Saturday 5 October 2019

Coming to Terms with the New Testament

Paul's message was not that Jesus died on the cross merely to take away our guilt before Moses' Law so that we could all then become or carry-on being better Observers of Moses' Law. 
No, Paul's message was that the cross brought Moses' Law to an end! Whether someone had been a circumcised Jew or an uncircumcised gentile was no longer of the essence.
Neither did Paul think that the gospel was merely something 'else' God was temporarily doing - mainly for Gentiles - while we wait for God to resume His real program for Israel at some time in the future.
No, Paul saw the gospel as the very fulfilment - the apex - the inauguration - of everything the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures had been anticipating. The real thing. 
Sooner or later we have to face the magnitude of the claim Paul was really making. 
Once we've grasped and accepted the significance which Paul was claiming in the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus, in relation to Israel's story in the Old Testament, it will banish any thought that believers should now become Observant of modern Judaisms; or that God might have some other means at His disposal of saving modern-Israelis other than through believing the gospel before it's too late.
God's plan - for Israel, for everyone - was always ultimately going to be all about JESUS: and that promise has now come to pass. That message is called the gospel.
So that's what our sole focus should be too - as Paul's was - in order for us to be true to the message the New Testament is telling us. 
Focus only and always on the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus the Messiah - no matter where, no matter when, and no matter whom.

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