(Part 2 of 2)
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the important aspects of the law-justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.”-Matthew 23:23 (NLT)
Time and time again, Jesus was butting heads with the religious elite of His day because they had become consumed with maintaining the letter of the law and had completely missed the spirit of the law. They had neglected what Jesus had called the weightier matters of faith, justice and mercy.
Their concept of the law was so narrowly focused on performance that they often missed the greater work that Jesus was doing among them. How many times did the Pharisees and teachers of the law question and complain each time that Jesus would heal someone on the Sabbath. How often did his have to criticize the religious leaders for worrying too much about appearances rather than focusing on their own hearts:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”-Matthew 23:27-28
According to John 5:39-40, they diligently searched the Scriptures to find eternal life, but remained unwilling to put their faith in the One the Scriptures testified about:
“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”
They were convinced they could attain right standing with God by keeping the law, although the Apostle Paul declared in Galatians 2:16:
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”
What does the veil being torn mean for us? The tearing of the veil at the moment of Jesus’ death symbolized that His sacrifice, the shedding of His own blood, was a sufficient atonement for sins. The barrier of sin between God and man had been removed. God was establishing a new covenant (Hebrews 8:13). It signified that now the way into the Holy of Holies was ope for all people, for all time, both Jew and Gentile. According to Hebrews 10:19-20, Christ became the veil by which all people would come into the presence of God:
“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh.”
Christ flesh was torn for us so that we might have access to the Father; but just as the High Priest could only enter the Holy of Holies through the veil, we too can only enter the presence of God through Jesus Christ (John 14:6). An excerpt from a recent commentary that I read sums it up perfectly:
“The veil in the temple was a constant reminder that sin renders humanity unfit for the presence of God. The fact that the sin offering was offered annually and countless other sacrifices repeated daily showed graphically that sin could not truly be atoned for or erased by mere animal sacrifices. Jesus Christ, through His death, has removed the barriers between God and man, and now we may approach Him with confidence and boldness (Hebrews 4:13-16)
Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you could live the rest of your life trying to do enough things right to make heaven; He died so that the veil of sin that separated us would be removed so that we could come to Him.
Pastor Scott Burr
Dayspring Community Church
No comments:
Post a Comment