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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“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 their way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.”

Luke 16:16-17

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the experts and teachers of Jewish law believed that God’s defining work of salvation was a one part play. That play would have run from the advent of creation, through Abraham, David, and finally to the Messiah who was coming to deliver them and them alone. As we see in the Gospels, they were still waiting for the final act of their play to begin but there were only two problems.

They misunderstood the way God’s defining work of salvation would play out and, because of this misunderstanding, they had not recognized that their Messiah had already come. All this after the law and the prophets had clearly foretold what would come and indeed those foretellings had already come to be as we see Jesus addressing the Pharisees and His disciples in today’s passage from Luke 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 their way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.”  Luke 16:16-17

God’s defining work of salvation was a two part play. Jesus makes it clear. Our Bibles do as well.

It started with everything the Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers and experts of the law believed, with the Law and the Prophets and all that was proclaimed up to the coming of John. This was the first covenant, the covenant that would be labeled the old covenant once Jesus, the Messiah, arrived on the scene. And since a parallel word for covenant is testament, we get the Old Testament in our Bibles.

So what did the Prophets have to say about the defining moment when a new covenant, a new testament, would burst on the scene? Look at these words from Isaiah:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:1-5

Of course, Isaiah was speaking of none other than John the Baptist and we know this because we see the Old Testament and New Testament connected through the words of Matthew and John Himself:

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:”

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” Matthew 3:1-3

“Finally they (the Pharisees) said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” John 1:22-23

Before the Messiah would come, there would be a messenger who would proclaim His coming. The prophet Isaiah predicted it. John himself declared himself as that messenger, the one who would bridge from the old to the new.

And this is exactly what happened.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’ I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.”

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on Him.”

And I myself did not know Him, but the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” John 1:29-34

God’s chosen One, His one and only Son Jesus, had come from heaven to earth, the Messiah who had come to bring salvation not just to the Jews but the Gentiles as well. The Savior who came to make all things new, to change the future of mankind forever, had come, ushering a new covenant, a new testament with Him. And as He preached and taught the good news of the Gospel He was bringing, multitudes were believing and finding eternal life through their blessed Redeemer.

Old and new. Connected.

We can never just become a New Testament church because by excluding the Law and the Prophets, we contradict their importance, an importance declared by Jesus Himself.

“It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.”

Further, He would say this during His first major instructional event, the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17

The word of God is the greatest book ever written for no other book has ever given us a view of humanity from beginning to end, from advent to either damnation or salvation, a grand two part opus on mankind, each part representing a covenant between God and His people, the parts connected by the coming of His Son Jesus, the Messiah and Savior of the world.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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