Here Joshua acts in obedience to the command of Moses in
Deuteronomy 11 in setting the blessing on Mt Gerizim and the curse on Mt
Ebal. This was to be done as they take
possession of the Land. He also built
the altar of uncut stones on Mt Ebal that was commanded by Moses. The covenant was renewed as they took
possession of the Land that was promised to them. They are affirming that the Lord has been
faithful and they now must affirm their intention to keep covenant with Him and
to live under His Law which governed their stewardship of the Land. In the beginning, Adam was given commands to
be fruitful and multiple and to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil and stewardship of the entire earth, now, the Lord has a people who
are given that same stewardship of the Word of the Lord and also the Land. They
will do no better than Adam with respect to either of these duties. How are we doing now?
Peter came in and sat with the guards to "see the
end." What did he think would
happen? It would be fascinating to know
what he was thinking here, did he believe that Jesus would be set free or not? The kangaroo court has already reached its
conclusion now it only needs some proof so that it can convict Him. The sentence is established before the crime
in this case but they can't get two false witnesses to tell the same story, a
critical element in any Jewish capital case.
Finally, one comes forward and tells the truth concerning Jesus' words
about the temple even though it is a metaphor.
His innocence is established in this case by the fulfillment of these
words at the resurrection. The same is
true of His words concerning the future with the Son of Man at the right hand
of power. The ultimate defense to the
charge of blasphemy is truth and in Revelation 5 we see that heaven acquits
Jesus of the charge.
In the end, the command to love one another balances
freedom. Does that mean that those who
abstain from something due to conscience rule over freedom? No. We
continue to have our freedom not to abstain if the Lord has granted freedom but
we choose rather not to lead our brother and sister into temptation by
refraining in their presence. If it were
otherwise we would no longer have freedom but tyranny of someone else's
conscience. If the Lord has given
freedom to us then we are not judged for exercising that freedom but we should
take into account how the use of our freedom impacts another and be judicious
in the exercise of our freedom. We are
stewards of freedom.
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