All my life I heard Matthew 25:40 interpreted to be about Christians helping the poor.

Just last week the “Bible fog” lifted, and I really heard the context of the whole passage.

Maybe you read this next and think, Duh, I always knew that. But for me I am sure I always subconsciously “bought” the whole this-is-about-Christians-helping-poor-people assumption. When “social justice”-styled professing Christians quoted the verse that way, I accepted their argument and moved on to other reasons why helping the poor isn’t the be-all-end-all of the Bible (something like, Yes, that’s important, but what’s also important is …).

But actually, though taking care of the poor is a Scriptural concept, it’s not exactly here.

The other day I heard activist Jim Wallis, in a debate with Marvin Olasky, quote verse 40. His point was that Christians need to do righteous to “the least of these.” If I remember correctly, he didn’t quote the whole verse — just the part about caring for the poor. (Ironically, the entire chapter is about the coming Kingdom and God’s judgment, a topic Wallis didn’t mention.)

But here’s the full context — from Mark 25: 31-40:

The least of who? All poor people? Victims of oppression? The hungry? Maybe Scripture talks about these elsewhere, but it’s not here. The least of who? The least of these my brothers. Who are they? It’s not the whole human race — rather, His disciples who do His will.

I didn’t find this on my own. But on the human side, I can credit Kevin DeYoung. Last month he myth-busted several Bible texts often misused to support “social justice” causes.¹

Matthew 25 has become a favorite passage for many progressives and younger evangelicals. Even in the mainstream media it seems like hardly a day goes by without someone referencing Jesus’ command to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. And few biblical phrases have gotten as much traction as “the least of these.” Whole movements have emerged whose central tenet is to care for “the least of these” ala Matthew 25. The implications–whether it be increased government spending, increased concern for “social justice,” or a general shame over not doing enough–are usually thought to be obvious from the text.

But in popular usage of the phrase, there’s almost no careful examination of what Jesus actually means by “the least of these.”

[. . .]

“The least of these” refers to other Christians in need, in particular itinerant Christian teachers dependent on hospitality from their family of faith.

[. . .]

Matthew 25 is about social justice in the sense that it is about caring for the needy. But the needy in view are fellow Christians, especially those dependent on our hospitality and generosity for their ministry. “The least of these” is not a blanket statement about the church’s responsibility to meet the needs of all the poor (though we do not want to be indifferent to hurting people). Nor should the phrase be used as a general cover for anything and everything we want to promote under the banner of social justice. Jesus says if we are too embarrassed, too lazy, or too cowardly to support our fellow Christians who depend on our assistance and are suffering for the sake of the gospel, we will go to hell. We should not make this passage say anything more or less than this.

And just today I caught more of the same truth from D.A. Carson’s book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.² Summarizing Biblical texts some professing Christians often mangle to support their favorite social/political causes, Carson notes:

In the hands of some writers, what distinguishes the sheep from the goats is social concern: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting people in prison—along with the dramatic addition of Jesus’ words, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (25:40, 45).[NIV] But that misses the point here. Certainly the Bible lays considerable stress elsewhere on compassion, justice, acts of mercy, kindness, and much else—as shown by Isaiah and Amos and the parable of the good Samaritan. But it has often been shown that in Matthew’s gospel the expression “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine” can only refer to the least of his followers. In other words, the sheep and the goats are exposed for what they are by the way they treat the downtrodden of Jesus’ followers.

One more phrase I’ll be using more carefully. Such a difference a few words can make.

Christians’ questionable (or just-plain-wrong) beliefs about things such as spiritual warfare take a very long time to — ha ha, exorcise. ¹

Going over all the possible assumptions Christians have about how demons operate would take a while. In some cases, I’m thinking Christians need to practice love and firmness, coupled with careful emphasis on God’s power and His Spirit within Christians. That’s a more extensive process than, say, pointing to one Scripture as proof against a wrong idea about Satan and his fallen angels.

But let’s look into just one questionable idea. It crumbles simply by reading verses before and after a common proof text.

Ye have heard that it was said …

“We need to come against that spirit (or evil spirit, demon, power) and bind him (or it).”

AKA: “Lord, we just pray that Satan would be bound …”

Or even a prayer not directed to God: “Satan, we bind you!”

But Matthew 18:18:18 has nothing to do with demons. This is a bit dangerous to say, in part because some Christians will assume the one saying it doesn’t believe Satan or demons are real and terrible.² So for now, let’s just bypass the whole “spiritual warfare” issue and look at the verse by itself.

The verse isn’t talking about spiritual warfare or demons. They’re not mentioned here. Maybe they’re in the surrounded verses — the context of what Jesus is saying to His disciples. That usually clears things up.

Wait. The paragraph here is actually not about fighting demons at all. It’s about the church’s role in personal conflicts!

So the “binding” isn’t of the Devil or demons at all. Instead, Jesus is talking about church leaders’ “binding” decisions on conflicts between church members.

Maybe the Bible elsewhere encourages Christians to “bind” Satan, or ask God to bind him.³ But it’s not here.

Some things in Scripture are unclear and require deep contemplation to see them more clearly. This isn’t one of them.

Real warfare

Consider the time and effort some well-meaning and zealous Christians give to battling demons directly. But compared with that, direct demon-fighting is topic that is mentioned almost in passing throughout the New Testament.

Yes, the Devil and his demons are real, they are dangerous, but they are at best bit players. Christian should pray to Christ, never direct prayers or commands against Satan.⁴ “Binding and rebuking” is about church discipline and authority, not bossing fallen angels or fighting temptation. And the famous “full armor of God” portrayal in Ephesians 6 shows us that spiritual warfare is primarily about learning and living the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and battling false doctrines that infect our minds, hearts and lives.

So here are three spiritual warfare “formulas” for casting out questionable assumptions about spiritual warfare.

a. Number of Scriptures teaching this > number of Scriptures about demons.

c. Christians possessed or controlled by demons = x/0.

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?)

“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?

Did Jesus come only to teach love and not God’s Law? Is it true to say “Christianity is not about rules, but relationships”? What did Jesus Himself say about it? (Continued from last week …)

What’s the Word?

One very relevant passage to explore ¹ is from Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount.” ² Many wrongly think Jesus only offers better ways to live, or moral encouragements for all who listen. But although His words may sound soft-spoken, the realities are much harsher.

Wow. Let’s be sure we don’t miss the profound truths buried in that paragraph. Nothing than less than an attempt at exegesis (my best, anyway) seems due here …

1. Jesus fulfills, not abolishes, the Law.

Lest anyone think Jesus came to offer anything different from the Law, He directly denied it. “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them,” He said. I wonder: if I had been Jesus (scary thought), and I had wanted to tell people for sure that the true Law was not dead and gone or unnecessary for anyone in the present day, how would I have communicated this more clearly?

If Jesus actually did abolish the effects of the Law, here He was lying or obscuring the truth.

2. The Law won’t end until the world ends.

In case we missed the point, He makes it even more clear: the Law is still in effect “until all is accomplished.” Not a nano-piece of it will expire until that time.

Might someone think that has already happened — that at some point before now, the Law’s effects have passed as He predicted? No, Jesus’ context makes clear what “all is accomplished” means: the time when “heaven and earth pass away.”

I just looked out my window. Earth is still here, so I presume Heaven is too. He hasn’t yet redeemed, remodeled and combined them (Revelation 21).

Therefore I presume the Law’s iotas and dots are still un-passed.

3. We should not downplay the Law.

These seem like very strong words: those who try to downplay the Law and its truths aren’t just misguided, naïve or doctrinally wrong, but they “will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”

That just makes me want to wipe my brow and pray I won’t be too cavalier about the Law!

God’s standards are just as holy today as they were back then. Jesus hasn’t lowered the standard; here, He has just made it higher and more strict than ever. If He hadn’t made it clear here and elsewhere that He Himself was the fulfillment of that standard, and died and rose again to prove it, people might still be calling Him a “legalist” today.

4. If we follow the Law’s commandments, we will be called great.

I’d much rather be placed in this group. And why is that? So we can be called “great in the kingdom of heaven.” Christians ought not do as I once thought deep down, that the best and most “spiritual” Christianity is disinterested devotion to religious duties. Rather, I should want to want the best reward He can give — Himself — in the Kingdom when it comes here directly.

5. Want Christ’s Kingdom? Then out-obey the Pharisees.

We might not see Jesus’ impact here without comparing it with a direct-opposite view: a “cheap grace” that assumes we don’t need to consider God’s holiness, only His love.

But here, Jesus doesn’t mention a word about God’s love. He talks about His great love at other times, and it’s absolutely essential to remember that as we seek to know Jesus and all of His character. But here, His focus is His Father’s holiness and the Law. Its standard was in effect then, and remains in effect today for those who don’t believe Him.

6. Christians are not under the Law, because of Christ’s coming and personal faith.

Years later, Christians in the Galatian church were being told opposite ideas of the Law, by very “spiritual” teachers who claimed the Christians were still under its requirements. But Paul wrote:

So Paul makes things even clearer to Christians: they are no longer captive to the Law. But the essential ingredients for the status change are Christ’s coming, what He did, and personal faith that brings forgiveness of sins and adoption as God’s sons.

Next week: if it’s true that Jesus did not oppose the Law, but came squarely on its side, why then was He so often fighting with the Pharisees? Weren’t they all about the Law when He wanted them to understand His grace and love? What do you think?

Is it possible this myth heard ‘round the world is actually increasing in popularity? I wonder if even now it’s dead even with or even past the “Christians aren’t supposed to judge ever” myth?

Perhaps it’s best to leave this little lie alone. After all, it brings so many people together in agreement, doesn’t it? Many Christians want to be loving to their unsaved friends, or “worldly” Christians. Or they may want to correct for their legalistic backgrounds, and make sure they emphasize that God is all about love, not rules. The popular evangelical phrase remains, on a billion church signs: that “Christianity isn’t about rules, it’s about a relationship.”

So they present one side of a truth, to the point of half-truth: Jesus isn’t about the Law.

But that is not what Scripture says. This is clear not only from the epistles written by Paul and other apostles about Jesus, but from the words of Jesus Himself.

“Take a look, it’s in a Book …”

Ye have heard that it was said …

Jesus fought the Pharisees because they were all about the Law, and He was all about love.

AKA: Jesus wasn’t about rules, He was about love and personal relationship with Him.

AKA: “Christianity isn’t about rules, it’s about relationship.”

Figure A:

“The God of the Old Testament is a vengeful God,” says a popular professing Christian during a lecture circuit, named the same as his new book with a catchy, “outrageous” title. “He is all about the Law and following a system of rules. Then along comes Jesus, and His only law is the law of love! He accepts people just the way they are. He breaks down the barriers.” ¹

Figure B:

[After agreeing that boundaries are in the Bible] Jesus is frequently breaking through those boundaries, challenging what the OT purity laws say about dirt and cleanliness, Sabbath and love…which is why Christianity has always had a bit of an iconoclastic streak. Add to this Jesus’ acceptance of the Other, be they of an enemy empire (the Centuriion)², or heterodox (like the many Samaritans who held a different canon and worshiped at a different temple), or outright occult (the blessed Magi who visited the child Christ [. . .]), you see a relaxing of the boundaries and a universalizing of the Old Covenant’s YHWH into a God who brings “peace and glad tidings of great joy to all peoples[.]”

From an acquaintance’s Facebook post

Figure C:

All my religious training was in Sunday school, maybe 25 years ago, and the main thing I remember was that God was always smiting the Pharisees. At least I think it was the Pharisees[. . . .]

My wife, who has had bales of religious training, tells me that this was the Old Testament God, who was very strict, whereas the New Testament God is a genuinely mellow deity, the kind of deity who would never smite anybody or order you to smear goat’s blood on your firstborn son, which is the kind of thing the Old Testament God was always doing.

The otherwise hilarious author and humor columnist Dave Barry, from a 1985 column

What’s the truth in this?

While it is easy to make lovey-dovey Christians (or those who want or claim to be so) into easy villains, I hope to Heaven that Biblical Christians will not overcorrect the opposite way. We’re already needing to deal with overcorrection — from not-loving-enough views of God to a “love”-as-the-only-defining-attribute view of God. Let’s not swing the pendulum back again!

It is so true that Jesus came to Earth to exercise love. No informed Christian would deny this. He healed the sick, taught of His Father’s care for people, lived as a Man, comforted the hurting, and did not fight back when He was persecuted.

He did not specifically deploy punishments, like God the Father. At that point, it wasn’t His goal.

What’s the lie in this?

What Biblical Christians would disagree with is that “love” is so easily understood as simple healing from sickness, or acceptance of all other views, or especially making things easier for people who had suffered under the Old Testament Law for centuries. Rather:

1. Jesus doesn’t just release people from the Law’s burden. He increases it, by reminding us that true violations are in our hearts, not in our deeds! Only He Himself can remove its burden.
2. Jesus does not oppose the Law. He opposes false views of it. He decries the often-willing ignorance of some people, in particular religious hypocrites. Such people refuse to see that the Law pointed to Him as the One Who relieves its burden for those who repent and believe Him.
3. And Jesus did not come to overthrow the unfair, too-hard Law. He came to fulfill it.

(This topic is so incredible, deep and rich that it will take at least three parts of a new series to get through it. Watch for the next part coming Saturday. Meanwhile, a great way to study up on this topic is to re-read the Sermon on the Mount, especially Matthew 5: 17-20, and Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees in Mark 7: 1-13, and onward. What do you think?)

(Continued from last week …)

“Jesus wept,” from John 11:35, is often quoted because of its well-known shortness, and out of motivations to highlight Christ’s humanity. As the onlookers in the passage themselves say in verse 36, “See how he loved [Lazarus]!” Thus, some Christians also say: He loves you too, just as much — then stop without going further.

I hope no one would argue Jesus was weeping for only any reason besides genuine grief. Still, it seems readers should instead be asking, along with the crowds: if He loved Lazarus so much, why did He not come to heal Him sooner?

This same question is repeated three times. Great preachers point out that repetition like that, especially with writing space limited to the ancient authors, should make us pay close attention.

The Apostle John does show Christ’s humanity in this account. But His deity, and the fact that He is the resurrection and the life, are meant to be the main theme.

Further in

In any teaching about this passage, I’d love to hear more about all aspects of His reaction.

Jesus was not only sad. He was sovereign. He was not only human. He was divine. He was not only “deeply moved in his spirit,” but “greatly troubled” (verse 33).

So why was Jesus troubled, if His reason was simply sharing His friends’ grief?

The answer lies in the chapter’s main theme. In His weeping, He not only empathized with Lazarus’s grieving sisters; He was also reacting to the crowd of Jews (also in verse 33). Why was that? Because they were not believing in Him.

This is made even easier to see from Jesus’ own given reasons for why He delayed in coming, first to His disciples, and later to Lazarus’ sisters.

What were the reasons He gave His disciples?

1. He wanted to glorify His Father and Himself — that’s the first reason He gives (verse 4).
2. He wished to show them His light (verses 8 to 10). When they stumbled over why He would walk into what could be a very dangerous situation, He illustrated their problem by suggesting it was like they were walking by night, outside of His light.
3. He wanted to encourage them to believe, for their own sake (verses 14 to 15). He even said He was glad He had delayed, so as to build up His disciples’ faith in Him.

What were His reasons for Mary and Martha?

1. It was because He loved them. Note what could seem a strange line of reasoning in verses 5 through 6! “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

   One might say: well, some kind of love that was. But who could accuse Jesus of being cruel? He loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and so He stayed away and did not heal Lazarus immediately. From our perspective, especially if we were there and did not know the ending, it could make little sense. But He knew better.

2. He would prove He was the resurrection and the life (verse 25).
3. He wanted Martha and Mary to show they believed in Him (25 to 26).
4. He wanted them never to die in an eternal sense — a more important issue than dying temporarily, as Lazarus had done (verse 26).
5. He would show them the glory of God — by implication in a way they would not have seen if He had merely healed a sick Lazarus (verse 40).
6. For the benefit of those around Him, He prayed to His Father and said He wanted observers to believe God had sent Him (verse 42).
7. And the greatest reason of all is implicit in verses 45 through 57. Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus, and the resulting faith of Mary and Martha and surely Lazarus himself, is merely a subplot in John’s main story. After Lazarus was brought to life, Jesus’ religious enemies upped the ante. That brought the Lord’s death even closer — the tension is increasing.

   Thus the same Lord Who resurrected Lazarus would later resurrect Himself, from a death He also planned, for the glory of God. This shows Who Jesus was, and why He came, so that you, gentle reader, may also believe in Him and have life in His name (John 20:31).

I wish I could hear an awesome sermon about all this. This feels like an outline for one.

And I can’t get over that first point in the above list: that Jesus delayed coming to Lazarus because He loved him, and his family. A greater goal was in His mind: His own glory, and the far more profound need for people to believe in Him as the resurrection and the life.

How often has the Lord delayed coming, delayed a healing, or not healed at all, for reasons that only He can know, because He loves us more than we would if we could decide what He did?

How often is He grieved, but still worked differently than we would, for greater reasons?

How often has He wept, not only because He empathizes with our losses (any non-Son-of-God person could do that), but instead because He wants us to understand that He is the resurrection and the life, sent from God the Father, Who will be glorified!

Some Christians have a kind of teaching method that is cute or helpful in small doses. But too often it is quite annoying: what I would call the Fun Fact About the Bible(!) style.

For example, who among us has learned, from just about any church or Sunday-school circular, this Fun Fact about the Bible? “Jesus wept,” in John 11:35, is the shortest verse in the Bible! ¹

Great. Wow, the shortest verse. Does that make it less important? Or maybe more important? Does it matter at all? Who divided those verses anyway? (Hint: not the original writers.)

But who among us knows why Jesus wept in the first place?

I hadn’t thought about it either, at all — that is, until a friend reminded me of the passage’s context. This illustrates well one of those little myths that gets about Christendom and needs to be set straight. Maybe, thanks to God’s grace, it doesn’t wreck a whole lot, and by itself it certainly won’t prevent someone from being truly redeemed. But what might we miss anyway?

Ye have heard that it was said …

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35) because He was very sad that his friend Lazarus had died.

Figure A:

In a Christian small group, someone shares her struggles with personal sickness, or conflict in her family. Perhaps a relative has died, or is about to die. In a sincere attempt at comfort, a friend pats her hand and reminds her, “Remember, ‘Jesus wept.’ He knows your pain.”

Figure B:

A devotional book, by a popular Christian author, is all about the humanity of Jesus. He was just as human as you and me, the writer says earnestly — Jesus felt all the emotions we do. Jesus got angry. He was tired. He was hungry, thirsty, loving, and He wept when a friend of His had died (John 11:35). Remember, Jesus may weep for your troubles, too.²

What’s the truth in this?

Jesus was certainly a Man, 100 percent — as well as being 100 percent God. I can’t fully get that, and sometimes (especially if we’re not wary of overcorrecting one excess with another) the comparisons can sound odd. He ate, slept, got sick, went to the bathroom, and best of all, suffered and died the cruel, physical death of a man — but with wonderful spiritual results.

What’s the lie in this?

Will anyone argue that Jesus was not really weeping because He was grieved? I doubt it — and I won’t! But to focus on His human nature in this, without also including the reasons He gives for His divine, sovereign actions and choices, downplays the main theme of the story.

The tension is breathtaking in the account of the death and resurrection of Lazarus in John 11. Jesus reacted in many ways like any person would in this situation. Yes, He felt their pain. But He had also held back from healing Lazarus for an even more important reason than to assuage someone’s grief. Rather than work a quick healing for His friend, He was planning to manifest Himself in a way that could have been His most publicly divine act so far in His earthly life.

What’s the Word?

The scene: After suffering through a long sickness, Jesus’ friend Lazarus has died. And oddly enough, though He was told in advance, He had already spent at least two days delaying in not coming to heal Lazarus. John 11 must be read in full to see this truth, but here’s an excerpt:

The reason for Jesus weeping? Based on the different reactions from the crowd, it is twofold.

Notice that John doesn’t leave the onlookers’ reaction at “See how he loved him!” There’s more.

Rather, the author’s paragraph ends with a question, which strongly implies the reader could be asking the same thing: “could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Their confusion reflects that of the disciples earlier (verses 5 through 16).

(Next, we’ll go further in — if Jesus wasn’t only sharing their grief, why else did He weep?)