Long ago, in the time of Moses, in Deuteronomy 6 the Lord
had said “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
He reiterates that here in the second half of verse 10, “Before me no
god was formed, nor shall there be any
after me.” The point in this chapter,
however, is slightly different, that not only is there not another god, that He
is also the savior of Israel. He has
always been the savior of the nation, again going back to the time of Moses,
this time to Exodus 20 when He says that this action is the basis for the
commandments, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
Here, He announces that He is preparing to deliver them again from
bondage and to remind them of the history of the relationship, “I, I am the
Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”
We, too, need to sometimes be reminded of this reality. He may make use of human instrumentation to
accomplish His purposes and the person He uses may not even recognize Him as
Lord but however it is accomplished He is savior, not a person, not money, not
anything. Never overlook His work and
never fail to give thanks for it.
Twice here Jesus does things on the Sabbath that seem like
sin to the religious leaders. First, His
disciples take handfuls of grain from the stalks as they pass through a field,
grind it in their palms and extract the edible portions to eat. That is defined in the interpretation of the
Law as work and so cannot be done if one is observing the Law of the
Sabbath. Jesus points to David when he
was on the run from Saul and his men went into the temple and ate of the bread
of the presence which is for priests only.
When He claims to be Lord of Sabbath it is offensive in the utmost to
the leaders. If the claim to forgive
sins was presumptuous, this is truly out there.
Next, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand, and it is determined to be
a trespass as well. Here we see Jesus looking at them with anger because of
their hardness of heart. It was lawful
to do good on the Sabbath, if an animal was stuck in a ditch it was lawful to
get it out. They are failing to see that
if that is lawful then doing good to a fellow man, a Jewish man no less, is
even more good. Their anger was such
that the Pharisees were willing to make common cause with Herodians, those who
had accommodated themselves most to Roman customs and made the least of the
Law, in order to do something about Jesus.
Paul was a man who was fully converted in mind and
spirit. He exalted Jesus so highly
because he knew that for all he had ever gained, whatever he thought he knew
about God or righteousness, in the end he was simply wrong about
everything. He knew that he might have
had knowledge but it had never crossed over to wisdom and understanding. If Jesus hadn’t stopped him and spoken to him
from heaven he would be a man without hope for all his knowledge and standing
in Judaism. His prayer for the Ephesians
was simply that they would know Jesus the way He knew Jesus, that He is
everything or there is no hope for them at all.
He is the Lord, besides Him there is no savior. In Him there is no defect and in Him is all
power and love. Amen and Hallelujah!
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