Opened To Understand

"The next time you open up your Bible I challenge you to lay down your do and do not lenses looking for the next thing you think God wants you to do to please Him. Instead pick up your new Jesus lenses. See that the work is finished to make you right before God and see it as a gift of God's grace." CW

       Many people struggle to to get the most out of the Bible and understand what the Scriptures really are communicating. I know that sounds a bit like hyperbole but I can tell you it is common enough that it no longer surprises me when I run into it. I hear it a lot in conversations and when I listen to others share or how they use or understand the Bible. The Bible, or the Scriptures as they are called in the Bible, are a blessing to have . God has designed them to lead us to life not simply knowledge. Our time in the word should always be enlightening, liberating, transformative and life giving. 

    One of the most common ideas I hear circulated is that the Bible tells us everything you need to do and not do in order for God to count you as a good, or as a righteous person. The idea behind this belief is that when you have done the dos and refrained from the do nots long enough, and well enough, you will finally be close enough to God and He will bless you. 

    In other words, the way many read the Bible is through the lens of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt nots." We are back to seeing things through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of the tree of life. With this lens of do and do not in place there begins to emerge some overlying messages such as, the work to make us righteous is not completed, God values slaves and not heirs because there is a lot of work that needs to get finished and He cares more about what you do than who you are. Consequently, under this interpretation of scripture, the focus remains fixed on what we do instead of what Jesus has done; which for those who believe results in them becoming a new creation in Christ. 

    When we put it in terms like this most would quickly change their tune saying, "Of course God cares who we are but He wants to ensure we make good decisions in our lives. It is important what we do after all." I would agree that God understands the importance of our decision and actions in our lives. Obviously our choices and actions have great reward or consequence depending on the choices we make. I would also add that as important as behavior is, and as wise as God is, I think He has considered the importance of our behavior and factored it into the work He did and finished.

    However, before our mind has been renewed (Rom. 12:2) we tend to believe that if we have the will to do what is right, and God simply tells us what we ought to do, then we have all we need to walk it out, and fulfill our obligation. We simply seek to know what to do so we can be on our way to pleasing God and receiving His blessings; but here is the thing, as counterintuitive as it may seem, this is just not so. 

    Through the history of those who zealously sought to please the Lord, the approach of pleasing God by our doing under the demands of the law has produced a long litany of failure and disillusionment. We can look at the example of the Israelites who came to Mt. Siani from Egypt. When arriving at the mountain they responded to God’s offer of the Law Covenant with a passionate but presumptuous, “Whatever the Lord tells us to do, we will do!” (Exo. 19:8) They gave this response before even hearing or inquiring about the terms and conditions of the covenant they were entering into would be, and they bound themselves to it. 

    Before Moses came back from getting the stone tablets of that Law Covenant from God the Israelites had already enlisted Aaron's help to make an idol. They attributing their liberation from Egypt to it and worshiped it. Revelry ensued and their end of the covenant had already been broken. The result? 3,000 people died. (Exo. 32: 27-28 and Exo. 32:35) The Law Covenant was broken before it was even formally received! The Israelites are no more and no less human than all of us and serve as a lesson for any who would dare to trust in their own ability and efforts under Law to please God. (1 Cor. 10:11)

    Still, as hopeful as we human beings are, we may tend to think that we just needed some more time to get into the swing of things. We may reason,“If I double my efforts, get serious and try harder this time things will change. I just need another chance at this and I will deliver better results this time around.” Before we take another round on the carousel to end up where we got on, let’s look at what Israel found doing this through their history; and see where this line of reasoning leads. 

    After Mt. Siani we find hope in the deliverers of Israel even into the book of Judges yet every time after God delivered Israel we hear a common refrain that reverberates through the book,

but every one did what was right in their own eyes. (Deut. 12:8, Jdg. 17:6, Jdg. 21:25) God sent deliverers, prophets and the brave and the godly to bring people back to Himself through faith under grace and not under law. 

Sadly, time and time again in Israel’s history we see the results of trusting in our own ability, strength, understanding. Time and time again it resulted in failure, sin, disappointment and death. 

    Even toward the end of the Bible we find one of Israel’s elite, in regard to their performance of the dos and do nots under Law struggling to eek out a different result by taking the same route. Saul was a pharisee of the pharisees (Phil. 3:5, Acts 26:5) and rose above his piers in recognition of His blamelessness under law. No one could find a fault in his performance concerning the dos and do nots (Phil. 3:6, Acts 22:3) and though everything looked nice and tidy on the outside he writes candidly about this period of his life being under law (Rom. 7:1) and speaking of the internal struggle it created within him, 

“For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good [under law (see context Rom. 7:1)]. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then [under law], on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” 

-Romans 7:19-24 NASB 95 [captions mine]

 

    In my young adult years the majority of my piers said they could relate to this as believers! Sadly the reason for experiencing this frustrating and defeating form of life is found in the beginning of the chapter seven in verse one. Paul shifts the focus of his letter here to those who know the law and have been under it. My piers had put themself under law, at least in part, because they thought it offered some benefit on the path to becoming a "better" believer. When that happened they employed their flesh to bring about the righteousness of God in some area of their life, probably an area they wanted to see better results in, and instead sin came alive and beat them every time; and all they were left with was the feelings of bewilderment, condemnation and demoralization.

    Whenever someone attempts to please God by trying to keep the do’s and do nots under law it is never a straight line to the goal. You seek to do good and do bad instead. You try to avoid the bad you do not want to do it pops up and you run right into it in spite all your best efforts to stay away. The harder you try the harder you fall. 

    Saul, or Paul as he was latter known, realized this occurred because the law rests not on God's ability but man's ability called "the flesh." This is where we are told sin dwells (Rom. 7:18, Rom. 8:3). Whenever someone tries to uphold the law they must employ the flesh, then sin springs to life and they die (Rom. 7:9). Though all who are under law are condemned to this pattern of life. (Rom. 7:24-8:2) Saul did find the way of escape through fully abandoning his hopes of satisfying God through His works under the law and trusting Christ alone to truly satisfies God on his behalf and make him right with God. 

    Christ alone for eternal salvation, Christ alone for salvation in the seasons of our lives, Christ alone for freedom from sin, Christ alone for walking by the Spirit in good deeds, works and the fruit the Spirit produces in us, Christ alone for strength of character and morality and Christ alone to be blessed and walk in our  inheritance from God. 

    This is why the Bible is not, in the end, a playbook about the dos and do nots that we need to do in an effort to please God. It is instead a book all about the One we are to trust in to set us free from the sin and death as well as free from being under the Law, where sin comes alive and brings death as a result of performing to earn God's blessings, favor or help under it. ]There were many years in my Christian walk where I did not really understand what the point of the Scriptures were. Even though it is listed in the Scriptures themselves, and even though I read it, I never saw it. I had the wrong glasses on, I looked through the wrong paradigm and it remained veiled to me (2 Cor. 3:14-16). 

    The writer of Hebrews cites Psalm Forty when he writes about Jesus saying, 

"Therefore, when He [Jesus] came into the world, He said:

“Sacrifice and offering You [God] did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.

In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book [speaking of the Scriptures] it is written of Me—

          To do Your will, O God.’ ”

-Hebrews 10:5-7 NKJV [captions and bold mine]

    We may be inclined to look over this if it were a one time occurrence, after all in comparison with all the dos and do nots under the law it still may sound like this verse could simply be a fluke. However, when answering His opponents, Jesus states again that the Bible, or the Scriptures, are all about Him, 

"You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these [scriptures] are they which testify of Me [Jesus]. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

-John 5:39-40, 45-47 NKJV

    We see, in red letters, Jesus say the Scriptures testify of Him. He urges us all to come to Him to have everlasting life. This is one of the main purposes of the Bible. To testify of Jesus and lead us to Him that we may have life. We see that the Pharisees who fought against, accused Jesus and professed great unbelief toward Him were rebuked by Jesus using Moses, and His writings. Because the Pharisees believed they were Moses disciples Jesus told them that if they really did follow Moses and believed what he wrote they would believe Him because Moses wrote about Jesus. 

    Jesus actually brings out the fact that not only do the Pharisees not believe Him but they do not even believe Moses and so Jesus does not have to accuse them to His Father, Moses will do that himself; and why? Because Moses wrote about Jesus and they do not trust Jesus now that He is before them.

    What is funny is that Moses is the one who delivered the dos and do nots of the Old Covenant Law to Israel, but despite this, Jesus reveals a shocking conclusion; not only to his opponents in His day but also to many who still hold hope that working the law still holds a hope for life today. Jesus asserts that Moses main delivery was not the Law, or the list of dos and do nots, but that instead Moses writings were essentially and truly about Jesus! Jesus would be the one to fulfill these dos and do nots by the Spirit and set those under the law free from the law and into the liberty of the Spirit. (Gal. 4:4-6, Heb. 2:14-15) 

    It is now our faith in Jesus that is accounted to us as righteousness (Gen. 15:6, Rom. 4:3). We are credited by grace through faith, with righteousness according to Jesus' obedience. Jesus fulfilled all of the law's demands and so if He fulfilled all the demands there are no more left for us to fulfill! We can either believe that or disbelieve it but we can not add anything to it. To try to add to it reveals the doubt we still harbor toward Jesus having claimed to fulfill it and paid the debt for us. Beyond this, through Christ's death we have died to the law and now are joined to Jesus and made alive to a new kind of life, a life where we find ourselves alive to God by grace through faith apart from the works of the law. 

    Again, we see Jesus assert that the correct approach when reading the Bible is to see it is all about Him. After Jesus' crucifixion, the Resurrected Lord draws close to His broken hearted disciples (Ps. 34:18, 147:3) who are convinced that the hope of the redemption of Israel has died with their Lord. In that moments their dreams are dashed and Jesus draws close and engage them. He explains to them the scriptures that they had not considered or misinterpreted since they had not read them with the right lens. By showing them and explaining to them all that had been veiled to them He corrected their wrong thinking and took time to reveal everything that seemed to have gone so wrong, had actually exactly according to plan. The way Jesus did this is shown in the verse bellow. 

"And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

-Luke 24:27 NKJV

    Again we see from Jesus that the way He interprets the Scriptures, being God in sinless flesh, is that the scriptures are about Him! In fact after these disciples realized they have been speaking to the risen Lord they run back to relay to the rest of the disciples, in Jerusalem, all that the Lord had told to them. This includes the Scriptures being about Him. It is only after this that Jesus then appears in the room to the disciples gathered there! 

    Now, this is just my idea but please hear me out. The Scriptures do not say Jesus came into the room or entered where they were gathered in that moment. Instead it says He "appeared" in the room. I think Jesus was already there, and let me tell you why. We know God is near to the broken hearted (Ps. 34:18), and Jesus is God in the flesh. He is not far from them or outside of the place where they are, He is near. I believe the reason the word "appeared" is used is because after Jesus resurrection He desires that we believe Him and what He has finished for us having to see it. There is a blessing in believing not because there is no evidence, the scripture is full of prophecy that foretold this would happen and even Jesus told His disciples a number of times this would happen. He does not want to rob us of the blessing of believing without seeing based on His word. We walk by faith not by sight and the righteous live by faith or trust and that has to take traction at some point. It is for our glory that we trust the Lord. He does not want to rob us of that opportunity, growth and maturity in our relationship with Him. 

    When we see Jesus finished work and what that means for us in our hearts Jesus becomes visible to us, we see Him for who He truly is, and when we do the message Jesus speaks to our hearts will come through loud and clear, "Peace to you!" Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace and it carried the idea of nothing missing, nothing broken, all things needed and provided for you generously for life and godliness. 

    I think Jesus was already with the broken hearted disciples in the upper room. However it was not doing the disciples any good being under condemnation, fear and hopelessness. However when Jesus was revealed in the Scriptures by using the right lens to read the scripture, the Jesus lens, then His comforting and saving presence was revealed. Faith revived and was strengthened, relationships were mended and hope was restored. When it was revealed that Jesus had completed His work leaving nothing undone, and it was revealed that this was the message of the Scriptures that had been overlooked, it was then that Jesus was seen to be present, alive and victorious over all their troubles in their midst.

    Whenever you see Jesus in the Scriptures, in the light of His finished work; having fulfilled the law, dismissing it in peace having satisfied all of it's demands, He becomes visible and tangible in your life. You can hear His voice saying Peace unto you, your fight is over, your shame evaporates, you are free from sin, shame and condemnation as well as the demands of the law that you could never satisfy. In Christ you have died to that old master and have been resurrected to a new life, free and united to Jesus and made alive and fully pleasing to God! 

    Again, in the upper room, Jesus takes time to "open the minds" of his disciples to "understand the Scriptures." Wouldn't you like to understand the scriptures the way that Jesus desires for His people to understand them? Wouldn't you like to have the confidence of interpreting the Scriptures the way the disciples did who's writings ended up classified as and included within the Scripture themselves? How did Jesus "open their minds" to finally understand the Bible, or Scriptures, and how can we have the same confidence they had to understand them today? 

"Then He [Jesus] said to them [the disciples], “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”"

-Luke 24:44-45 NKJV

 

    The way we understand the Bible that God inspired, according to Jesus who is God in flesh, is to accept that it is about Jesus and that He has fulfilled all that was written about Him in all the Old Testament Scriptures. Being persuaded of this and having the promise of the Holy Spirit which endued the disciples with power from on high the disciples were ready to be a witness of the good news concerning Jesus and to take this power of God into their world. We can be confident when we have receive these gifts from God we can to do the same. 

    So, the next time you open up your Bible I challenge you to lay down your do and do not lenses looking for the next thing you think God wants you to do to please Him. Instead pick up your new Jesus lenses. See that the work is finished to make you right before God and see it as a gift of God's grace. Believe it and recognize that the Scriptures are all about your Savior who has completed His mission, left nothing undone to redeem you, make you holy, righteous and without fault in love in His presence. Let your heart be filled with His great love for you, let your faith soar, and read of all He has completed and the inheritance and life it affords you as a new creation in Christ. While you do sense the risen Lord's tangible presence with you declaring "Peace" in your spirit and to your soul. 

Grace and Peace, 

Chris Wagoner