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Jesus’ message
was clear to them. What He was teaching did not fit
into their religion. Jesus’ teachings were
like the patch or the new wine. What He was teaching
and what He stood for would “rip” and “burst” their
religion. The Pharisees had expanded God’s
law by adding their own rules and regulations. Jesus
had come to restore God’s law and not to destroy
it. The religious leaders were destroying God’s
law. Jesus would radically change their religion.
We are told that the rabbis had put “a
hedge about the law” in order to protect every
Jew from violating the law. That is, they had added
rules and regulations in order to prevent God’s
law from actually being violated. That sounds like
they had good motives in the beginning, and maybe
they did. But in the end their old garment had holes
and their old wineskin had no future. Jesus’ parables
about the garment and wineskin allow us to understand
something about Him.
Conclusion. When Jesus
entered the world on that first Christmas day, the
religious practices of Judaism needed to be replaced.
The Pharisees and Sadducees had distorted and corrupted
God’s law. They had imposed rules upon the
people that God did not require. They ignored God’s
heart and pursued their own desires.
When the religious leaders saw Jesus
repeatedly ignoring their “standards of righteousness,” they
eventually became angry with Him. Their different
views of faith and practice did not mix. The Pharisees
wanted Jesus to change His views. It was okay for
Jesus to teach, heal, and do some wonderful things just
as long as He obeyed their rules and complied with
their teaching.
It is not unusual to find some in the
church and many outside the church who do not care
about God’s view - what He spoke to us in the
Bible. Some years ago, a chairman in a large church
announced that certain teachings of the New Testament
did not apply today. He made this statement because
he did not like a teaching of the Apostle Paul. Everyone
else disagreed with him, but he did not care. In
short, he ignored the Word of God in order to accommodate
his own viewpoint. He changed the meaning of scripture
because he disagreed with it.
A young pastor once strongly argued
with a group of church leaders about a doctrinal
view and eventually persuaded them to change their
view and agree with him. Several years later it was
discovered that the young man did not really believe
what he had argued for. It is common for men and
women to use the Bible to win arguments and yet not
believe what they are proclaiming.
There are many who use the Bible to
support their philosophical, political, or ethical
viewpoints. If we believe that the Bible is the Word
of God - the words that God has communicated to us,
then the goal should be to discover what God has
said and not what we want it to say.
The Pharisees and some today are not
interested in what God has said. They are more interested
in making the Bible say what they want it to say
than in what God said. But when Jesus came, He came
speaking the truth because Jesus was the Light of
men.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (NASB) John 1:4 He came correcting their false teachings. He came
to set us free from sin, to teach us about Himself,
to help us identify false religion and false religious
practices, and to give us eternal life. Jesus did
all of this. God came to give us the truth and not
a distorted view.
When we come to the Bible, we need
to search it carefully. We need to look carefully,
investigating the meaning of the words in the original
language in which it was written in order to discover
what God has said. When we come to the Bible we should
not be seeking support for some philosophical, political,
ethical, or religious viewpoint. Otherwise, we are
just like the Pharisees. Jesus is the way, the truth,
and the life.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (NASB) John 14:6 We will discover the way, truth, and the life in
the studies to come. Our views about the Word of
God do not count unless they agree with what the
God of the Bible has said. May the Lord bless us
as we seek to know His truth.
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