Canonical Course Corrections

The canon of Scripture that Jesus read and studied from is often referred to as the Old Testament. The canonical books that made up that testament are the Scriptures that Jesus was taught and studied from the time he was a child. When Jesus selects or makes some course corrections in his use of the biblical material, he is not doing anything different than what earlier Rabbis and prophets did in utilizing Scripture to one’s present circumstances.

          The Ten Commandments are actually listed in three places (Duet.5:6-21; Ex.20:2-17; 34:12-26). Progressive revelation of God’s Word is always putting new light onto new situations and one will see some slight variations in these three lists because the Jewish people are dealing with social changes when it came to new forms of idolatry, Jewish holidays, and agricultural changes. God’s Word is not static or unmoving but changes and accommodates people with their changing circumstances because God’s Word is a living document and not a dead fossil.

          God’s commandments and laws change over time to accommodate people where they are at in the moment of history. Israelites are told they can have slaves (Ex.21:2-11; Duet.15:12-18) but they are told in Leviticus 25:39-43 that they are not to have slaves because they were once an enslaved people themselves.

 What about worship and sacrifices? Deut.12:13-14 and Lev.17:1-8 spells out clearly that the only place to offer God sacrifices is in the sanctuary. Exodus 20:24-26 says you can make alters of stone and do sacrifices any where on God’s good earth.1 Then the later prophets come along and they say God does not want sacrifices at all but desires mercy (Hosea 6:6 & Micah 6:6-8). Jesus later affirms Hosea and Micah and not the earlier revelation in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7. God’s progressive revelation is fully expressed in Jesus God’s holy Son.

And the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one wife for any cause?’ He answered, Have you not read that he who created them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and ‘the two shall become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’

They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives,     but from the beginning it was not so    (Matthew 19:3-8).

The Pharisees quoted Deuteronomy 24:1-4 which is in the larger context of all the laws that God had given Moses to instruct his people (Deut.1:3). The Pharisees question was not just why did Moses say but as good biblicists, they knew the law came straight from heaven from God to Moses and then to the people. One could ask, then why did God tell Moses to say it?

          What is both shocking and surprising is Jesus undercuts this teaching by saying that the only reason God allowed this at this time was because of the hardness of men’s hearts. Understand, women could not divorce a husband and men were the only one who could file charges against their wives. There were many abuses going on so God gives a concession at this time and tries to limit the scope of abuse that was going on in that particular time. What sounds like God’s eternal Word is actually an accommodation to people of that particular time but this was never God’s eternal will. God hates divorce as Malachi 2:16 says (in some translations) because it does damage and harm to the whole family.

If we take Jesus words to heart and apply them to other difficult situations in the Bible, one could say, why genocide or polygamy or slavery or violence in the Old Testament? Jesus answer is not that God wants or even causes these things to happen but it is because of the hardness of our hearts that such things like these exist. The problem is not the Bible or God but us! How we read and misapply God’s Word. How we end up supporting the very things God actually hates.

          The Sadducees who don’t even believe in the resurrection of the dead try to trap Jesus who more followed the teachings of the Pharisees who did believe in the resurrection of the dead. They make up this ridiculous “what if” story of a woman who marries seven different brothers and ask, ‘whose wife will she be in heaven?’ Don’t you love these kinds of “Gotcha!” questions that people like to throw at followers of Christ? Jesus rebukes them for neither knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God (Matt.22:29). How well do I really know the Scriptures? Do I ever limit the power of God?

            Jesus goes on to reply to the Sadducees that in the resurrection, there is no marriage but people will be like the angels (Matt.22:30). Many people have taken Jesus statements here to mean that no one will be married in heaven, and even the strange teachings I’ve heard by the older generation that people will not even know their wives or husbands in heaven as if that would be a good thing? The issue here is not that nobody s married but everyone is married to Jesus in heaven. Jesus is the bridegroom and the community of faith is Jesus bride. 

          Here comes the big punch-line for Jesus in verses 31-32.  Jesus says,

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not God of the dead, but of the living.’

Mark 12:18-27 says something similar to Matthews account. Here two gospel writers quote Exodus 3:6 where God introduces himself to Moses at the burning bush and tells Moses his name. But how does one go from that Old Testament story to the cryptic God of the living and the dead is some kind of hidden code for “I will raise the dead?” We need to at least be honest that the deeper meanings of Scripture and their original contexts are not as important as the full meaning that Jesus and his disciples give to the Hebrew Bible. Christ is the key to unlocking all the mysteries of Holy Scripture and he is also the doorway into the deeper dimensions of God’s glorious kingdom.

          Probably one of the most often quoted Old Testament Scripture in the New Testament canon is Psalm 118:22-23. It is quoted several times in the gospels and even by the Apostle Peter (Matt.21:42; Mk.12:10; Lk.20:17; Act 4:6; 1 Pet.2:7). Is Jesus marvelous to our eyes or is he somehow obscured and hidden away by other ancient texts of Scripture? If Jesus is our rock and refuge, why do so many people act like it is the written word that is their rock and refuge rather than the Living Word Jesus? Do we stumble and trip over some of these difficult hard passages in the Old Testament or are we liberated like Jesus to view them through the lens of Christ and him crucified and resurrected and ascended?

          When I read the Scriptures with a Christ-centered focus of seeing the God of both testaments through the eyes of Jesus, it is almost too marvelous to behold. God in Christ is doing more than we can ever imagine or hope for. I love the way Keith Giles says it,

But When Jesus arrived that Word took on flesh and blood; that Word laughed out loud and cried tears of sorrow and joy; that Word breathed and sang and taught and healed and came alive like never before in history (Jesus Unbound, p.33).