they look like men (i.e., humans).  Yet, it is always clear at some point that they are not men when they do things that men cannot.  A case in point would be the Angel of the LORD in Judges 13.  When the “man” ascends into heaven in the flame of a sacrifice, they know that this is not a human (i.e., a man of human flesh and bones).

This is a very important point.  Jesus didn’t even jump in as an adult.  Rather, he went through the full gestational process, was born, and experienced all the things that we experience as humans.

Have you ever had someone complain that, “You don’t know how it feels to have (insert tragedy here) happen in your life!”  This is often used to shelter a person from any input in their life from others.  There can be some truth to this, but, even with other humans, this is often over-played.  A man doesn’t have to carry a baby for 9 months and birth it in order to understand that this is simultaneously a difficult and wonderful thing.  Yes, he can’t know exactly how it feels, but he doesn’t have to in order to empathize.  If a man has his arm hacked off by a sword, everyone on the planet who saw it, or the aftermath, can empathize with the horror of what has happened and the urgency of medical attention he needs.  We don’t have to have an arm hacked off to deeply understand what a trauma this person is going through.

If this argument fails to completely hold water with humans, how much more the Creator of the Universe?  To everyone who would shout, “God doesn’t know what it is like!”  He is God.  He created all the sensory perception that you have.  Does He not know what you are feeling?  Yet, in the incarnation, God has completely taken it off of the table.  Not only can he understand your pains and difficulties, the chances are that He endured far worse than you did.  Maybe, it is us who can’t understand God.

Still, we should notice that God didn’t have to do this in order to counter our complaint.  Yet, in His grace and mercy, He takes on the nature of a human and goes through life.  In Jesus, God lets us know that He knows it is tough, and that life can cause you to want to quit believing.  Yet, there Jesus is, hanging on a cross, bidding you to pick up your cross and follow him.

Yet, Jesus came to do far more than just let us know that he is aware of how difficult it is.

Let’s look at our passage.

Jesus came when the time was just right (v. 1-5)

Paul is writing to the churches in the interior of what we call Turkey today.  The Christians there have been told by certain itinerant teachers that they had to obey the Law of Moses in addition to believing upon Jesus in order to be saved.  Paul was writing to counteract this teaching with the truth about why God gave Israel the Law, and how it functions for Jews and Gentiles.

This is an important point because we can have large assumptions about the purpose of the Law without even knowing it.  Did God give Israel the Law to save them?  Were Israelites saved by keeping the Law?

Paul uses the analogy of a tutor, or governess, for a minor child who would first step into the family business at adulthood, and then later inherit it all.  Paul is essentially describing this setting as a picture of what God the Father was doing with Israel His son.  The Law was given to be a tutor, a schoolmaster, to help Israel be ready for the day when they would be ready to step into adulthood.  This is where we are at in chapter 4 of Galatians.

Even though he is an heir, the child has a status that is like that of a slave.  They have to listen to a teacher, who may themselves be a slave of the child’s father.  This status of a slave is temporary and Paul equates it to the period from Israel’s establishment at Mt. Sinai to the presentation of Messiah Jesus.  This is over 1,400 years.  During this period, God has been using the Law of Moses to teach Israel some things so that they will be ready for the day when Messiah appears.

This brings us to the statement in verse 4 that Jesus came at just the right time, “in the fullness of time.”  There is a quantitative aspect to this because it is time, but time is not the essential element.  There is a qualitative aspect that has to do with learning that is even more important. 

We might argue against this claim of perfect timing.  In fact, Israel herself often complained of God’s timing.  They felt God was taking too long.  Perhaps, we feel that he came to soon.  Maybe that is a sign that this was the perfect timing.  Yet, the perfect timing has nothing to do with what we, or the ancients, thought about it.  For us, yesterday is the perfect time for a savior to come forth from God.

This is a statement from God’s perspective.  Notice how verse 2 reads.  Paul states that it is the Father who determines the metrics for the timing of when the young man is ready to step into adulthood.  Though Paul doesn’t mention this, we can also add that this doesn’t mean the son quits learning.  It is simply that he is no longer under the tutor, but begins to help out in the family business. 

From God’s perspective, the Law had taught Israel all it needed to know in order to embrace Jesus as Messiah, and then, to move forward in what God had for them as adults who were no longer in a slave status.

We  have been talking about Israel as a whole, but the truth is that lessons are learned individually as we corporately walk through things.  Not everyone really understands what the lesson was teaching.  Some people perhaps “learn” that they are tired of listening to a boring teacher and would rather do other things.  Others may “learn” things that are quite wrong.

Is the Law necessarily teaching that God doesn’t love the Gentiles because He never gave it to them?  Does it teach that they are irredeemable because they weren’t given the Law? 

In fact, we might ask just how the Law “teaches” us?  I would say that the Law teaches us each time that we sin, and also in the times that others sin.  It teaches us each time the prophet calls us to repentance by pointing back to the Law, and forward to right relationship with God.

This demonstrates the great wisdom of God in setting the exact right timing for the things that He does.  It is right because the experience of the “child” will have done its proper work to prepare them for the decisions to which God will bring them.   Paul boils this argument down in Romans 1 through 3.  In chapter one, he establishes that the Gentiles were separated from God by their own actions of exchanging the One True God for worshipping created things.  Every Jew would be giving a loud amen at this point.  Yet, in chapter two, Paul turns around and demonstrates that the Jews are also separated from God and guilty before Him because they have broken the Law.  Those under the Law are guilty because they have broken the Law, and those outside of the Law (Gentiles) are guilty for reasons outside of the Law.  They are both in the same place of guilt.  Chapter three follows up with a powerful statement of the purpose of the Law in Romans 3:10.  “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”  There you have it.  The purpose of the Law is to show even the relatively “righteous” of the world that they are sinners in need of God’s mercy.  Israel had been under slavery to a law that showed them their failures at every turn long enough.  It was now time to receive God’s mercy in Jesus.

We see this perfect timing concept in other areas.  In Genesis, God tells Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to his offspring, but not until 400 years had passed.  This was because the “sin of the Amorites” was not yet complete, or full.  They were already sinful, but it wasn’t the perfect time to judge them yet.  God would give them the perfect amount of grace, and even a witness of Yahweh through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his family.

Another example of this is given by Paul in Romans 11.  There he talks about the partial blindness of Israel in rejecting Jesus as Messiah.  Paul tells us that this blindness to Christ would not be forever.  When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then Israel as a whole will have their eyes opened to who Jesus really is.

We could even ask ourselves this.  What if Jesus had been born to Adam and Eve instead of Cain and Abel?  Would they really have understood the depth and the seriousness of the problem of sin and its solution?  I don’t think so.  In fact, as I said above, not everyone learns the lessons as they should.  Even today within His Church, there are those who do not treat the problem of sin as a serious issue.

If God had seasons of learning for Israel under the Law, wouldn’t it make sense that He also has seasons of learning for the Church.  We are waiting for Christ to return, and he will do so at the perfect time.  Yet, that time is connected to God’s people and the world being taught some things.

The early Church saw persecution up into the early AD 300’s.  Think about the lessons regarding enduring persecution and the reward for those who are faithful until death.  By the end of the 300’s things changed drastically as Theodosius I became the emperor of the Roman Empire.  He was raised a Christian and even outlawed paganism.  This is why historians to this day will treat this era as the end of the Roman Empire and speak of a “Byzantine Empire.”  Pagan Rome under pagan Caesars was very different from the Christian Empire.  Yet, they are one and the same.  This season of the Church seems to teach some new lessons.  What will Christians do when they are in charge of the Empire? 

Christianity was very successful within Europe due to this turn of events.  It is interesting that Christians continued to be enamored with kings, monarchies, and emperors, and it makes sense.  God allowed Israel to have kings, and Jesus is the king of kings.  Yet, we see over and over again that no amount confessing Christ, or becoming the “Defender of the Faith,” can make a man really be like Jesus.  For 1400 years Christianity doubled down on kings, until 1776.

Did American independence transition us into a new period of learning about self-governance under “No king, but King Jesus”?  I think so.  I believe that God allowed us to establish a new kind of government that was not the failed democracies of the past, and uniquely modified the Republics of the ages.  We would now be a self-governing people with constitutions that put our servants on notice of how they were to operate.  The true human sovereignty was now collectively held by The People.

What lessons are we just beginning to understand now?  It is easy to say, “No king, but King Jesus!”  However, it is harder to live that out.  Is Jesus the king of America?  Yes, he is in position by God’s decree, but not in practice of its people.

The return of Jesus has an aspect to it in which there are lessons that we need to learn.  Yet, it also has an aspect of the fact that God will not judge the world until the sin of the nations has reached its full.  May God help us as believers to be learning the lessons while rescuing sinners out of a spiritually decaying humanity. 

This Second Coming of Jesus is a transitional point for the world.  Yes, it seems like God is taking too long, but in truth, God has just the perfect time for it to happen.  It is not ours to worry about the timing, but to be faithful to what God has given us to do for now.

Is it possible that I am spending far too much time complaining to God that He is taking too long?  Perhaps, I even have hints of threatening to leave the faith under my complaints?  Would I not do better to spend more time seeking the Holy Spirit to open my mind to the lessons that God is teaching us through His Word, and through the history and activity around us today?  Yes, I am very sure that I would.

Jesus was sent forth to redeem us

It was at this perfect time that God sent forth Jesus in order to redeem us.  There is a lot happening in that sentence, so let’s begin with the fact that Jesus was sent.

The Gospel writer clearly show that Jesus was not doing his own thing.  He was on a mission for God the Father.  Of course, this is a common problem of all the human servants of God, mixing our plans and purposes with God’s.  This is true even of the political “saviors” who rise up in our Republic, or around the world.  Ultimately, they are doing their own thing and coming in their own name.  Yet, Jesus said that he would only speak and do what the Father had sent him to say and to do (John 5:19-20; 12:49-50).  The cross itself becomes the proof that he was not just talking smack.  He put his body where his mouth was.

God wanted something done, and it wasn’t pretty.  Have you ever had something that you knew God wanted you to do, but it was a difficult thing?  Think about Mary and Joseph.  As the angel explains to Mary that she will become pregnant, but not by a man, rather, a miraculous conception, she can look ahead and see all the ways in which her society will not accept such an explanation.  She can imagine the heavy price that she is going to pay if she goes along with this.  Yet, she responds, “Let it be to me according to your word.”  Similarly, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.  Joseph knows exactly what others will say and do, if he marries her.  They will see it as admission of unrighteous, sexual activity.  He too will have to pay a price.  Yet, he marries Mary anyways.

Now, Israel knew that Messiah was coming, but they believed his mission would be all about putting down the Gentiles and lifting Israel up over them.  To be sure, that is part of the work of Messiah.  We can be guilty of crying out to God for help with a long list of the things that we think He should do.  Yet, many times we do not understand what is best for us.  The first coming of Jesus is a rebuke that tells us that our greatest enemy is our own sin and its spiritual tyranny.  Only having defeated that enemy can we even talk about tyrannical forces outside of us.

This is politics in our Republic, and in any nation end up being.  A stomach churning event in which we all point the finger at the other side, or other nation.   “You are the problem!” “No, you are the problem,” comes the reply.  “Let’s lock up those people, kill that guy, etc.”  Of course, the targets of today will change tomorrow in a never ending circus of avoiding the true enemy, the sin of my own heart.

In the Bible, deliverance from spiritual tyranny is pictured as redemption.

Just what is redemption?  It starts with a person who has fallen into a state in which they have lost their inheritance, and are too poor to redeem it back.  That is, they are unable to pay the price to get it back.  The book of Ruth pictures this perfectly.  Ruth will not only be unable to pay for her husband’s inheritance in order to get it back, but she has no children to give it to.  The solution in that case had to be another Israelite who was a near kinsman, and who would be willing to pay the price of buying the land and marrying her in order to raise up a son to inherit it.

If we take that story and lay it over humanity and our sin problem, then you begin to understand why God’s solution involved incarnation.  Sin is so bad that we are debtors to God with no means of making it right.  The problem is that many humans do not believe that they are that sinful, or that sin is a big deal.  We have been cut off from our inheritance as humans (not just a problem for Israelites) because of our sins.  We are spiritually poverty-stricken and are in need of a redeemer.  This is where Jesus steps in.

Jesus qualifies to redeem us.  He is a kinsman (for Israel, a fellow-Israelite, and for the rest of humanity, a human).  This is why Paul emphasizes in verse 4 that Jesus came forth “born of a woman and born under the law.”

Being born of a woman, ties back to the original promise of God when He cursed the serpent.  He said that the seed of the woman (one from her line) would crush his head, even though he would crush the seeds heel.  This mortal wound versus an injury is the promise that a deliverer would come.  Jesus qualifies as a seed of Eve.  God could not just wave a scepter and whimsically decree that sinful humanity should have its birthright back.  A price had to be paid, and we had to agree to the terms of that payment.

Being born under the law, ties back to the covenant that God had made with Israel.  Israel saw itself as righteous among the nations.  They could understand that some Israelites needed redemption, but that as a whole, the nation was righteous before God.  It was really Gentiles who needed redemption.  Yet, the death and resurrection of Jesus under the law, and the rulers of the Law at that time, is proof that perfect laws (a divine source) can not make us righteous, or help us to inherit eternal life.  The sin-problem has to be solved.  Of course, humanity seems intent on not hearing this lesson that God has been showing us.  We appear to be doubling down on fixing things by  more and more human laws.  It won’t work because those who operate the system are just as much sinners as those who come under their purview.

Even the Millennial Kingdom shows that if we had a perfect Executive (Jesus), perfect laws, and glorified, perfected administrators (the resurrected believers), it still would fall apart if God wasn’t restraining evil.  The problem will always reside in our mortal hearts, and in the heart of the spiritual interlopers, the devil and his angels.

America is part of God’s argument to humanity about freedom.  It is great to be freed from under a tyrannical power, but now you are responsible.  You can’t blame it on King George III any more.  Politically, we haven’t gotten out of bed in order to go to work.  We’ve allowed a new tyrant class of criminal “servants” to rise up over us.  Freedom is easier said than done.

We have received the adoption of sons (v. 6-7)

We have received the adoption of sons because of what Jesus has done, because of his redemption.  In Ruth, the solution was marriage.  This image is also used of Jesus and the Church, the Bride of Christ.  However, in Galatians the solution is the Adoption of us into God’s family.  Jesus is the one true son, but we are adopted into the family of God through the work of Jesus.  The true son died in order for you to be adopted into a greater family.  When you place your faith in Jesus as your redeemer, the one who paid the price for your sins, you are then adopted by God as His child.  In fact, you enter as an adult-child.

It is one thing to be 19, 22, even 26, stepping into adulthood for yourself.  However, there is still a whole range of adulthood before you with a number of seasons filled with a number of lessons that you will need to learn.  So yes, a new Christian is a baby-adult.  We are not under the Law of Moses and so we are adults, but we have a lot to learn through the world and the Word of God, both by the Holy Spirit’s help.

We still have a lot to learn, and we are not in our glorified bodies yet.  We need to pay attention to Jesus because he is preparing us for an eternity with the Father.

Notice in verse 6 that the same words used of Jesus are used of the Spirit.  He is sent forth by the Father.  The Holy Spirit is on a mission for God too.  When you are adopted into God’s family, His Spirit takes up residence within you in order to help you become like Jesus.  Just as Jesus was on a mission of redemption, the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us to help us walk in faith through the wilderness of this world, this new adulthood.  He helps us to overcome our own sins and to become an incarnation of Jesus by proxy to the world around us.  This is referred to as a down payment on the fullness that we will receive at the resurrection.  So, think about that!

Through Jesus, God has brought you into a familial relationship that is intended to be intimate.  The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are a child of God, and He helps us to cry out to God in intimate terms, “Abba, Father.” 

It used to be very popular to emphasize that Abba is equivalent to “daddy” or “papa,” something a very young toddler would use.  Of course, that is a beautiful picture, and the word was (and still is) used by little kids for their fathers.

However, we should notice that it is used by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying to the Father.  He was asking if the cup of crucifixion might be avoided.  Regardless, we see him resigning himself to doing the will of the Father.  “Not my will, but Yours be done.”  Jesus sweat great drops of blood as he was praying this.  This is no little kid crying out papa in the night.  This is the eternal son of God gearing up to go to war against our deadliest enemy by dying on the cross.  This is one warrior speaking to another warrior.  The word essentially means Father, but it carries with it the complete intimacy of a son, whether child or adult. 

We too can cry out to God in the midst of our difficulties and know that He hears us with full love, even when a difficult task lies ahead (especially when so).

To the world and worldly Israelites, the death of Jesus was proof that He was a sinner and not loved of God.  However, they don’t understand that this is not about the Father’s love.  His love has never been in question.  It has always been our love that fails.  No, the crucifixion is proof of the Son’s perfect love for the Father, and the resurrection is the response of the Father.

Paul ends this section by concluding that the Galatians, and we who believe in Jesus today, are no longer slaves under the Law of Moses.  We no longer need God to give us a bed-time (a superficial law that points to something deeper).  Rather, as adults, we tell ourselves that we had better go to bed because we have a lot of work to do for God in the morning.  We have stepped into the relationship of adult-sons.  We are not running the business yet, but we get up each day and report in to Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  What are going to do today, Lord?

There will be another transition to our relationship with Christ.  Whether we die or not, the resurrection will forever deal with our sinful flesh.  We will have glorified heavenly bodies and be like Jesus, perfectly in his image.

Those lessons learned by Israel over 1400 years of servitude must be absorbed by us today, while also learning the lessons taught by the Lord to his Church over 2,000 years of working for him.  In fact, we need to remind ourselves over and over again.  Praise God that His Holy Spirit helps us to war against sin in our own hearts and minds, and then helps us to be a help to others.  Christians are a people who have learned to go to war, and are still going to war, against the sin of their own flesh.  It is in that bloody battle that the grace of God brings us through, and it helps us to minister to others.

The problem today is that too many people are on the warpath to fix the sin in your life, or worse metaphorically crucify you for it.  Yet, they lack Jesus because they haven’t lifted a finger to fight sin in their own heart and mind.

All through this, Paul has referred to us as heirs of God.  We are spiritual adults, but we have only received a portion of what we will inherit.  It is not yet fully manifest what we are and shall have.  We are to show ourselves faithful with the little that we have, so that God will reward us with much by His grace.

Let every day be an adventure of discovering even more that, if it wasn’t for Jesus, we would still be stuck in a poverty-stricken state of being a slave to sin, and judged by the Law of God as unworthy.

Praise be unto Jesus!

Incarnation audio