Good News for All Nations

Paul presents the points of agreement and disagreement with his Judaizing opponents in Galatia – Galatians 2:15-21. What identifies the people of God and determines membership in His covenant community is Christ, especially the Messiah who has been revealed on the Cross. Jews and Gentiles are justified through Jesus and his death,   and nothing else !

Paul argued that adopting the rite of circumcision would constitute regression to something rudimentary, and an earlier stage in the redemptive history of God’s people. If Gentile believers did so, they would be obligated to keep the whole Law, and they could easily find themselves “ severed from Christ ” - (Galatians 5:1-4).

In Romans, references to justification from works have a specific category of works in view, the works required by the Mosaic Law . Sin is the Great Leveler that places everyone in the same predicament: Bondage now, death and wrath later. No one is exempt from the penalty of sin. Death waits for all of us. However, what did Paul mean when he referred to ‘works’ in his discussions about our justification? Good deeds and human efforts, or something more specific?

Religious leaders from Jerusalem began to object to the looseness of Jesus to their Sabbath traditions, but he used the opportunity to show that the “ Son of Man ” is “ Lord ” even over that day. God did cease His creative activities on the seventh day, but its formal establishment as a regulated day on which no work was to be done did not occur until the  Torah  was given through Moses at Mount Sinai (“ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy ”).

Fulfillment  is a key theme in the  Gospel of Matthew . With the arrival of the Messiah, the time of fulfillment began. What were the implications for the Law of Moses? In his ‘ Sermon on the Mount ’, Jesus provides clear answers. He did not come to settle the interpretive disputes between competing Jewish sects over the details of the Law but to  FULFILL  the “ Law and the Prophets .”

The life, words, and deeds of Jesus echo key events from the History of Israel. He brings the things God began in the past to their intended fulfillment. He is the  Greater Lawgiver  foreshadowed in the story of the Exodus from Egypt. By presenting parallels between Moses and Jesus, the  Gospel of Matthew  prepares us for the teachings of Christ, especially as represented in his ‘ Sermon on the Mount ’.