Episode Transcript
Justin: If you don't understand these uses of the law, you're going to butcher passages like the good Samaritan and like the rich young man. Because - and here's how we do this - we collapse law and gospel, and we confuse the way the law is supposed to be used rightly. We don't do it. So, we'll go to the good Samaritan, and we will acknowledge the context in some sort of like cursory way, you know, that there's this guy asking what he needs to do in order to inherit the kingdom of God.
Jesus says, well, what's in the law? How do you read it? He says, love God and love neighbor. And Jesus says exactly, do that, and you'll live. And then the man doubles down. Well, okay, well, who's my neighbor? Because I want to make sure I'm doing this kind of thing. But then here's what we end up doing with the good Samaritan, we effectively just unsettle everyone and condemn everyone for not loving neighbor well enough. We don't then give them the good news. Right? And we tell them to go and try harder if they're going to legitimately be a Christian. And I'm just like, man, that's so bad on so many levels because the first use of the law there, which is, I think Jesus' main point is that nobody has loved neighbor this way.
Nobody's kept God's law, and thereby you need to look somewhere else other than your own righteousness - one. Then, third use, kindly, right? Secondary takeaway in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hey, beloved, we have been given everything in Christ. Ought we not seek by grace in the spirit to sacrificially love each other?
Jon: (Philippians two) Yep.
Justin: You know, I mean, there it is. Rich young man, same thing, you know, category confusion, right? This young man thinks he's kept the law. He says I've kept the commandments. And then Jesus turns the temperature up, says, okay, if you - effectively, paraphrase - all right, then prove it. Sell everything you have. Give it to the poor.
Follow me. Young man can't do it. All right. How do we often hear that communicated? Surrender all for Christ, and if you're not at least willing to surrender all for Christ, you're not legit. Terrible exegesis, right? The point of all that is, to the young man, the first use of the law.
Hey homie, you think you've kept the law? You have not. You have not loved God and neighbor. If you had kept the law, you could do this: sell everything you have, give it to the poor, follow me with no difficulty whatsoever. The reason you can't do this is because you have not kept the law, nor are you able to.
And so then gospel: we should say, look unto Christ, the one who is standing right in front of the man is his salvation, right? I mean, this is gospel. So then third use takeaway. You know, if we're going to think this through, we can then talk about how we want to live lives of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And how we don't want to, you know, store up treasures on earth or something. I mean, that's entirely legitimate to say, but to tell people to go have a yard sale, you know, and get rid of everything they own, and be willing to do this, that, or the other, in order to be a legitimate Christian, is not a right application of that passage.
And, just a brief observation, the word “willing” is nowhere to be found there. I mean, it's all just, Jesus says, do this. But yet, we introduce this willingness category because we collapse law and gospel, and we collapse the law and its uses in order to make it work.
Everyday Grace 037
