Zach’s Theological Musings

Mark 12:28-34:

  One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”

  Jesus answered, “The foremost is, “HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’  The second is this, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

  The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM; AND TO LOVE HIM WITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THE UNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH, AND TO LOVE ONE’S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

  When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.

  This is one example of what I’m talking about when I say that I feel evangelical Christianity is sometimes uncomfortable with the gospel in the gospels. How could Jesus say to this scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” following a discussion about the greatest commandments in the Law? Wouldn’t it have been better evangelical theology for Jesus to have said, “Repent of your sins, trust in my substitutionary sacrifice which is coming soon, and you will certainly be a son of the kingdom”? But that’s not what He said. And whatever God does say is certainly more fitting for the moment than what any person thinks God should have said.

  I do not believe that Jesus here was teaching that salvation comes through a man’s own efforts to fulfill the Law. On the other hand I don’t think that Jesus was teaching salvation by grace through faith either! One interpretive error that evangelical Christians can make is when we try to force everything in the Bible into the “faith vs. works” dichotomy. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that when a man put faith in Christ’s righteous life, Christ’s death in our place, and Christ’s victorious resurrection, such a man is declared righteous in God’s sight without regard to his record of sinful living (for that record is washed away at that moment). Hallelujah! But what God wants us to know and love about Him and what He has done for us consists of more than just the fact that His gift is received by faith rather than works, as important as that fact is.

  Take the above passage. The Pharisees, like all Jews, were (supposedly) anxiously awaiting Messiah and His kingdom. But when He came they missed Him. They didn’t merely ‘miss’ Him; they rejected, humiliated, tortured, and killed Him. Why? In large part because the kind of kingdom they were looking for wasn’t what Christ’s kingdom is like. That’s why Jesus spent so much time talking about, and demonstrating, what His kingdom IS like.

  The kingdom of God is where God’s rule is joyfully recognized. God always rules, everywhere. But His rule is generally spurned by man. Where there is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, that’s the kingdom of God! (Don’t you want to be a part of the kingdom?)

  I think the Pharisees would have agreed with this, in the sense that they were looking for a kingdom in which God’s rule, God’s Law, would be fulfilled. Their problem was that they totally misunderstood and misrepresented God’s Law. (I’ll have to expand on that statement in a subsequent post.) Jesus wasn’t fulfilling the “law”, i.e. traditions, they had made up, and therefore they assumed He couldn’t be the one to usher in God’s kingdom.

  But if you, like the scribe in Mark 12:28, can see that God’s Law is summarized in the command to love God and love your neighbor then when you look at Jesus you will see the perfect, joyful fulfillment of God’s Law. In other words, you will see the kingdom. At least one major reason this scribe was close to the kingdom was because he knew what to look for. He knew what the kingdom should be like.

  If someone is looking for the wrong kingdom, then telling them that “faith not works” is the way to enter the kingdom does them no good. There are many people today who are exercising “faith not works” to receive a “gospel message”, but it is a false gospel. If you have “received Jesus by faith”, and what that means to you is that you have trusted Jesus to give you a comfortable, prosperous, suffering-free life, then you are still dead in your sins and you are barreling down a path toward eternal suffering in hell.

  Biblical Christians needs to declare to the world not only how to enter the kingdom of God, but what that kingdom is like, lest people think we are inviting them into the kingdom of their own imaginations. And, as I’ve said before, when it comes to showing what the kingdom of God is truly like, the four gospels really shine. And Romans does too! And Exodus, Genesis, Daniel… Hallelujah! Praise God for His kingdom in which His glory lighting up the skies is our greatest delight, and in which all mankind loves one another as their own flesh.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Law, Mark, Kingdom of God, New Testament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.