12.Heaven and Earth Must Be Gone for All the Law to be Accomplished to an Iota, to a Dot (I)

Sermon on the Mount #12- Heaven and Earth Must Be Gone for All the Law to be Accomplished to an Iota, to a Dot (I)

 

Mathew 5:15-20

 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[b] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

We can’t go over everything today so we will do this in 2-3 parts. I will recapitulate some chief points today and will explain in detail word by word starting next week. Just looking at it, it seems like it is very much emphasizing on what we must act on: doing good works is being the light and you can give glory God by your good deeds; not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished so you must not discard one of the least of them; whoever teaches and does this will be called great heaven. You will find out that it is actually the opposite.

 

We studied long hours last week about the true meaning of Jesus’ declaration ‘you are the light of the world.’ The phrase ‘you are the light of the world’ points to the inevitable life of a saint who is called to a life of witnessing and proving the light called Jesus in the legalistic world- the cosmos, temple, order. In verse 15, it says ‘all in the house’, and it is ‘en te oikia’. ‘Oikos’ is house and it means all who are in the temple. It is picturing that we have the light inside the temple of flesh and we shine the light to others inside this temple.   

 

So the light of the world means the life of the word, the light shining as Jesus from inside of us, inside of the temple, to others. In verse 16, having the light inside us, inside the temple is ‘ta kala erga’, which means good works. The word ‘kala’ or ‘kalos’ is added to ‘the work’ so it means ‘good works’. It means the work of having the light inside us, having the word inside us, having the son inside us is the good works, and not you doing some nice things. It means when people see that work, the son, the light inside you, they will give glory to Godsaying, “Wow! That’s how God works!”It is not about people saying, “Wow, they become nice after believing Jesus!” when they see us doing some good deeds. The phrase translated here as ‘the good works’ points to having the light, having the son, which I explained to you last week. 

 

However, the word ‘kalos’ is used in ‘the good works’ instead of ‘agathos’, which means absolutely (intrinsically) good. Why is it? It means having the light in us is an absolute thing but when it is shone to others, it is relatively applied to them. For the people chosen by God, it is passed on as the light, but to others, it is passed on as the law and it becomes a stumbling stone which leads to death. Paul describes it like this. Please look at 2 Corinthians 2:14.

 

2Corinthians 2:14-16

 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance(Christ in in us who know Christ. So our knowing Christ will permeate as a fragrance. This fragrance is the light) of the knowledge of him everywhere.15 For we are the aroma(light) of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. (The light is relatively passed on to others as a different thing. That is why it is ‘kalos’ in the good works. The absolute ‘agathos’ is not used) Who is sufficient for these things?

 

Like this, the state of living with the light inside me and witnessing the light and passing on Jesus, or in easier words, living a life of having born a son called Christ in me and showing that to others is the glory of God. It is the glory of God because it is done by the power of God, thus manifesting God’s glory. It is not that we glorify God by doing many nice works. It continuously comes out in the Old Testament. The Bible loses its consistency if it says here “glorify God by doing many good works” while saying, “What does our being good or evil have to do with God?” in the Old Testament. 

 

God is not at all affected by our being good or nice. He is the absolute being in infinity and we are creatures in finity. You should not think like that. Thinking like that is seeing the Bible as only laws and decrees. Therefore, the story of the light is not a lesson for a saint to do many good works and glorify God, but rather it is about the power of God and His zeal to make us the light in the temple, the light in the world to witness Jesus who is the light and this is the ‘doxa’ of God, the manifestation of God’s power. It is what God has done. 

 

So ‘the good works’ is not bringing out fruits of our own but it is pointing to what God has done in the saints. That is ‘the good works’, which God has done. Please try to understand the phrase ‘the good works’ in connection to verse 19 of today’s text. ‘The good works’is having Jesus the light inside us the temple and giving birth to Jesus, the light. This is called giving birth to a son. That is ‘the good works’. Verse 19 is explaining that ‘the good works’ is ‘whoever does them and teaches them’. ‘Poieo’ is translated as ‘does’ and whoever ‘does’ is appropriate for the kingdom of heaven.  Please look at Matthew 5:19.

 

Matthew 5:19

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments(I will explain ‘the least of these’ next week but it is talking about Jesus. It is about not being able to interpret ‘keeping the commandments’ as Jesus, the least, and keeping them just as an order or a decree. ) and teaches others to do the same(who teaches it as something other than Jesus, who rejects it and teaches it as an order and a decree) will be called least in the kingdom of heaven(There is no such thing as the least. All are great in heaven. So it means such is not appropriate for kingdom of heaven. It is not categorizing what is big and small.), but whoever does(What is this? Having the light inside is doing the good works. So what does it mean to do them? It means whoever has the son in the heart and understands the law and the prophets as the son and teaches them like this is great in the kingdom of heaven. If you are careless, even a little bit, you cannot help but to understand the Bible as the law. Isn’t it? But it is actually the opposite.)them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

 

Now, I will go over verse by verse from verse 17 of today’s text step by step. In verse 17, it says Jesus came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them.  

 

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

 

The law and the prophets mean the law of the five books of Moses and the book of prophets, or the entire Old Testament. ‘Pleroo’ means to fulfill or complete. Jesus says He came to fulfill the Old Testament. So it means the Old Testament is incomplete and unfinished if Jesus had not come. So it says the Old Testament is fully filled when Jesus enters in there to fill it up. So if Jesus had not come, if Jesus had not entered, the Old Testament is not even the word. And that is why it says the law, the Old Testament, is something that kills. 

 

And Paul even says that the Old Testament not concluded with Jesus is evil. It does not simply mean Jesus kept all the categories of the law and passed it unto us. If so, Jesus should have kept the Sabbath well and not have been friends with the unclean people and hung around with them. All those are prohibited by the law. Then, Jesus broke a few laws. How is that fulfilling them?

 

Jesus did not come to fulfill the law by keeping all the items of the law but He made the law not to be able to accuse His people by receiving all the judgment and the curse of the law Himself. He did not come to keep them all but to be beaten up to death by the law. He came to be judged by the law by becoming the serpent. If Jesus, who came in flesh, fulfilled the law and the prophets by keeping all the laws, then the possibility of us who are in flesh being able to keep them all would open up. This cannot be. Then, it is insulting the cross of Jesus. Instead, Jesus is who fulfills the law and the prophets with grace by being judged and dying.  

 

As it was the same in the time of Jesus, even now the two opinions on the relationship between Jesus Christ and the law and the prophets, His relationship with the Old Testament, still are in sharp confrontation. One is that Jesus had an all-out will to rebel against the Old Testament, especially against the laws which comprise the core of the Old Testament, thinking “No~ that must be destroyed”. The other opinion is that Jesus publically advocated the sentiment bound under the law. It says that is why Jesus said, “Give the tithe” and went up to the temple every season. These two sharply confront each other. What do the evangelical Protestants think today? They seem to lean towards the first one when emphasizing that we are saved by faith and the salvation comes from God’s grace alone but they also seem like they take the latter opinion of laying the laws of the Old Testament as a measuring stick of faith when it comes to the issue of sanctification. In one word, they are fluttering. The Christian doctrine itself is fluttering, floating around only as a notion. This is the very verse the sanctificationists most commonly use like a sword treasured in the family. “See, Jesus came to fulfill the law and not to abolish them. Doesn’t He say that all will be accomplished to an iota, to a dot? So we must strive to keep and preserve even an iota or a dot in the law following the teachings of Jesus. This is the obvious code of life for the disciples.” They wouldn’t call it the law but they would say the word says this. “Jesus does not neglect even an iota, a dot of the law and therefore, we must do everything the word says. We must grow up to the maturity of Jesus. We must fulfill it.” They talk like this. But if you follow the root of it, it obviously is holding onto the law. Such an analogy is perverting the Bible as legal duress. That is why people feel frustrated, insecure, and afraid. They cannot keep them. If you go to Deuteronomy 28, which you like, it shows what an ignorant approach this is. Please look at Deuteronomy 28.

 

Deuteronomy 28:1

And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God(the word of God comes out), being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

 

Deuteronomy 28:15; 20-22

But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.20 “The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.21 The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought[a] and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish.

 

Do you know what these diseases are? What is a disease with fever, inflammation and a fiery heart? What is blight and mildew? If you look here, the word of the Lord comes out and also the commandments and statutes. The word of the Lord is the word of God contracted as Jesus Christ, just as the Bible testifies. That is why John 1 says Jesus is the word. It is Jesus. So the word comes out. However, the reason of finity, what is the reason the phenomenal world can only recognize it as the commandments and statutes? It is because Jesus inside the word is a ‘musterion’, a mystery. So when finity faces the word, it can only understand it as commandments, statutes, morals, and ethics. That is why people like Gandhi and Rousseau only saw it as commandments and statutes and they tried hard to keep them. No wonder even a person like the monk Bup-Jung praised the Sermon on the Mount saying it is such an excellent book. So it is outrageous to say men who are locked in finity can understand the law and the prophet or the word or Jesus Christ. Such men receive the word of God as commandments and statutes.   

 

When the word of God becomes commandments and statues, reward and punishment are divided by whether you kept them or not. Right? That is why the story of those who are rewarded or blessed and cursed comes out in Deuteronomy 28. “If the word becomes commandments and statutes you must keep them. So try keeping them and of course I will bless you obviously since they are commandments and statutes. But do you know what happens if you don’t keep them?” As in after verse 15, you will be cursed. It happens when it becomes commandments and statutes. There are rewards and punishments. The fact that rewards and punishments are spoken of means you are not under grace. It is evident that those who take the word as commandments and statutes are under the law. In verse 20, the phrase ‘you have forsaken me’ comes out. Direct translation will be ‘forsaking Him is the evil deed’. It means if you cannot find Jesus in the word- what happens when Jesus is missing in the word? Only the commandments and statutes remain- it is evil. That means that is why you just end up still being bound by the commandments and statutes. If Jesus, the word, is missing, you have no son in the heart. 

 

God clearly said He will place His Spirit in our heart, in the new covenant, in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31. So those who have the Spirit of Christ, Jesus Christ, the Son inside of them definitely will see the Bible as the Son. But if they do not have the Son, they will see it as commandments and statutes and will be bound to them. Not being set free by the grace the Son gives, they will be bound to the commandments and statutes if the Son is missing. That is being weary and heavy burdened. That is where the judgment falls on. Please look how it falls on. Please look at verse 21 and on.

Deuteronomy 28:21-22 

The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought[a] and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish.

 

Here, pestilence is not just about a contagious disease but it is a word of judgment that He will destroy. It means He will break, destroy, and smite. It is describing the judgment of God that destroys as wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with droughtand with blight and with mildew. These are ’yeraqown’, ‘shadephah’, ‘charchur’, ‘dalleqeth’, and ‘qaddachath’ in Hebrew. These are words all related to heat. They are words related to not having water, all of them. It is a simple list of diseases. These words are all about drought, fever, and drying out caused by heating up where it is waterless. It is translated as a list of diseases for some reason so that people just reading through the wordsdo not understand, but it means it is destruction and hell. It says God will just let it be that way, just let them perish like that. How? By turning them into a desert. By bringing them drought so they will be dried out. What do you call not having water, wilderness, desert, and drying out? It is called ‘not having the word’.  

 

It is said ‘drought of the word’, right? That is judgment. That is hell. Jesus said that is perishing. He said that was the punishment. Here, it is saying ‘God not giving the word, the Son, inside men’s heart is punishment’. That is why all the words like fever, drought, desert, and wildernessare listed here. 

 

People, evil was born in this world since men ran out of the absolute dependency from God and sat on the seat of autonomy with the fruit of good and evil in their mouth. And pain came to be. Since the time men took ownership of themselves, since they became the judge of good and evil, they have been making laws based on their own judgment of good and evil. Social laws, morals, ethics, and consciences are such that came out of men’s system of good and evil. The law is made by men’s system of good and evil. And they judge and evaluate not only themselves but also others with that law, based on that law. It becomes like this when men take ownership of themselves. This is humanism by the Adams with the fruit of good and evil in their mouth. 

 

Men are bound to the law they made based on the system of good and evilso they can be judged as worthy beings based on the evaluation standards set by the law of good and evil, to be evaluated as excellent, pure, and decent beings under the law. This happens when men become autonomous. So, when the system of good and evil becomes their judging standard, men begin the fight to keep their own identity and sense of existence under the law. If men become the judge of good and evil, they begin running to keep their own worth under the law, bound by the law they have made. Why? Because it is an issue of the general pride of the entire human race because men are the main characters. Like this, men are bound to lust after the development, maturity, and prosperity of men when men fall into their own system of good and evil because it is the ‘good’ supposed by men. That also is the misunderstanding of God’s word and anyways, men consider this good. And they consider things like stagnation, unchanging, and regressing evil. That is why such people are derided as being weak and as failures. They say that is evil. And men have supposed those who increased, prospered, changed, and matured as good. And within that system, they strive with blood shot eyes to become worthy human beings by the law they supposed.

 

When the word of God is misunderstood as the law, men will live in hell and I will explain about this in detail later. God clearly commanded men to be fruitful and multiply. That is what men desire. It is being increased. It is becoming life. It is becoming many. This is the meaning of fish. Men who left God must unite and increase to show off their power and they want to make that their life- this is being fruitful and multiplying.

 

God said to multiply, subdue, and rule over. That is our general desire. We desire to rule, subdue, multiply, increase, and succeed and God commanded this. So men think it is the right thing. God placed a message in that but men are to desire this if they receive that superficially as the law. And they assert among themselves that that is right. Where did He command that which we call cultural mandate? Please look at Genesis 1:27-28.

 

Genesis 1:27-28

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.(Verse 27 is the background. And in verse 28, the cultural mandate is given.)

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

 

God blessed them. God said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Your descendants will be as many as the starts in heaven and the sand in the sea” as He was blessing Abraham. Same here. He blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over.” But how did the descendants of Abraham become fruitful and multiply? How about the church? By the cross of Jesus. It is the same here. He planted the cross here. 

 

Why? How do I know? If you look here, the background where these things are given as a blessing is before a man as the image of God is separated as man and woman. In the state where ‘we made a man in our image’ and man and woman are still united as one- the mandate was given to this one man. From Genesis 2, good and evil, falling, and serpent appear as a woman emerges separated from man, but from Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, the man is before being separated as man and woman. That is why it is a singular- Adam. God said ‘let’s make a man’ and God made a man and a woman as what is in the man. Then, look. What is it when a man and a woman are united as one? It is the state in which a woman is born by Adam as his own by Adam, or Jesus Christ, dying with his side ruptured. Unity is when all this is admitted and understood. “I am flesh of your flesh, bone of your bones. So I cannot exist without you.” This is the relationship between a groom and a bride, united as one by going into the groom. This is a man as a human being, a man as the people of the kingdom of heaven. Thus, this already contains the meaning of the cross in itself. Like this, the state of being this manis being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth, ruling, and being the kingdom of God. That is why it is being given as the background. I have explained that being fruitful and multiplying is about Jesus and His cross when I preached on Genesis before. Being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth, subduing, and having dominion over is all about this. But what happens when you take Jesus out and not understand the covenant and accept this as a commandment? It became, “Yes, Let’s work hard to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and rule.” In that, there is dissension, arguments, and wars. And to achieve this, there is laboring, pain, tiredness, weariness, and tears. This is the burden crushing human beings and this is hell. The life of having to live a tiring life to achieve this itself is hell. Look, this is ‘not having the word’. With Jesus missing, they try hard, pursue, and put their best effort for something but all that is their burden. That is why it says in Deuteronomy 28, “I will curse and judge you and turn you into a desert. I will make you a people without the word.” That is why the Bible says those who do not know already received their judgment. “No~ I don’t think it will be like that…?” Well, try living it out. No matter what we achieve, without the word, nothing but vanity and emptiness comes to us. That is called hell. That is hell. Since men began building their own individualself-ego called “I”, such hell began filling history. God taking His people out of this when this happened is called salvation. Then, what would be the first thing God will do to save His people from the history called hell? Why was hell made? Why was judgment made? Judgment and hell were made when men became autonomous.   

 

Then, what would be the first thing God must do to pull out His people from there? It is destroying their self-ego, their autonomy. Bringing them down again as God-dependent beings is salvation. By doing so, men no longer judge themselves and others by their own system of good and evil and from there, freedom comes. Think about it. We are all insecure, restless, and ashamed based on the law men supposed. We feel the pressure to carry a name brand bag because others may look down on us if we don’t. Does it hold a lot of stuff or is it even sturdy? But we are still living bound by what is determined as worthy and good by the system of good and evil. That is called hell. What is it that we live for, putting all our energy into? That is why God seizes their self-ego. He seizes the self-ego of His people. Because the system of good and evil is made as the self-ego becomes independent and the law that binds men by this system of good and evil is made, God breaks down the self-ego of His people to the original place of creation and being nothing. That is called the life of faith. God dismisses His people from the autonomy of good and evil. God teaches that being fruitful, multiplying, subduing, and ruling by men’s own might are not success, victory, or a blessing by sending His word to them. What is a blessing then? He is teaching Jesus is the blessing. In order to do this, God must work on cutting off one by one what men are building as their self-ego by running in the fast lane of the history. Right? Please look at Mark 10:29-30.

 

Mark 10:29-30

 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

 

‘For my sake and for the gospel’ is not ‘for~’.  ‘Heneka’ is a preposition and it means for the sake of, on account of, or because of. In “one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands”, it is not that someone is leaving them on his own for the sake of Jesus and for the Gospel. It means God is making them leave him. In ‘now in this time’, ‘nun’ means now, already, or present. ‘Hundredfold’ is ‘hekaton taplasion’ and it is a word that comes from the word ‘plaso’ which means “form” or “create”. So it is a word of creation. 

 

So it means ‘now those things will leave you and a hundredfold of something good, which is of a different kind of creation that cannot even compare to what you have now, will be given. What kind of a good thing? He says He will give something that is in the realm of the creation. But what is that? If you look here, it says that is eternal life. Right? It means the people of God are to go through a process in which their house, lands, brothers, sisters, father, mother, and sons, which are the ingredients used in self-expansion, leave them.  

 

It does not mean ‘I should not love them’ but it is to make us know ‘Oh~ these are not the ingredients that give us eternal life and life that brings salvation.’ This is what it means to ‘leave’. Knowing that life, the eternal life, is given to us only by Jesus is ‘leaving’. It does not mean He will cut off all those things from us and make us dirt poor or orphans. What are those? Those are all what we use to expand ourselves: house, lands, money, brothers, sisters, parents, and children. Aren’t they? Knowing that ‘all these do not become life to me but knowing Jesus is’ and thus throwing my life into Jesus is called self-denial and the eternal life of being grafted to Jesus. Why? All other things are finite and you will die when these die if you hold onto them as your life. But when Jesus becomes yourlife, when you throw all of you into Jesus, you gain eternal life because He lives forever. He is changing us like that. Therefore, our life of faith is not about advancing day after day and month after month or continual success. It is not about success, prosperity, or increasing. It is about being broken. It is about being shattered. It is about our flesh being killed so the precious stones in us may be revealed in full view. 

 

For this reason, all the people of God are called precious stones in Revelation. I have told you it is not saying that the kingdom of God is decorated with gem stones. The new heaven and the new earth are us, the church, the bride. Us being the precious stones means the flesh we have as a jar of clay is to be all broken in history. We will be broken. We are not born to be blessed but to be killed. You who are the flesh must die in order for Jesus to appear as the precious stone. This is Christianity. 

 

Like that, the people of God are to live a life where their ingredients for self-expansion are seized and taken away in this history. It is so that their self-ego will be dismissed. This was me but my self-ego is dismissed so now I can say it is good if God says it is good and it is evil if God says it is evil, being free from man’s system of good and evil. What do you call being free from men’s evaluation and such things? It is called heaven. That is why the kingdom of God is something that comes to us and it is not something we go to someday. Jesus said the kingdom of God has already come so it is here now. Where? Inside you. It says you are the kingdom of God, the holy nation, the kingdom of heaven. If so, you must be able to detect the kingdom of God on earth. How is that possible? What kind of heaven is this? Just wishing you want to die is heaven? Is this? When we realize, “It is not right for me to be evaluated by the law of the world, by the values of the world, or by what others think (what others think is the law by the system of goodand evil made by Adams in this world) when I am ashamed, embarrassed, in pain, angry, and sad by the system of good and evil. Despite that, I am the child of God if God says I am” and then become free for a few seconds.”-this is called the kingdom of heaven. Eventually all of our flesh, the fleshly self-ego of the people of God will be seized by God all together, as our individual self-ego is taken away, and we will become just one church with Jesus as our head, then it will be the true heaven forever. This is where we become His sons by grace and not evaluated by our own qualification or character. Learning this is the life of faith. Then, how can we say trying to become a great person and a nice person here is the right Christian faith? I am not saying that is bad but I mean we should not limit Christianity as that. But most are remaining at that level.  

 

If you are still holding onto the things you are holding onto as your own self-ego, they become your burden and the source of pain. For example, when your child is your self-ego, or when the child is the expansion of your self-ego, your child must become the one who is fruitful, who multiplies, and who subdues. That is why that child always becomes your trouble and a burden. But when we say ‘he is not my self-ego’ and when it gets cut off, we become free from the child. That is what it means when God said He will make us hate our family. It does not mean He will make us actually hate them like, “I cannot even stand looking at them.”We must love our children. Why should we hate them? We must treat our parents well. It is not this kind of hatred. It’s all the same for things like lands and the house. When these become the ingredients for building self-ego, we become restless and obsessed with desire to amass them no matter what and that becomes our pain. That becomes our insecurity. That is called hell. It is when our self-ego is alive. When such things are cut off one by one and we become free from evaluation or judgment by men’s system of good as the sovereignty of God is upon us, it is called the kingship of God, ‘basileia’, the kingdom of heaven. When we come out of the frame of good and evil determined, agreed, and supposed by men and throwing ourselves under the sovereignty of God, we can feel such freedom from time to time. And because we so love that and because we can constantly enjoy such freedom, we come to wait for that freedom with all our heart and that is called hope. Look here. I have said it is hell when men misunderstand the word of God and its meaning and receive them as commandments and statutes and run with them to death. I have said that is where tears, pain, and aches come from. I said this is caused by the misunderstanding of the kingdom of God and the covenant which begins with Jesus and ends with Jesus, by the misunderstanding of the word of God. People try to keep autonomy because they cannot understand this. If they understand the word, they are to enter into it as a part of the body but because they cannot understand the word which begins and ends with Jesus, they try to be autonomous beings. I have said hell comes from this. There are competitions, arguments, and wars. What did I say this is? It is having no word, drought, and thirst and that is why it is called hell. That is why the state of judgment and curse is expressed with words like ’yeraqown’, ‘shadephah’, ‘charchur’, ‘dalleqeth’, and ‘qaddachath’ in Deuteronomy 28, with things like fever, heat, drought and being dried off.Bringing to life as a son by pouring the word, by pouring the living water called Jesus and moistening is salvation. Therefore, it is that important to receive the word and understand the word and to know Jesus. There is nothing else. 

 

The church should not be doing other things like making programs for the young, or opening a school for fathers and mothers to become good fathers and mothers. What is a good father and a good mother? Giving Jesus is a good father and a good mother. Making a child into a monstrous and selfish little prince or princess in this world is not being a good father or a good mother.  

 

To compress the words like heat, drought, desert, and wilderness in Deuteronomy 28:22 and make them into one word, it is ‘pyretos’. This comes out in Luke 4.  

 

Luke 4:38-39

And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. (What did I say Simon means? It means desert, wilderness, and having no word. Simon becomes Peter, a rock, and now pumping out the word as the living water is the meaning of Simon Peter.)

39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.

 

If you look here, it is simply called ‘fever’. In the original Greek text, it is just heat, fever. Simon, the desert, the wilderness comes out and a word like fever comes out. This is the word in which all the words from Deuteronomy 28 are compressed into. It’s the heat that dries out, desiccates, makes things crumble, and gets rid of moisture. This story comes right after the story of Jesus chasing out the evil spirit in the synagogue.

I have said the story of the evil spirit in the synagogue is not simply about a possessed person being healed by Jesus. The phrase translated as ‘a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon’ is ‘pneuma daimoniou akathartou’ in Greek. ‘Pnuema’ is the Holy Spirit and what is ‘daimoniou akathartou’? It is something like a distorted spirit, an unclean spirit. The Bible says the word is the spirit, ‘pnuema’, and the life. So where is this distorted spirit, the unclean spirit, the distorted word? It is in the synagogue of the Jew. This is called the synagogue of Satan in Revelation. ‘Diamonia’ is also called demon spirit but we need to catch the message in between the lines. It is not simply about ‘Jesus healed a demon possessed man so we should go to the sanctuary and heal many demon possessed men.’The Apostle Paul changes this distorted word, misunderstood word and writes it as ‘another gospel’. Healing the synagogue full of distorted words, the sum of legalism, is healing the demon possessed man inside the synagogue. Healing word is going there and chasing out the distorted and unclean word. The story of chasing out the demon in the synagogue is a story of the true temple going and destroying the old temple.  

 

Simon Peter’s story is attached to this. Why would Jesus all of a sudden go to the house of Simon’s mother-in-law and heal that woman? It says He left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. It means He came out of a house and entered into the same kind of house, the house of Simon. What is the house of Simon? He is entering a house without the word, the Old Testament, the old temple. Once He entered, as expected, there is heat, desiccating desert, or wilderness in that house. That’s when Jesus pours the word as water and brings her to life by the moist word. 

 

People, think of it like this. The widow at Zarephath during the time of Elijah and the widow during the time of Elisha both lose the last thing they have. The widow at Zarephath loses her flour and the widow during the time of Elisha loses her jar of oil. Once they lose everything and become truly hungry, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, there isa bottomless amount of flour, the eternal life, and overflowing oil,for which she could not find anymore containers. This is the story of the woman. God surely brings out a confession that “I can only die of fever unless the word of God, the living water, is poured down on me” from the saints. That is where God pours the word. This is what it’s talking about here.  

 

Both widows lose their sons. Sons are their fruit of flesh, ‘I’ in another word. It is the same story as Abraham killing his own son. It is about losing all of what you produced in flesh and receiving the son again as the son of God who is newly resurrected. That is why in Hebrews 11, the phrase ‘women received back their dead by resurrection’ comes out after talking about the ancestors of faith, all of whomsuffered and were beaten. ‘Receiving the dead by resurrection’ means losing the son of my flesh and receiving Jesus, the Son of resurrection. “I am seized of all the production of my flesh and the fruits of my labor and I only live by the Son.” Passing through this process is called losing the son and receiving the dead by resurrection. But this is painful. Why? It is because I am being denied and the things I have given birth to are taken away. That is why ‘receiving the dead by resurrection’ is in the list of the sufferings in Hebrews 11. 

 

Anyways, that woman, the mother-in-law of Simon, the house of Simon, temple with distorted word, old temple, the synagogue of the Jews, the synagogue of Satan, a place without the word, desert, wilderness, drought, and thirst are included in here. That is why it is fever. But it says Jesus rebuked the fever. What is this word? I will find you a place where the same word was used. 

 

2Timothy 4:2

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

 

Here, the word rebuke is the same word, ‘epitimao’. So it is a word related to the word. Jesus taught the word to the fever, the drought, the wilderness. He threw and attacked the same way He attacked the demon spirit in the synagogue with the word. That is why it is written that He left the house and entered the house. He threw the word. He attacked the fever. When He rebuked the fever, it ran away. It left. Fever leaving does not mean it ran away to somewhere, but it means the fever, the desert, is changed into something. It says the woman rose up when the word was spoken. This is the same word as in ‘Jesus will be raised on the third day.’ Please look at Matthew 20:19.

 

Matthew 20:19

and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

 

This is the word. This is the meaning of Simon’s mother-in-law losing fever and rising up. She rose. It is talking about resurrection. And it says she began to serve. It does not mean she went to the kitchen and cooked up a meal and washed the dishes or washing the feel or bringing a towel. This is ‘diakoneo’ and it comes from the word ‘diakonos’ which means pastor or a preacher. So ‘she served’ means this woman who was feverish, who was the desert and wilderness, resurrected and began serving others by the word, by the Son. It means the word was coming out of her. This is called salvation. Suddenly only the Son is coming out from someone who had no relation to the Son. Only the cross is coming out. Only Jesus is coming out. Only the blood is coming out. This is salvation.

 

Then, what does it mean when Jesus said He came to accomplish the law and the prophets? To speak from the conclusion, it means Jesus came to take away all other heirs, all other sons, in the life of the people of God and to make them give birth to an heir of Jesus. The law and the prophets, or the old temple and the phenomenal world in another word, endlessly bring out their heir of flesh and try to prove and expand themselves, to be fruitful and multiply and fill and subdue by it but all those are wrong and only Jesus is the right answer. For this, Jesus came. This is what ‘Jesus came to accomplish the law and the prophets’ means.

 

It says ‘my grace is sufficient for you’ in 2 Corinthians 12:9. This does not mean ‘dude~ that is enough grace for you’ but my grace, ‘charis’ is satisfying for everyone no matter how they are living or whatever situations or events they may be in. For this person, the grace is satisfying and for that person, the grace is satisfying. This is what ‘my grace is sufficient’ means. And then, my grace changes to ‘my power’ in ‘my power is made perfect in weakness.’ ‘Tetelestai’, ‘it is finished’ is what Jesus said on the cross. It’s that word. ‘Weakness’ also has a meaning of illness but it also means moral weakness. It means you are so messed up but my power, my grace is completed from there. It is finished.So saints are not to prove ‘I have become this great. I am changed this greatly by the word’ but they are in pain, ashamed, and embarrassed, hurting and agonizing like a person who is pierced with the thorn of Satan, with a ‘skolops’. Skolops means a stake, not just a thorn. It is a metal stake that is a few meters long. And they pierced the side of their captives with this. This is a skolops. It is hurtful, humiliating, embarrassing, shameful, and painful as if I am pierced with this skolops. But God calls this a living person. How? Because He brought us to life. Like this, proving God working is the history and life, not you becoming a great person by the word. This is already finished. So we are to just say only Jesus is the right answer. We are to live as those who reveal this as the light and witness, explain, and pass this on. That is why we are called the light. You are the light. History and life must give birth to Jesus to live or they cannot live no matter what else they produce.  

 

First, let’s see how Jesus summarizes the law and the prophets. 

 

Matthew 22:36-40

Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.38 This is the great and first commandment.39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

The law and the prophets come out here. Jesus said he came to accomplish the law and the prophets. ‘Tetelestai’, I came to finish all. He came to complete. But here it says the law and the prophets are loving God with all your life and loving your neighbors as yourselves. ‘And a second is like it’ does not mean this is first and this is second but it means it is the same as. It means loving God is loving the neighbors. It means these are the same thing. It does not mean this is a greater commandment and that is a lesser commandment but these two are the same thing. The second one is like the first one in the front. To translate verse 40 exactly, it means all the law and all the prophets are hanging inside the two commandments. What is hanging? It means when you pull up those two commandments, the Old Testament, all the law and prophets come up following them. Then, are the law and the prophets given to us as commandments and statutes or with another intention? Think about it. It says all the law and prophets, the entire Old Testament is hanging on the two commandments of loving God and loving the neighbors and does that mean they are given to us to keep? Or for some other reason? Think about it. Can finite men, men of the phenomenal world, recognize what is infinite? That is why God is called the spirit because He cannot be recognized and visible. The finite cannot recognize the infinite and it cannot love what it cannot recognize.Honestly, do you love God? Who is God? What kind of being is He? Someone please explain to me.Because God cannot be explained, Genesis 1:1 does not begin with explaining who God is, how He began and etc. but it just says He is. He is but cannot be explained. The finite cannot recognize the infinite and cannot detect it. Therefore, much more so, it cannot interpret or love the infinite. Then, if all the law and the prophets are hanging on ‘love your God’, do you think they were given to us to keep them? They are not, aren’t they? All these are hanging on these two commandments and these two are ‘you finite, try loving the infinite!”It is saying loving the infinite is shown in history as loving the neighbors. Then, let’s see. It says the finite loving the infinite, or God, is loving the neighbors horizontally, but if we cannot love the infinite, can we love our neighbors or not? It means, we cannot. But we do. If you know what love is you would know that you are loving right now. Please look at 1John 4:9-10. 

 

1John 4:9-10

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 

It is talking about love and it says God sending His only Son into the world is God’s love being manifested among us. Let me go back and let’s look at Matthew 3:16. The finite cannot love the infinite and both cannot communicate through love. That is the chasm between the finite and the infinite. Communication is not possible. Such a relationship which cannot communicate in love is called unrighteousness. And making these communicate is reconciliation. So to make this relationship between the finite and the infinite, which cannot communicate with love, communicate and reconcile, the infinite has to be inserted into the finite. This is called incarnation and the cross. This comes out in Matthew 3:16. Let’s look.

 

Matthew 3:16-17

 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him,[a] and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son,[b] with whom I am well pleased

 

In direct translation, it is ‘This is my son who is in joy. It is my love.’ It is my son, it is my love. The article is attached to an adverb ‘agapetos’ and it is expressing a concept of a being. So it is not my beloved son but it is ‘my love, my agape, it is my son.’ So the Son of God is love. The will of God, the heart of God, and the love of God is filled in full inside the Son. That is why you can know love if you see the Son. That is why the Son is called love. It means ‘This is my heart. I placed my heart inside the Son.’ It is to tell us ‘know the life of the Son, know my love.’ It is saying, “He is my son, He is my love, my agape, divine love, agape.” After this, it says in 1John 4:9, the love God is manifested among us. It says the love of God, the Son, is manifested among us. God sending His only Son is ‘manifesting the love of God among us’. And then, it says love is here and we did not first love God but God loved us and sent His Son- it is a communication through the sacrifice of reconciliation for our sins, a communication through love. Then, look. The love of God, the Son, enters us as the word and it is understood. “Ah~ we are nothing but by God’s righteousness, God’s sacrifice and power, and God’s grace, God made us as His sons.” This is receiving the word, the Son. Having received this love, if the word overflows from within me, this will overflow as the Son, as the light, as the word, right? Then, if God the love first loved us and sent the Son and poured ‘monogenes’(only having one, having the love God is called monogenes, the son and that is us), the Son, onto us, we are made to share this story of the Son with our lives and lips, just like how I am speaking to you. We are made to pass it on. Even if we cannot share it with our lips because we are not good speakers like Moses, because we are living actualizing the exact life of Jesus, we become those who pass on the Jesus, the Son, the love. That is called loving.    

 

Think about it. When it comes to loving, what greater love is there other than inviting others to eternal life and salvation by flowing down the word, having received the love called Jesus, the Son, the word in full? That is why the Bible calls this love. Thus, I am loving you very much. Who says I lack love? They are so ignorant. How can I love more? I am speaking only about Jesus, only about love, only about the light, only about the word. This is the only kind of love the Bible speaks about. Please look at 1John 4:7-8. 

 

1John 4:7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

 

See, it says knowing God is loving. ‘Beloved’ here is a vocative case. It does not mean “those who I love~” but it means “you the church! Your substance is those who are made to love”. How? “Love is from God so when that love is poured onto you, that love will surely come out in your life as a fragrance and flow out. Therefore, you are those who love. So, let us love one another.We are programmed to love. Why? Jesus will surely be poured onto us as the word and living out this Jesus and speaking of Him is called loving. So beloved, let us love one another. However, those who do not love are those who do not have God in them and those who do not know God.” It is easy like this. If you understand love as the love of useless men as we know love, you cannot understand 1 John. Because all of us are those who cannot love like that, we become nervous when reading 1 John. Like, “Do I not have God in me?” People, love must be continuous and cannot change. But our love keeps changing morning and night. But change this with Jesus. Then, 1 John becomes so easy. It is the love of God. We are living out and giving and taking Jesus, who is God, the word, the heart and will of God. And those who understand this say, “Yes, that is right. Because of the word, Jesus, the Son, I came to life.” This is a loving relationship. So, don’t yell at your husband or wife, “How come you still have no love like that after having believed Jesus?” They can live like that till they die. But when Jesus, who became the serpent and died, the word, the Son is revealed in them, just say, “Well, even so, that jerk is living showing the Son, the love, the light.” What kind of grand love do you want? God is clearly telling us that everyone who loves, if born of God and knows God and this, is love. Please look at 1John 4:11.

 

1John4:11-12

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.(It is clear now. It is “Isn’t it obvious that we love one another since God loved us, since God poured His Son, the word onto us? How can we not communicate through the Son when the Son is among us? How can we not communicate through Jesus, the love?”)12 No one has ever seen God (see, we He cannot be detected); if we love one another (if we bring out Jesus), God abides in us(God is in us) and his love is perfected in us.

 

It means love ‘tetelestai’, completes. You are those who love and you are those who have received the love, the law and the prophets accomplished by Jesus. In verse 11, it says we ought to love and it means ‘opheilo’ ‘owe’ or ‘be indebted’. What does the Apostle Paul say? He says we have debt to love. Having debt to love does not just mean we must love others since we are indebted by receiving God’s love but it means we ought to speak of the love to each other and communicate in that love because we are made to flow out the love, having received God’s love. This is being indebted to love. It means to bring it out if received. Please look at Romans 13:8.

 

Romans 13:8-10

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.(How is it? It is connected as one, right? It is not about not borrowing money from others. People happen to borrow money if there is no money and they need it. It is not about this. It is “those who are indebted to love, give love, love each other” What does today’s text say? Jesus said He has come to accomplish the law and the prophets. Tetelestai. I came to finish. So those who bring out Jesus, the love, are those who have fulfilled the law.)9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, (after listing all the laws) are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (It means that is accomplished in that love.)”10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

 

How much more can I explain about the law. It is accomplished like that and the love of God is proven by the love of our neighbors, which comes out from us and that is why love is the fulfilling of the law. So those who know the Son, the love, say “Ah~ God completed the law and set us free from the accusations of the law. So we do not have to be nervous, restless, or hurt by what others think, or by their evaluation, orby my characters or maturity under the law.” What disappears when this happens? Fear disappears. That is called the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God.  Please look at 1John 4:17.

 

1John4:17-18

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

 

Then, why do we still keep making a certain equation of maturity and bother people in the church? “Why are you still like this even though you say you believe in Jesus? Why is your commitment so shallow? How come your offering is so small? How come deacons and elders do not even tithe?” That love, the law fulfilled by Jesus is called ‘nomos’, the law. This is the law that sets free. It is the new law, the law of grace which comes out in James. Those, who are under this law, ‘nomos’, have no fear. It does not mean ‘I am free so I can now live any way I want’. It is “I see. What could have happened if God left that kind of life to us? Thank you God. Jesus accomplished all.” Please love. That is the life of those who have the word. The kingdom of God is the life of those who know Jesus, who is the Son, the love in which we do not have to feel shame or fear depending on our positions, the level of maturity, or possessions in the system of good and evil. This is salvation. This is freedom, being set free from laboring and heavy burdens. For that Jesus came to accomplish the law and the prophets as the Son. Jesus came to reconcile the finite and the infinite and for their communication through love. He came as God, as a man, and as heaven and earth. Jesus, the first Jesus, who came to this heaven and earth to live the public ministry, has to die for the law to be completed to an iota, to a dot. That is why it says ‘~until heaven and earth pass away. It means the law and the prophets will be accomplished to an iota, to a dot when the heaven and earth pass away, until they pass away. The Korean Revised translation can be misleading but this is what it means. It means Jesus, the heaven and earth, must die for the law to be completed. I will talk about ‘to an iota, to a dot’ next week. Let’s pray.