Just As We Are

Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

I can't stop thinking about the sermon this past Sunday.  I don't think it has fully hit me, or ever will for that matter, the power in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that has done for us.  I often can't get my grey matter around the implications of the work of the cross.  Reading what Joshua pointed out last Sunday; the passage is from Acts 15:

"Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith."

Peter is speaking and he is referring to the Gentiles;  you and me, if you aren't of Jewish decent.  And I kept reading this verse and couldn't believe what I was reading.  Wow!  We, a people who never have been able to access God, the Presence, the Holiness, YAHWEH, He who was once only for Jews, only for the elect, is now offered freely to everyone.  Anyone.  He has accepted us, giving us the Holy Spirit, made no distinctions between us and the Jews, purified us by faith.  And this was all made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Before Jesus, this wasn't possible.

And I can't thank God enough for that.  It's like I'm now part of the family.  Before we were looking from the outside in on the party.  Now God opens up the doors and welcomes everyone.  (read Luke 14:15)

And here comes the good part.  Peter continues in Acts 15 by saying this:
"Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."

This is what Josh was talking about last Sunday.  In the early days of the church there was a rumor going around saying, "all the Gentiles have to follow the law that Moses gave if they want to be Christians".  That means a lot of tough stuff...  Like getting foreskins chopped off certain body parts for example.  But Peter, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, realized that this was erroneous.  Because Christ's work on the cross came to give us a new Law.  A law of grace, not of works.  So we don't need to get out the butcher knife and bite the bullet.  Praise God.  Seriously.

It says elsewhere in the Bible:

Heb 8:13
"By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear."

2 Cor 3:6
"He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

Here is the big picture that makes the Cross so incredible.  We can't bear this burden, but Christ already did that.  The Law of Moses kills the soul says 2 Corinthians, but Christ already did that when He died.  The Law of the Prophets is not abolished Jesus says, that would make God a liar, but rather it is fulfilled!  And everything that was written before 33 B.C. (laws like sacrifices and circumcisions and other odd laws) was sealed and buried with the death of Christ.  That part is done.  That part is finished.  But wait!  There is more.  There is a resurrection that happened and with that resurrection comes something new.  Something more powerful.  There is new life in it; a new song; a new law; a new covenant, and it echoes with praise through the heavens and on earth and throughout all of creation in aeternum chanting in chorus, "through the grace of our Lord Jesus we are saved, just as we are."  

Just as we are.

-Eliot