40 Love & Adultery

Matthew 5:27-30

Matthew 5:27-30, ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Anger and sex are two very powerful things. They really reach deep down into human experience. They aptly illustrate the sinfulness of man. In fact, I doubt whether there are any two illustrations that are more apt than these two to really cut us to the very core.

We have all experienced the temptations of anger and lust, very common, and they reach deep into the basic sinfulness of man. You can always invent a system that you can live up to and then convince yourself you are righteous. They could avoid committing adultery, but they couldn’t do anything about their secret life.

The religious leaders missed the whole point of the Old Testament. When God gave the commandment saying that you don’t murder or don’t commit adultery, He was talking about far more than the deed itself. Exactly that is what Jesus wants them to understand.

The basic revelation of God’s message to man came through Moses. The Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, are basically the heart, the centre, the core of the Old Testament. The prophets and the writings that follow the Mosaic writings are simply explanations, commentaries, elaborations of what is contained in the law of Moses.

Many times, as we read through the prophets, we find the prophets accusing the people because they didn’t keep the Law of Moses. The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible set the pace. The gospel of Moses, the gospel of God given through Moses.

The rest of the Old Testament elaborates on the Pentateuch. It elaborates on that law of God, that set of standards which God laid down through Moses.

• God gives the basic definitions of what He requires through Moses.
• God elaborates on it in the law and the prophets.
• God consummates it in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ comes not to change anything, but to clear up the issue that the law, the gospel of Moses hasn’t changed. Now, the essence or the heart of the gospel of Moses is found in the Book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is the 5th and last of the five books of Moses, and in this book, we have a summary of the law of God.

Deuteronomy is the most important book in the Old Testament.

“Deuteronomy” is coming from two Greek words. ‘Deutero’ meaning “second” and ‘Nomos’ meaning “law.” It is the “second law.” It is the reiteration of the law given by God. It is the summation. As the book of Deuteronomy opens, the people are ready to enter the promised land.

They are about to go into Canaan. They have been delivered from bondage in Egypt. They are God’s people. They have been identified as God’s people and now they are going to take their land. They are going to take the possession of the land God gave them.

Now as they move into the land, God reminds them of all they need to know. So, we have here the summarization of all the gospel of Moses, of all the standards for living in God’s kingdom. In the Book of Deuteronomy, even the ten commandments are repeated in the 5th chapter of Deuteronomy.

Jesus quoted Deuteronomy more than He quoted any other Old Testament book.

The New Testament writers quote Deuteronomy more than they quote any other Old Testament book. It is the summarization of the whole Old Testament because all that comes after Deuteronomy comments on the Pentateuch, and Deuteronomy is the summary of the Pentateuch.

The summary of the entire Old Testament is in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

We have the consummation of all of God’s truth. Jesus quoted the same.

Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

The law is what’s in front of Deuteronomy, the prophets what comes after, and the whole thing hinges right here.

As we go to the Old Testament, we find the key is in the Pentateuch. As we look at the Pentateuch, the key is in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 6:5, is the key.

The Old Testament is not building a relationship on law. It is building a relationship on Love. People do not understand this. They think the Old Testament was based on law, but it is not! It is based on love. It is a relationship that God is after. Love is the key to a relation to God.

Throughout the book of Deuteronomy God continues to say, “I want you to love Me. I want a heart commitment. I want a heart devotion. I want a wholehearted kind of genuine affection for Me.” Moses, throughout Deuteronomy over, and over, he says to the people as they enter the land, “You must love the Lord.”

Why? Because it is a relationship of love that God has always sought with man, always.

Before God ever gave the law as we know it, the ten commandments, and all the other statutes and commandments He established a relationship with Israel. God first loved Israel. Because God loved Israel,

• He called Israel out of Egypt.
• He saved Israel.
• He redeemed Israel.

It was only after the loving relationship and redemption that He gave them the law. The law was not the cause of the relationship. It was the result of it. It is the relationship God was after. We must understand this very clearly!

God’s love had been exhibited to generations earlier when they were freed from Egypt, and God had redeemed them. God had saved them. God had made them His people because they had a relationship, He then said, “This is how you live.”

The New Testament says the same thing, the gospel of Moses, the gospel of Jesus, the gospel of Paul, the gospel of Peter, the gospel of James, and the gospel of John are all identical. We love Him because He first loved us.

God loved Israel. That’s how it all began. God loved us. That’s how it all began. We had a relationship of love, and then we had a response of obedience to His law.

Deuteronomy 7:6-9, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. 7 The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; Moses is saying that you are going into the land and I want you to remember this one thing, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.’ ”

It is not that God wanted them to keep a bunch of external laws. It is that God wanted them to love Him on the inside.

That is why Jesus says it isn’t an issue that you don’t murder and commit adultery. The issue is what is in your heart!

Deuteronomy 10:12-13, “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?

This is no different than the gospels. This is no different than Paul. Exactly this is what the New Testament says. Love God and do what He says.

1 John 2:4, He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

The love comes first, and then the obedience. It is a relationship, and that’s what God talks about all the way through this passage.

Deuteronomy 10:19-20, Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.

Deuteronomy 11:1, “Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.

God is after the love, nothing else. The key verse.

Deuteronomy 10:16, Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. Your heart!

God is after you heart! God was always after a heart relationship, always after a heart attitude. Never, never was He satisfied with something external. It was love from the heart. The sum of it all in the first 11 chapters of Deuteronomy.

First 11 chapters summary

Love God and love your neighbour. That is what God requires of you. Exactly this is what Jesus said in the New Testament. Exactly this is what the Epistles say, love the Lord, love Him so that you are obedient, love one another.

Same message and nothing different.

Deuteronomy chapters 12 through 26, Moses interprets and applies these two basic principles. He then takes the principle of loving God and the principle of loving your neighbour and applies them to every daily situation, to every kind of living matter, to everything that goes on in life. He does that all the way through chapter 26.

When he comes to chapter 26, he decides that having said all of this, to love God and love your neighbour, having done that he decides that he will have a great big service of dedication. So, Moses gets everybody together in chapter 26.

• They confess their sins,
• They dedicate their lives, a
• They reaffirm their love to God,
• They renew their heart commitment to the Lord.

Chapter 26 is a time for their hearts to be given to the Lord, a time of great praise, a time of worship, a time when they acknowledge that God will be served from their hearts. So, they will be obedient.

Deuteronomy 26:16, “This day the Lord your God commands you to observe these statutes and judgments; therefore you shall be careful to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.

This is the key. It is that heart that He was after, and that was the sum of it all. Chapter 27, Moses tells them that when they get into the land by Joshua. He is going to take you in the land, and when you get there, I want you to do this first. When you arrive in the land, get all together again and renew this same commitment, that you will love the Lord and you will love each other.

Renew it when you get in the land.

Deuteronomy 27:9-10, “Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel, saying, “Take heed and listen, O Israel: This day you have become the people of the Lord your God. 10 Therefore you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God, and observe His commandments and His statutes which I command you today.” Chapter ²⁸ Moses tells them that they have two choices.

• You can be blessed or
• You can be cursed.

First 14 verses blessed. Next 54 verses cursed. Moses was offering them two options.

When you get in the land, and you choose to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and you choose to love your neighbour you will be Blessed. When you get in the land, and you choose not to love the Lord your God, you choose not to love your neighbour you will be cursed.

Moses was offering them these two possibilities

• The way of blessing and
• The way of cursing.

29th chapter, he appeals to them to decide. He calls upon them to decide, to make a commitment, to choose what they will do. Goes from chapter 29 into chapter 30.

Deuteronomy 30:11-14, ““For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

In other words, you have a choice to make, and the information is there. You have enough information to make a choice. You can choose blessing, or you can choose cursing. You can choose to love God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself, or not to do that.

But don’t complain that you didn’t have the information. Don’t say that you never had it available.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, 16 in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; 20 that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

What is the choice? V 20. Here is the sum of the whole Old Testament. Love God. That’s the choice. God has always wanted a heart relationship. Somebody in the Old Testament who just mechanically kept the ten commandments didn’t fulfil the plan of God. The ten commandments were only given to regulate a relationship that was based on love.

If the love relationship wasn’t there, the regulation didn’t mean anything. That’s the point. Deuteronomy chapters 31 to 34, provide for the transfer of leadership from Moses to Joshua. The centrality of God’s concern is the heart, and it is not the externals.

It never was with Moses, and it isn’t with us. But the Pharisees were satisfied with the externals, and thus they had missed the point. That is why Jesus said, “You have heard it said - But I say unto you.”

They were messing around the outside, and God is concerned with the inside. It is a relationship of love that God wants, and the law only regulates it, just as the standards of the New Testament regulate a new covenant relationship with the Lord.

When you come to the New Testament in the Book of Matthew, you hear our Lord reiterating the same thing that comes out of Deuteronomy.

Matthew 22:37-40, is taken from the book of Deuteronomy 6:5 and 10:19

What Jesus is saying there in Matthew 22 is this. I don’t care what your functions are, performances are, if you don’t love God and love your neighbour, you have missed the point. That is why Jesus could say to the rich young ruler. It is wonderful that you have kept all the commandments from your youth, but you know what you haven’t done?

Jesus said to him is, “Go sell all you have and give it to the poor.” Why? Because you have not manifested a right heart attitude because you did not love your neighbour. Which betrayed the fact that while there was an external behaviour, there was nothing going on inside. It was hypocritical.

So, this is God’s divine internal standard that no one could keep. In the Old Testament, God put this standard. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.” The people in the Old Testament would say, “That is God’s standard, we can’t keep that standard.”

That is exactly what He wanted them to say.

If you can’t keep the standard, what happens?

• You get guilty,
• you get convicted,
• you get to feeling sinful.
• God didn’t just leave them in the sense of conviction.
• God didn’t leave them just boggled by their own sinfulness.
• God didn’t just leave them frustrated with guilt.
• God gave them not only the standards, but He gave them a system to deal with their inability to keep it.

God gave them the sacrificial system. The sacrificial system was given by God in order to give man a way to deal with his inabilities.

When a man said or a woman, “I can’t keep the law of God and I am overwhelmed with my sin.” God said, “Then confess your sin to Me, and prove the genuineness of that confession by an act of sacrifice.” The sacrificial system didn’t make men right with God. It simply pointed out that only God could make them right with Him. It pointed out they needed a sacrifice. It pointed out their inabilities.

God gave a standard. The standard was a relationship of love. Men couldn’t fulfil all that that standard required. They were guilty and convicted of sin. In order to deal with that, God provided a sacrificial system. The sacrificial system was itself futile. The sacrificial system never gave a lasting peace. The sacrificial system never really relieved the guilt.

It pointed to the fact that there had to be someday, someplace, some way a full, and final, and ultimate sacrifice that would once and for all do away with this sin.

The whole thing pointed to whom? Jesus Christ.

Therefore, the gospel of Moses was the gospel of Christ. Moses presents a standard of loving relationship that a man in his evil heart can’t fulfil. Convicted of his inability to fulfil it, he gives sacrifices out of a contrition, and that is filling his heart. But even the act of sacrifice is futile because it never ends, and it never really accomplishes anything. It all points to someday that one final sacrifice that must be given. From the very beginning it all points to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the fruition of everything Moses ever taught. The whole sequence just points to a Saviour because He is the only one that could deal with man on the inside. The whole Old Testament was to frustrate man, to show him his desperation, to show him that he couldn’t save himself no matter what he did, no matter what he did on the outside, if the heart relationship wasn’t right, he wasn’t right.

But by the time you get to Jesus’ day they had lowered the standard, they dropped about heart relationship. The very fact that a man had to say to Jesus, “What is the first and great commandment?” shows how far they had slipped.

They forgot what it was. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. They knew verse for centuries. It had slipped by their own choice. They did away with the part they couldn’t keep and stuck with the externals.

How does the ten commandments fit in love? The ten commandments are simply a way to regulate love. Did you know the ten commandments are just a definition of love? You have heard the ten commandments are law. You shall not!

No, it’s love. They are simply a way to regulate love. Redemption preceded the giving of the Ten commandments. First, they were called out of Egypt. They were redeemed. They were ordained as God’s people. He set His love upon them.

He set His affection upon them. The relationship was first, and then came the code of ethics.

Once the relationship was established, the principles of behaviour were laid out. Redemption preceded law because God is always concerned with relationship. The relationship preceded the law or the ten commandments. The law did not establish the covenant.

Love established the covenant. The law merely regulated behaviour within that covenant. For the Israelites who hear God speak on Mount Sinai, and hear that thunder, and see that flaming finger carve out the law, there was already a relationship.

Redemption had already been given as they had been delivered from Egypt. They already had a relationship with the Lord. They already had a rational basis for faith and for love, and this was merely codifying the principles of love.

The ten commandments become nothing more than a list of how to love God and how to love your neighbour. The first four commandments relate to God, Next five commandments relate to your neighbour. The last one about yourself.

Exodus chapter 20 we find the listing of the ten commandments. These are qualities of love. 1. Love is Loyal.

Exodus 20:3, You shall have no other gods before Me. Love is loyal. If I say to my wife, “I love you,” and then I tell her, “I also have three or four others that I love, too,” that’s not the kind of love she’s interested in. Love is loyal to God. Having no other gods before Him. You don’t say am I really mad I only have that one God and everybody else in the world gets a whole lot of them.” No!

There were some people who worshiped one God because they felt that they would be right in doing it. There are other people who worshiped one God because they loved Him so much, they were loyal. I don’t worship just the Lord because I am trying to fulfil some legal obligation. I worship the one God because He’s the only one I love!

Love is loyal. 2. Love is faithful.

Exodus 20:4-6, You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Love will be faithful. Love will not make graven images. Love will not go off and make a carved replica of some non- god. Love is loyal and its loyalty extends into the future endlessly, and thus becomes faithfulness. Toward God, then, if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we will love only Him. If we love the Lord our God, we will love Him faithfully. 3. Love is reverent.

Exodus 20:7, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your

God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

If you love the Lord, will you take His name in vain? If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength would you curse His name? No. Love is loyal, and love’s loyalty extends into faithfulness, and love is reverent.

4. Love is dedicated/separated.

Exodus 20:8-11, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Love is set apart, separated. If I love somebody totally, I am set apart to that person only. If I say I love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, but I am going take the one day I am supposed

to spend worshiping Him and go do something else, doesn’t say much for my love, does it? Love is loyal, love is faithful, love is reverent, and love is set apart. Love separates itself totally to its object. Men, when you love a girl, finally you go to her someday and you say, “I want you to be my wife.”

What are you really saying? You are saying to her that I love you so much I just want to separate myself to you. I am not interested in any other woman. I am not interested in any other relationships. It’s you that matters.

That is true love. This isn’t some legalistic code of externals. This is merely a way to define love, love toward God. Next five deal with loving your neighbour. 5. Love is respectful.

Exodus 20:12, ““Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

If you love your neighbour, your first neighbour you are going to have in your life is your parents. You come into the world and your first neighbours immediately are your parents. Bible simply says, “love them,” and “love them” means “respect them and honour them.”

Love is respectful. Love is never lawless, never disorderly, always respectful. To the first category of neighbours is your family. 6. Love is caring/humane.

Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder. Love is not only respectful, but it is humane. If you love somebody, are you going to kill them? No. If you love somebody, you don’t kill them. If you love your neighbour, you don’t kill him.

Romans 13:10, Love does no harm to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilment of the law. That’s why Paul says, “Love is the fulfilling of the whole law.”

If you love the Lord your God, you are going to be loyal. If you love the Lord your God, you are going to be faithful. If the love the Lord your God, you will be reverent. If you love the Lord your God, you will be set apart unto Him.

If you love other people, you are going to be respectful. If you love other people you are going to be humane, you are not going to take their life. 7. Love is pure.

Exodus 20:14, “You shall not commit adultery. If you really love somebody you are not going to do that, because love is pure. Love doesn’t defile. Love seeks purity. Don’t tell your wife you love her and then go off and shack up with somebody else. You don’t love your wife. You are lying. The point is love is pure. It doesn’t defile.

It only exalts and keeps pure. 8. Love is unselfish.

Exodus 20:15, “You shall not steal. If you love somebody, then you are not going to take what they have.

You’re not going to steal from somebody if you love them. Love is unselfish. 9. Love is truthful.

Exodus 20:16, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. Are you going to tell lies about people if you love them? You going around giving filthy gossip about people? You going to say things that aren’t true in a court of law? Are you going to do all you can to tell untruths if you love people? Of course not. 10. Love is content.

Exodus 20:17, “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.” Love is contented. When you really love people, you are contented with what you have. Because you love them, and you are glad they have it.

What is the point of Ten commandments? They are merely a regulation of love! That is all. Once God established a relationship with people, they came out of Egypt first, the relationship was there. The law was only a way to define how that love worked.

It was twofold

• Toward God and
• Toward your neighbour.

That’s the epitome of the Old Testament in the Book of Deuteronomy. That’s the gospel Of Moses, and it is no different than what Jesus said. It is no different than what the Epistles of the New Testament teach. The whole law is to love God and love your neighbour.

Every single one of those Ten Commandment is a heart attitude. Do not murder and do not commit adultery, they were simply statements of regulating a heart attitude. The sad thing that happened in Israel was the Israelites began to focus only on the

• external,

• ritual,
• religious observance,
• outside.

So that morality became a matter of what you do rather than a relationship of love. They missed the whole thing. If you understand this, then you understand the background of the sermon on the mount. You understand what Jesus is saying.

Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.

But Jesus said if you are angry with your brother, it is equal to murder.

Why? Because you don’t love your brother, and that’s the thing that’s the issue with God.

V 27-28, ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart Why? Because your attitude toward your brother is wrong.

You are not pure! You are coveting something that isn’t yours. Now this is the whole background. Our Lord drives them down deep to the matter of the heart. Christ wanted to reiterate it. Now when He gives the law here to the scribes and the Pharisees, what’s going to be their reaction?

They are going to say the same thing the Jews of old would say, “We can’t keep that law. It can’t be done. We can’t do it. We can’t love like that all the time. We need help. We can’t maintain Your standard, God.” That is exactly what He wants them to say.

In the Old Testament when they couldn’t maintain it, they went directly into the sacrificial system.

Ultimately, the sacrificial system consummated in Jesus Christ, who was slain as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

Hebrews 10:14, For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Hebrews 10:4, For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. After Jesus died on the cross and paid the final penalty, Jesus brought judgment on the city of Jerusalem. The Roman soldiers came down within about ³⁰ years or so into the city of Jerusalem, and they literally destroyed the city. They destroyed the temple, which by then had its veil rent in twain anyway cause the sacrificial system was done when Jesus died.

But in 70 A.D., they came in and they literally destroyed the temple, obliterated the city of Jerusalem. Since that time to this very hour in 2021 there has never been a sacrificial system in Israel since.

Why? Because it was over. Because that for which it pointed was there. It arrived in Jesus Christ.

It was the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ that took away the sin that all the system of sacrifices could never take away, but simply pointed to. How would that person in the Old Testament be saved? Because the efficacy of Christ’s death in this period of time when He died went forward to us and backward to them.

If they believed God when they lived, and if they looked forward to the fact that God would take away their sin by His power, and if they knew they couldn’t do it on their own and they believed God for a sacrifice that would, then He applied to them the sacrifice of Christ though as of, yet He had not even given it.

Though Christ died 2,000 years ago His sacrifice is applied to us today if we believe and accept Him. Jesus wants to force us to the frustration and an inability to keep the high exalted law of God, and run for mercy to Jesus Christ, who alone can grant us a righteousness we cannot on our own obtain.

2 Corinthians 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

We couldn’t be righteous because we were sinful, but He became sin that we might become righteous. He bore our sins to make us righteous. The words of this covenant that cemented the relationship in the Old Testament were not legalistic.

The ten commandments weren’t even legalistic. They simply brought out a standard by which a loving relationship to God and your neighbour could exist. There had to be the relationship first, or all the law keeping that went on meant absolutely nothing.

There are people today in our society who live by New Testament ethics, did you know that? They are good fathers, good mothers, nice people, good neighbours, give to charity, go to church, don’t kill people, don’t commit adultery, they keep the outward law.

They don’t have the relationship, so the law means nothing because it isn’t the outworking of love. The inner attitude was always the issue with God, whether you were in the Old or the New Testament.

That is why Jesus can say, “I didn’t come to destroy the prophets. I didn’t come to set Moses aside. I didn’t come to change one single thing, just put it back where it belongs. Unless you get up to that level, which is higher than the scribes and Pharisees, you will never under any circumstances enter My kingdom.”

Of course, we realize we can’t, and that forces us to Christ. So, Moses was pushing people to Jesus, just like Christ was pushing them to Himself. It is an abomination to God to keep an external law without a heart relationship. God knows your hearts. The law and the prophets, nothing has changed, it’s still the heart.

Conclusion

So, our Lord simply redefines the original standard, and in so doing He defines righteousness and sin in true biblical terms. If you don’t understand sin, you will never understand anything else in the Scripture. Jesus spends a tremendous amount of time dealing with the problem of sin.

You were so great a sinner you couldn’t atone for your sin. He did it for you. A child who was bitten by a poisonous snake. The mother was there when the child was bitten, and the mother was just struck with love for the child, and so she placed her lips over the wound to suck the poison out. She succeeded in doing it and saved the child’s life. But she had a little cut on her lip.

The poison went into her, and she died. So it is with Jesus Christ, who drained out of us, as it were, the poison of the serpent and in so doing died in our place. We are great sinners.