DON’T SHOOT THE POSTMAN

by adam harbinson

 

The only difference between the Pharisees of Jesus’ day and our 21st century version is 2,000 years, that’s all. Jesus always seemed to be angry with them, although he loved them; and they were angry with him, but there was no love in their hearts. And the reason was that the message he brought, cut the ground from under their feet, and placed them on the same level as the common people. The message of his gospel was simple; he came to fulfil the law because they couldn’t, and so they didn’t have to, but that made them the same as everybody else. Therefore, they risked losing their status, so they rejected him, had him crucified, and embraced an obsolete system of law in his place (Hebrews 8).

So, am I saying that there are Christians around today who are like that? Well I’m not sure, but there are certainly a lot of Pharisees around, for the Bible makes it very clear that the law cannot make anyone righteous, and yet you and I know that there are many who insist on sitting in the ‘seat of Moses’, symbolic of the law, just like their namesakes of 2,000 years ago (Matthew 23).

Now of course they’re entitled to do that if they wish, although it’s my Christian duty to remind them of what Paul the apostle said, ‘If you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been alienated from Christ!’ (Galatians 5).

But as I say, that’s their prerogative; however, I do feel a certain pity because like their brothers of long ago, their lives are characterised by conflict and contradiction. But I have to be honest and say that I do feel a bit saddened at times. For example, it was Paul again who wrote, ‘We are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7). But I find when I proclaim the liberating truth of that statement I get shouted at and called names! I feel want to say, ‘If you’ve a problem, take it up with Paul! Please don’t shoot the postman because the letter he brings doesn’t suit your theology!’

But it makes the point, doesn’t it? They have exactly the same problem as the Pharisees; the freedom promoted by Jesus and Paul undermines the very essence of who they are, for if God sees us all alike, loves us all equally, clothed as we are in Jesus’ righteous robes, then all their sacrificing and all their self-imposed squeaky-cleanness are in vain.  

Almost gleefully they proclaim, ‘Sin never goes unpunished,’ but can you imagine the anguish in the hearts of those who truly believe that stuff? For they’re the same people who in, perhaps false humility, acknowledge that the human heart is, ‘…deceitful and desperately wicked.’ I readily accept that sin must be punished, but what sort of a god is the god of the Pharisees who punished Jesus for their sins and then has a go at them as well? Doesn’t make a lot of sense, now does it?

The truth of the gospel is supremely simple, and here it is; ‘The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ… but now that Christ has come we are no longer under a schoolmaster (Galatians 3).

So the choice is clear, a life of freedom in love with Christ, or a life of drudgery under the rod of a schoolmaster.