Category: The Words of Jesus

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 8

“The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets“ (Matthew 22:39-40).

Now we come to the second great commandment in the Law, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Again, this is an old covenant command.  So let me cut right to the chase.  For new covenant believers, “loving others as you love yourself” puts the bar way too low.

In John chapter 13, Jesus gave us a new command for a new covenant, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).  Do you see the new standard for new covenant believers?  Jesus is asking us to love as Jesus loves.  Or said a couple of chapters later, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:12).  Jesus’ love for us is now the love we imitate, the love we demonstrate toward one another.  What does that love look like?

It loves unconditionally.  It loves without grievance.  It forgives.  It welcomes and accepts your brother and sister no matter where they are on their spiritual journey.  It keeps no records of wrongs committed.  This is gracious love.  This is agape love.

But here is what may be the most beautiful piece of the puzzle.  This kind of love is impossible to pull off.  It is impossible to accomplish as part of a “to-do” list.  It is impossible to do in the flesh.  It can only move forward when empowered by the Spirit, empowered by Christ in us.  Just like our new love for God our Father, our loving others is not out of obligation.  It is literally who we are as children of Love Himself.

At God’s core, His essence is love.  Love is not merely an attribute of God.  It is His very being.  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:7-8).

God is love.  God has made you His child.  And as His child, you are infused with His love.  Christ in you is Love in you.  And His love is meant to be given away.  This is the straight-line path to your new freedom to love one another.

Our friend Joel Brueseke summarizes it well, “In Christ, we love God and we love others, not by obeying laws, but by first knowing His unconditional love for us, and in union with Him we express it to others.”

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 7

What are often advertised as the greatest commandments in the New Testament – love God and love your neighbor – are actually old covenant instructions as we learned last time.  So are we, new covenant saints, free of these commands?  Maybe you are thinking that since these are old covenant concepts we are not required to love God with all that is in us.

Let us be clear.  Our new found freedom from the Law, our new found freedom in Christ, does not set us free FROM loving God.  It is quite the opposite.  It sets us free TO love God with all that is within us.  We love God now, in the here and now, out of our new heart; a heart of gratitude, a pure heart that is in love with God.  Not from a stone-cold heart of obligation.

This may seem subtle, but I think it is an important change in our approach to loving God.  Let me say it this way.  Loving God under the old covenant was part of the “to do” list.  Loving God under the new covenant is part of the “who you are” list.  Loving God is part and parcel of who we are in Christ.  Loving God is built into our incredible union with the Father.  Do we always show it?  Do we always feel it?  No, like any other sin, we can choose to walk according to the flesh.  We can withhold our love for Jesus and the Father.  But like the fruits of the Spirit and so much else of the promise of the new covenant, loving God is in us; planted there by our family connection to our Savior.

How do we know this love toward God is “in us”?  The apostle Peter says it so well, “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (I Peter 1:8).  Here is a paraphrase version from The Passion Translation of the New Testament, “You love Him passionately although you have not seen Him, but through believing in Him you are saturated with an ecstatic joy, indescribably sublime and immersed in glory” (I Peter 1:8).  You love Him.  I love Him.  Not out of compliance to the Law, but from a pure heart filled to overflowing by God with love for God.

We have been set free to love God because He first loved us.  We love Him with a love He has implanted in us.  We love Him as we express our beautiful and unbreakable union with our Father.

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 6

“One of them, a lawyer [i.e. an expert in the Mosaic law], asked Jesus a question, testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’  And He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is the great and foremost commandment.  The second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets’ “ (Matthew 22:35-40).

Please look at this passage carefully.  Please keep in mind exactly what this lawyer is asking, “Teacher, which is the great commandment IN THE LAW?”  This is an Old Testament Law question.  This is an old covenant question.  And Jesus delivers an old covenant response.  How do we know these two commandments are an old covenant answer?

Not only is the question law-focused, but look at the end of Jesus’ answer.  “On these two commandments depend THE WHOLE LAW AND THE PROPHETS” (Matthew 22:40).  Remember, the “Law and the Prophets” is Jesus-speak for the old covenant.  Jesus made this clear in Luke 16:16, “The Law and the Prophets (the old covenant) were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God (the new covenant) has been preached (by Me, Jesus).”  The Law and the Prophets refers to the old covenant.

As we have been seeing in this series, not everything Jesus said is new covenant.  And here is an example.  Jesus answered a Law question with a Law answer.  Jesus answered a Law question with a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5 for commandment one and from Leviticus 19:18 for the second.

So why do we hear over and over that these are the greatest commandments in the New Testament and as such should be the greatest commandments for New Testament saints to follow?  Remember, the New Testament is for the most part describing the new covenant.  But some of the New Testament is introductory material to the coming new covenant and as such is not all meant for us to follow.  And this is one of those places.

I think these two commandments are held up as standards for us today because they sound like a good idea and preachers are not reading the gospels carefully.  We like to parse the words of Jesus to fit our thinking, rather than just let Jesus say what He said.  Jesus identified these two commandments as old covenant; a covenant, by the way, that has disappeared (II Corinthians 3:11) and is now obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).

Yes, these two commandments are located in what we call the New Testament, but they are not new covenant commands as Jesus made clear.  They do not apply to you and I, new covenant saints.  Wait, wait, wait, are we saying loving God is not part of our new covenant walk?  We will explore this with an answer that may surprise you next time.

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 5

“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine’ “ (John 8:31).

Here are some red letter words of Jesus that have been used in the pulpit to cause fear and consternation among the flock.  Words like “if” and “continue” have been used to paint our relationship with Jesus as a tenuous connection dependent on our obedience to “His word”.  But your connection to Jesus is unshakeable and rock solid; you in Christ and Christ in you, nonstop!

And it all goes back to your new birth.  When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, you underwent a new birth.  A birth where you are now “born of God”; a beloved child in the family of God.  “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (I John 5:1).  And, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God: and such we are” (I John 3:1).

One of the huge huge takeaways from this idea of our new birth is the fact that we cannot be “unborn.”  Think about your earthly parents.  No matter what happened after your birth, whether you were taken into their home or went to an adoptive family, your birth parents will always be your birth parents.  You cannot change the names of the mother and father on your birth certificate.  It is permanent.

Just like you cannot be “unborn” from your earthly parents, you cannot be “unborn” from God as your Father.  When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, you became God’s forever son or daughter.  You are now “born of God.”  And your birth was sealed by the imperishable, the unchangeable Jesus Himself.  “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God” (I Peter 1:23).

You were born of the imperishable seed of the living and enduring Jesus [the Word of God].  There is incredible security and confidence in the fact that your new birth cannot be undone.  You are signed, sealed, delivered; never to be returned.  Your connection to the Father is unbreakable and rock solid.

So who is Jesus talking to here with the warning “if you continue”?  We need to understand these words in the context of the first century practice of Rabbis and physical followers.  The followers of Jesus, or disciples as they were often called in the gospels, was a fluid situation.  Followers came and went.  People joined the group.  People left the group.  For example, in John chapter 6, the apostle writes, “As a result of this teaching many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:66).

Throughout the gospels, there were large crowds and small crowds.  Jesus was at times adored by the masses and at times alone with His twelve apostles.  I believe in this passage, Jesus was talking to His physical followers; again, a group that fluctuated in numbers.  Jesus is essentially saying to His followers. “If you continue with Me, then you will truly be my disciples.  But there is time to decide if this is truly what you want to do.”  These “if you continue” invitations were an offer to His physical followers to make a decision to continue or leave the group.

These disciples did not live in the age of grace, the age of the new covenant.  They were not making a one time decision to believe in Jesus.  They were not immediately indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit as we are today.  They followed Jesus, even believed His words.  But they would still ultimately face a choice to stick with Jesus as their Messiah or withdraw and leave the group of disciples.

So it makes sense for Jesus to say to His physical followers, “If you stick with Me, you will be known as My disciple.”  It is not more complicated than that.  And I don’t believe it is a passage addressed to us.

Understanding the Red Letters   Part 4

In Matthew 19 and Luke 18, we have the story of the rich young ruler that we discussed last time.  It was a story of Jesus giving an old covenant answer to an old covenant question and a reminder that eternal life is only found in Jesus.  It is interesting to compare this old covenant interaction with Jesus’ encounter with another rich man in the next chapter of Luke’s gospel.

“Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.  And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich.  Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.  So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.  When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, ‘Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.’  And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly” (Luke 19:1-6).

Zaccheus was looking for Jesus.  We don’t know exactly why.  Curiosity perhaps?  But Jesus was also looking for Zaccheus.  So much so that He indicated to the tax collector that “He must” come to his house today.  And Zaccheus received Jesus gladly.

Now, we have very little of the conversation between Jesus and Zaccheus recorded for us.  We really don’t know much about their interaction.  But we can make some assumptions and there are a few things we do know.

Zaccheus was a chief tax collector and we can assume quite the opposite to the young man we met last time in regard to keeping the commandments.  In fact, the Jews made a big deal about Zaccheus’ status as a “sinner”.  “When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner’ “ (Luke 19:7).  So I think it is safe to say that Zaccheus did not approach Jesus as someone who thought himself righteous and worthy.

But to this sinner, this lost person, Jesus brought grace; Jesus brought salvation.  “And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost’ “ (Luke 19:9-10).  Jesus came to save sinners.

Now here is the fun part.  When the rich young ruler came to Jesus seeking to be justified by the law, the command to give it all away left him sad and unable to do it.  But look at the grace response of Zaccheus.  The very thing that the rich young ruler could not do, Zaccheus did.  And we have no suggestion that Jesus required this of Zaccheus.  I think it was just a beautiful response to the grace of God.  “Zaccheus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much’ “ (Luke 19:8).

Zaccheus is a picture of a generous response to the grace of God.  And it is a picture of us as new covenant saints; generously responding to the grace of God, unburdened by the weight of the law.