Make sure your lens is perfect

1. Many years ago the Psalmist wrote, ‘In your light we see light’ Ps 36.9. Solomon wrote, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ The question is, ‘Where are we situated. Where is the ground of our being?’ We need to ascertain if we live in God or live in the knowledge of good and evil and are attempting to construct an image of God from this position. Anyone still living in old Adam will be unable to comprehend the real nature of the Kingdom of God.

The most blind and obstinate people in Jesus’ day were the teachers of the law. Yet simple people whose heart connected  to Jesus could see what they could not: That Jesus was the light. That Jesus had authority and power that the custodians of law and letter did not. So blind were they that they remained paralyzed in their categories even when they one that had killed rose from the dead.

To live in God is to live in Jesus by means of the Spirit. To live in law is see with a distorted lens, even when god has removed us from the real of darkness and immersed us in the light of His Son.

2. Before the appearance of Jesus on earth people could make a fair degree of sense out of the Old Testament using the lens of the law and the temple. Bu the Kingdom of God cannot be understood with old testament eyes.

The law was a temporary measure used by God to lead people to Christ. All that came before was a shadow to lead to the reality that from now on people would not live from law or temple. They would not live in religion. They had been delivered from the tyranny of the knowledge of good and evil with its laws of sin and death. They would live in Christ. In Christ they had received a lens with which to interpret the future and all that had come before.

By living in Jesus they would see accurately and ‘do’ in a Godly fashion. Having been made one with God through Christ their life would be harmonized with God and His creation. They would be alive, sighted and righteous in the Law of Spirit of Life who is the Person of Jesus.

‘Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death Romans’ 8.2 NIV.

3. Through Jesus Christ we are able to interpret the Bible and make sense of our lives. A good lens is Jesus. He is the only accurate lens. We see clearly when we live, move and have our being in Jesus. We get a distorted picture when we attempt to interpret the New Testament through the law and performance. The new testament is a new and living way. Not an old and distorted way. Any perspective on what life is meant to be through the lenses of the knowledge of good and evil is a distortion. We have a new and accurate lens in Christ. We can live and see through Him.

‘Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come’ 2 Cor 5.17 NASB.

4. One of the principles of interpretation is that you see what you expect to see. If you think the new testament is just an extension of the old you will subvert everything in it to law and make Jesus a proponent of the law. For example you might fasten onto the words, ‘He will write His laws on their hearts’ as supporting the belief that Jesus lives to facilitate the keeping of the commandments.

But Jesus drew attention to Himself and His Father. He did not draw attention to the law. He said, ‘I am the way.’ He did not say ‘The law is the way.’ He said ‘ I and the Father are one.’ He did not say I and the law are one.’ Jesus said, ‘If I am lifted up I will draw all people to Myself.’ He did not say I will draw them to the law.

Paul says ‘If righteousness can be gained by law, Christ died for nothing.’ He also writes, ‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant–not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6. In the light of this the writer if Hebrews cannot mean that Jesus abolished the law so that we can keep it. And of course he does not. Quoting Jeremiah, who could not have understood the incarnation whereby Christ lives in us to become our life, He means that by the Spirit the Person of Jesus infuses our heart and life so that Jesus actually becomes our life.

5. The law is a bad lens through which to view God. Adherence to law will eventually  provide us with the view that a law-bound, judging, condemning God is not a very nice person. And using this lens we can never become a gracious and joyful person.

It presents a God that is more like Allah than what God is really like: Jesus Christ.

‘There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’ But there is for those who live in law. We condemn ourselves, others and God. Our sad plight is that living outside of Jesus we live under the condemnation of God. So choose your lens carefully.