Christ never said what many confused people
believe he said in regards to the law
Did Christ say
what you believe he said?
I will present several passages where our
brothers erroneously think that Our Lord Jesus Christ abolished one or more of
God’s laws during his three and a half
preaching years. From that
error has come the heresy of insisting that God’s laws for human behavior are actually
inoperative, that we don’t have to
follow them, and that Christians are
free to do as they like, thinking that
even though they are doing all these things they are not sinning.
Such horrible mistake can only have been
put in the minds of the believers by our spiritual enemies. It is
reasonable then to analyze those passages where our brothers think they see such
heresy.
In order to save
us, Christ obeyed every one of God’s laws, from birth to death
Our Lord obeyed every one of God’s
laws, both the behavioral laws and
the ritual laws throughout his life.
He had to do so in order to save us.
Only one fault would have resulted in his own damnation, and ours. That is why he never did anything
that could have gone against God’s laws.
In Hebrews 10:28 we see that Paul says that it is sinful to treat with contempt
any of God’s laws, therefore Jesus
was not about to do such thing.
“He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses”
(Heb 10:28)
Being this so, it is totally unthinkable that our Lord Jesus Christ would
despise, abolish, disobey, suppress, talk against, modify, etc., any of God’s laws, before his crucifixion.
I
say before his crucifixion, because if Christ would have wanted to
abolish one or more of God’s laws,
he would have never done it while under the law, since doing it would be to sin, he could have been lost, and so
would we.
Christ knew circumcision would be
abolished, but he would have never done it, nor would he speak against such law before his crucifixion. He knew the sacrifices would be
abolished, but he would have never abolished
it, nor would he speak against them
before his crucifixion. To do it
would have been to sin, as Paul
reminds us in Hebrews 10:28. If Christ would have sinned, he would have been lost, and we would not have been saved. Speaking against the sacrifices and
circumcision before his crucifixion would have been a sin.
That is why Jesus Christ never spoke of
abolishing any of God’s laws. It
was the Holy Spirit who, after
the crucifixion, took on the task
of telling us which laws would be abolished and which would continue in place.
Christ had to be very careful, because Satan was always looking for
a way to make him sin. Satan knew
that if he made Jesus sin in the least of things, his mission would have failed and Satan would have triumphed.
The
only mission Christ had received was that of saving us, anything other would be
a sin. Satan knew that God had given only one mission
to His Only Son. He knew that Jesus could not stray away from it and
that if he had altered that mission, or if he had taken upon his
shoulders any other mission, he would have failed, he would have
sinned.
That is why several times Satan tried to trip
the Lord, to make him get involved
in judgments, politics, etc., like the time he tried to make him a judge, an executioner, or to
proclaim himself king, and even
punish those who deserved punishment.
Because his was only a salvation mission,
Jesus rejected certain solutions. Do you believe that it was through his
own strength and virtues that Elijah made fire fall from heaven and burn two
companies of soldiers? Do you
believe that was Elijah’s “mistake”?
(2 Kings 1:10-12).
It is evident that the one that gave Elijah
the power to do that miracle was God;
and it is evident that God also agreed with what Elijah was doing, otherwise he would not have backed
him up.
Do you believe that Jesus disagreed with God
on what Elijah had done? Of course
not! Christ approved of the same
things God approved. Therefore, what Elijah had done was not a sin.
Subsequently neither was a sin in itself for
the disciples to want to do what Elijah had done before: let fire come down from heaven to punish the rebels. That is what James and John tried to
do. What was sinful was to make it
part of Christ’s mission. That is
why the Lord didn’t let them do it.
“52 And sent
messengers before his face; and they
went, and entered into a village of
the Samaritans, to make ready for
him.
53 And they did
not receive him, because his face
was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
54 And when his disciples James and John saw
this, they said: Lord, wilt thou that we
command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? 55 But he
turned, and rebuked them, and said,
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye
are of. 56 For
the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
And they went to another village”.
(Lk
9:52-56)
The only difference in this case was that Christ’s
mission was much different than Elijah’s
mission. It was much more specific and it required different methods. Jesus’ mission was not to punish, destroy, judge, etc., but to save; and no one would distract him during the 33 years he would live
here.
That is why he would not offer his vote (or
deny it) for the adulterous woman to be punished;
that is why he would not judge on the case of the brother who would not share
his inheritance; that is why he would not
punish the Samaritan city.
None of that was his mission at the moment of his First Coming; he had not come for any of it. He would not let others drag him into it; being whether those others were acting in bad faith, as in the case of the Pharisees who were agents of
Satan, or in good faith, like the disciples.
It’s not that Christ disapproved what
Elijah had done, since that had been done under God’s authority and power. Neither was Christ against
punishing adultery, since it had been established by his father God, and he was not going against Him or
pretending to be “kinder” than God. It is simply that the
mission that God gave him for that time was another one, as seen in John
3:17, and he would not want to sin by straying away from the mission
he was given and taking on another one.
“For God
sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world
through him might be saved”. (Jn 3:17)
We should not conclude from cases like these, that God was thinking one thing while
Jesus, “more humane” and “generous” was going against Him,
or fixing up His messes. After all, our Lord Jesus Christ agrees with
sending the rebels to hell, just
like God. Therefore, when the Lord Jesus Christ opposed James
and John when they wanted to bring fire from heaven to punish those rebellious
Samaritans, he did it because that
was not his mission then, and doing
it would be a sin; but not because
he thought they did not deserve it.
Neither should we understand that God
thought one thing in Moses’ time and then changed his mind two millenniums
later, to fix things, to the point of sending his Anointed
to contradict what God had previously approved.
Jesus Christ, and therefore God, is
the same yesterday, today, and forever, as Hebrews 13:8
declares. God is not going to think
one way during Moses’ time and another way during Paul’s time.
Because it was not his mission, Jesus did not
offer judgment. It is evident that in John 3:17
is the explanation of why Christ would not let himself be dragged where the
Pharisees and others wanted to take him.
These, incited by Satan, and not
knowing why they were doing it, wanted to tempt Jesus to judge or condemn
someone, to invalidate his mission of salvation.
God did not give Jesus the mission of judging or condemning on his
first coming. He did not come to
condemn but to save. If he had
condemned someone he would have walked away from God’s mission, which would have been sin. That is why the Pharisees and his
other enemies kept tempting him to judge and condemn people. They did not realize the spiritual warfare that was taking place, and in which they were unconsciously
participating, but since, after all, they were not serving God,
the Devil used them to make Christ judge or condemn someone, and thus ruin his saving mission by making him to sin.
That is why Christ did not condemn the
adulterous woman in John 8:3-11. It is not that he was repealing God’s
laws, but he didn’t want to make
himself judge to apply them, because, as saw in John 3:17; that was not his
mission. For judging crimes God had already established kings, governors and judges. Jesus was not going to usurp their
functions. That is why he neither
condemned nor acquitted the adulterous woman, but instead, after
seeing that no one else condemned her,
he simply said, “Go and sin no more”.
That is why he would not go into
litigation for the inheritance that one of his listeners had in Luke 12:13-14. This listener had been cheated by his brother. It isn’t that Jesus thought there shouldn’t be a law against
swindling. He didn’t abolish the
laws against swindling by not condemning the listener’s brother. It isn’t that Jesus had abolished all
these laws. It’s that his mission
was one of salvation, not of
condemnation or legislation; he came
as a savior, not as a judge or a
legislator.
“13 And
one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide
the inheritance with me. 14 And he said unto him: Man, who made me a
judge or a divider over you?”
(Lk 12:13-14)
By not taking sides in this problem between
brothers Jesus was not abolishing the laws of inheritance, or
the punishment of cheaters,
or the right of every heir to claim his part.
He
wasn’t approving of adultery, or abolishing God’s laws about adultery just
because he did not condemn the adulterous woman.
He knew that the hand of Satan was behind all this,
trying to distract him from the only mission that God had given him, and thus ruin his redemptive work and condemn
himself.
If Christ would have dedicated himself to
solve arguments, not only would he have
failed in his mission,
but he would have had received so many litigants,
that would have made his mission practically impossible.