Tag Kingdom

The Kingdom Jesus Wants

Todd R 2 Comments

At the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, He spent 40 days alone in the wilderness and at the end of this time was confronted directly by the devil with three temptations.  In the first, the temptation was to fulfill His physical need for food.  In the second, to display His power presumptuously.  This post will focus on the third temptation, as recorded in Matthew 4:8-10:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
             “‘You shall worship the Lord your God
                        and him only shall you serve.’””

As with the first and second temptations, Jesus uses God’s Word to combat the temptations, in this case quoting Deuteronomy 6:13.  Jesus knew that to live a life of perfect obedience, He needed to worship God only in every action He took.  Even one action that gave in to Satan’s ideas for Him would have made Him an imperfect sacrifice and we would all still be dead in our sins.  There would be no Christianity and no salvation for anyone.

But I also think Jesus knew that the kingdoms of the world just weren’t worth ruling.  Sinful people need a Savior who can heal them, before anyone will be able to rule them.  Therefore, Jesus was not interested in the unredeemed kingdoms of the world, but in redeeming His people and building His perfect kingdom person by person.  The world as it is just isn’t good enough.

After all, what good is a kingdom full of people who only worship the wrong things?  What good is a world without hope of redemption in Christ?  In his book A History of Christianity, British historian Paul Johnson doesn’t shy away from the evils of the world and the failings of the church, which some say disprove that there’s a loving God.  However, in the epilogue Johnson asks what if there was no Christianity at all?

“Certainly, mankind without Christianity conjures up a dismal prospect. The record of mankind with Christianity is daunting enough… for there is a cruel and pitiless nature in man which is sometimes impervious to Christian restraints and encouragements.  But without these restraints, bereft of these encouragements, how much more horrific the history of these last 2,000 years must have been!”[1]

On the other hand, what if Christianity is true?  In a world redeemed by Christ, man does not have “a cruel and pitiless nature,” but the perfect sinless nature of Jesus.  There will be nothing but encouragements to live a life of love for God and others.  Restraints won’t even be needed.

This is the kingdom that Jesus finds worth ruling, and will rule, eternally, thanks to His overcoming of Satan’s temptations and perfect life of obedient love, so we someday may have a perfect life.  In this kingdom,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
                        and him only shall you serve.’””

Eternally.  Amen.

[1] Johnson, Paul.  A History of Christianity.  (1976).  P. 517.

A Man in Need of an Ally

Todd R Leave a comment

Do you hate paying taxes?  Maybe you think you pay too much.  That others don’t pay enough.  Maybe you don’t like what its being used for.  Maybe the system is just too complicated and a hassle.

In Jesus’ day, people also hated paying taxes.  As noted in a prior post, Jesus lived and ministered during the “Pax Romana”, or “Roman Peace”, which was announced by Roman Caesars in “gospel” messages telling the people they benefited from unprecedented peace and prosperity due to the godlike powers of the Caesars and their Roman government.  Of course, these benefits could be expensive and had to be financed.

Worse than Turbo Tax

Enter the tax collector, or as some historians say: the tax “farmer”.  Instead of collecting taxes themselves, the Roman state sometimes sold the right to collect taxes to individuals at contracted rates.  Tax farmers collected required taxes, including “ground-, income-, and poll-tax. The ground-tax amounted to one-tenth of all grain and one-fifth of the wine and fruit grown; partly paid in kind, and partly commuted into money. The income-tax amounted to 1 per cent.; while the head-money, or poll-tax, was levied on all persons.”[1]

On top of this, the tax farmer invented other taxes for his own benefit, “such as on axles, wheels, pack-animals, pedestrians, roads, highways; on admission to markets; on carriers, bridges, ships, and quays; on crossing rivers, on dams, on licenses”.[2]  These taxes the farmer would keep for themselves, usually making them incredibly wealthy.

Adding insult to injury, they sometimes would use Roman soldiers to enforce payment, or if they were especially well-off, they had their own private enforcement squads, subjecting citizens to the “vexation of being constantly stopped on the journey, having to unload all one’s pack-animals, when every bale and package was opened, and the contents tumbled about [and] private letters opened.”[3]

Not Religious Freedom
Now enter Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea and Samaria, who later presided over the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Pilate was the man in charge of maintaining the hypocrisy of the “Pax Romana” while the soldiers under him harassed citizens for taxes.  He had a history of provoking the Jews and reminding them of their powerlessness, including seizing money from the Jewish Temple treasury to build an aqueduct, and by prominently posting Caesar propaganda within Jerusalem.  Both instigations are recorded by first-century historian Josephus[4].

Therefore, to many Jews of Jesus’ day, tax payments were seen as not only supporting the corruption of the tax collector, but also as financing an oppressive government and its pagan gods.  Often, the tax collector was Jewish himself, putting themselves forward for the job, then being appointed by their province.  In them, Jewish leaders saw not only a symbol of their contempt for “Pax Romana”, but also traitors and cheaters, representatives of an enemy power.  “They were a criminal race, to which Lev 20:5 applied,”[5] which says “then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.[6]”  All tax collectors as a group fell under the Rabbinic ban, or their version of excommunication.  Under the ban, a person or group of persons became “like one dead”, not allowed to socialize with other Jews, who could not even give them directions.  “It was forbidden to eat or drink with such a one.”[7]

Zacchaeus Has No Friends
In Luke 19, we meet one of these chief tax collectors, Zacchaeus, who appeared to be having a mid-life crisis.  He was a very rich, successful man because of the abuses described above, but was trying to reform.  Luke 19:8 records Zacchaeus’ words when he met Jesus: “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.[8]’” Comically, he had to climb a sycamore tree to see Jesus at all, who was surrounded by crowds.

Excommunicated from the Jewish faith, and probably less popular with his Roman bosses due to collecting less tax, Zacchaeus was looking for anyone to accept him.  We don’t know for sure what led Zacchaeus to search for Jesus, but maybe he knew about John the Baptist calling tax collectors to “Collect no more than you are authorized to do”, as recorded in Luke 3:10-13.  Later, maybe Zacchaeus heard Jesus’ teaching about taxes and tax collectors as did Matthew, another tax collector and eventually author of the first book of the New Testament.  In Luke 18:9-14, Jesus contrasted the obnoxious self-righteousness of a Pharisee to a humble tax collector begging for forgiveness.

When Jesus saw Zacchaeus in the tree, he called out “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”[9]  Then came the complaints of the Pharisees, a group of religious leaders, who “grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’”  See, the Pharisees were right that Zacchaeus is a sinner.  They were right that he was an oppressor.  The Pharisees divided the world into “us” and “sinners”, and expected Jesus to do the same.  After all, the Rabbinic ban applied to the entire class of tax collectors and if Jesus wanted to be a Rabbi, he had to enforce the ban.  If they were Mandalorian, they would have said “This is the way!” [10]

In contrast, earlier in Luke 6:27-32, Jesus taught:

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.  Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.  And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.  If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.”

The first part of this seems to be describing precisely the actions of tax collectors and their thugs, and saying “Love them!”.  The latter part sounds like a rebuke to the Pharisees.  What the Pharisees did not understand is that from Jesus’ perspective, all are sinners and all are enemies of God.  Fortunately, He does not leave it at that: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” – Romans 5:8. If Jesus had not loved His enemies on the cross, we – including the Pharisees – would all be without hope, like Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree.

Jesus announced “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” – Luke 19:9b-10. In saving Zacchaeus, Jesus was proclaiming a new paradigm, where there is no “Us versus Sinners”, but in His death and resurrection He created a church that is “Him for Them”, and then “Us for Them”.  He elevated Love above “truth”, letting the Pharisees know that although their accusations against Zacchaeus and all tax collectors were “true”, that truth was not good enough.  The truth of the Law condemns because we are all sinners. Jesus is the Truth we need, that brings peace and sets free.  Zacchaeus was excluded from church and state, but Jesus offered a third, superior kingdom that would accept him.  By disowning his sin (Luke 19:8 above), Zacchaeus didn’t become perfect, but he acknowledged Jesus as the Savior and King he needed and relied on His grace.

Ripple Effects
The Pharisees continued longing for a political messiah who would get rid of traitors like the tax collectors and overthrow Rome.  Their worldview pointed back to the reign of King David, who oversaw a sovereign Jewish nation governed by the laws of the Pentateuch[11], with a “pure” system of Jewish law centered around worship and sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Rather than being reformed by the Zacchaeus episode, Pharisees later tried to force Jesus to take sides between church (as the Pharisees saw it) and the occupying Roman state in Luke 20:19-25, asking “Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”  Jesus deftly replied, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  Jesus did not condemn paying taxes even though he knew fraud and corruption was involved, but he earlier demanded that those responsible for corruption repent.

If you feel like a Pharisee in this story, break the stereotype of “Us vs. Them.”  Find a Zacchaeus out there and bring the love and forgiveness of Jesus to them.  I guarantee you know one.  The nightly news or your social media feed are probably very good at identifying enemies.  However, “Blessed are the peacemakers”[12], because they are like Jesus.

Zacchaeus probably continued to collect taxes, but as a reformed man.  He would refuse to be a cog in a corrupt machine.  As a chief collector, he may have influenced subordinates to be less corrupt, and therefore his conversion was good for the citizens while also making Pax Romana look more like its propaganda and less like what the Pharisees hated.  A bit of the righteousness and justice of heaven was injected into Pax Romana because Jesus saw Zacchaeus as a person, and not as a category or type, beyond redemption under the ban.

If you feel like Zacchaeus in this story, cast out and rejected with unforgiving enemies on every side, turn to Jesus.  Perhaps you feel like the religious establishment doesn’t like you or your kind.  Jesus is not the religious or political solution the Pharisees and Romans wanted, but He is the solution – the Answer[13].  For you.

The Right Side of History
When people say they are on “the right side of history” they’re implicitly claiming to know the future and also claiming the right to judge the present based on that knowledge.  However, they often ignore the One who actually does know the future.  When Jesus met Zacchaeus, saving him from slavery to the kingdom of sin was more important at that moment than overthrowing Rome and saving the Jews from state oppression.  Jesus knew that Zacchaeus’ soul was eternal, but that Rome and all its institutions and culture were temporary.  Only in hindsight do we know what Jesus already knew at the time: in AD 66, Rome would invade and level the city of Jerusalem, including desecrating the temple.  In 410 AD, Germanic tribes would sack the city of Rome and eventually overthrow the empire of Pax Romana.

What was Zacchaeus’ fate in AD 66?  We don’t know, but if we are Christians, we know we will meet him in heaven.  He was rescued, spiritually, just days before Jesus went to the cross for him.  Jesus overcame the temporary power of the world – the oppressing power of sin and darkness that enslaves us – by offering Himself and the radical power of forgiveness.  Zacchaeus was a state oppressor of the Jews as an agent of Rome, and also religiously oppressed by the Jews who tried to keep him from God, but he will outlast both systems.  He overcame, in Jesus, the Oppressor that cuts across all categories of people – sin.  “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:28

From the perspective of eternity, being on “the right side of history” is when the oppressor loves the oppressed and the oppressed loves the oppressor.  Isaiah 11:6-9 describes the future from which Jesus will judge our present actions and whether we are on the right side:

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
            and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together;
            and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
            and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;
             for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

Amen.

[1] Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1886). P. 357
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Josephus. The Jewish War (2.9.2) (AD 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (18.3.1) (AD 93). Cited in Wikipedia entry on Pontius Pilate.
[5] Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. (1886). P. 357.
[6] Molech was a god of the Ammonites, whose followers sometimes sacrificed their children to him by fire. Ammonites were descendants of Abraham’s brother Lot, through his younger daughter who got him drunk and seduced him. (Gen 19:38)
[7] Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. (1886). P. 602.
[8] Possibly referring to Exodus 22:1 – “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.”
[9] Luke 19:5
[10] In the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, the title refers to a tribe of bounty hunters who use this phrase when referencing their shared code of conduct.
[11] The first 5 books of the Bible, or the “books of Moses”
[12] Matthew 5:9
[13] See my first post, “42 is Not the Answer” for more on how Jesus is the Answer.

Compassion for the Harassed and Helpless

Todd R Leave a comment

“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” – Matthew 9:35-36

Jesus lived under the greatest empire the world had yet seen, and in a deeply religious Jewish culture developed over centuries.  The people had powerful leaders, both political and religious.  Why then were the people seemingly without a shepherd to lead them?

The Roman Empire touted widespread peace and prosperity due to the Caesars and their government.  But the people still had many unsolved problems and no hope.  “Throughout all the cities and villages” were diseased, afflicted and helpless people, and Jesus could help them all in ways the Romans could not or would not.

The Jewish Pharisees, jealous of Jesus’ ability to solve problems they could not, claimed “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.”  They rightly described His power as supernatural, but they called it evil.  Even as He was performing life-saving miracles, they could not tolerate Him as a rival, and so rejected the people’s only hope.

So, the people remained “harassed and helpless,” not knowing who to trust.

Is your culture also faithless?  Your workplace?  Your community or household?  Jesus encouraged His disciples to see rampant lack of faith as an opportunity to show the crowds the compassion of Jesus: “Then He said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’” – Matthew 9:37-38

Today, pray for workers to bring in the harvest.  Also, know that God might make you and I those workers.  As in Jesus’ day, it is up to individual disciples to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom – through compassionate action and often in spite of what those in charge of other kingdoms might prefer.  Harassed and helpless sheep can be frustrated and difficult, but only humble disciples know the problems on the streets of their cities and villages best.

Pray for the compassion of our Great Shepherd who can work miracles. Is there a need He can meet through you today?

Photo by Erik-Jan Leusink on Unsplash

Jesus Even Makes the Deaf Hear

Todd R 2 Comments
Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

As a child of deaf parents, some details of stories from the life of Jesus especially catch my attention.  This miracle recorded in Mark 7:32-37 is one example:

“And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.  And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.  And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’”

In the second sentence, we see Jesus’ “bedside manner.”  His compassion for this individual led to specific actions, as noted by Warren Wiersbe: “Since the man was deaf, he could not hear our Lord’s words, but he could feel Jesus’ fingers in his ear and the touch on his tongue, and this would encourage the man’s faith.”[1]  Not only did Jesus heal Him, but He did it in a way that would be meaningful to this one man.

Another detail Mark records is that Jesus spoke, but why, if this man couldn’t hear him?  Jesus touched the man as a testimony to him, but these words were a testimony to anyone nearby that the power of Jesus healed this man, not the man’s response to the words, since he couldn’t hear them.  There was to be no question as to the source of the healing.

Third, the word “immediately” appears many times in Mark’s gospel, including at least 5 references to healing miracles (1:42, 2:12, 5:29, 5:42, and 10:52).  A big part of this miracle is that deaf people do not immediately “speak plainly” if they recover their hearing or begin using hearing aids.  It can take years of training.  By saying “he spoke plainly,” Mark makes clear that Jesus did not just put this man on the path to recovery; He gave Him a full recovery “immediately”!

Lastly, when the people said, “He has done all things well,” they were testifying that Jesus was fulfilling a Messianic expectation from Isaiah 35:5-6, which says:

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
            and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
            and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
            and streams in the desert”

In this miracle and others, Jesus showed that He was the fulfillment of all the hopes of the Old Testament, and of all mankind.  His kingdom could overcome any problem, and His kingdom is superior to any other kingdom.  No problem He encountered was beyond His power and He offers a way to a world where all problems are solved for those who believe in Him.

Praise Him!

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Diligent (Mark) (1987).  P. 95.

Religion That Shows No Law Can Provide Salvation

Todd R 5 Comments
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

It’s common to think that the point of religion is to have the right laws and to follow them.  However, James 1:27 says “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  This is a different definition of religion than we often think of.  Today continues a series based on this verse, focusing on the insufficiency of laws as a way to salvation.  Only by Christ’s fulfillment of the laws of God through His life, death and resurrection can we achieve salvation, or a restoration of a right relationship with God and with each other.

Which laws do I mean?  In the Old Testament, there are three types, which include what many people think of as “religion”: moral laws of what is right and what is wrong, civil laws about what to do when those laws are broken, and ceremonial laws that explain requirements for restoring relationship with God.  But also in the Bible are signs that all civil and ceremonial laws are provisional, or temporary and incomplete, even if they are designed by God.  They exist because man cannot keep the moral laws, which is where this post begins…

The Poor Among You
Consider these verses from the same chapter in Deuteronomy:
“But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.” – Deuteronomy 15:4-5
“For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’” – Deuteronomy 15:11

Just a few verses apart, it says that “there will be no poor among you”, but then that “there will never cease to be poor in the land.”  It seems like a contradiction, but the two thoughts can coexist because the first one is conditional on full obedience of the law – “if only you will strictly obey…”  God knows His moral law is perfect, but also that our obedience is imperfect, which will lead to poor in the land.  So, He further commands that His people take care of the poor.  This second command shows that He provides additional moral and civil laws to help those who are hurt by the failures of people to follow moral law.  Every failure of His people throughout time was known to Him when He gave the law, but He gave it anyway because it was not intended as an ultimate solution.

Jesus also recognized that poverty would not be solved until we reach Paradise, after He comes a second time.  In Mark 14:7, He said “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me.”  He said this because His disciples were criticizing Mary of Bethany, who decided to use ointment worth a years’ wages to anoint Jesus rather than to sell it and help the poor.  The gospel of John singles out Judas as the accuser of Mary, but also says that Judas “said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”[1]  Elsewhere, Jesus quoted Isaiah, who said “this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.”[2]  What we now call “virtue signaling” is not new.  Throughout history, people have been better at promoting virtue in concept than in practice, and in others rather than in themselves.  Therefore, even if the law we have is perfect, we will never achieve its ends.

Ruth and the Civil Law
Second, the Old Testament story of Ruth shows that even a perfect moral law, perfectly followed, cannot solve every problem – specifically the problem of “orphans and widows in their affliction.”  In addition, civil law can only limit the impact of some problems, not eliminate them.  The civil laws for gleaning and levirate marriage are key to Ruth’s story, while providing examples of faithfulness in a broken society, are also reminders that society is broken in ways laws can’t fix.

Gleaning, provided for in Leviticus 19:9, 23:22 and Deuteronomy 24:19, is necessary because “there will never cease to be poor in the land.”  God commanded His people to leave the edges of their fields unharvested, so the poor could eat what was there.  Levirate marriage, defined in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, is necessary because there are widows and orphans in the world. It gives provision for widows by obligating relatives of the deceased husbands to care for, or even marry, the widow to preserve the family line and inheritance.  However, these laws didn’t prevent Naomi and Ruth from becoming poor, or from losing their husbands.

One aspect of Ruth’s story is that people of faith can rely on God’s provision, both through His civil law and through others who follow it, to make a tangible difference in a world where many ignore God’s law.  Good civil law can improve the conditions of the poor, the orphan, and the widow, if people also follow the eternal moral law of love.

Civil law is a provision for
a fallen world, not a pathway
to a perfect world.

Another aspect of the story of Ruth is how it keeps us “unstained from the world.”  The world wants us to believe that with enough time, effort, resources, cultural revival, laws, coercion, or whatever, that we can produce a widow, orphan, and poverty-free utopia.  But whatever its source, civil law is a provision for a fallen world, not a pathway to a perfect world.  There will always be widows and orphans as long as there is death, and no law can overcome death.

Jesus, Our Religion
For me, the power of thinking about James 1:27 this way is not that I come away thinking, “now I know what to do!  Let’s go!” but that I come away knowing there is no way any of us could possibly measure up to the standard God requires.  Every time we see someone left behind it is a reminder of our collective failure, evidence that we really don’t have the answer even to our own individual problems, much less a path to perfection for the world.

Fortunately for us, the book of Ruth ends with hope, in the form of a genealogy showing her as an ancestor of King David, and therefore an ancestor of Jesus Himself.[3]  Through His life, death, and resurrection, He overcomes both death and the cause of death – our inability to generate religion that is acceptable to God the Father on our own.  Only Jesus, in a perfectly lived life, seeking out and loving “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” fulfilled the requirements of “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father.”  He offered His perfect record to the Father in our place, so we could be accepted based upon His religion, not ours.  He fulfilled the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws in our place, providing a way to a world with no poor, no orphans, and no widows.

For many in the world, civil law is their false gospel, their hope of salvation.  But the Bible lets us know that in this world, we will always have poverty.  There will always be widows and orphans here.  However, because we cannot follow moral law perfectly, we need temporary civil law as a provision for a fallen world.  To keep society from falling apart until Christ returns and molds us into new creations that follow the moral law of love naturally, with no need for civil or ceremonial law.

Until that day, Christ rejects both the tyranny of, and freedom from, law as the answer for His people.  Any civil law – even that of the Old Testament – can only mitigate the damage of sin, but in many cases, the wrong laws can make the damage worse.  However, absence of, or rejection of, all law is not the answer because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of a Kingdom.  Jesus said in John 8:31-32: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  This freedom is from the failed kingdoms of this world, but not license to reject His righteousness as our personal standard of behavior.

Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”[4]  His righteousness brings us into a Kingdom like no other, where to “Visit orphans and widows in their affliction” is the freely offered sacrifice acceptable to our Lord, and an example of what James refers to later in his letter: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”[5]

This is the 3rd post in a series on James 1:27, which began here, and continues here.

[1] John 12:6
[2] Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8, Mark 7:6
[3] Ruth 4:17-22
[4] John 14:6
[5] James 2:18