Daily Devotional For Sunday, September 15, 2024
I hope and pray you feel the way I do since it is Sunday. I feel like David when he wrote and said this in Psalm 122:1, “I was glad when they said to me, `Let us go to the house of the Lord’” (NASB). We are looking at Jesus words in Matthew 5:17-20:
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. (18) For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (19) Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (20) “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (NASB).
It has been a few years, 50 years actually, that a book came out in 1974 titled, The Interaction Of Law And Religion by Dr. Harold G. Berman, who at at time, was a professor of law at Harvard University. Keep in mind this is in 1974, not 2024. Professor Berman feared that there was a breakdown in right and wrong, moral and immoral, legal and illegal due to a loss of confidence in law and in religion. He states you cannot have workable rules or laws for behavior without religion. Why?
Because religion provides an absolute base on which morality and law is based. His biggest fear was that as we in America move forward we would be doomed to relativism and subjectivism in behavior and law. He says that when humanity breaks away from the idea of an authoritative religion, and even from the concept of God and a day of being judged by God, the possibility of absolute truth evaporates. He said that if America went this way, then we would be on a slippery slope of everyone becoming their own personal source for authority, morality, behavior and truth.
He said he feared asking this question: “If law is merely an experiment, and if judicial decisions are only hunches, why should individuals or groups of people observe those legal rules or commands that do not conform to their own interests?” (Source: Harold G. Berman, The Interaction Of Law And Religion, p. 28). What does his questions imply? Rules without absolutes are rules without authority, except the authority of force and coercion.
When God is abandoned, truth is abandoned; and when truth is abandoned, the basis for morals and law is abandoned. A consistent, coherent legal system cannot be built on philosophical humanism, on the principle that right and wrong fluctuate according to man’s ideas and feelings. If there are no absolute truths, there is no basis for real law. People will have no incentive to obey laws they consider outdated, non-essential and useless. This means that the Law and morality become a matter of personal preference and opinion.
In this case, Berman says that power that is ultimately invested in people deciding for themselves leads to chaos. If the law is only an experiment and judicial decisions are only a hunch or a personal opinion by judges who reject absolutes, then enforcement becomes a challenge. Instead when judges ignore and reject the intent of the law for their own interpretation of the law, they set themselves up as an absolute to mesh out what the law means by their own opinions.. When that happens, society breaks down. The same is true for morality. When people decide morality is a person's choice, and there are no absolutes except their own opinion, society falls into chaos. In the Old Testament, God gave His people His absolute and eternal law. Jesus said He came to fulfill that Law.
We now live in a culture that says that since times have changed, so must the Bible. The reason issue is not that the Bible is out of date; just the opposite. It is always too up- to-date. Yes, our world and culture has changed dramatically since Biblical days, but God never changes. Look at these verses:
- Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (NASB).
- Malachi 3:6, “ “For I, the Lord, do not change” (NASB).
- Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that He should lie, or a Son of man, that He should change His mind” (ESV).
- James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (ESV).
- Psalm 102:27, “. . . You are the same, and Your years have no end” (ESV).
There are those who demand that we modernize the Bible to today’s standards. Do you see the challenge in this? Who version of modernization would we follow? This implies that one person’s interpretation of the Bible is just as good as the next person’s interpretation. This puts each person as his or her own judge over Scripture and the end result would be spiritual death. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (NASB). God’s Word as we have it is eternal and is going to out last everything else.
Jesus’ point in Matthew 5:17-20 is that God’s Word is both absolute truth and absolute authority. It is in that authority that Jesus came to teach and fulfill God’s law and word. As a rabbi, it was understandable why people would ask Him questions about the Law, even if their intentions were to test HIm and to attempt to trap Him. There is no way we can live a righteous, holy, and godly life by lowering God’s standards and claim we are now enlightened and are following a higher law of love and permissiveness.
What is contrary to God’s Law is beneath God’s Law and not above it. No matter anyone’s intention or motive, any other teaching or law that has standards that are unbiblical and permissive are neither law nor love. This is why Jesus did not engage in rabbinic traditions such as Sabbath observances, washings, and etc. Why? Because these were man made and were elevated by religious leaders to be above God’s law. By not doing these traditions, Jesus was not throwing out God’s law or word. Throughout the gospel of Matthew, more than in the other gospels, Jesus repeatedly uses Scripture to contradict and indict the superficial and hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. Though not always specifically identified as such, it is primarily their beliefs and practices that Jesus exposes in Matthew 5:21–6:18.
This is why Jesus says, “You have heard . . .” and He quotes a tradition by the religious leaders, and then He says, “ . . . but I say to you . . .” The Jews in Jesus’ day thought the Law in terms of four ways: First, they thought of the Ten Commandments. Second, they thought in terms of the first 5 books of Moses called The Pentateuch. Third they thought in a broader sense the whole Old Testament. And fourth, they thought in terms of the rabbinical traditions of the religious leaders – these thousands of detailed rules, regulations and rituals that kept hidden from the Jews God’s Word and truth. Keeping these traditions did require a lot of effort, but not any obedience and faith in one’s heart to God. This was God’s complaint against His people in Isaiah 29:13, “This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote” (NASB),
These “truths” from the religious people weighed people down. They did not set them free. Jesus said this in John 8:31-32, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (NASB). God’s truth sets us free. It does not enslave or burden us. Since there was no way for the religious leaders to cover every area of life, they spent much time arguing over silly, stupid things that ultimately did not matter. Such as, if you picked up your child on the Sabbath, was that work? if you used a crutch on the Sabbath, was that considered to be work? If you healed on the Sabbath, was that work? They said you could do enough to keep the patient from getting worse, but they could not receive full treatment until after the Sabbath was over. Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:
“They decided that a burden is food equal to the weight of a fig, enough wine for mixing in a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put on a wound, oil enough to anoint a small member of the body, water enough to moisten eyesalve, paper enough to write a customs house notice, ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet, reed enough to make a pen, and so on and on. To carry anything more than those prescribed amounts on the Sabbath was to break the law” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 254).
This is why we must make sure we do not make our own traditions above God’s Word. I know people who are more Baptist than they are a believer. I know people who place more emphasis on externals than internals. They advocate wearing “your Sunday best” to church. They make attending worship and church more of a fashion show than a demonstration in faith. I understand why mothers of my generation wanted us to be dressed well for church – we give God our best – but that tradition often kept others away. It gave the impression that God is more impressed with our external material clothes than with our internal spiritual heart.
Questions To Consider
- Take a moment and reflect on your own traditions. Do you do them to bring glory and honor to God or simply to impress others or please others or simply out of tradition?
- Which Scripture do you personally struggle with to obey God? Which do you live privately and even publicly that implies you are modernizing that Scripture to suit you?
- There is no question our culture has changed and resents that God’s Word has not. How would you help a non-believer with this?
- How do you live your life that shows to others that God’s Word is absolute in both truth and authority?
Scripture To Meditate On: John 8:5, Jesus said to those standing there, “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” (NASB).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, please forgive me when I become subjective with Your Law and Your Word. Please forgive me when I “modernize” Law and Word to fit my choices and lifestyle. Lord, please reveal to me any traditions I have that I elevate above Your Law and Truth. In the words of Joshua in Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly