Sometimes I get in a mood and I just need a good rant. Today is one of those days. I am going to say something today that is going to tick some people off really good. But I'm saying it anyway.
Jesus was the one who instituted the Levitical system! He wasn't against religion. How can He be against the religious system which He instituted? We are talking about the Man who made a whip of cords and in zeal for His Father's house drove out money changers from the temple, saying, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!" (JON. 2: 13-17). He was talking about the temple. The center of the religious system.
He simply was against the hypocrisy of the leadership who had twisted it into something unprofitable to man or God.
(MAT. 23: 1-3) 1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do."
This verse doesn't explain it all, but it summarizes it all.
The Pharisees had authority. God gave it to them. Jesus recognized that. He said for the Jews to do what the religious leaders commanded - in reference to religious observance - only do not be like them. Because they were hypocrites!
In other words -
Do the religion, but don't do it like those bad examples.
When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, what did the leadership do? Condemned the healer and the healed. And for what? The law was love and mercy. Jesus was practicing love and mercy - the weightier matters of the law. So, what was wrong? Their hard, merciless, pitiless, loveless hearts.
If the leaders had just followed the religious system God (including the Son) instituted, all would have been well. That's what the system was instituted for in the first place, to keep Israel until Messiah could come (GAL. 3: 19, 23). It could have kept them, but they would not let it.
(MAT. 23: 37) O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Read the rest of Matthew 23. It wasn't the religion He railed against, it was their attitudes. It wasn't the system Jesus was against, it was the bad hearts of the leadership! They were trying to murder the Lord of Life just like they murdered the prophets because their hearts were sick and so their ways were sick.
If you take this and go back to Malachi, you can see this was the problem for some time by that point. The whole book was about this same thing. Go back again further to the prophets. It was the same.
(ISA. 9: 16) For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.
So, Jesus needed to replace them.
He came to do what they could not do because of the hardness of their hearts and lack of understanding.
He came to save them from themselves.
Some people read what Jesus did and said and they conclude He was against religion. No! He instituted the religion! Jesus was not against religion per se. He was against the corruption of good religion by its bad leaders.
Am I all pro-religion now? Nothing I've written today changes one iota of what I've written since 2008. It compliments it.
Am I saying Gentiles should become Jews in order to be Christians? No! Gentiles were never under that system. If Jews want to accept Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah (aka. convert to Christianity) yet retain their particular Jewish traditional uniqueness, all the best to them! Do it. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what the Apostles did at first. But that has nothing to do with Gentiles.
Am I saying people should run out and get themselves some old timey religion, with the high liturgy and the incense? Not necessarily. If that's where the Spirit leads then join in, but if not then blossom where you're planted. I fear you may find our modern churches suffer from this same thing. Too many people were hurt by bad hearts in those churches to ever go back and my heart goes out to such. I sympathize because I was hurt, too.
What am I saying, then? From beginning to end, I am only saying to read the Bible in context.
It wasn't religion that was bad, it was hearts that were bad. Have a good heart. Have a heart that is willing to be a temple for God. That's the key takeaway.
(JAS. 1: 27) Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
And in my next post, God willing, I am going to write about how Jesus wasn't against the law, either.
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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )
Acts 17:11
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