Jesus, the Word

By Gaye Stradwick

Have you read the descriptions in Paul's Epistles of who you are in Christ and what he has done for you, and felt your spirit leap within you?

And have you also read some of the words of Jesus in the Gospels and felt a bit flat and overwhelmed by the standard he sets?

The reason is Paul's Epistles were written to you! But the words of Jesus were written to people under the Mosaic law.

But even then, Jesus was not just saying "the law sets one standard and I am setting an even higher one"...

but by sometimes contradicting and the law and sometimes lifting the bar higher, he was saying “This is who I am! This is the authority that has been given to me by my Father! I transcend the law - this covenant law and every other law! I am the way, the truth and the life!"

He was saying you no longer have the promise of a Saviour in your written law - here I am in the flesh - I have authority over all law! Matt. 28;18 "All authority (all power of rule) has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." Amp.

Not only the law was fulfilled when Jesus came, the promised Saviour had come!

He brought a new commandment, a new law - the law of love!

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another."

Everything in the old law that did not align with this was now done away with! The Mosaic law had to align with the law of love!

Today, Christians need to learn the same lesson as those Jewish folk had to learn 2,000 years ago. John 5:39: "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life."

Jesus clearly said that he was over every commandment and written law. Yet today we take fragments of New Testament Scripture and make them into rules and laws. Once again now, we often look for life and security by making a neat package of rules and regulations from words written to people 2,000 odd years ago, who lived in a different world. And not only do we live by rules ourselves, we hold our brothers and sisters to them as well!

How different would what we have today look if we really lived by the over-arching revelation of love in the person of Jesus Christ - and by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God -instead of rigid rule keeping, and beating each other over the head with those rules.