The Law and the Lawless

Series on Luke

IV The Imperatives of the Kingdom

B Instruction in Rejection

17 Sneering at Jesus

Text: 16:14-18

Introduction

The Pharisees certainly appeared to be law abiding citizens on the outside, but within, where God alone could see, they were lawless. In the preceding Scripture we have a parable which confronted their idolatrous covetousness and it is stated in verse 14, The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. In the parable which follows we have the story of a rich man who ended in hell and a beggar who ended in heaven which is also intended to spotlight the Pharisees greed. They were outwardly law abiding, but inwardly lawless. One might wonder why our Lord picked on the Pharisees so much. They were his primary opponents, but we should understand that those who oppose him today are no different. The Pharisees were representative of sinful mankind. The verdict on them is the verdict on us all. How does Jesus address their attitude? He tells them three things. They need a new outlook, a new opportunity and a new obedience.

I A New Outlook

The outlook of the Pharisees was superficial as Jesus describes it in verse 15, He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight. They thought their prosperity guaranteed that God loved them. They made a show of their alms and offerings to charity. Remember the Pharisee who stood on the street corner and said, “I thank you God that i am not like other men, I pray, I fast, I give alms,” while the tax collector smote his breast and cried out, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus said which one was justified? Certainly not the one who pointed to his good deeds, because the truth is that their deeds weren’t so good. Their attitude toward Jesus here was condescending. What are this poor Galilean peasant and his fisherman friends doing trying to teach us? They despised them, and to their own families they did worse. Instead of taking care of their feeble and needy parents they claimed the money was Corban, that is, dedicated to God, Yet they had no intention of giving it to God. Jesus accuses them directly of this in Mark 7. Most people saw only the ostentatious placing of money in the offering plate, but God saw what they were really like. They needed what the poet Bobby Burns wrote, “O the grace that God would gie us to see ourselves as others see us.” God saw them as idolators in the heart. Men are the same today, all men. Money can buy medicine but not health, food but not an appetite, a bed but not sleep, a crucifix but not a Savior and still men inwardly worship it while they outwardly wear a cloak of piety. You’ve heard it said money never made anybody happy. I tell you that money never made anybody rich, but a new outlook will. O to see our need so that we can take advantage of a new opportunity which Jesus offers.

II A New Opportunity

Our Lord next reminds the Pharisees of the new time of fulfillment which has come in verse 16, “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist, that is the stage of preparation, but when John came he said, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That is the day of fulfillment, the new order. Remember Jesus taught his disciples in Luke 24, after his resurrection, that all things written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning Himself must be fulfilled. That time was upon them and it was the pivotal point of history and also a time when all the old failures could be gathered up and washed away by the grace of God. In order for this to happen men had to change. That is there had to be a violent upheaval associated with their faith. An upheaval which overthrew the old ways of thinking. Remember Jesus said to Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, You must be born again. He also advised people that they must take up their cross, deny themselves and die to the old ways. He also said it is hard, difficult, and requires strenuous effort to choose the narrow way. All of these things point to the radical nature of following Jesus. The law and the prophets prophesied it, John the Baptist prepared the way for it, but now one could seize it, gain it, take it, participate in it. This new opportunity was so radical that many of them would be unwilling to face their need. The fact is that this new stage of the kingdom culminated in Jesus death on the cross and the empty tomb. This meant that the grace and forgiveness of God was being revealed not only in an unparalleled way, but in a final full way which demanded a decision, a violent overthrow, a conversion. To refuse was to pass up the only chance at life, but to experience it was to know the love of God in its fullest sense. This might lead some people to conclude that they could just forget the law and the prophets. They might reason that the grace was so great, the love so wonderful, and the forgiveness so special that it wouldn’t matter what they did. But this was exactly the mistake that Israel had made in the past and so Jesus speaks of new obedience.

III A New Obedience

As we read verses 17 and 18 we hear Jesus speak of the new obedience, It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law. “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. The law still stood. it could not save, only Jesus could do that, but it was God’s law, the eternal verity, the unchangeable truth. So Jesus says all will be fulfilled. Not just the books, not just the pages or paragraphs, not just the sentences or words, or letters, but down to the tiniest little mark, a jot or tittle, something about the size of an apostrophe or a comma, all will be fulfilled. And he illustrates by a commandment from the law concerning marriage. There is much more complete teaching on the subject of marriage and divorce elsewhere, but the point here is that the Jews not only broke this commandment but they treated it with utter disdain. The Pharisees allowed divorce for the most trifling of matters and then only to the husband not to the wife. A man could divorce his wife for talking about the in-laws, burning the food, being less attractive and all by a simple written statement. The point Jesus is making is that if we undergo the radical change, the conversion to following Him, then we will change our attitude toward the law. We will recognize its wisdom, and delight in its precepts. The grace and forgiveness of God, far from freeing us from the law, binds us to it. It produces a new obedience born out of that grace. We are not saved by keeping the law, but we are radically committed to a new obedience.

Conclusion

If the Pharisees are an example of what men in general are like, then what they needed is what we need. We need a new outlook. We must see ourselves as God sees us, pitiful and degraded sinners. We need a new opportunity. The gospel of a crucified Savior meets that need but demands that we throw away everything else and cling to Jesus alone. It is radical, and it leads to a new obedience where from the heart we resolve that nothing is more important than to obey God’s commands. The trouble with a lot of Christians today, just as with the Pharisees, is that we want the gift but we don’t want to be obligated especially to that penniless Galilean.