Week 4 (05.10.08)

This week we looked at where Jesus tells us he has come to fulfil the law and what the prophets taught rather than to abolish this.

In this passage (Matthew 5:17-20), Jesus tells us not to think that he has come to abolish the law or what the prophets say (so none of what he says or does will contradict the 10 Commandments and anything the prophets in the old testament say about the coming of a Messiah will in some way comply with him), but rather to fulfil this: he will live a perfect life and never break God's law, and events/circumstances in his life will show that he is the Messiah the prophets spoke about. Jesus then says that all of the law (10 Commandments) still is in place: he says that not one part of it will leave until life as we know it is over, so he has not come to change this or to make it any less valid. He goes on to say that anyone who breaks these commandments and teaches others to do the same "will be called least in the kingdom of heaven," while those who live them out will be "called great in" God's kingdom. Finally, Jesus says in this passage that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees (these were teachers of the law at that time: they all seemed to follow the law along with many other laws they had written themselves to the letter, but Jesus knew their hearts were not after God, they just wanted glory themselves from other people) or we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

We talked about how because the law still stands and hasn't changed a bit, Jesus came to fulfil it for us because it was impossible for us to live a life free of sin. If the law was broken, the penalty was death, and because we all have broken the law at least once in our lives, we all deserve this. However, Jesus came to live a life that never breaks that law, but also took the punishment we deserve, and therefore, because the law was fulfilled, we can now be saved and have eternal life FREE OF CHARGE! This is what we mean when we say we're sharing the "Good news" - we, who have sinned and therefore deserve death, can have eternal life because Jesus fulfilled the law FOR us!

Finally, we talked about what Jesus meant when he said that if our righteousness is not more than that of the Pharisees, we could not enter the kingdom of heaven. We know that we cannot enter the kingdom by works (what we do) because it is by grace (all that stuff we were saying about being able to enter the kingdom because Jesus took the blame for us) that we are saved, so then why does Jesus say we have to be more righteous than the Pharisees? Romans 3:21-24 talks about the fact that we have all sinned but that we are justified, or made right, through FAITH in Jesus Christ. Therefore to be righteous is to have faith in him. So although the Pharisees believed they did everything the right way and everyone saw them as great role models to respect and try to be like, this was not God's opinion because he could see their hearts and knew what made them want to behave that way: not a love for him but a love for themselves. We need to look at our own hearts and ask God to show us anything that is there that has not come from a love of him so that we can give it to him. We can only be saved by faith in Jesus, not by following the rules or just going to church!

Lois and Eleanor