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DYNAMITE IN A SMALL PACKAGE

Bible Study, ,

DYNAMITE IN A SMALL PACKAGE

“When he was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me and, just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now. Where I am going you cannot come.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.'” John 13:31-35 NIV.

Was Jesus talking to Himself at that moment? Is almost sounds like it, doesn’t it?

As soon as Judas was out of the picture, He breathed a sigh of relief, With Judas gone, the tension in the room lifted. He could now concentrate on what was most important to Him, putting His Father’s glory on display during the coming hours of His passion. It was up to Him to live through those hours right to His last breath in the disposition of the Father — gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and full of love and faithfulness, forgiving sin…

He had another important task to fulfil. This was the moment when He would gather up all the teachings of the Old Covenant into one pithy but powerful instruction couched in three words — “Love one another!” Paul caught the spirit of Jesus’ words when he wrote, “Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law…Love does no harm to his neighbour. Therefore, love is the fulfilment of the law.” Romans 13:8; 10 NIV.

There is a positive and negative side to this commandment which Paul sums up in Romans 13. There is no sentimentality in this kind of loving, just practical involvement with others. Here is a simple definition of this love — meeting the needs of others at one’s own expense. Isn’t that what Jesus did? The other side is simply refraining from doing anything that would hurt another person.

There is much discussion, preaching and teaching about what believers in Jesus are supposed to do with the law. It is subdivided into moral law and ceremonial law. Some say that we are obliged to keep the moral law but not the ceremonial law. Some groups teach and practise strict adherence to parts of the ceremonial law, like the dress code and the food laws. Others insist that, because we are under grace, the law does not apply to us at all.

Firstly, we must ask, “Why did God give His people the law in the first place?” For two reasons: To show them what He was like, and to show them how impossible it was to live up to His perfect standards. Jesus was a perfect human being and He perfectly kept the law. We cannot possibly hope to live like He did, perfectly loving God and His neighbour.

Secondly, if God knew that we could never reach His standard, did He do away with the standard? No way! What did He do with the law? He placed it and all our debt to the broken law on Jesus at the cross. Jesus gave us a new commandment which sums up everything He requires of us in three words — LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now instead of rummaging through the Ten Commandments and all 613 laws of the Old Covenant to find which one would suit the circumstance, we can turn to the Holy Spirit who is in us and ask, “How do I love in this situation?” He not only shows us how but gives us the power to do it.

“And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who had been given to us.” Romans 5: 5 NIV.

Is Jesus command impossible to keep? Not if we love Him. “’If you love me, keep my commands.'” John 14:15 NIV.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”1 John 4:10, 11 NIV.

God’s love for us is the root, our love for Him and one another the fruit of that love, If we abide in Him, His love flows freely through us to others by the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

This is dynamite in a very small package!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Old Command Is New

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THE OLD COMMAND IS NEW

Dear friends, I am not writing a new command but an old one, which you had since the beginning. This old command is the message you heard. Yet I am writing a new command; its truth is seen in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. (1 John 2: 7-8)

What is the old command that is now new? In the previous chapter, John highlighted the importance of walking in the light in order to maintain fellowship with one another and with the Father and the Son. This was nothing new to his readers if they were Jewish. All their lives they had been taught to obey God’s commands. They understood that they were to live their lives in the light of God’s Word.

The fact that their ancestors had failed to obey God’s Word did not change His requirements. Unfortunately, the pure word of God had been embellished over the centuries by the rabbis’ interpretations and by the addition of so many petty extras that the heart of God’s Word had been obscured.

What was new to them was the embodiment of that Word in a person. In his gospel, John had introduced Jesus to his readers as the Word – logos.

“Logos is the Greek term translated as “word,” “speech,” “principle,” or “thought.” In Greek philosophy, it also referred to a universal, divine reason or the mind of God . . .

“John’s Gospel begins by using the Greek idea of a “divine reason” or “the mind of God” as a way to connect with the readers of his day and introduce Jesus to them as God. Greek philosophy may have used the word in reference to divine reason, but John used it to note many of the attributes of Jesus.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-Logos.html (retrieved November 2015)

Jesus came from the Father in person, both fully God and fully man, to reveal the true nature of God by being God’s message to His people in person. They no longer had any excuse for not knowing what the true God was like and what He required of them because it was visible in Jesus.

Jesus said that He had not come to do away with the law – torah – God’s directions for living the life that pleased and reflected Him. He came to “fulfil” it – to live it out in person and in the spirit of torah, so that they would understand what God wanted and how to obey Him. It was in this sense that the commandment was both old and new.

Jesus did not come to change God’s standards or to do away with them. He only did away with that which obscured the true meaning of the way God wanted His people to live. The religious leaders of His day misled His people by placing so much emphasis on the petty additions to God’s instructions that they had thrown mercy out of the window for the rules of behaviour that were nothing but slavery to the people of God.

Jesus was the true light – the revelation of what God wanted – by living in loving submission and obedience to His Father. God did not want children who slavishly followed rules but had no fellowship with the Him, like the elder brother in Jesus’ story of the father and his two sons. Obedience to God’s requirements was not an end in itself. His laws were His prescription for keeping the lines of communication open between His children and Himself so that He could share intimate fellowship with them.

His commandments were never intended to be restrictive but protective because He knew our capacity to destroy ourselves when we make our own rules. Look where the rebellion of the human race against God has brought us. We have trashed His earth, wasted His resources, messed up the natural world and driven nations and peoples apart by our selfishness and greed.

God’s way promotes reconciliation, fosters forgiveness, harmony and peace among people. It teaches us to care for our world and for one another instead of leaving a trail of wreckage and devastation behind us wherever we go.

Our sin brings death; Jesus came to bring us life – to show us what real life is when we fall in line with who God is, what He requires and what He can do with those who come back under His authority. Life is about becoming fully human again. Sin dehumanises us. It makes us less than who we really are, and who we were created to be. Jesus came to restore us to our full potential as God children. That can only happen when we return to the Father through Jesus and follow our Master by walking in the light and truth of God’s Word.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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