The Greatest Legal Minds ...

In our day “the law” is a written aspiration of seeking justice.  We use the law as a tool to attempt to insure fairness and equality.  But even the greatest legal scholars among us will recognize that our entire body of laws are simply, not perfect.  This would make sense.  Since man is not perfect, the devices of his imagination are likely not to be perfect either.  In the field of art, we glory in these imperfections and unusual perspectives.  But in the field of law, we attempt to fix the imperfections as we stumble across them, or suffer from their application.  But no matter how much we continue to revise our laws, to attempt to find a better justice than the one we had before, our work on them is never quite finished.  One could find it interesting that while our laws can trace their roots all the way back to the tablets of stone Moses first carried down the mountain – our “evolution” of them has resulted in only more opportunities for improvement over time, not less.

In the days of Moses, “the law”, was the first revelation given to the people of earth, of what it means to love.  For a people fresh from slavery, who never had the freedom to think and act as they chose, God tried to reveal to them in the tablets of stone (and in His very tangible presence, with daily miracles of His care), what the base definition of love is.  That Ten Commandment law then, was the first guide rails, in answer to the question – what does it mean to love God, and to love each other.  But herein is where most of us jump the rails; the law, was NOT a definitive list, it was merely a beginning.  If the legal code of the United States is written across volumes of books today, imagine how much bigger it would be, if we were to attempt to define what it means to love on top of all the other statutes.  The Ten Commandments were a start, a beginning, NOT a comprehensive definition of how to love.  Common sense would build on this law, and provide a next step, in how to make love deeper, richer, and better.  For instance, if I love you, I would not think to steal from you.  Common sense would tell me, that as I get to know you, I will find out what you like, and try to share those interests with you, simply because it makes you happy.  Theft is the farthest thing from my mind.  Giving and trying to improve your life (because that makes me happy too) is at the top of it.

When you think in those terms, when you feel passionately in those terms, other crimes drop from you like scales off of a snake.  When I love you, I do not think to enslave you, I do not think to rape or abuse you, all of the evil that can be done to you, is NOT what I would see happen to you, not by the world, and especially not by me.  The Ten Commandments enumerate a starting point, but when love is my way, my list gets substantially longer.  This does not represent a flaw in God’s law, it represents true obedience to it, and the genius of it.  We were never meant to be satisfied with how great we can love.  We were always meant to discover an even greater love for others, every single day of our lives, not just in this life, but in the eternal one to come.  That thought should overwhelm you.  It is meant to.  To know that your ultimate state of bliss can only be measured today, for tomorrow it will become greater, is beyond the limits of our imagination.  Yet our reality to come.

Which takes us to the purpose of the law in heaven.  The “law” of God, that is to say the “love” of God, will never disappear throughout all of eternity.  We will not lie to each other throughout infinity.  We will speak only truth forevermore.  The reason – because truth is what love speaks – and lies only damage what we say we love.  We will not steal anymore, because stealing hurts others, and our internal passions will never be to hurt, but to uplift.  And here is another mind blower.  There is NOTHING in the law about how “much” you can give to somebody else.  There are no caps on giving.  The sky is the limit.  And giving will be natural, theft unthinkable.  When this is true, the law, or His love, is the core of who you are.  And while the law never disappears, we will need it no longer, because we would not think to transgress it.  For us the need of the law itself is gone, because the focus of our minds and hearts is on how to love others greater, not how to love less.

Here on earth, where God’s love looks restrictive, meaning it points out something I want to do, but am not supposed to do – this is where even the term “law” comes from.  The law here on earth only restricts my evil.  In that sense, the law is truly the beginning definition of what it means to love.  All our laws are designed to keep my selfishness from invading and harming your life.  For it is self-love that creates the need for any law in the first place.  Take away all self-love, and you can take away the need for any law forevermore.  But when you do love self, and not so many others, the law acts as a mirror to show you, how actions you take reflect a lack of love for others in your life.  It is evil that sees God’s law as restrictive.  And for evil, it is.  Evil, that is self-love, wants to do whatever it wants, regardless of who else might suffer because of it.  That is the nature of all evil in the first place.  The two ways of thinking could not be any more diametrically opposed.  God’s love that loves only others, and Evil’s ideas of love that focuses only on self regardless of others.  When those two ideologies exist, there is need for a law.  Once evil is gone forever, the need for the law will go, as the thinking behind it will obliterate the need for it.

The Pharisees thought themselves masters of the law.  Not because it had penetrated their hearts so that they only loved others.  But because they knew every word that was written, and every habit of action, that might prove they kept the law.  Sound familiar?  In the modern Christian churches which still teach the applicability of His laws (rightly so), His laws are more often taught with accompanying lists of do’s and don’ts.  Further actions defined in order to offer proof, that you are in fact, obeying His laws.  Any descension from the lists, and you are doomed to hell (usually forever).  This application of the law focuses on punishment and the fear of punishment, as your motivation to curb your behavior (if not your enthusiasm).  This is because love itself, is just not understood.  And love for others is not something that has ever been a natural part of how you think.  But without this kind of love, true obedience is just not possible.  It takes reformation of our thinking, of how we love, of what we want, before true obedience is possible.  That comes only from surrender to Jesus of our will, of our thinking, of how we love, and who we love.  Total surrender brings total reformation and re-creation, and then love brings a natural state of obedience, a harmony with His laws of love.  The Pharisees had no personal experience with this, nor did they want one.

If Jesus could not be trapped in matters of popularity (taxes), or in matters of doctrines (resurrection, and how women are to be treated), then perhaps they could trip Him up in a matter of law.  For let’s face it, everyone of us has broken His law at some point in our lives.  Most of us breaking it every day.  They reasoned the human part of Jesus had to be subject to this.  But they forgot His humanity only cloaked His divinity and Jesus had lived a spotless life, though tempted perhaps worse than we are, yet without a single transgression.  The love in Jesus, was not a love for Himself.  It was a love for us.  And a burning passionate love for us, could just not be compromised by an action that might hurt us.  So Jesus remained pure, and their attempts at trapping Him were going to leave them disappointed.  Never the less, they assembled the greatest legal minds of their day, and began to devise a strategy to trip Jesus up in His own law.  Silly when you think about it.  But evil often starts with a silly or ridiculous premise, and degenerates from there.

Matthew picks up the last trap for Jesus in chapter twenty-two of his gospel to the Hebrews in verse 34 saying … “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. [verse 35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, [verse 36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”  This was a well-conceived trap.  Which law would you pick as the greatest idea defining love.  If you say do not kill, you leave the body of your neighbor alive, but steal his wife, lie to him about it, and injure him greatly anyway.  If you pick a different law, you can simply kill your neighbor to end any disputes about the damage you do to him.  It devolves down to one of those worst of two evils scenarios.  In that case we would likely pick the do not kill him commandment, reasoning that if he lives, at least he is alive.  But this focus comes from a punishment perspective, not from a true love of others one.

Jesus answers them in verse 37 saying … “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [verse 38] This is the first and great commandment.”  Why is this the first one?  Think about that for a moment.  If the goal of harmony with the law of God is to love others completely, and love myself not at all.  Then why be taught to love God first?  Could it be that God is love?  And love comes “from” Him, and only “through” you.  Perhaps you are a conduit of His love, not the originator of your own.  Could it be, that for humans steeped in the evil of self-love, the only cure for it, is to come to God first?  Without experiencing the liberation of re-creation, the work of Jesus in us and for us, we are powerless to love anything other than ourselves.  Sin is an addiction that makes no logical sense, yet we find ourselves bound in chains to it anyway.  Only Jesus can break our chains for us, through our surrender to Him.  We cannot free ourselves, we must be made free.  Coming to God first, directing our love to Him first, can allow Him to do the work we need to be saved from ourselves, FIRST.  Only afterwards, is love for anyone other than me, even a real possibility.  Trying to love others first, is nothing more than hidden motives, buried in selfishness that I probably don’t even see.  My love for you, will be a result of my love for Him.  I cannot truly love you, unless I love Him first.

Jesus continues in verse 39 saying … “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [verse 40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Hear closely His own words, that the second commandment is “like unto it”.  Meaning the distinction between the first and second is very subtle.  We must love God first in order to build our own connection to the source of love itself.  But that connection to love was not meant to be turned inwards to ourselves.  It was meant to be turned outwards to the entire world.  Loving our neighbors when we once thought only to love ourselves.  If you were to make a priorities graphic to illustrate this.  You would place a drawing of God at the far left and call that priority one.  Then draw an infinity symbol on its side (it looks like a figure eight).  Under that infinity symbol would be labeled everyone else.  Then at the far right a stick man drawing of you.  You would be priority last.  And that is how it should work, and will work, when Jesus re-creates in you, what it means to truly love.  Jesus restates here for us, that all of the law, and all of the prophets were trying to get this simple message across.  Love God first, love everyone else next.  Self-love is the thing we are trying to rid ourselves of, as every evil can be traced back to it.  And the only freedom from self-love is a surrender to Jesus.

But Jesus had a question for the “masters of the word” before they scurried away.  The story continues in verse 41 saying … “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, [verse 42] Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David.”  Jesus was not referring to Himself here, He was simply asking the Pharisees a generic question about “the Christ” they believed would be coming to deliver Israel from the Romans.  The Pharisees responded rightly that the Messiah would be from the lineage of David.  Jesus continues in verse 43 saying … “He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, [verse 44] The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? [verse 45] If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? [verse 46] And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.” 

First of all this stumper left the Pharisees, the lawyers, and the Sadducees speechless.  It was tradition in that day to refer to the King as “Lord”.  And this term only worked upwards in the genealogy.  Solomon would have referred to David as “his Lord”.  David would only have referred to Solomon as his son, or his prince, or the anointed and chosen of God etc.  So if the Messiah as the Son of David, yet referred to by David while under the influence of inspiration (so no doubting he misspoke or something) as His Lord, that would imply the Messiah existed before David, and then again after Him, or as an eternal being, the Son of God.  This was yet another attempt at Jesus trying to use the things the Pharisees loved, namely scripture, to invite them back to Him for reconciliation.  He was revealing who He really was to them, in a way they could understand.  But none were ready to accept.  At least not yet.

The traps all in the past now, I wonder if we understand our own relationships with His law.  We are bound to it forever.  But is the law part of the core of who we are, or do we see it as a restrictive set of conditions we have no idea how to live up to?  That difference is night and day.  It is the difference between walking in darkness, and having experienced the salvation of Jesus in you.  Jesus is NOT saving you from hell.  Jesus is saving you from yourself, and your self love.  He is teaching you how to really live.  How to live in harmony with His laws, making them only a beginning for you to explore what it means to love others.  That journey of exploration is meant for the here and the now, not just for the afterlife.  To be free to love others brings such a state of bliss and happiness it has no words to describe.  Even in a world of sin, you can still be made free from the slavery of self.  That is the Kingdom of heaven Jesus told us was here already.  Become the 2-year-old that runs to the arms of Jesus your Father, trusting in Him to save you, and making you free to love for real.  There is nothing better than this, and it can begin this moment as you surrender this work to Him and watch what He does in you.

 

A Question of Law (witness number nine) ...

The conflict was to be escalated.  Our story continues in the Gospel of John chapter 5.  The religious leaders of the day had determined that a man healed of a crippling disease that was so intense he was unable to move a few feet into a pool of water on his own, had been “ordered” to carry his bed on Sabbath.  This crime was bad enough, but now they had found the Man who did the “ordering”, and determined He must be killed for His offense.  This is the ultimate definition of conservative fundamentalism; those who would espouse contrary beliefs must be killed because they do not agree with the group thinking.  The religious leaders never so much as paused to determine if the act of carrying a bed on Sabbath was indeed a breakage of the law.  A re-evaluation of their understanding of scripture, never so much as entered their heads.  The law is the law after all.  The interpretation however was decided by committee and the results were to be made edict.  Lost in the entire process; the defiance of physics in the miraculous healing of the man, and the love that cared more about healing, than “when” that healing took place.  Even a miracle was not enough to jolt the stubborn mob into re-thinking its position, instead the miracle acted as a catalyst to inspire them to murder.

A verbal debate on the law, the Jewish leadership felt confident they would win.  They had won for many years, and this is why their collective opinions had never been overturned.  If anything they had simply gotten more and more conservative in their interpretation of laws as the years progressed.  This is the natural course of events when the study of law is absent from the love that inspires it.  When one focuses only on actions and not on motives, an interesting cadre of possibilities is presented.  Loopholes emerge.  Fine print becomes important.  A question of law must be thoroughly vetted and a detailed interpretation agreed upon, much like a contract.  However, love is not something so easily and fully defined.  Love is hard to pen on paper, and make a contract out of.  Love seems to always exceed our understanding, and employ concepts that are counter intuitive to our best interests, such as forgiveness, and patience in the face of hate.  How does one interpret motive, and define it, if it is truly based in love?  Laws about actions are easier to proscribe, than a recipe for how to love another.  And so the law had been separated from the love behind it, and actions were all that mattered now.

A miracle in the face of our “facts” was an event that could not be ignored.  A verbal debate might be won as it was historically.  But a defiance of all the known laws of physics and science is not something easily dismissed.  It undoes perceptions.  It redefines realities.  It causes atheists to scramble, and mistaken religious zealots to either pause and re-evaluate, or as in this case, to harden their positions and seek to kill the opposition.  Truly these were a stiff necked people.  And truly so are we.  We harden our resolve never to re-evaluate our core doctrines, no matter what circumstances we encounter.  As such we block out the Holy Spirit from teaching us, as we focus all our energies on “teaching” others in His name.  Not even miracles, give us pause.  We simply find a way to explain the miraculous as either affirming our positions, or being merely coincidence if it disagrees.  Seems as though nothing has changed in the approach of religious leaders from ancient times to now.  But the conflict was to get worse.

Christ answers them in verse 17 and says … “But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”  Ouch.  Jesus had said a mouthful.  First, and this point was completely lost on them, this act of love was not the independent will of Jesus in sympathy for the man, it was an act of love done by the will of the Father.  Second, this “work” was not truly work, it was “love” in action.  When God rested on the seventh-day at creation, the animals he had made did not immediately expire from lack of breath.  The plants did not stop growing.  Gravity was not suspended.  Food did not disappear.  The universe kept spinning as it always had.  Love was not the thing God rested from.  And in making the Sabbath holy He was blessing us, by setting aside His time to spend it with us for one day every week in a special way, a way He outlined.  The intent was to free us from our normal distractions and give us time to spend with Him, the source of all love.  Jesus reaching out to this man on Sabbath begins with addressing his most pressing need, a physical restoration.  Love does not consider a healing from pain the “work” that must be delayed on Sabbath.  The salvation of man does not take a day off.  The restorative work of God on the human heart needs no time out on Sabbath, if anything it needs an acceleration on that day.  We appreciate God all the more, when He frees us from the slavery of self, and offers us some dedicated special time with Him.

In effect, Jesus was saying that the Father Himself, was redefining their interpretation of what “work” was, and what He did in heaven and on earth.  Love was not something God needed rest from, it was something He was and is and would always be.  Love incarnate.  In this instance, Jesus was telling these men, they were wrong, and they were not only arguing with Him, they were literally going to argue with God the Father on this one.  Those words should have been the end of the debate.  And they should have caused those who claimed to worship the Father, to take a step back, apologize, and rejoice in the love the Father wished only to show them.  But it did not.

Verse 18 chronicles their very human, and very stubborn response … “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.”  Their thinking and their perspective point about their interpretation of the law did not so much as flinch.  They were still certain Jesus had broken the Sabbath, despite only performing an act of love.  Now they saw His reference of the Father as a further crime of Blasphemy, and it only enraged them further.  This is the hallmark of the thinking of Satan.  Reason is abandoned for passion, and steeped in the pride of arrogance.  The Jews were wrong, and they would gladly kill Christ for pointing that out.  The miracle still stood as something beyond their version of “truth”.  Had this been only words, they might have been able to ignore His truth, but when it was bundled with something else they could not explain, they reduced this debate to one of ego, and they were not willing to sacrifice their pride in the study of the law, to the soft-spoken truth of love in action.

Jesus however, does not attempt to dispute this further accusation of blasphemy, he continues his focus on redefining what “work” actually means.  In verse 19 he responds … “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”  It was common in the culture of the day, that whatever skills and trades the father did in a family, the sons would learn and inherit.  All throughout nature, parent animals teach their young how to find food, build shelter, and care for their young.  A Jewish son would in all likelihood continue the occupation of his father as there was little opportunity to find something else.  At a minimum he would have been educated in his youth of the trades of his father.  This is the truism Jesus references.  In this He further states, this is what I have been taught by my Father.  My Father’s occupation is acts of love, it is what He has taught me.  Acts of love in the mind of God, is not considered work that transgresses the law.  In this Jesus is again stating their argument over their position on the law is in direct conflict with God the Father.  Love is not work, it is a state of being.

In verse 20, Jesus raises the stakes … “For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.”  Now to address the reason for their extreme emotional response, the thing they could not ignore; the miracle.  Guess what, there are greater things than this that you will witness and marvel at.  Here was Jesus saying, this was not a single act of love for you to soon forget, and write off as some sort of weird anomaly or coincidence.  There is going to be even greater miracles, that will be even harder to dispute, and you are going to marvel at them more than you marvel at this.  In effect, your inability to explain away the miracle associated with this act of love is about to get compounded in scope and frequency.  This was unwelcome news, as it implies a supernatural power is behind the acts of Christ, and they may be arguing against something larger than humanity on this one.  This is not going to be just another typical verbal debate; this one comes with proof of the divine position on the question of law.

Now recognizing that they are debating something greater than humanity, if one is determined to hold to ones position on the law, then the natural conclusion is that Jesus must be acting on behalf of some evil power, not from God.  But before they can hold on to this conclusion (in spite of all the facts to the contrary), Jesus trumps this idea by offering them a power the devil does not have, in verse 20 He continues … “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.”  Lest you think Satan is behind the miracles I do, the ability to raise the dead is something only God could do, and so only the Son can do it as well.  Again following the understanding of Jewish culture of the day, Jesus is saying I have learned what my Father taught me.  And this time He is clearly articulating that only God could do the act of bringing back the dead.

How poignant a lesson for us; here is Jesus saying to us … only God can bring back the dead.  Do you realize that in embracing the pain of sin, you have embraced the death that sin brings?  Only God can bring back the dead, only God can restore the life He intended for you, from the death you have embraced.  And what is more, only Jesus can save you from this death you have chosen.  Without the redemptive, restorative, creative power of God, you would be doomed to your slavery to self, to pain, and to the death you would one day crave as the only escape from such a tortured existence.  God alone can bring you back from this death.  God alone can, not only restore your body, but He can restore your life to one of freedom to love others, not bound to only think of self.  This truth has never been more relevant, and more needed than in our hearts and lives and motives.

In verse 22 and 23 Jesus now outlines the true mission of the Messiah … “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: [verse 23] That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.”  The work of judgment has been reserved to Christ.  Christ had been sent into the world by His Father to redeem, to restore, to bring life.  Jesus is saying in verse 20, God alone can bring back the dead, and in these verses, I am here to do just that from a spiritual perspective.  The work of the Messiah is not the work of a man.  It is the work of God the Father, in sending His only Son to this world.  Honoring the Father CANNOT happen if honor is not also given to the Son He sent.  There is no bypassing Jesus or the Messiah in the act of judgment.  The judge interprets the law.  The judge has the final say.  The judge overrules the opinions of the lawyers, and makes the final determination.  If this is a question of law, then you are talking to the lawgiver, and the judge.  Judgment on whether acts of love are work on the Sabbath is something Jesus will decide, as God has given Him this role.  The Messiah is more than man, He is God, the Son of God.

What is more, salvation CANNOT occur bypassing Jesus and attempting to appeal directly to the Father.  This is a team effort.  And if we refuse to acknowledge the way of our salvation, we are refusing the gift of the Father as well as the gift of His Son.  God is saying to the world, this is “how” you will be saved, through my Son.  Through the ultimate definition of the law in action, look at the life of Christ, look at how far love will go to save and redeem, this is my method for your redemption.  Jesus is the living embodiment of the law, and when questions of interpretation arise, look to Christ.  Christ is the judge of what the law means, and how it is to be interpreted.  His life is that definition.  The words God gave on the top of Mount Sinai, now have a living example to model after.  The meaning of the law now has a living witness, and a living judge.  Whatever you thought you knew about the law, measure those interpretations against the life of Christ; for Christ is the standard by which we can measure the love that inspires the law.

Verse 24 summarizes the entirety of the gospel … “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”  Jesus plainly states this is how you avoid condemnation and pass from death unto life, is belief that God sent Christ to save you.  Notice, Jesus does not say you are saved by your strict adherence to the law.  He does not say you are saved by the doctrines you believe and by your interpretations of scripture, and understanding of prophecy, and the time you spend in reading and prayer.  You are saved not by the accumulation of your spiritual efforts, but by your belief in something outside of yourself.  You are saved by your belief that Christ can and will save you from yourself.  Christ is not throwing away the Sabbath, or the law, He is instead offering you a way to see clearly what it means, and how to truly “keep” it.  Christ is not throwing away His book, or His word, He is instead telling you that your wisdom in these matters requires further instruction.  You are to be the student, not the teacher.  You are to learn from Christ, not teach Him what your truth is.  Your salvation comes to you as a gift of God, something outside of yourself.  All of your accumulated truth is meaningless outside of submission to Jesus Christ.  All of your attempts to obey are fruitless outside of Jesus Christ.  You are saved first, then you can finally begin to learn what obedience means, and why motives matter.

In verse 25 Jesus continues … “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.”  In this Jesus is speaking both literally and spiritually.  Those who accept Jesus are transformed from death unto life.  And Jesus has the power to reach into the grave and cause the dead to hear Him and respond.  Lazarus would soon be a literal example of power of restorative creative love.  But thousands more who heard the sermons of Christ would become living examples of this transformation.  The 12 who were with Him now, would become men to reap the harvest and help change the world.  Millions would pass from death unto life by hearing and believing the words of Christ, if only through the written account of John in his gospel.

Jesus continues in verse 26 and 27 … “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; [verse 27] And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.”  Here is Jesus plainly stating God is author of all life.  Life is within God.  Life is also within Christ.  Not life that was placed there, but life that was authored there.  God is the source of life.  Christ is the source of life.  Our restoration is possible because Christ restores life to us.  And the life Christ brings to us is everlasting as He is everlasting.  We will be made to live forever because Christ lives forever.  We are not immortal now.  There is no inherent immortality in us.  Life was placed into us, it did not originate in us.  It originates in God, and as such only God can give it as a gift.  Here is Jesus saying judgment is reserved to Him because He is both God, and by choice, man.  God has become man in order to save that which was lost. 

The act of redemption requires no rest on the Sabbath.  This is the living example of the life of Christ, who is the judge on this matter.  The Sabbath has not been broken, it has been affirmed.  This is the ruling of the Judge, both in heaven and in earth.  The Sabbath is all about companionship with God, time with God, time reserved that is special for man and God.  Nothing Christ has done in his act of love to the man who was diseased for 38 years, was considered “work”, it was considered restoration based in love.  Despite the man’s response which was known before it was committed, despite the act of betrayal of Christ to those bent on killing Him, it did not deter the love of the Father or the Son for this sick man.  No matter how we respond to the love of God, it does not deter God from loving us.  Though we hate Him, He still loves us.  Though we betray Him unto death, He still loves us, and seeks our redemption.  This is the power of love.

Now Jesus looks forward to the end of the work of the Messiah, in verses 28 and 29 He continues … “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, [verse 29] And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”  Even at the end of the earth, even at the end of all things, it is still the voice of Christ who ALL the dead can hear.  It is still the voice of Christ that can call that which is dead and lost back from the graves they have ALL gone down into.  Notice this does not imply that disembodied souls are floating around somewhere, powered by themselves, that are now compelled to return to their reanimated bodies.  This states the dead who were ALL resting in their graves are restored by the power of Christ at the end of all things, whether righteous, or wicked, dead is dead.  And only Christ can restore what is dead.

The condition and eternal destiny of the dead is not determined by their actions, but it is revealed by them.  Motives inspire action.  Those who have done good, are those who through submission have been freed of themselves, and have learned to love as God loves.  God within them, inspires them to do good.  God in control of their will, their desires, and their actions leads them to do good, from a desire to do good.  Those who refused the gift of God, who instead trusted to their own ideas, their own will power, their own actions, do what is predictable, that which is in their own best interests.  Inevitably this leads to doing evil.  The reasons behind the actions matter.  Doing what is perceived as a “good” action, for a selfish reason, can hardly be classified as truly “good”.  The recipient of this action may benefit, but the one who does it, does not benefit.  Good must come from a restoration within us.  This is not natural to us, and can only happen when it is God who restores us from death unto life, as we submit our entire lives into His control.  This is what determines our destiny, and is revealed by the transformation that takes place within us while we yet live.  What we do, is then a result of our salvation from ourselves, or a revelation that we have refused to let this occur.

In verse 30, Jesus tries again to illustrate that the will of God to save us, is not something just He does, but something His Father is also keenly interested in … “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”  Father and Son equally engaged in the effort to redeem mankind.  Nothing Jesus is to do in this world is a one-sided affair; it is the will of His Father.  The miracles that Jesus is to perform are not from the power of His humanity, but from the will of His Father.  Though divine, Christ submits His own life to the will of His Father, as we must also do, if we are to be saved.  Even though He was perfect Christ still submitted His own will to God the Father.  He did not trust to Himself, but to His Father.  Even in this Christ shows us the example of how to live and find salvation from ourselves.

In verses 31 through 38 Christ then moves the conversation to the witnesses that He is speaking the truth.  He first says that it is John the Baptist who for a while they were happy to believe that testified of Christ.  It was only then, that this group of religious leaders lost interest in the message of John.  Interestingly enough while John’s message was to repent, a rather fundamentalist concept, the religious leaders were OK with him.  When he then testified of Jesus, they lost interest.  How reminiscent of modern Christianity, very interested in discussing sin and publicly condemning behavior with which we do not agree.  But when it comes to surrendering to Christ, the message goes eerily quiet.  Christ continues then, His argument that it is the Father in heaven that testifies to the truth of His words, through the divine miracles He performs.  This is the truth they did not want to hear, and the one for which there was no other answer, than that they were wrong.  And so they chose to disregard it anyway.

In verse 38 Jesus offers a stinging criticism.  The study of the law is not the same as the embracing of the law.  The study of scripture is not the same as the embracing of scripture.  Had the leadership embraced the law they would have by extent embraced the love that stood behind the law.  Had they placed their focus on motive over actions, they would have recognized the healing of the man to be an occasion of great joy, great love, and great rejoicing.  Love had renewed a life.  Those who had the word of God within them, would know this.  But as Jesus said to them … “ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.”  In the rejection of Christ, was bound the rejection of the testimonies that pointed to Christ, and the Father who sent Him.  You cannot have the word of God abiding within you, and then reject the words and message and life that is represented in Christ.  It is not the law that saves; it is the love behind the law.  It is only the Lawgiver who saves.

In verses 39 and 40 Christ undoes the foundation of their religious thinking.  He likewise undoes the basis for every Christian denomination on planet earth.  Jesus says … “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. [verse 40] And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”  The Jews had gotten so hung up on studying the scripture that they thought that act alone would offer them eternal life.  Christianity likewise today, gets so hung up on the differences in doctrine from the examination of scripture we hold to, that we believe these distinctions alone are what save us, or doom us for eternity.  We are both wrong.  We are all wrong.  The scriptures testify of Jesus Christ as our one salvation.  We ALL need to surrender to the one Lord alone.  Jew, Christian alike, are wrong that it is the study of scripture that saves.  It is only in coming to Christ that we are saved.  We may have memorized the entire Bible word for word, but if we have not embraced the point of the testimony, if we have yet to come to Christ, we are as lost as we ever were before we opened the book.  Salvation comes from Christ, not from study, not from the perceived distinctions that separate modern Christians.  Salvation comes from Christ.  Only in Christ can truth or unity ever be discovered.  Only will love ever heal the pain and differences we have allowed to take precedence over the love that emanates from the heart of God.

The words of verse 40 still haunt my ears … “But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.”  He was speaking to the those who thought they had the truth.  He was speaking to a nation who had dedicated itself to the keeping of the law, to the preservation of the prophets, to a worship system that Christ had setup all those years ago in the desert.  And despite all this blessing, and all this truth, and all this scripture, they STILL did not have the love of God within them.  Could it be those same haunting words are equally applied to me in the church pew in which I find myself?  Could it be that modern Christianity despite having yet another Testament of Christ, the gospels of John and His contemporaries, that we would STILL not have the love of God within us?  This prospect is terrifying and predictable.  If we have refused to surrender, even with all the accumulated knowledge of our age; if we still prefer to trust our own wisdom instead of surrendering it to Christ, we stand with the mob that day bent on taking the life of God.  There is no difference between us.

In verse 43 and 44 Jesus goes on to point out the absurdity of ignoring the divine stamp of approval on the life of Christ and miracles He performs, with a preference to have one man testify of another.  Christ tells this group that they argue against the Ruler of the Universe, instead preferring human wisdom, human honor, human approval.  This is not a question of law that has been raised.  This has become a question of ego.  These folks do not want to submit to the idea that they could be wrong about what they believe.  It is not the law that is wrong, it is the interpretation they have devised that is in error.  It is not the words Moses penned on paper that were in error.  It is the focus on humanity and human judgment and the refusal to submit to God, that has resulted in the errors associated with the keeping of the law.  It has resulted in blinding them to the joy of a healing, and instead a focus on the fact that it was done on the Sabbath.  This is the crazy, that develops when human wisdom is preferred to the divine.

Christ concludes His dissertation by referring them back to the author they most revere.  In verse 45 He says … “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. [verse 46] For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. [verse 47] But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”  Here Jesus plainly says, all of scripture, including the writings of Moses testify of Christ.  If they have missed this, they have missed the point entirely.  If Moses testifies of Jesus, and though they say the follow Moses, they still deny Jesus, they are not likely to accept the words of Christ as proof.  But in this their problem is compounded.  If Moses truly condemns them for their lack of belief, is there any hope left to them?  They have made a career, and a life, out of the study of the law.  Now Jesus tells them, they have missed the point entirely, and the patriarch they so revere is condemning them for their choice to trust in their own wisdom.

Many years ago when Moses died before entering the Promised Land he was buried in secret by God.  But apparently the devil found his body, and contended for it.  So God called Moses out of the grave and had taken him into heaven.  Perhaps the devil was looking for his body, to attempt to use it to cause the people to believe a lie.  Who knows?  But the Jews did believe that Moses had been taken to heaven.  So the idea that Moses might be in heaven actually accusing them to God the Father, was literally un-nerving.  At this idea, their animosity and intent to kill Christ was quelled for the moment.  This idea took them back, caused them to pause and re-group.  At this point, Jesus had told them He was the Messiah, the Son of God, the judge and final arbiter of what it means to obey the law, and now that Moses testified of His divinity.  A question of law had evolved into the larger question of salvation in general.  For now, whether the man carried his bed or not did not matter.  For now, whether Jesus had blasphemed did not matter.  For now what mattered was to consider the words of Christ and just make sure Moses was not on His team.

And so Christ was able to withdraw from this confrontation, and travel away from Jerusalem once again.  This had been the first time in His ministry, when Jesus so clearly had told the people and leaders who He was, and what the mission of the Messiah was.  Though judge, He was not here to judge, but to redeem.  Though God, He would daily submit His own will to the will of the Father.  His teachings focused on motives, and demonstrated love in action, not just in theory, or in words.  He was there to restore life.  He was here to bring the dead back to life, those who had died spiritually were to be awakened through the power of His words.  Nothing, not even death, could separate us from the love of God, both Father and Son. 

I do not know if the man who had been healed heard this discourse.  I do not know if he ever later read the encounter John would record.  I can only imagine that if he did, he would have been covered in the shame of his betrayal of God to a mob bent on killing Him.  I can only imagine he would have been SO sorry that he clung to his traditional ideas about the law, instead of embracing the love Christ was offering to him.  But in the same way, as I examine my own life, I see all the times I clung to my own ideas about scripture and the law, trusting to my own wisdom instead of submitting it to the only God who would save me.  I see all the times when I thought to conquer sin on my own, instead of abandoning this work to Christ who alone is capable of doing it for me.  And I too share the shame of the healed man.  I hope we both learned from our mistakes, and going forward, were neither of us ashamed to surrender fully to Jesus Christ each day forever more.  For in this is salvation, even for one who betrayed Him, like the healed man, and like me.

 

Measuring Results ...

Like anything else, when we try something we want to know if it worked. When we give up control of our will to Christ, we look with expectation to see Him finally conquer something in our lives that we simply could not do. But sometimes in the looking, we affect the outcome, and not well. It works when we truly let go, and to a degree avoid even thinking about the problem we had, allowing Christ to fix it without us looking over His shoulder offering our advice. Our witnessing efforts are similar. We sometimes observe the lives of those we come in contact with, to see if our efforts have yielded a positive result yet. We measure our own success by the amount of perceived change we see in the life of someone we tried to touch. But in the looking, we sometimes affect the outcome, and not well.

So the basic question we face is … what does it mean to be “saved”? Does it mean that we are free from ALL sin, and can only claim salvation when perfection is achieved? Before immediately responding no, consider that those who have forestalled their hopes until they go to heaven, have long held this belief as the ONLY possibility. Does being “saved” mean that we have merely started the process and remain diseased with many sins, only attaching ourselves to the theoretical knowledge of Christ? Before immediately responding no, consider that the Bible states we only need to believe on Jesus in order to be saved (it does not say we need to have accomplished anything with our belief). Or does it mean we have reached some sort of process point that includes an experimental knowledge of salvation, while relying on forgiveness to cover the remainder of sin in our lives? Before responding yes or no, consider that perfection is something that is attained by the righteous few who live to see Christ return.

The idea that we have a hard definition of being saved is clouded by the personal nature of salvation, and the fact that it is a PROCESS more than merely an end-state of being. It is similar to the question of when is a child ready for baptism? Catholics believe we should not prejudge an infant and deny it opportunity to come to Christ in baptism. Protestants believe we need to understand the meaning of the tradition before we can participate in it. But then the debate arises, when is the age of accountability. You can argue it varies with each child, and you would be correct. But then too comes the question of the depth of understanding involved. When I come home and find the dirty napkins from my trashcan shredded on the floor, I look and speak sternly to my dogs, usually the guilty party has her ears go down, tail go down, and head bows a bit to the left as she looks at me and licks the air hoping this will serve as an apology. My dog knows she has done wrong. But she is a dog. How much can a dog really know? Is she sorry I am mad, or sorry she made a mistake, or does she even know what “sorry” really means?

Again the problem with trying to evaluate the quality of our knowledge of God, is that we are attempting to apply metrics from a fixed point in time to a moving event. A devout 5 year old who loves God may be as ready for baptism as a cynical 40 year old who is taking all of this “knowledge” on faith that it is correct. For what I knew about God at five is every bit as relevant as what I know about Him now, albeit I have learned so much since then. But my learning is at His hand. However close to God I may be experiencing now is not due to an achievement on my part, it is has been His work effort, His direction, His leadership that makes this possible. My efforts have led only the wrong way. It is His waking me up to this, that allowed me to give up the idea of control, and finally experience what He wanted for me for years. All of it, His doing, none of it mine. We are not capable of evaluating the quality of a relationship with Christ, EVEN when it is WE who are the subject of our evaluation. Christians cannot even do an effective self-exam.

We are as blind to our own sin, as we are blind to how much He succeeds with us despite our interference with Him. We are like blind referees at an NFL Super-bowl for our souls. We stumble out on the field during the middle of play, making calls that have no basis in fact, or relevance, and calling the whole process “spiritual growth”. We want credit for our accomplishments, instead of realizing we have none. The faith we brag about / cling to – even our faith came from Him first. Our faith, like our salvation, was also a gift. Our ability to choose freely was a gift. Everything about our salvation is a gift from start to FINISH. When even one cherished sin can cause a man to lose his own salvation, choosing rather to embrace evil than be with God Himself one-to-one personally – how do you assign a value to a life free from 3 sins, yet suffering from 2 more? Does the equation change when it is a life free from 10 sins only clinging to one left? Adam lost our entire world over a choice to be with Eve instead of God – no matter what.

The point of this is simply to restate – Christians are not capable of judging (themselves or others). The role of judge was never supposed to be ours, despite our fondness for it. Therefore you cannot ever conclude that your efforts in someone else’s life have succeeded or failed. Your measurement is based on a point in time that may not be relevant to the final disposition of the one you are trying to evaluate. And what is more, your measurement criterion is subjective, based on your own life experiences rather than on the ones that matter to the person under scrutiny. Bottom line, you will simply not know. You are not supposed to know. A person’s salvation is between them and God, as your own salvation is between you and God.

Knowing this can bring you freedom. Sow your seed everywhere. You are not capable of determining the quality of the ground you are planting so plant everywhere you walk. It may look like concrete to you; dry, infertile, hot, arid, with no chance of success – but to God that ground may be ready to be broken up, rototilled by His hands, and your casual superficial seed spreading may be kneaded deep into the soil by His Spirit. You do not need to believe your efforts will work, but do them anyway. Answer the questions of atheists as if they will someday believe. Be kind to conservative religious folks who spout hate in every word, and would mean to do you harm for your knowledge. Love your enemies. For you never know what effect your witness may have when combined with the Master of our salvation. Remembering always that salvation is a road that ALL may travel, few being on the same place at the same time, yet ALL bound for the ultimate prize. Be a faithful witness, and leave the saving up to our Savior.