When the Lord announces His judgment against His people is
over He says “for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the
unclean.” Does that mean that literally
these will no longer come into the city or does it refer to two things, that it
will never be conquered by such and that those who come will do so as having
been cleansed? In Revelation 22 we hear,
“Outside (the city) are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and
murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” Those who come into the city “are those who
wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that
they may enter the city by the gates.”
The “good news” that is announced is that the time of redemption is
here, the Lord is restoring His people and all the world, the uncircumcised and
unclean, will see this great salvation and they will know that it is Israel’s
God who has done this and who is high above all gods. He receives glory and they receive the
benefit of being His people.
Some of these people have come from far away and they cannot
return to their homes without fainting for they have no provisions for the
journey they took to follow Jesus. It is
their faith and their panting after Him that has led them to this place and not
a journey of their own design and for this reason Jesus has compassion on them. The place is described by the disciples as a
“desolate place” which must mean that they are far from any place to procure
provisions for feeding them, there is no hope to feed such a crowd. In the wilderness in the exodus was such a
time and place and there God provided manna and meat for the people. Here, Jesus takes the offering of the people,
a few loaves and small fish, offers them in thanks to the Father, and then sets
them before the crowd in what must have looked a ridiculous idea, and all are
fed. No one else may have had faith but
Jesus did and that was enough. As the
writer of Hebrews said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.”
Paul is perplexed about the Galatians. They have abandoned the faith he preached to
them and have now adopted a works mentality. He knew how fortuitous it was that he preached
the Gospel to them at all, it was because of an ailment that Paul was detained
in Galatia rather than a plan he conceived.
At that time, the people were so delighted by the good news and the one
who preached it that they would have done anything for him, even gouging out
their own eyes, which leads us to believe that this must have been a problem
with his eyes in the first place. Since
they received the news of justification by faith alone with such joy, why now
have they received something else, works based, as the Gospel. We all have a tendency to believe faith and
live works and need to be reminded that one is good news, the other
hopelessness. Rejoice in the Gospel
today!
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