Sunday after Christmas
Gal 1:11-19 Matt 2:13-23
Sometimes, you can do all the right things, and people will still persecute you for it. That’s precisely what happened to Paul. He starts out by saying that the Gospel he preaches is not of human origin. He didn’t even learn it from another man, but directly from the Lord. And then, after three years, he went to Jerusalem, where Peter confirmed that what he’d received really was from God.
Does that mean that God gave him a direct revelation of the Gospel? Not necessarily.
Have you ever looked at something, something you’ve read many times? And then, suddenly, it just makes sense? Everything clicks.
I think that’s what happened with Paul. He’d been schooled in the Scriptures, no doubt in the original Hebrew and in the Septuagint, the Greek translation that we find cited in the New Testament. He was a very learned man in Jewish Law. And in those three years between his conversion and going to Jerusalem, I’m sure he studied and prayed, and then he prayed and studied. And then he made the connection.
In the thirty-first chapter of the Prophecy of Jeremiah, the Prophet records God’s words. "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Paul pondered this, and he pondered the words from the Last Supper as recorded in Luke’s Gospel. “This cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood.
And then Paul understood. God had a plan all along!
The Law which God gave Israel on Mount Sinai made provisions for the Gentiles who lived among the Israelites. They were not required to follow the Law in their personal lives, but just to live morally. That Law - things like circumcision and keeping kosher - was meant for the Jews, not to make them holy, but to show them that God had a purpose for them. God had a plan all along!
And he finally understood what would be written in the Book of Hebrews. The Law was given as a shadow of the Good Things to come. The Old Covenant was given as a shadow, as a teacher, of the New Covenant. And that was God’s plan all along!
When Paul looked further at the Law, he saw God’s pattern for worship. He saw that God’s plan was that Israel was to be a nation of priests, spreading knowledge of God’s love to the world. But he saw that alongside the nation of priests, there was also a special class of priests who would offer blood sacrifices to God on behalf of the people, and chief among those priests would be the High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies once a year on the day of Atonement. And he saw that pattern carried on in the New Covenant, but with Jesus as high priest . As we read in Hebrews, “when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the Law.
He started thinking back on the stories that he’d heard about Jesus. He remembered that, while Jesus said that he came to save the Israelites, He never turned away a Gentile. And he looked at the history of Israel. There had always been non-Jews, Gentiles, who lived among them.
The New Covenant is with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, but non-Jews, Gentiles, are a part of it. Gentiles are adopted as part of the nation. And that was God’s plan all along!
Just like the Old Covenant, the New Covenant doesn’t require that the Gentile become a Jew and follow the Law. As Paul wrote in the next chapter of this Epistle, “ a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
To live by the Old Covenant, you had to follow rules. There was little concern in changing the heart. There were commandments.
But look at what God said through Jeremiah. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts”. The Old Covenant is external, the New Covenant is internal.
Under the Old Covenant, you had to follow rules to live up to being a Jew. But, under the new - well, doing good things won’t save you. All the prayers won’t make you holy, all the acts of charity won’t do it either. But, what they do is this. Every prayer, every act of charity carves out a pocket in your soul that allows God to fill it with His grace.
Listen to what Paul says later in Galatians. “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.”
Paul talks about one new man in Christ. He talks about Christ being the New Adam. THAT is the New Covenant. We are no longer slaves of sin and the flesh. We become, by adoption, children of Abraham, part of God’s people, God’s family. The holiness we seek is not something for us to strive for, it’s something that the Holy Spirit will grow in us if we make room. He wants to grow those fruit in us!
And that was God’s plan all along!
So, let Him do it!!
Comments
Post a Comment