I am completely and staggeringly dumbfounded right now. I would say speechless, but that would be a lie since I’m writing this... But something I read in Francis Chan and Mark Beuving’s book ‘Multiply’ has blown my mind. Quite literally my thoughts are flying about inside my head making millions of connections and implications and applications. It’s awesome!
I’m sure what I just read is something I should have known by now in my walk of faith, but I guess I missed it along the way, and so this very moment is the time that my eyes have been opened to an amazing truth. I’m sharing it in case anyone else also missed this tiny detail that actually changes so MUCH!
So, Francis and Mark (I like to think we’re on first name terms) have been going through and explaining the main points of the Old Testament. Some interesting stuff, but mostly I’ve been reading going yes, I know that or yes, I remember learning that. Until… we get to God’s Covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law. I’ll try and summarise the point and not quote the whole two pages.
Basically, their point is that, the giving of the Old Testament law appears to be so that God’s people can be made right with Him by rule-keeping and good deeds. BUT that’s wrong: “there is nothing in the Law that tells the Israelites that they will receive ultimate salvation if they perfectly keep every aspect of the Law. In fact, the Law itself assumes that the Israelites will fail in keeping it – that’s why the sacrificial system was included… the Law was never intended to give the Israelites a moral ladder they could climb and thereby earn God’s favour by showing what good people they were. Instead, the Law was about maintaining a relationship with God. The Law solved the problem of how a holy God can bind Himself to a sinful people.”
That’s it. The slightest change in understanding that God’s people were never under the ‘saved by works’ kind of faith. The Israelites’ salvation (in a practical way) was already accomplished through the Exodus, and God was renewing and extending His covenant (following on from the one with Abraham) with this nation He called out, this time giving them more specific instructions on how they could continue in relationship with Him as His chosen people.
And it’s HUGE! Because, personally, I struggle with reconciling the freedom that we have in Christ and all the commandments that come up in the Bible; salvation by grace and faith versus salvation by works. But now I realise it’s not about salvation by works at all. Never was. It’s about the relationship. We are redeemed by Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection and have the opportunity to enter into a relationship with God through Him. And so the commandments that Jesus gave, and all the teaching in the New Testament is like the giving of the law in the Old Testament. It’s not about us working our own way to salvation, even though we already have been saved, it’s about us maintaining a relationship with God.
So I don’t need to keep trying harder to be perfect like Jesus. And then become crippled by the weight of guilt when I constantly let Him down. But I can feel upset about how my sinful nature (as highlighted in the New Testament) gets in the way of a relationship with my Father, the God of the Universe, my Lord and redeemer, Jesus Christ, and my comforter, the Holy Spirit as well as everyone else around me. And that my daily, hourly and second-ly sins keep my eyes from looking to Jesus and knowing His love for me so that it naturally overflows in my life to everyone and everything around me. And I can want to change that.
Simple, hey?! But life-changing I believe…
