The law – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

The impossibility of salvation

My religion professor in university brought up this story when talking about Christianity. His point? “If you want eternal life, you have to sell everything you have.”

Which shows the fallacy of not looking at a scripture in its context, because that was not Jesus’ point at all.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

It’s interesting looking at the different accounts of this story, because through them, you get a composite view of this man who came to Jesus.

He was young (Matthew 19:22), rich (all the accounts), and a ruler (Luke 18:18)

And he asked Jesus, “Good teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? And why do you ask me about what is good? No one is good except God alone.”

Here Jesus dispels one thing that many people say about Jesus. Namely, “Jesus was a good man, but he wasn’t God.”

Jesus told the young man and us, “You can call me God. Or you can call me just a man. But if you call me just a man, you cannot call me good, because only God is good.”

He then told the man, “You know the commandments. Do them, and you will find life.”

At first glance, it seems that Jesus is telling us that we can work our way into heaven. But look at what the young man said next.

All these I have kept…What do I still lack? (Matthew 19:20)

Here we see the problem of many people today. They do their best to follow God’s commands. To do what is right. Maybe, like this young man, they even think they have achieved it.

But deep in their soul, they know something is wrong. That something is lacking. Why?

Because though we may fool others and even ourselves, none of us meet God’s standard. The Bible says,

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

And if we look deeply into ourselves, we’ll realize that.

Why then, did Jesus point to the commandments as the way to life? I think the apostle Paul gives us the answer.

No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law (because no one can keep it); rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. (Romans 3:20).

The law cannot make us righteous any more than a mirror can clean our face. What the law can do is show us the sin that is there.

And through the law, we see our need for a Savior.

The problem is, sometimes the mirror can get a little blurred. Not that the law itself is blurry, but we make it blurry by our own conceptions of what it means.

And that was the problem with this young man. He was convinced that he had kept the law. So Jesus cleaned off the mirror so that the young man could see clearly. He said,

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. (Matthew 19:21)

Why did Jesus say that? Because the young man was right. He was lacking something. He had put his money ahead of God. Money was most important to him.

And by this attitude, he broke the first commandment against putting anything ahead of God in his life.

The man now saw clearly. And sadly, instead of saying, “Jesus, help me. Have mercy on me a sinner,” he walked away. He walked away sadly. But he did walk away.

And Jesus said,

How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! (Mark 10:23).

His disciples were stunned to hear this because they always had thought that people were rich because of God’s blessing. But Jesus said again,

Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:24-25).

Why? Because it is impossible to hold on to the things of God when you’re holding on to the things of this world. The rich have more things of this world to hold than most people. And more to let go of.

The disciples then asked,

Who then can be saved? (Mark 10:26).

And now we come to the key point of this entire passage. Jesus answered,

With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. (Mark 10:27).

Salvation apart from God is impossible. None of us can make it because none of us are perfect. That’s what Jesus wanted to make clear to the young man.

But because of Christ’s work on the cross, because of what God did, salvation is now possible. All we have to do is believe.

As John wrote,

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16).

Won’t you accept God’s gift of salvation today?

Sermon on the Mount: Fulfilling the law

I think it’s significant that Jesus probably said these things after the controversies with the Pharisees over the Sabbath had begun (although you wouldn’t guess this by looking at the book of Matthew alone).

Jesus had probably already done multiple healings on the Sabbath earning the criticism of the Pharisees.

But Jesus makes it clear here that,

I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17)

How did Jesus fulfill the law and the prophets? Primarily in three ways.

First, he fulfilled the prophesies of the Messiah to come.

Second, he was the only man to ever perfectly obey the law. Because of that, he was able to take the punishment for our sin on the cross.

As Paul wrote,

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

Third, he fulfilled in his death all the sacrifices that God had required of the Jews.

As the writer of Hebrews points out, while God required them, they in themselves could not cleanse us from our sins. What they did do was paint a picture of what Jesus would do for us on the cross.

Now in Jesus, all our sins have been cleansed, and so these sacrifices are no longer required. They are, as Jesus puts it, accomplished in him. (Hebrews 10:1-18)

But while some things in the law were accomplished in Jesus Christ, as was our justification before God, nevertheless, the law still points to the holiness of God and what kind of people God desires us to be.

And so each day, we are to strive to be holy as he is holy. Not in order to earn our salvation, but because now the Holy Spirit lives inside us to help us live it.

Before we were powerless to do what God commanded. But now God himself dwells in us and gives us the power to become the people he originally designed us to be.

And Jesus warns us,

I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

That probably stunned the people who heard it because the Pharisees and teachers of the law were considered the strongest preservers of God’s law. They had made rule upon rule in order to make sure they kept God’s law.

But righteousness goes far beyond keeping the letter of the law. Righteousness is a thing of the heart. And if your heart is not right before God, nothing you do is right before Him.

Three points that Jesus would lambast the Pharisees and teachers of the law for were lack of justice, mercy, and faithfulness in their lives. (Matthew 23:23)

We’ll see more of what he means by that as we continue through his sermon.

For now, the question is, how is your heart? You may be doing all the right things, but is your heart right before God? What would he say about your heart today?