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August 8, 2021

8/8/2021

The Function of Signs

        Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, "I am the Christ," and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. Matt. 24:5-8, RSV.

    We would all like to have an indisputable sign that the Lord will be here in three years, three months, or even three days. Such an indication would stimulate us to get out of our chairs and begin earnest preparations for the event.

    Significantly, that is exactly the kind of sign that Jesus never gave. And for good reasons.

    In the Gospels we find the Jewish leadership repeatedly asking Jesus for various signs. But it is not until late in His ministry that the disciples do the same. They are especially interested in ones related to their confused conflation of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Advent. As a result, Jesus gives them a long list of markers beginning in Matthew 24:5. That list includes the emergence of false christs, wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, famines, and earthquakes.

    Unfortunately, those signs don't give us much specific information about the end of the age. After all, there have always been false messiahs, earthquakes, famines, and wars. What are we to make of such events, especially in light of the often overlooked statements in verses 6 and 8? Verse 6 tells us that such signs should not alarm us. They belong to the course of nature, "but the end is not yet" (RSV). In other words, they are indications that the end is coming, but they are not the real signs of the end. Verse 8 reinforces that thought with its teaching that "all these [signs] are the beginning of birth pains" (NIV).

    It appears that such things are similar to the sign of the rainbow that God gave to Noah as a token of remembrance. Every time God's people saw the rainbow they remembered His covenant promise. So it is with wars, famines, and earthquakes. Each one is a reminder of earth's sickness and evidence that the faithful, covenant-keeping God has not yet finished the plan of salvation. Each of those signs is a promise that Christ will come again to complete the saving of "his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). Every falling star, every betrayal of trust, every tsunami and earthquake tell us that while Jesus' work is not yet finished, He will come again to rescue His people.

August 7, 2021

8/7/2021

A Side Lesson on the Second Advent

        As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" Matt. 24:3, NASB.

    We noted yesterday that the disciples were confused about the relationship of the destruction of the Temple and the Second Advent. If I were Jesus I would have put them straight on the topic and told them that they were both coming but that 2,000 years would lapse between the two events.

    But Jesus didn't follow my logic. His answer mixes the two events and their signs in a manner that Christians have been hard put to disentangle.

    One wonders at the logic of His strategy when He could have made things clear. The only thing we can say for certain is that He deliberately mingled the two events in His explanation.

    But why? The chapter supplies us with the reasons. Foremost among them is that Jesus is not so much seeking to tell us when the end will come as to alert His hearers that they must live in a state of continued expectancy as they look for the end. That aim becomes clear as Matthew 24 nears its end and enters into the watch-and-be-ready counsels (verses 36, 42, 44, 50). The great parables of chapter 25, which form the conclusion to the sermon, begin in chapter 24 and continue to drive home the lessons of faithful waiting and responsible working as Christ's followers anticipate the end of the age.

    A second reason for His less-than-precise teaching strategy is that it forces readers to continually rethink His teachings regarding the Second Advent as they seek to penetrate His meaning. That approach is similar in some ways to His use of parables. In Matthew 13:10-15 He intimated that He taught in parables rather than in straightforward language because such teaching would compel those who were truly interested to wrestle with the ultimate meaning of what He said and thus make it their own.

    As a result, the very ambiguity of some of His statements has driven readers to struggle with the significance and meaning of the topic. The result has been an ongoing awareness and interest in the subject of the Second Coming. Such a technique has aided people in identifying with the major point of His sermon--to watch and be ready, because they truly know not the hour of the Master's returning.

August 6, 2021

8/6/2021

Introducing the Second Advent

        Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" Matt. 24:1-3, NKJV.

    Matthew 24:1 has Jesus leaving the Temple for the last time. The disciples, having heard Him pronouncing it "forsaken and desolate" (Matt. 23:38, RSV), seemingly point out that the Temple looks just fine to them.

    And a fine-looking building it was. Josephs, the first-century Jewish historian, writes that the outward face of the Temple "was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendour, and made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as they would have done at the sun's own rays." At a distance, he continues, the Temple appeared "like a mountain covered with snow; for, as to those parts of it that were not gilt, they were exceeding white." (Wars 5. 6. 6)

    The Temple was not only majestic; it was also massive. Josephus, in one place indicates that some of the stones were 25 cubits (a cubit is 18-20 inches) long, 8 in height, and about 12 in breadth (Antiquities 15. 11. 3). In another place he tells us that other stones were up to 45 cubits (67-75 feet) in length (Wars 5. 5. 6). With those facts in mind, it is no wonder that the disciples experience shock when Jesus tells them that the massive Temple, one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world, would be totally destroyed, without one stone being left upon another.

To his followers such an event signaled the end of the world. The Temple was the focus of their earthly existence. And they couldn't even imagine a world without the great Jerusalem Temple. The disciples, seeking clarification, later ask Jesus three questions: (1) When will the Temple be destroyed? (2) What will be the sign of His return (3) What will be the sign of the end of the age?

    Jesus does not seek to correct their false understanding on the sequence of those events. In fact, His answer mixes the two events and their signs to such an extent that it is well-nigh impossible to disentangle them.

    With Matthew 24 and its teachings on the second coming of Jesus we have come to a crucial aspect of the gospel story. We need to keep our eyes and ears open as we journey through Matthew 24 and 25.

August 5, 2021

8/5/2021

The "Tough Love" of Jesus

        You serpents, you viper's brood, how do you think you are going to avoid being condemned to the rubbish-heap?...Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You murder the prophets and stone the messengers that are sent to you. How often have I longed to gather your children round me like a bird gathers her brood together under her wing--and you would never have it. Now all you have left is your house. I tell you that you will never see me again till the day when you cry, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" Matt. 23:33-39, Phillips.

    Some church members are just plain tough in their condemnation of others. Their concern is with purity, right conduct, correct music, and sanctified diet. They have no problem speaking their minds. And the result is that young people quit attending, new members get discouraged, and anybody with any spiritual sense begins to pray for the souls of such "righteous ones" and for the continued existence of true religion in the congregation.

    Here we need to realize the difference between being hard and tough for the kingdom of God and exhibiting tough love in the spirit of Christ.

    One of the unfortunate aspects of having only the written word is that it leaves us without the facial expressions and voice tonality. I can say the same thing in a spirit of love or one of meanness and harshness. It may be the same words, but the sense that comes across is totally different. We learn from Matthew 23 that Jesus ranks among those who are not afraid to confront error. But we also glimpse the spirit in which He did so.

    When we are tempted to play the role of "spiritual storm troopers" we need to ponder the verses that highlight the spirit in which Jesus set forth the rebukes of Matthew 23. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,...! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings" (verse 37, RSV). It was in love and caringness that Jesus made His final appeal to the Jewish leaders to leave their false religiosity behind and turn to "the weightier matters of the law"--"justice and mercy" (verse 23, RSV). And it was with a broken heart that He realized that the majority of them would not change (verse 37).

    With that rejection comes the foreshadowing of two events. One was the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem with it (verse 38). And the second was His own return in the clouds of heaven (verse 39).

    Lord, we have been sobered by the strong words of Jesus in the face of false ideas about religion. But we have been given hope by the spirit of love in which He spoke them. Help us to have both genuine religion and a proper spirit.

August 4, 2021

8/4/2021

Wrong Ways to "Play Church"

        Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves....Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! Matt. 23:15-24, RSV.

    The second section of Matthew 23, running from verses 13 through 32, Jesus presents in the second person. He enumerates the condemnations in this section in the form of seven "woes." In addition the segment calls the scribes and Pharisees "hypocrites" (play actors) six times and "blind" five times. At this point the confrontation of Jesus with the Jewish leaders has reached fever pitch. Even though He uttered His words in love, it is impossible to avoid their pointedness.

    Here, as we noted earlier, before we get too critical of the ancient Jews, we need to realize that their faults tend to be a common characteristic of those who like to "play church," whether they be laity or clergy. The seven woes teach us that a great deal of difference exists between playing church and living the religion of Jesus.

    The first woe deals with the failure of entering the kingdom while at the same time blocking others from entering (verse 13). Jesus, of course, had in mind the actions and words of the Pharisees that kept their follower from developing a faith relationship with Him. But the modern church still has its quota of such activity. The restricting can result from discouraging others through playing the role of the hypocrite, by perverting the teaching of Scripture, or by living a loveless life. Unfortunately, it doesn't take much skill or dedication to be a stumbling block to others.

    The second woe focuses on those self-sacrificing types who do all they can to convert people to their legalistic ways. The upshot is that such converts wind up more miserable than before they encountered the missionaries' perverted view of religion (verse 15).

    The final woe (verses 29-32) hits directly at the "monument keeping" of much organized religion. The greatest monument to true religion is not some celebration of the major religious events and personages of the past, but the spirit of the prophets living in our own lives in the present.

    Sobering indeed are the ways good, sincere, religious people can go wrong. The seven woes are a call to self-examination and rededication for each of us.

August 3, 2021

8/3/2021

Final Wake-up Call

        Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them upon people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all these deeds to be seen by others." Matt. 23:1-5, ESV.

    The verbal climax of Jesus' struggle with the scribes and Pharisees takes place in Matthew 23. Up to this point, He has done all He can to wake them up, but to no avail. Now the time for soft words and roundabout tactics is over. In His love, Jesus now makes a frontal assault. His time is running out, and they still have not heard Him.

    Matthew 23 falls into three sections that run along a unified theme. Verses 1 to 12, given in the third person, present five characteristics for which Jesus rebukes the scribes and Pharisees. But before presenting them, Jesus highlights the importance of the office of the scribes and Pharisees. They "sit on Moses' seat" (verse 2). That is, they have the high privilege and responsibility of teaching God's Word to His people. It is in the light of that sacred and weighty role that we must view their shortcomings. Their faults are all the more serious because of their position.

    Before looking at the negative characteristics described in this chapter, we need to recognize that not all Pharisees were bad as those portrayed here. The Pharisees themselves had some of the same condemnations for their less-responsible fellows as did Jesus.

    Another thing we should keep in mind is that Christian leaders and lay-people often emulate the traits of the Pharisees. While the Pharisees formed a historic party in Judaism, their spirit is rooted in human nature. Thus we Christians need to read the criticism of Matthew 23 with ourselves in mind.

    Whenever we fail to practice what we preach (verse 3), are unwilling to carry out in our own lives what we prescribe for others (verse 4), love the show-off value of our religious accomplishments (verse 5), revel in honorific titles and in being shown respect (verses 6-10), and fail to realize that our ministry is a call to sacrificial service rather than an exalted status (verses 11, 12), we are acting as the worst of the Pharisees rather than follower of Jesus.

    Help me, Lord, to come to grips with my own shortcomings in the light of Your life and Word.

August 2, 2021

8/2/2021

A Side Lesson in Messiahship

        The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool." Psalm 110:1, RSV.

    Yesterday we began to examine Jesus' use of Psalm 110. He had pointed out to the Pharisees that the coming Messiah/Christ would not only be a human being but would also be God. Thus "son of David," while being a true description of the Messiah, was an inadequate one. The Messiah would not only be David's Son but also his divine Lord.

    Jesus accomplished at least three things in His exchange with the Pharisees. First, He publicly demonstrated their inadequacy as interpreters of Scripture. Second, He made an immense claim for Himself. The fault with the Pharisees was not that they had thought too highly of Messiah, but not highly enough. He would be divine--so divine that the great David hails Him as Lord (Yahweh). And in making that staggering claim for the Messiah, Jesus was advancing it for Himself, just as He had already done earlier in the week by riding in lowly triumph into Jerusalem and by claiming authority over the Temple.

    A third implication arising from Jesus' use of Psalm 110 is that if the Messiah is not merely David's son, then David as a model for the Messiah is incomplete. Human kingship of the warrior variety was no longer an adequate understanding. As a result, we find Jesus accepting the titles of the Messiah and the son of David, but rejecting the limitations of the Jewish definitions. Jesus never came as a warrior king, but as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). And He was not merely seeking to deliver the Jews from the Romans, but to save His people everywhere from their sins (Matt. 1:21).

    Jesus' use of Psalm 110 in Matthew 22 also reveals some things about His understanding of His mission: (1) that He would be victorious and sit at God's right hand, and (2) that He eventually would triumph over His enemies, who would become as a footstool.

    Such confidence is crucial for believers as we face the onslaught of the world against our faith. It is little wonder that Psalm 110 became the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New, being alluded to or quoted 33 times. The book of Hebrews repeatedly uses the text to drive home the point that Christians can live in absolute confidence because they serve a risen Jesus who sits "at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1:3, RSV).

    We can be thankful that Jesus is not merely David's son, but his victorious Lord.

August 1, 2021

8/1/2021

Christ's Unanswerable Question

        While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I put thy enemies under thy feet'? If David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?" And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask him any more questions. Matt. 22:41-46, RV.

    Here we have an argument that most modern Christians do not fully understand. But that was not so for the Jews of Jesus' day. We need to spend some time examining the issues He raised in this passage--issues central to the rest of the New Testament.

    The first thing we should note is that Jesus' question regarding His identity is the same one He had brought up privately with the disciples on the road to Caesarea Philippi, when He asked them "Whom do man say that I am?" (Mark 8:27). Peter's answer was that Jesus is the Christ. And from that time forward Jesus began to explain to His disciples what it meant to be the Christ.

    In Matthew 22 He moves from unfolding the significance of the Christ from the disciples to the Pharisees. But with them Jesus probes into "the Christ" and His relationship to David. To understand the passage it is important to remember that the Jews did not use Christ as a name but rather as a position. Thus Jesus framed His question in terms of "the Christ."

    A second term that we need to understand is "son of David." Of all the titles for the Christ the most common was son of David. The Jews looked forward to a Messiah of the warrior-king type modeled by David. In that context, after the Pharisees publicly identified identified the Christ as the son of David, Jesus asked His most important and perceptive question: "How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord...?"

    Here Jesus had the Pharisees on the spot. His use of Psalm 110, which all agreed was Messianic, threw them into confusion, since in that passage David calls the Messiah his "Lord," the very word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament to translate Yahweh or God. The Pharisees recognized at this point that the Christ would not merely be David's son, but his divine Lord.

    And with that, they realized that Jesus had bested them in their knowledge of the Bible. As a result, they feared to ask Him any more questions.

July 31, 2021

7/31/2021

Moving Beyond Confrontation

        And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matt. 22:39, 40.

    Jesus' answer about loving God as the greatest command would have been satisfactory in answering the scribe's question. But He knew that some of us "religious types" do much better in what we think is loving God than we do in caring about other people.

    As a result, He quoted a second great commandment from Leviticus 19:18, with its injunction to love one's neighbor. The underlying assumption is that it is impossible to truly love God without loving other people. Here we have one of the most important lessons in the entire body of Jesus' teaching. The apostle John put the matter succinctly when he wrote that whoever claims to love God, yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For "whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen" (1 John 4:20, NIV). Again, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another" (John 13:35, RSV).

    Jesus noted that love to God and love to one's neighbor is central to the Old Testament--"the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:40). It would also become central to New Testament ethics. Thus Paul writes that "the whole law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' " (Gal. 5:14, RSV).

    He repeats the same idea in Romans 13, in which he notes that "love is the fulfilling of the law" (verse 10, RSV). But in that chapter the apostle helps us see more clearly the relation of the command to love to the Ten Commandments. More specifically, he explicitly unites the commandments from the second table of the Decalogue to the second great commandment. Thus he ties such commandments as not killing, not stealing, and so on to the command to love other people (verse 9, 10). The same could be done for the first table and loving God. But Paul knew that the problem of most "religious" people was not in loving God but one another.

    What a delightful place the church would be if more of its members took Jesus' answer to heart and put it into practice. Every congregation has "pious" members who act as if they can love God while being rude to other people. Beyond that, we continually encounter those who are extremely careful about how they keep the Sabbath and/or what they eat, but who are as difficult to live with as the devil himself.

    Help me, Father, to get the point of true religion.

July 30, 2021

7/30/2021

Confrontation Is a two-way Street: Number 3

        But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 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. Matt. 22:34-37.

    This question, as with those of taxes to Caesar and the resurrection, was a major issue in the Jewish community of Jesus' day. Its legal scholars had concluded that Scripture contained 613 commandments, 365 prohibitions, and 248 positive injunctions. Among those 613 the rabbis differentiated between what they saw as the "heavy" and the "light" commandments. Jesus appears to have been alluding to that distinction when He said that "whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:19, RSV).

    In that context the question about the greatest commandment focuses on which was the most necessary to be observed. But some Jews disagreed even with the idea that some things were more basic than others. To them, just as with some Christians today, every command had equal weight. And so did every sin. You were either for God or against Him. Such believers across time have tended toward behavioral perfection in their daily lives.

    But others of the Jews disagreed and debated endlessly as to which was the most basic of all laws. The scribe in Matthew 22 belonged to the latter group.

    Which commandment would you select if a person hostile toward your religion should raise that question? Some Jews of old might have selected the fourth, with its injunction to keep the Sabbath holy as a sign of the specialness of God's covenant people. Others may have chosen one of the other commandments of the Decalogue.

    But Jesus bypassed the Ten Commandments for one of the most familiar Bible texts in Jewish culture--Deuteronomy 6:4, 5: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (RV).

    That verse was part of the Shema. It opened every Jewish service and formed a part of their morning prayer. In effect, Jesus defined the heart of religion as loving God with one's total being.

    From that love should flow everything else in a believer's life.