Balaam couldn’t leave it at blessing Israel. He had to finish by cursing his own king and
the other nations round about. Israel would
triumph gloriously over all these kings, would decimate the nations and have
the blessing of God. Wouldn't you think
then that Balaam would have a decent reputation and name in Israel? He doesn't.
If you look forward to Numbers 31 you will see that he was somehow
involved in a sad incident in Israel's history, inciting them to commit
adultery with the Baal of Peor by sending Moabite women to marry them and lead
them astray. We see him killed in that same
chapter. He is also mentioned in 1
Peter, Jude and Revelation as a wicked prophet for hire who was despised by the
nation. Apparently his fear of the Lord
didn't last much longer than this scene we have seen this week.
Both church "parties", the Sadducees and the
Pharisees come to test Jesus in their own ways.
The Sadducees don't believe in the resurrection from the dead (to share
a cringe-worthy pun, that's why they're so sad you see) so they pose the
question regarding who is married to the woman in the resurrection when she was
married to all these brothers in this life.
They have the resurrection wrong, this life isn't an analog for the next
in every way. We won't be given the command
to be fruitful and multiply in that life so the issue of marriage is a moot
point. Further, to use the present tense
of the verb and say that God is God of three men long dead is to be a complete
literalist with respect to the Bible.
Jesus affirms even the verb tense as significant and also important to
understanding the truth of the Word. He
has a higher view of Scripture than even the Pharisees whom Matthew tells us
are astounded by Jesus' shutting up the Sadducees. Their question is one that was normal at the
time, attempting to reduce the 613 laws to their essence. Jesus says we have two essential duties, love
God with all your being, specifically with your heart, emotionally, with your
soul, the essence of your being, and your mind, the intellect. Also, whatever love you have remaining is to
be expended in loving your neighbor as you love yourself, in other words, those
created in the image of God. All the
rest of the laws hang on these two.
What will it look like when the earth is renewed and there
is no sin, God's people are fully revealed in the glory He intended for us to
have? The earth itself, Paul says,
groans in anticipation of that day. The earth
too participated in the fall because of human sin. It no longer fully cooperates with our
stewardship activities. The planet has
remarkable properties of recovery and yet I wonder how long it can continue to
revive and regenerate itself with all the damage we do to it. He loved not only those created in His image
but also the world He created and gave it to us as a gift. Do we long with all our hearts to see both
God and those created in His image as well as the earth as He saw it that first
day when He said it was all very good?
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