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Sunday, May 8, 2016

RETALIATE WITH LOVE

If it’s not about Jesus, it’s not about anything.

Motto of the Fountain of Life Church



SPS: This message will explore the Sermon on the Mount and see the New Testament transition from the eye for an eye judgement to the Kingdom of God’s love your enemies.

The Sermon on the Mount, often called the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5 contain the life of the spirit; the life of the kingdom.  Peter said in Acts 15:10 that we cannot perfectly keep the law.  Through grace we begin to keep the beatitudes, but as Peter intimated, as with the law neither can we perfectly keep the beatitudes. 

But the Good News is that Jesus, the first of many brethren, shows us that one day, when we see him as he is (1 John 3:2) we shall keep the law perfectly, because when we see him as he is we will be like him.  

Today on earth it is through grace that the desire to keep the beatitudes enters into our mind.  Tomorrow in the coming Kingdom, when we are like Him, grace completes its work and the beatitudes migrate into our hearts.    

TEACHING ABOUT RETALIATION

Today we live between the Old Testament of yesterday and the coming Kingdom of tomorrow.  This interim period in which we live is the New Testament.   The beatitudes moved us out of the Old Testament law of an eye for an eye.  In fact, Exodus 21:24, the Hebrew concept of an eye for an eye was an improvement over common desert practices that an offense to any one member of the tribe justified destruction of the entire tribe of the offender, without a court or judge to mediate the offense.  These verses in Exodus describe conflicts between people which are brought before the judge for resolution.  Bringing them to the judge makes them legal and makes the punishment equal to the offense.  Jesus begins in vs. 38:   You have heard it said “an eye for an eye.”   Matthew 5: 38 – 48 contains teaching contrasting retaliation toward enemies and love toward enemies.  

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. 25:  Burning for burning, wound for wound, strip for stripe.”   The Romans and Greeks had the same law concept.  The offender must suffer the same injury.  The punishment must meet the crime.  Our own constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. 
  
The Old Testament commandment was meant to moderate vengeance; the punishment should not exceed the injury done.  Jesus changes retaliation in law which is legal and proportionate to the injury into retaliation of love which is free and spiritual.        

Jesus’s life and passion turned Exodus 21 upside down.

Ex 21:23:  Then thou shalt give life for life.  They took His life.
John 19:30:  When Jesus received the vinegar he said, “It is finished. 

When Jesus gave up the ghost he fulfilled the prophesy of Ciaiphas: “It is expedient that one man should die rather than the nation be destroyed.  John 11: 50-51. 

Ex 21:25:  wound for wound, stripe for stripe:   They wounded Him.
Mathew 27:26:  And he sent Jesus to be scourged. 

Ex 21:24:  hand for hand, foot for foot;
Matt 27:35 And they crucified Him.  His hands and feet were affixed to a cross.

Matt 5:38:  whoever smites thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other.
Matt 26:67:  Then they spat in his face and beat him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands.
John 18:22:  And when He had said these things, one of the officers who stood by him said, “Do you answer the high priest like that?” struck Jesus with the palm of his had saying

Matt 5:40:  If any man sue thee at law let him have thy cloak also.
Matt 27:35:  And over his cloak they cast lots.  Psalm 22:18.

Matt 5:41:  Who compels you to go one mile, go the extra mile.
Matt 27:33:  He willingly went to a place named Golgotha.

LOVE OF ENEMIES

The beatitudes radically overturn the law concept that the punishment must meet the crime.  Again Jesus takes the common acceptable attitude and turns it on its ear.

Matt 5:43:  You have heard it said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.”

Actually, there is no command in the Old Testament to hate your enemy.  Jesus knew that.  But men inferred a command to hate God’s enemies which god never commanded.  Hate your enemy was based upon interpretation of scriptures such as Psalm 139:21-22:Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate you?  And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?  I hate them with a perfect hatred:  I count them as my enemies.”   Neighbor was understood in Judea as countrymen.  The Good Samaritan showed that even the concept of neighbor extended far beyond the confines of Judea.   Jesus is turning upside down all of the respected accepted modes of behavior.     

WHAT IS LOVE?

Jesus’ moral appeal in the Beatitudes is grounded upon nothing less than then nature of God the Father in heaven.  "God is love"1 John 4:8. That is His nature – LOVE.  Forget thinking about an ethereal otherworldly spiritual substance or essence which is invisible and passes through walls.  That is not the stuff of God.  The stuff of God is love.  The love which Jesus demonstrates is more than a strong emotion.  Love is not an emotion or a feeling or an attitude.  Love is an action.

I Corinthians 13 is the love chapter.  In it, none of the words for love are nouns.  They are verbs.  What does Matthew say here?  Love your enemies; Bless them who curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.  Love is what love does.  God is what God does.  God loves.

Love them, bless them, pray for them…Who can do this?  No one!  No one except them with the mind of Jesus.  But even then, it is not we who love, but it is god loving thru us because we are one with Him through His vicarious humanity.   

Jesus came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it Matt.  5:17-18.  Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of the law.  He is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament.  The entire Old Testament pointed to a messiah.  The purpose of the Jewish race was to prepare for the coming messiah.   Likewise; the Beatitudes are the fulfillment of the 10 commandments. 

We cannot keep the 10 commandments.  But, the good news is that Jesus kept them perfectly for us.  The good news is that with the Holy Spirit’s help we begin to live them internally, not observe them externally.   

We cannot keep the Beatitudes.  But the good news is that Jesus kept them perfectly for us.  The good news is that with the Holy Spirit’s help we begin to live them internally, not observe them externally. 

Beloved, may the grace and peace of God our Father and that of our Lord Jesus, overflow into and from you.


Asst. Pastor Rev. George Relic (724-583-9217)
The Fountain of Life Church
2101 Old National Pike
Washington, PA 15301
A congregation of Grace Communion International

FOL Broadcast on RKP Radio – recorded 5/5/16 in FOL studios.


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