I wonder if, before they died, they ever felt the flames that blasted through the car.

They died at nearly midnight this past Saturday. Three people, in a vehicle heading east on a two-lane country road, could have been speeding. They crested a hill and plunged down the side, and the driver lost control — veered left — slammed into a tree that tore shuddering through metal — and bodies — and then came the flames.

Two died, the driver and her front passenger. Police told me they didn’t know how the woman in the back survived. Last I heard, she was doing better at the hospital.

Later a police officer showed me photos they took when the pile of shrapnel, once the car, had still been wrapped around the tree. Protruding from the vehicle’s near-center was the charred trunk. You might not think it could be that strong to survive, while two human beings had perished almost instantly. The officer pointed to parts of the blackened debris: one victim was here, and another here, he said. Even police haven’t seen many wrecks like this.

I had been bracing myself for a shocking sight. Perhaps the greatest shock was that it did not seem so shocking at all. All I saw was a steaming mass of metal wreckage.

Here is the crash scene, two days later. Flames had blazed across this tree, the crumpled car and the people inside. Now the crash wreckage is removed. Still remaining are the items strewn over the grassy side. Ash particles mingled with pieces of the car. I saw a bit of burned paper, tiny glass shards, a tangle of wires, a bulb from a headlight.

Someone had already placed artificial flowers and a small religious statuette against the tree. They join the three crosses near another tree some yards away, and another series of crosses I had already seen on this same road, a few miles back.

People have died here. And this is only a common road, not some rare disaster scene.

What killed these people?

The world killed them, a sad, groaning, suffering world of death.

Who were they? I found and wrote about the victims’ names, ages and the cities where they lived. But I don’t know about their lives. They weren’t from around here, so (this may sound very callous) those aspects of the story don’t matter as much to my local newspaper’s readers.

Yet they mattered to God. I hope to Him they were among His own. But even if they weren’t, they mattered to God. Their lives mattered. Their bodies mattered.

Lives and bodies were destroyed that day. They were strangers to me. Still, the truth is horrific.

But for those among His own, their lives and their bodies will return — just as He brought Himself back from death on that strange and glorious Sunday morning.

First He had to die. Sin required it.¹ It was God’s will to crush Him.² This was not God “murdering” Him as if from spite, like some people, even professing Christians, might think. The Son, God Himself, sacrificed His life for the greater joy set before Him ³, part of the eternal plan that had been put in place before the world’s foundation.⁴ It was even directly forecast moments after the first humans’ rebellious sin against God⁵ that brought death, groaning and suffering.

The world killed Him. Yet He even desired to die. And I am sure He felt all of the experience.

(Next: what might His death have been like?)

From 800 pixels wide to 1024, easier-to-find archives, wider-screen background for larger monitors, better site navigation, more-consistent page formatting …

And no new columns this week. The web update is my reason. Stand by for resumed Wednesday-and-Saturday schedule (Lord willing!) next week.

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?

And of course, any new Christian myths you’ve heard — or once believed yourself! — are more than welcome.

What’s your reaction upon hearing this oft-repeated evangelical slogan:

“God so loved the world (that) he gave his only begotten son. What are you willing to give?”

A response likely depends on whether you’re a Christian or non-Christian, as written last week. For Christians, you might know that it doesn’t really mean you’re supposed to “match” Jesus’ gift with your own. That would be horribly insulting to Him, and useless besides. Instead, we do good works out of gratitude to Him.

But do Christians always think that way? I know I don’t. Instead I too often feel guilt for not doing as many “good works” as I should, not because I haven’t been loving and honoring God enough, but because I think that I should Be Better Than That.

So if a Christian can still drift into that way of thinking, imagine a nonbeliever’s reaction to any vague-at-best phrase that goes like “Jesus gave it all for you, now what will you give to Him?”

A nonbeliever could take it lightly as just another work-harder religion, or worse, try to follow it.

So what might be more-Biblical ways to tell about Jesus’ gift and call others to action?

What’s the Word?

How did the first Christians say people should respond to the Gospel of Christ’s death for sins?¹.

“Repent and be baptized.” Confess your sins; turn from them. Be saved and confirm it publicly.

Very similar: repent from your sins, turn from them, and God will send Jesus to you.

Acts 8: 26-40 skims over some details, but shows the apostle Phillip stressing another part of the Gospel for an Ethiopian eunuch²: the fact that a passage from Isaiah was prophesying Jesus’ death.

In Acts 10: 34-43, Peter is at it again, giving a quickly summarized presentation of the Gospel. His audience is Gentiles who already believe in the God of the Jews, and maybe that’s why Peter hits harder on the same this-was-foretold-by-the-prophets angle (verse 43).

At the end of Acts 17, the apostle Paul barely talked about Jesus at all — at least that we read. He may have talked more about Him later, but his main point to the Greeks: repent (verse 30).

Further in

For those whom the apostles expected to know about God’s Law, or the pagan Greeks who don’t even know about God period, the apostles didn’t say anything like Jesus gave it all for you, so what will you give for him? That’s not a clear Gospel message. It’s also confusing. To a non-Christian, it will only reinforce a “default” religion of trying to sacrifice to impress God.

Yes, believers are meant to give their lives to Christ and do good. True religion, John and James separately say in many ways, is carried out in love for God, each other, and good works.

But even that is not really a sacrifice. All believers’ good works are ultimately God’s work in them (Philippians 2:12). The explorer/missionary David Livingstone (whose birthday was yesterday) seems to have understood this; even he famously said, “I never made a sacrifice.”

So let’s ensure that, for Christians and non-Christians alike, we never speak or act as though we do need to “match” Jesus’ sacrifice with our own!

“God gave His Son for you. What are you willing to give for Him?”

I hear that a lot. It gets on those oft-maligned Christian t-shirts.¹ And it was also written in chalk on a public park my wife and I visited some months ago (see below).

And I wonder if this is a good way to word the question.

Christians who know the Scriptures may not have a problem with it, because they already know there’s nothing they can do to earn God’s salvation. We know that our sins are too bad, and God is too good; only Christ by His grace through faith can save us.

But every once in a while you’ll meet a Christian who seems to have a wrong understanding: “Jesus gave His life for me, so I gave my life to Him.” Quid pro quo. This-for-that.

So if a Christian, who should understand God’s grace, can fall into that kind of thinking, how much worse could an non-Christian, outside of grace, interpret that slogan?

It’s not a heresy. But it’s not helpful either. Christians should clean up their jargon. Here’s why.

Ye have heard that it was said …

“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. What are you willing to give?”

Figure A:

Public park sidewalk slogan (artist unknown): “God so loved the world [that] he gave his only begotten son. What are you willing to give?” ²

Figure B:

Using Scripture, an evangelistic tract gives an overall-good presentation of man’s need for God, and the need to accept Jesus. But it concludes with something like, “Jesus gave his life for you, so won’t you give your life for him?”

What’s the truth in this?

Salvation is not easy — it was not easy for Jesus to die to “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) and it’s not easy to admit one’s sin, repent and turn to the only Savior.

Some Christian evangelists may commit the opposite error, saying repeatedly something like “all you need to do is believe.” This is true, and for those who wrongly believe Christianity is about earning one’s way to Heaven, it could be vital to emphasize the comparative “easiness” of it.

However, often an “easy believe-ism” approach minimizes the raw, anguish-inducing, personally humbling fact that one’s repentance coincides with his or her belief in the Gospel (Mark 1:15). Jesus said that those who follow Him would need to deny themselves and “take up his cross” (Matthew 16: 24-26³). In that sense, we do need to “give” something to follow Him — that is, give up our selfish desires, our arrogance, ourselves.

What’s the lie in this?

But what is the religious “default setting” in non-Christians, or sometimes even in Christians? ⁴ Is it remembering that salvation is all God’s doing? Or is it thinking that what we give, either before or after salvation, is what impresses God?

I don’t know about you, but my “default setting” is not total trust in God’s grace. It’s reliance on (what I think are) my own good deeds. By default, I would drift out of orbit around Christ and His Gospel, pulled by the gravity of old Earth back into religious legalism — even as a Christian.

This is why it’s vital to remind ourselves of God’s word and His grace as often as possible.

So if Christians can struggle with that, what does a nonbeliever think after reading or hearing a message like “God gave his son for you; what will you give to him”? Put yourself in the place of a nonbeliever. By default, they don’t think, “Oh, God is incredible; He’s given me so much, and I’ve been so rebellious against Him; I need to be saved.” Instead they might think:

Mild:

“Huh … those religious types … trying to get people to be good.” (Note: misses the “Jesus gave His life” part. Most people know the crucifixion story, but naturally don’t care.)

Medium:

“Nice to know they think God loves me … maybe I should be more loving too. …”

Hot:

“Yeah … Jesus set a good example, dying and all of that, so I really should get to work and feed hungry children.” (Note: this is the really convicted reaction! Again, no conviction of sin against anyone — especially God — and the need to repent, and no basis in God’s grace.)

Next week: related Scriptures, and further in. …

Contrary to popular myth, among Christians and others, Jesus did not come to trump God’s Law with a new-and-improved presentation of His love. Clearly, Scripture tells us otherwise, and I hope this series has outlined the truth persuasively and with Christ-honoring grace.

Jesus revealed not just God’s love, or just God’s Law, but both. Anything less is not real love.

Part 1 introduced the myth, the forms it can take, and some of the reasons why people may believe it. We also must remember not to overcorrect for an imbalanced “lovey” Jesus.

Part 2 delved into the depths of Jesus’ famous (but apparently not taught enough) truth in Matthew 5, that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. The rest of His Sermon on the Mount shows that He wasn’t simply making the Law easier for people. He reminded them instead of how hard God’s real Law is to obey, and (by proxy) how we need Him to fulfill it.

Part 3 brought one of Jesus’ debates about the Law, with the Pharisees, into focus.

That is where I’ll pick up today, with the series’ final column. This will exegete the rest of Mark 7: 1-13, and see the reasons Jesus gave for His opposition to the Pharisees. Jesus did not defend His disciples for breaking the Law, but said that the Pharisees’ rule wasn’t real Law. And He didn’t debate the Pharisees because they pushed the real Law, but because they didn’t.

And I’ll conclude with the most important thing to learn from these Biblical truths.

2. Did the Pharisees accuse the disciples of violating God’s Law?

Answer: No. They asked why the disciples didn’t obey man-made traditions.

If the Pharisees were honestly confusing the two — God’s Law and their own made-up laws — they didn’t say so here. Jesus didn’t seem to think it was an honest mistake on their part.

3. Did Jesus say the leaders needed to lighten up, love a little more?

Jesus could not make His reasons clearer. If the Pharisees had really asked why Jesus’ disciples weren’t obeying the Old-Testament Law — and the Pharisees’ problem was that they were all about God’s rules and not Jesus’ love — Jesus’ response here makes no sense.

He does not say “you must learn to accept and love others instead of talking about God’s rules.”

Instead, He says, quoting Isaiah 29:13: You are teaching your own rules rather than God’s real rules, and your worship of God is in vain and without heart.

Answer: No, Jesus did not argue from only “you must love people more.” Instead He said they were hypocritically ignoring God’s real Law in favor of their made-up laws.

Many professing Christians¹ claim that Christians who defend God’s Law or holiness, or a plain reading of His Word, are automatically leaning toward hypocrisy and unloving attitudes in the same way the Pharisees did. But if the Pharisees were actually defending God’s real Law, why would Jesus call them hypocrites? He would have to mean they were claiming to adhere to God’s real Law, while actually ignoring it.

4. Was the Pharisees’ main problem only adding their own laws onto the real Law?

Answer: Not at all. And Jesus clearly says the Pharisees were not just naïvely confusing their own religious rules for the real Law. Even worse, they were actively rejecting the real Law and not just ignoring it — they were defying it, and teaching others to do the same.

I love His wording here: “You have a fine way … !” The sarcasm and outrage just blazes forth in His phrasing, with divine authority only He could have.

Again, Jesus doesn’t base His argument on “you must love more,” or even, “you are adding your own rules on top of God’s real Law.” He says “you are rejecting God’s real Law.” Here He cites a specific example: Moses, speaking for God, had commanded that people ought to honor their parents. But instead of following and teaching that part of the Law, the Pharisees had effectively thrown it out in favor of their own rule: you can avoid caring for your parents so long as you claim a Very Spiritual Exemption for your property, i.e., oh, well, this is “God’s money.”

Can you see it here? Jesus was disgusted. With the Pharisees’ very high-sounding, religious and “spiritual” idea about this, they were violating God’s real Law. They were making His word “void … by your tradition that you have handed down.” And that was just a small example, He added.

Conclusion

Many people have different reasons for wanting to make Jesus a dispenser of “love” apart from God’s Law. But such an approach simply isn’t found in Scripture.

The passages here and in part 2 are not isolated cases. For example, in Jesus’ righteous rant against the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He never talks about how they’re all about the real Law and He’s all about “the better way of love” or any of that. He laments and lambastes them because they have “neglected the weightier matters of the law.” What are these? “Justice and mercy and faithfulness.” All are important — and all are what God’s real Law was all about.

Anyone who believes Jesus even came close to opposing or overruling His own Father’s Law with love needs to consider the whole picture that Scripture shows us. Not one time does He play the “good cop” to God’s or His real Law’s “bad cop,” and contradict Himself in that way.

If this really sinks in, it should come as a shock! After all, we have always been taught that Jesus came not to just “make” the Law harder, but to provide a way of salvation.

And that’s true. Any of this emphasis on Jesus’ upholding God’s Law should not simply reinforce someone’s “well I guess we’d best try and obey the Law even harder” reaction! The only reaction this should bring us is gratitude, to Christ, for what He also did to fulfill His own Law.

This is the most important thing to know from busting this myth.

Christ fulfilled God’s real Law by sacrificing Himself as the ultimate atoning sacrifice (or propitiation, 1 John 4:10) for the sins of those who would repent of sins and believe in Him.

Knowing this, and that God’s real Law still applies today, helps us see our need for Christ even more. Instead of only reinforcing the Law and either calling people to obey it by themselves, or just to love each other better, His goal was to die, rise to life, redeem His people with His blood and start His Church. He fulfilled God’s Law so we would trust in Him, not in moral rules.

Thank God for His Law that shows us our need for Him. Thank God for His sacrifice that shows us His love. Thank God for the Bible that shows us both truths in perfect balance.

Does Jesus “trump” God? If God’s Law in the Old Testament was only about following rules, did Jesus come to show “a better way of love”?

Many people seem to think so (see part 1 of this series). For very different reasons — perhaps trying to correct for real-life, sinful legalism in other Christians — they say things like, “Jesus wasn’t about rules; He is about a loving relationship with Him.” And many such things they say.

But it doesn’t take that complicated a reading of Scripture to show otherwise (seen in part 2).

Yet the question remains: if Jesus actually defending the Law and insisted it was still in effect — and maybe worse than some people thought — why then did the Pharisees pick on Him so much? And why did He argue against them? Some people might ask: “Weren’t they the religious leaders who had no love and only the Law?” What was their argument truly about?

In these last two columns of the series, we’ll begin more Biblical exploration of those questions.

Further in

It seems Mark 7: 1-13 is one of the best passages about this.

Here, in one of the clearest arguments with the Pharisees, Jesus did not base His arguments on anything close to “I am not about the Law; I am about ‘love.’” Some professing Christians (or real Christians who aren’t taught well on this topic) may assume that was His goal.

But instead He made three main points:

1. In all their “laws,” the Pharisees had no heart for the real God and worshiping Him.
2. The Pharisees were actually substituting their own made-up laws for the Law.
3. With their made-up religious rules, the Pharisees ended up denying God’s real Law.

Don’t miss the Mark

I think the scene sets itself here. Mark in his gospel has already described the religious leaders’ reactions to Jesus’ teachings and miracles. But when the Pharisees see the disciples violating a religious tradition, this encounter is so far the most clear about the exact nature of their conflict.¹

Did Jesus oppose the Pharisees because they were only about the Law, with no love for people? My suggestion: ask this very question as we read …

This is a fascinating passage. Similar to last week, let’s draw out the points one by one, and ask even more specific questions before reading sections of the story up close:

1. Were the disciples really “defiled,” as in breaking God’s real Law?

The word defiled is crucial here. Some readings of this would hold that the disciples were being very cavalier about the Law of Moses. This assumption would say that somewhere in the Law is something about needing to wash hands exactly this way. And with all the laws in Leviticus and more (which often sound strange to us), that’s an easy assumption to make.

But how does Mark define this use of defiled? He says “that is, unwashed,” and goes on to say:

This understanding of defiled is not according to the Law, but means only “unwashed,” and according to nothing more than the “tradition of the elders.” If they are coming back from the secular marketplace, for example, they have decided it’s their rule to do ritual washing.

Mark goes on to say that according to their religious rituals, they wash all kinds of things, not just to keep them clean physically, but to keep them clean (in their view) spiritually.

But though the Law is detailed, with many odd-sounding commands, it does not say to do that.

Answer: No. This is Pharisee-style “defiled.” God’s real Law doesn’t require this washing.

In next week’s final column, we’ll see how Jesus opposes them, not based on some you-must-lighten-up-and-love rationale, but based on the real Law. Again, here it is important to see: the disciples were not truly defiled according to God’s Law. This “defiled” only means “unwashed,” and only as defined by this Pharisee belief — which itself is never mentioned in the Law.

Next week: did Jesus condemn the Pharisees for being up-tight about God’s real Law? Did He argue that they needed to love people more and stop being so legalistic about the real Law? And did He fault them only for adding laws to the real Law, or actively rejecting it?