The Principle of the Law

Turn to Matthew 12. This is a passage that has been used by people, because there appears to be a problem in it, to create all kinds of conclusions. In fact, there is in here a lot of people who claim that Jesus is doing away with the Sabbath. I want to use this as an introduction to a very broad concept.

We'll talk about this, and then at the end of the sermon we'll be able to look at it and see what is actually happening here. First one says, at that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples were hungry, began to pluck the heads of grain and eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. Now, they came and said, Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath, they're walking through a field and they're picking grain.

Now, it's interesting, they didn't accuse them of stealing. You know, if you saw someone walking through your garden, and they reached out and they picked up a tomato and started to eat it, what would you say? I don't care what day of the week it was, but that's because you and I live, we don't live in God's society. You know what the law of God says about that?

It's going to Deuteronomy 23-25. See, some people wouldn't get upset with that, but many people, I mean, literally, if you saw someone walking through your garden, you didn't know them, and they picked up something and started eating it as they walked on.

You would say they're stealing. Deuteronomy 23-25. When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you may not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain. So, in other words, if you were walking through a big field of wheat, obviously, you could not take a sickle and go harvest a bunch of your neighbor's wheat. You would be stealing. But if you were on a journey, especially in a day and age when there wasn't a lot of roads, you're walking, you're going on a journey, and you come to your neighbor's field, you could pull out a handful of grain and eat it.

And it was not stealing, because the whole thing that God was teaching was, you may work and you may plant and you may harvest, but where does it really come from? It comes from Him. That's why there's the concept that they work to harvest the corner of their fields. They work to leave it there for the poor people to come harvest. He didn't say, cut it down and give it to them.

He said, leave it there so they can come and harvest. They have to do some work, but they can partake of that grain. Here's another concept that's very foreign to us in our capitalistic society. Now, obviously, if you have a little garden and everybody walks through and eats everything you have, you have a problem. But He uses the example of a big field of grain, and so someone's walking through this field.

They're not walking by someone's house and taking something right out of their little family garden. But this big field of grain, it was okay. So they don't accuse here in Matthew 12, they don't accuse the disciples of stealing, because they could do that by the law of government. They weren't harvesting. If they took some and put it in their pocket, you have a problem. But if you're just taking it for human consumption because of hunger, it was accepted. But they're breaking the Sabbath. Now, what's really amazing is Jesus' response, because it takes a great understanding of the Scripture to understand what He's saying.

Or you can come to wrong conclusions. Because in verse 3 He says, But He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, how they entered the house of God, and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for them to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests.

But wait a minute. His answer is, don't you remember when David broke the law? Now, what is Jesus teaching here? Don't you remember when David broke the law? So this is okay for me to break the law. Now, if you just take that and you don't take the context, and you don't understand what happened in David's time, you can come to a lot of different conclusions. There are people who look at this and say, The Sabbath has been done away with.

Because his argument is, if David could break the law, it's okay for me to break the law, because the law is no longer, I am the son of David, and the law no longer applies. What is He actually saying? What happened here? I want to show you a greater concept of what He's teaching, because Jesus is actually teaching something very important here, and He's not doing away with the Sabbath.

I can assure you that. But it is a concept that many times we miss, or can miss. Let's go back and look at what this showbread is. Leviticus 24. Leviticus 24. I've seen Matthew 12 used and break down people's faith, and He actually stopped keeping the Sabbath because of that argument. Because it appears He's saying, David broke the law, so I can break the law. But what is He saying? Let's look at what the showbread is.

Leviticus 24 verse 5. This is talking about in the tabernacle, and the different offerings they would do. And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with a two tenths of an ephop, which shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, and it may be on the bread for memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

Every Sabbath He shall set it in order before the Lord continually being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place. For it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire by a perpetual statute. One of the offerings that was made, and this was a Sabbath offering.

Now remember, the argument about Jesus or against Jesus is, you're breaking the Sabbath. And He goes back to an Old Testament Sabbath example. That's what's important here, or one of the things. The Sabbath example is that this bread, every Sabbath, these 12 loaves of bread were baked and set before God as an offering. And then the next Sabbath, they were pulled out and replaced by 12 fresh loaves of bread. And Aaron and the priests ate the 12 loaves that were taken away. Okay. I don't know. A week-old bread. You wonder if it was any good. But they ate it. So the bread is presented before God.

Hot, fresh bread is presented before God every Sabbath. And then the next Sabbath is replaced, and the priests eat the bread. Now let's look at the example with David that he's talking about. 1st Samuel 21. Is anyone here? Has anyone here had someone bring up Matthew 12 as a way of doing away with the Sabbath? Anybody? Okay, there's a few. Say, the truth, most arguments against the Sabbath aren't this complicated, and they're pretty easy to tear apart. This one catches people sometimes. 1st Samuel 21. 1st 1. Now David came to knob to a hymnalek, the priest, and a hymnalek was afraid when he met David and said to him, Why are you alone, and no one is with you?

And David said to a hymnalek, the priest, The king has ordered me on some business, and said to me, Do not let anyone know anything about the business in which I said you, or what I have commanded you, and I have directed my young men to such and such a place. Therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever you can be found.

And the priest answered David and said, There is no common bread here. In other words, we have no bread on hand that is just everyday bread that people can eat. But there is holy bread. And if young men have at least kept themselves from women. Now he said there is holy bread. Remember what Jesus said, it was the show bread. So we know, we go to Leviticus, we know exactly what he is talking about here.

It is the Sabbath bread that was offered to God. And David says, Don't you have anything to eat? And he says, I don't have any bread to give you. The priest said, All I have is there in the tabernacle to show bread that is offered to God. He says, verse 5, And David answered the priest, And truly women have been kept from us about three days since I came out.

And the vessels of the young men are holy. And the bread is in effect common, even though it was consecrated in the vessel this day. So the priest gave him holy bread. Now we have a real interesting dilemma if we don't know what is going on here. He gave him holy bread. That is what it says that the priests were supposed to eat. This was part of an offering.

Jesus uses this as one of actually three arguments he uses in the passage. We will go back to them to say, My disciples picking this great on the Sabbath, it is not wrong. Either he is saying it is not wrong because this sin justifies this sin, or he is making a point. Some people say, Well, Jesus is teaching situation ethics. No, he is not. But he is teaching us how to understand the application of the law. To understand the application of the law.

When we look at the law of God, it is easy for us to struggle with which laws are more important than other laws. Now, I will give you an example. I have known people who have followed God for years and left the fellowship.

They divorced, they gave up the Sabbath, they gave up the Holy Days, they gave up, really they became agnostics, just some vague understanding of God. They gave up all the doctrines except one. They won't eat pork. I know people have given up every doctrine except they don't eat pork. Now, we know that the doctrine of clean and unclean meats is important, but that shows a very strange prioritizing of what is important, doesn't it? When we talk about law, when we look at man-made laws, and this is part of the problem we have in the society that we live in, laws are made up by men, and sometimes they have self-serving reasons for the law, correct?

And it frustrates us. I just want to tell you, we can't ... Taxation is not fair. We all know that we need to pay some taxes, but our taxation system isn't fair. Why? There's people making ... becoming wealthy over the taxation system. So we know that laws are sometimes made for self-serving reasons. God never makes a self-serving law. Even the ones that are about worshiping Him have to do with reality. And that means we have to understand the principle of the law.

They say, what is the principle of the law? I'm going to give you Webster's explanation, Webster's dictionary. Okay? The ultimate source or cause, a fundamental truth or law upon which all others are based. So if we understand how to apply the law, it's nice thing to have a list of laws. Most of us struggle on a regular basis. How do I apply this law?

How do I apply this law? How do I apply this law? How do I apply it in my everyday life? Well, the first thing you have to begin to realize is, let's look at the principles of the law. In other words, the foundational laws that all other laws are based on. I'll give you an example of something that happened years and years ago. I was at a church event this was, I don't know, 25 years ago. And we were going to have a softball game.

And we realized that most of the people didn't have a glove. It was a mixed men and women softball game. And most of the people didn't have a glove. So you started to realize some of these heavy hitters start pounding this ball, and someone's going to get hurt. Someone had a special softball that was mushy. It was designed to be that way.

You've seen a softball that's been hit too many times this way. This one was actually designed to be this way. This was designed that you couldn't hit this, except maybe 20 yards out of the infield. I don't care how good you were. So I said, I tell you what, this is so dangerous, let's use the mushy ball. Which was sort of fun. It really wasn't softball, it was a circus. It really was. Most hits went 10 feet, and all the infielders were running into each other. It was like the Keystone Cops out there. There were home runs based on four errors.

How do you throw this mushball? No one can hit it, no one can catch it, no one can throw it. But just one person came up to me, just furious, just furious, and said, how can we do this? This is unrighteous. We are a rule-based church, and you have changed the rules of the game, and therefore it is against God. That hit such a profound effect on me, because I'm thinking, no, this is dangerous otherwise. I mean, I can remember playing a softball game one time with pre-teens, and I was trying to bunt the ball, and I carried the swing through too much, and I watched that line drive go between about four kids, and I stood there shaking the whole time. Because if it would hit any of them, it could have killed them. I mean, I just turned my wrist, because I was younger then, and I drove that ball so hard, it scared me. I was looking at what? A principle. The principle of the value of those human beings and them getting hurt outweighed the fact of the rules of softball. This person couldn't get that, refused to play, and it would just furious with me. What is the principle of the laws of God? The Bible not only explains the laws, it explains the principles of every law. You say, well, okay, what does that mean? I mean, this is just some kind of philosophical though. Let's go to Matthew 22. Put a marker there in 1 Samuel, and we'll come back to this when we go back to Matthew 12. Matthew 22. Matthew 22. Matthew 22. Matthew 22. Matthew 22.

Verse 36. How many times have we read this, and how many times do we do not really grasp it? When you have a problem understanding how to apply the laws of God, always go back to the principles. What's the intent? What is it God wants to achieve? Verse 36, teacher.

Verse 35 says, one of them, a lawyer, asks him a question, testing him and saying, teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law? What is the principle of the law? What is the foundational principle of the law? And he didn't even hesitate. He went to Deuteronomy 6. This is in Deuteronomy 6. In the passage that says, teach your children this way, there's a command to teach your children this way, and this is the core concept of family, church, everything, core concept of how to approach God, what life is all about.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. He says, now let me tell you the second one. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. These two commandments have hanged all the law and the prophets. He said, this is it. You take all the other laws, you know, you can write them down on a big board, and guess what nails you have to drive in to hang them on.

This is what they're hung on. And so to understand the law of God, you actually start here. You actually start here. That's what's so amazing about the Ten Commandments. It's a concise beginning of how to do this. It's just, okay, you start here, here's your basic core principles.

Now let's give you the next set of principles. And then all the laws get more specific off of that. But it starts here. This is the principle. This is what God was achieved in our law keeping. See, we begin to keep the law because we fear God.

Or we begin to keep the law because of the benefits of keeping the law. We have lots of reasons why we begin to keep the law, right? But eventually you know why we should keep the law because you love God with everything and you don't care what the price is. That's what Jesus Christ said. This is the core principle. This is where we have to start. And we can keep the Ten Commandments and not love God.

I've known people who do that. They keep the letter of the Ten Commandments and never love God. So this is where we start. Every decision you make, because here's the problem with all of our law keeping. You don't live in a perfect world, which means every day you're trying to figure out how to apply a law to a certain circumstance.

And when you are confused, always go back to, what are the principles? I'm going to show you what we mean as we go on here. What are the principles? Let's go to 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy chapter 1. In some ways, this is a very basic sermon. Another way, this is just a very hard sermon to grasp what God is teaching us here. 1 Timothy 1. I just love the way Paul says this in this passage. This is one of my favorite passages of Paul. 1 Timothy says, He says, Timothy, as I urge you, when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus, that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, or give heed to fables and endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification, which is in the faith.

Now, this is the purpose of the commandment. Let me give you the purpose of the law. Let me give you the principles. Why did God give laws? There was nothing self-serving about it. God gave laws for a purpose. The purpose of all the commandments is agape. Not filio, by the way, but agape. It's not just to build brotherly law. It's to have the character of God. So, the purpose of the commandment is the character of God.

But I want you to notice something else. He didn't stop there. Because it is possible to keep the letter of the law and not have the rest of this verse. The purpose of the commandment is agape from... So, our commandment keeping must come from something. What? What is it supposed to come from? A desire to sort of evade God and get away with it as much as we can? There are people who see life that way. Is it a desire to...

You're afraid or a desire that you could only get benefits from it? It must come from a pure heart and a good conscience and from sincere, non-hypocritical faith. That's what that means. Sincere, non-hypocritical faith.

So, when God looks at our law keeping, He's also looking at, do you get the principle? And the principle is, loving God with all your heart and all your mind, loving your neighbor as yourself, and that these actions come from a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith. I can spend the rest of the time talking about that verse. What in the world does that even mean? Maybe I will sometimes. But I'm trying to hit this broader concept that gives us an answer to Matthew 12. It also gives us an answer to how you and I have to learn to apply God's law every day in what we do.

He says, verse 6, from which some, having strayed, having turned aside to idle talk, in other words, some people have strayed from God's commandments. And the reason why is because they don't understand the purpose and they don't do them from a pure heart, from a good conscience, from sincere faith. Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding either what they say or the things which they affirm. But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. You know, that Paul would talk and sometimes people think as riddles, but that is one of the most brilliant statements made in the entire Bible.

The law is good unless you misuse it. Because if you misuse it, you're being carnal. Now what is the carnal mind? It's enmity against the law of God. So the point is, you can have the law and misuse the law. Because if you don't do it, if you don't understand its purpose, if you don't understand from a pure heart and a good conscience, if you have a hypocritical faith, you will be applying the law properly anyways. He says, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person. Thou shalt not steal doesn't mean anything to a person who is honest. Right? Now you and I wouldn't know that except we have the law.

We have to have the law to tell us that. But the bottom line is, once godly character gets to the point where the law teaches us this, and he says, you know, a righteous person doesn't need to be reminded thou shalt not steal because they're not going to steal. That's the point. Once again, is Paul doing away with the law?

Anyone who reads 1 Timothy 1 knows that Paul can't be doing away with the law, or none of this makes sense. It's absolutely weird for a guy who's done away with the law, right? No, the law is good, but we've got to remember where it places, where it is with our relation with God, and what it describes, and what it helps us with, and what it does.

Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless. The law was made for people who don't know law, which at one time was all of us, by the way. Still applies to all of us, because we're still struggling with sometimes how do we obey God. So yeah, we still need the law.

That's Paul's argument. It's made for the lawless and insubordent, for the ungodly and the sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murders of fathers, and murders of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for purgers. And if there's any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, so the law even helps us describe what is sound doctrine.

So Paul now, through this argument, says, law is part of doctrine. The law of God is part of our doctrine, part of our core teachings. Verse 11, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. Wait a minute. I thought the law and the gospel were opposites. Right? That's what people, many people believe in the Protestant world. The gospel and law are opposites. Here he says the law describes what is. Now remember what we read in this whole sentence, starting in verse 8. It describes what is contrary to sound doctrine according to the gospel.

So according to the gospel, the law tells us what is against sound doctrine. He couldn't have done away with it if that statement has no sense to it. So Jesus couldn't have been doing away with the law. Okay, now what are we supposed to do here? What was Jesus doing? Let's go to... I was just going to talk about this, but I'm going to read it.

I'm going to decide what to cut out today in my sermon. Let's go to Isaiah 42. I made the mistake of getting up this morning and adding an extra page of notes, knowing that there's no way I can cover all that. But this is a... you know, sometimes we have sermons that are very specific and sometimes deal with concepts. This is a conceptual sermon. Isaiah 42, verse 1. This is a... Isaiah 42 is a Messianic prophecy, and I want you to notice something in it because this helps us define where we're going here. Behold my servant, verse 1, whom I uphold, my elect one, and whom I sold the likes.

I put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to all the nations. He will not cry out or raise his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax. He will not quench. He will bring forth justice and truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastland shall wait for his law. Now, it is universally accepted in Christianity that this whole chapter 42 is a Messianic prophecy. So, when the Messiah comes, the world will wait for his law.

Verse 21, the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake, and he will exalt the law and make it honorable.

So, one of the jobs of the Messiah is to exalt the law. The new international version and the American Standard both translate this to make the law great and glorious. One translation says he will magnify the law. He's going to take the law and open it up to its core principles, so the law makes sense. So, that's one of the things that the Messiah is going to do.

Now, Jesus Christ, Jesus, what was Christ mean? Messiah. So, what did the Christ do when he came?

Well, he began to magnify the law. He began to explain it. He began to show its principles. He began to show that it's not just a matter of a bunch of do's and don'ts. The law defines and helps us understand the very character of God and the very character that must be developed in us.

And the only way we can do that is not just to understand the law, but understand why. The purpose of the law is this. The motivation of obeying the law is this. That's what we've covered so far. The law must be in our hearts. And our hearts are our core motivations.

So, why we do what we do? Because it's like I tell people all the time, if God's command for tithing isn't written in your heart, you'll find a way not to do it. If you don't believe in what the Sabbath really is all about, you'll find a way not to do it. If you don't believe in the sacredness of marriage, you'll find a way to commit adultery or divorce. You simply will. And the law won't stop you.

The law won't stop you. But when you understand what God is doing in your core of your being, the laws then become how you define behavior. But it's more than behavior. The law now gets into the inward parts of who you are. And that helps us make our decisions. Now let's look at what the Messiah, if He's going to come and the Messiah is going to expand the law, exalt the law, make it honorable. How does He do that? Let's look at Hebrews 8.

Hebrews 8 is interesting because it is in the New Testament has the longest quote of an Old Testament passage. Hebrews 8, longest quote of an Old Testament passage.

For if the first covenant had been faultless, this is verse 7 of Hebrews 8, then no place would have been sought for a second.

Here Paul is saying the first covenant had a flaw in it. So let's forget what the flaw was, and then let's look at what God said He was going to do. Because finding fault with them, the people couldn't keep the covenant. They failed in that covenant over and over again. He says, now He goes to Jeremiah, and he has this long quote of Jeremiah. He says, this is what God said He would do. This is what the Messiah is supposed to do.

Now we can go to the Scriptures that says the Messiah would become a covenant.

A new agreement is going to be made with human beings.

He says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, other Scriptures show that it's with the entire world.

But what we just read in Isaiah 42, the Messiah comes for the world, not just for those people, the direct physical descendants of Abraham, but for everybody.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I discarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, say the Lord, I will do away with my laws. I will make sure that they don't have to keep all these burdens anymore, and they shall be free to do whatever they want.

Is that what your Bible says? I will put my laws in their mind, and right there on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, what's interesting about that is when Jeremiah wrote, what were the principles of the law?

Well, we know what the rabbis were thinking. What Jesus said in another one of the gospel accounts when He said, Love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, love your neighbors yourself, the rabbi said, Wow, you're right.

The Ten Commandments were very important foundational concepts.

There was no other law for Him to talk about.

There was no other law for Jeremiah to talk about, except what we call the Old Testament.

He did say He was going to bring a new law. He said that He's going to write them in your heart.

He says, verse 11, None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful in their unrighteousness, and their sins, and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more.

Verse 13 Paul says, In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. They were watching, you know, it wasn't long after this that the temple was destroyed.

And Judaism in the way, well, the Old Covenant, not just Judaism, the Old Covenant could not be carried out without a tabernacle or a temple. It could not work. After that was destroyed, the Old Covenant could not work anymore. And so we know that it was even prophesied.

That what would happen under this new covenant, we know that the Messiah is going to come, He's going to create a new covenant, He's going to exalt the law. That the law wasn't going to be erased, but it was written in people's hearts, so they would understand the principles of it, why they do, the purpose that John talks about that we read.

So let's go to Matthew 5. Let's look at what Jesus taught here in the Sermon on the Mount.

I remember reading this or quoting this man one time, he said, Well, everything that Jesus said before the resurrection doesn't apply anymore.

Okay, we don't have anything to discuss because the difference is I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ, and you're not. I didn't say that. That's what I thought.

Actually, now I wish I would have. Matthew 5, 17. Jesus says, Don't think I've come to do away with the law, because that's not what it says the Messiah will do. It says he will exalt and honor the law. He will magnify it. But you notice it said in Isaiah 42, it said His law. Something has changed. The covenant was an administration of God's way on earth through Moses. That was the Sunday coming. The covenant that would come later would be administered through the Messiah. This is very important. What did Moses do? What is Deuteronomy? Deuteronomy is case law. This case came up. They wrote down the judgment. This case came up. They wrote down the judgment. It's case law. And every once in a while, even Jesus said, you know, Moses' judgment on divorce. Let me tell you a better judgment on divorce. See, how the law is to be applied is to be determined by Jesus Christ.

If you want to know how to apply the law of God now, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, because Jesus Christ tells you how to do it. He's the administrator. He is the Messiah. It is His law. It's not different than His Father's law. He gave the law. It's not different than the law He gave then. But He administrates it. He makes the judgments, which makes Matthew 12 very interesting because it shows us how He makes judgments. So how does He make judgments?

Well, look at verse 20. Well, look at this. Skip to verse 21. You have heard that it was said of the old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.

Okay, now let me expand the law. He says, that law is good. He didn't say, I had done away with that law. He says, let me explain what's underneath that law.

But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. Whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hellfire. He said, now let's move this into the inner part of the law, and let's move this into the foundation of the law. You want to know what the foundation of this law is? Well, let's go there. Let's go to James 3. You know, it's interesting, the New Testament writers, of course, simply take—we'll come right back to Matthew 5. James 3. The New Testament writers expound upon the teachings of Jesus Christ in explaining the law. If you read James, you know that James taught that you have to keep the law. That's why there are some scholars who believe there were two churches in the first century. The Gentile church, who didn't keep the law, and the Jewish church who kept the law. Paul was in charge of one, and James was in charge of the other, because they can't figure out how to put these things together. You know why? They don't understand the principle of the law. If you don't understand the principle of the law, you don't understand what they're talking about. Look at James 3.8, But no man contained the tongue, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth, we receive blessings and cursings. My brother, these things ought not to be. Now, he gives a law here. And you can find out law in the Old Testament, but you notice he also gives the principle behind the law. Why is it you should not curse other human beings?

Because they're made in the likeness of God. There's the principle.

There's the underlying law that the law is based on. You don't curse another human being because that human being is made in the likeness of God.

That gives you a different motivation for not cursing. It also will make you, if you really understand that, you will be much more sensitive about what you say to other people.

I know I find myself, since this principle has become more and more in my mind over the last 20 years, I apologize a lot. I find myself apologizing a lot because, well, I can't do that to that person. I can't say that. Why? Because they're made in the likeness of God.

So I can't do that. Even if they're wrong, you can't do certain things.

I apologize a lot. I do it less than I used to.

Because that principle is the principle. And if we are principally based people, if we are rule-based people, you'll get mad if the mushball is used at the softball game.

If you're a principle-based person, you'll say, we can't hurt these people. See the difference?

Look what he says. Of course, you know what he says here. In verse 23, he starts to tell us how to apply this now. That's what's interesting about Matthew 5. I'm not going to go all through Matthew 5. This is one of the things I actually said down this morning. It's been an hour and a half saying, I ought to go through all Matthew 5. So I studied Matthew 5. There's no way to go through all that. But what Matthew 5 does, he begins to say, let me show you how I exalt the law. How I take the law and say, yes, you should keep it. Now let me take it the next step. Let me make it honorable. Let me tell you the principle. Let me tell you why. And let me show you how to apply it. So he says here, okay, don't hate your brother. You have to be careful how you treat your brother. You can't say a person is worthless. You can say they're wrong, but you can't say they're worthless. And then verse 23 says, therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift and go to your brother. Well, wait a minute. If my brother has something against me, it's because he's wrong. And you know that may be right.

That's not the argument here. He may be absolutely wrong. That's not the point.

What's he talking about here? He's talking about murder. Well, these things are in a test. Yes, they are. Because if I understand this is a person made in the likeness of God, not only can I kill him, unless God says to, you know, God tells people sometimes to kill people. And God gives governments the right to commit to execute people who commit murder. That right was given to them in Genesis 6. You and I don't have the right to become vigilantes and go out and kill people. We don't have the right to do that. So why murder? Murder is based on that person's in the likeness of God. So unless God gives you permission, we don't have the right to take human life. Okay.

So he has to give us permission. Second thing. Okay, that means you can't even say they're worthless.

Oh, that's hard. That's hard. You can't even just hate somebody. Well, that's hard.

But that's because murder is... it's all tied in the murder here. He's now getting deeper and deeper into the principle of all. Then he gets to the place, even if you're wrong, if somebody's wrong, but they have something against you, you have to go try to fix it, even if they're wrong. Well, what's that have to do with murder? It has to do with the likeness of God.

It has to do with the principle of why God says, Thou shalt not kill.

See, these things seem undistroided us. They're not. They're all based on the same principle.

The same law that underlies the law. The cause of the law, as principle means.

Well, you start going through here. That's why he says, you've heard it's wrong to commit adultery. He says, I said, that's true. He says, I'm going to even take this farther. It's wrong to lust after somebody. He's saying, well, what's the principle of that?

Principle of that is found in Genesis, where he says, I made man and woman, and for this cause you shall leave your mother and father, and you shall be joined together as one flesh. Just like human life has a sacredness to it because everyone's made in the image of God, marriage is a sacred holy covenant between two people and God. Why do you think, you know, we speak so much against fornication? I remember my daughters when they were teenagers saying, Dad, every time we go to a teen Bible study at the district weekend, or everybody, all they talk about is fornication. Can't they tell us about something else?

Well, part of the reason why, and I think sometimes we haven't explained the principle of the law so people don't understand, why is it that we are so strong against homosexuals? Is it because we hate homosexuals? No. Is it because we think homosexuals are the most worthless type of people? No. I had a man one time who said that homosexuals were all going to the lake of fire and we could never let a person who had committed homosexuality into the church. And I said, I'm sorry Christ doesn't see that way. And he said, you're not a minister of God and never came back to church. And I'm glad he didn't.

Do I support homosexuality? No. Why? Because it goes against the sacredness of marriage.

Do I support adultery? No. Do I support fornication? No. Because it goes against the sacredness of marriage. That's why. The principle is marriage is sacred. And I guarantee you, if we all understood the sacredness of marriage, we wouldn't have as many marriage problems as we have in the church. If we understood what I understand underlines the law, that's why in this very same passage he talks about these things. But see, we've missed the principle of the law.

And so all through Matthew, Chapter 5, he says, now let me take a law just to show what I'm talking about. Jesus, let me take a law, tells you what it means, that let me take it into the principle, which we call the spirit of the law. Okay? The principle of the law, the law that upholds the law that's built off of. So all through the teachings of Jesus Christ, we see the upholding of the law. But we also see him making judgments about the law that are his judgments. As a law giver, he has the right to make judgments. And it is a different administration. You know, when you go through the laws in the Old Testament, the 613 laws, many of them have to do with punishment.

People say, well, why don't we wear the tassels when they're closed like they were commanded to do so? Go and read why. They were told to wear them. What was the principle of them wearing tassels? He says, because you don't remember the law. So if the law of God isn't written in your heart, you probably should wear them, maybe. But you see, if it's written in our hearts, we don't have to wear tassels. It was a punishment. Much of it has to do with punishments, but many of the laws have to do with case laws. It's amazing how many of the laws have to do with tabernacle service. Hundreds of them have to do with the tabernacle. Many of them you have to have a civil government to carry out.

Okay, this person commits this sin, the community needs to come together and stone them.

We don't have that power in the new covenant. You and I aren't allowed to stone anybody.

Why? Because we're not a civil government. That's why. The church is not a civil government. It's a spiritual body. So when he starts to look at the laws, he starts to say, okay, I can figure out how to apply these things. What is the principle behind it? Because every law in the Old Testament, even the ones that may seem strange to you, have a principle behind it.

And the principle still applies. And then people come to me and say, well, I have mold in my house, and the Levites were supposed to come determine whether the house should be burnt down or not.

And my answer is, I'm not a Levite, but principle still applies. And people say, should I find a Levite? No. Get Clorox. And if the mold's bad enough, burn your house down. Bring in an expert, because sometimes people have to do that, right? Principle still applies, or you'll get sick.

But I can't do that. I'm not a Levite, and I don't know. I'm not smart enough to, I mean, I don't have training to do that. But the principle still applies. If you don't do it, you'll get sick.

And I've known people that have had to burn their house down, or knock it down, because of mold.

So, you know, what a strange law. No, principle still applies. Certain molds are bad for human beings, so get them out of your house. And if you don't, get out of the house.

And if you don't, you'll get sick.

So, we know that both, when we look at Jeremiah, we look at Paul and Hebrews, that they're talking about this law that was written on stone, right? This law that was written on stone. And the law that was written on stone, of course, we know is the Ten Commandments.

They're the laws that are written in your heart.

Let's look at another place where Paul talks about the difference of these two. And this will give us the purpose of the law in the core of who you are. 2 Corinthians 3.

2 Corinthians 3. So, Jeremiah talks about the law written in your hearts, as opposed to the law written on stone. Paul talks about it in Hebrews. Let's look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.

2 Corinthians 3. Verse 7. But the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away. Now, what is that? Well, we all know back in the Old Testament that when Moses came down with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, his face was glowing. We know exactly what this is talking about. This was what? An administration of God's law. But what was it in its end result? Death. The problem of the law without God's spirit is that it can only tell you where you're wrong. It doesn't have the power to remove sin from inside of you. So the law was very frustrating to people who were trying to keep it, but they kept looking at the law and saying, but I failed. I failed. I failed. And never had power to get sin outside of themselves. He says, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? So he's comparing here the administration of God's law from tables of stone to tables of heart. He's not doing the right way of the law. He's talking about two different administrations of the law. One administration that was on stone that could never lead to salvation. It could lead to good lives. It could lead to salvation. And the administration of the law in heart, inside of people, where the law is there and it is made and they submit to Jesus Christ the administration of that law.

For the ministry of condemnation and glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect because of the glory that excels. The glory of what happened then pales in the insignificance of what is happening in our lives.

For if what was passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech. Unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face as the children of Israel could not look steady at the end of what was passing away, he had to put a veil over his face because people couldn't bear to look at his glowing face. Because when he saw the back of God, that power and that glory caused the molecules in his face to shine.

He says, you look at that and realize what's happening in our lives through the administration of God's Spirit, which we talked about on Pentecost, the administration of God's Spirit, to take that law and write it inside of our hearts and minds. He says that makes out absolutely like it just pales in the insignificance.

But there are minds, verse 13, that were blinded, for until this day the same veil remains unlisted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil was taken away in Christ. Yes, the administrator of the New Covenant.

Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit the Lord is, there is liberty.

In the Jewish world today, there's not an understanding of Jesus Christ for the most part as the administrator of the New Covenant, as the Messiah. And so there is a misunderstanding of the application of God's law. And what's amazing is many Jews keep God's law, at least attend to the Nehemiah's meticulously, and it will not bring them salvation.

Wrong administration. Wrong administration. There are many Christians, on the other hand, who have some kind of understanding of Jesus Christ, but they don't live under His administration either because they do away with the law. Both are not true. There are just two ends of a continuum. Is that possible to have two ends of a continuum?

I looked at Mr. Juan, and he had a strange look in his face. There are two ends of a point, I mean of a line. There are opposite ends. There we go.

Someone will come up and tell me afterwards, I'm sure, whether you can have two ends of a continuum or not. And I bet you you're a Star Trek fan. Okay, verse 18. But we all, with unveiled face, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. This is what God's Spirit does. This is what we were talking about on Pentecost. When we look into the mirror and we're applying the law of God, if we're not understanding the principle of the law, what you will see is a lawkeeper. If the very principle of the law is what's motivating and driving you to obey the law of God, when you look in the mirror you're going to say, I think that's mean, that's mean, it looks sort of like Jesus, spiritually speaking.

You're going to see that you're being transformed into a child of God.

You're being changed at the very core of who you are.

So let's go back. Let's go back to Matthew 12 now.

To really obey the law under the administration of Jesus Christ, we have to understand the principle of the law. His judgments, then, will make sense.

Verse 3 says, remember, their accusation is they're breaking the Sabbath, not that they're stealing.

His response is, first response is, have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him. How he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priest.

What he's saying is, before you make this judgment, let's go back to a judgment made by some priests and look at why they made their judgment. Because he's saying he supported their judgment. He's not saying they broke the law. He's saying they knew how to apply the law in this situation. It appears that they broke the law, but they didn't because they understood the principle behind it. Now, let's go back to 1 Samuel. Leave a marker here, and let's go back to 1 Samuel. I'm going to flip it all over the place today, but it's one way to keep you awake. 1 Samuel. Are you all with me here? Are you all falling asleep? You still with me?

Okay. 1 Samuel 21.

Remember David's argument to the priest? Because the priest says, I have no bread.

There's no common bread. And then the priest says, well, all I have is the holy bread.

So are you all spiritually, are you all ceremonially clean? You haven't been with a woman.

You haven't, for a certain amount of time, you haven't been with a woman sexually, is the point. You haven't been, you know, touched the dead body because this was what was required of the priest to eat the bread. The priest, if they had touched a dead body, could not eat the bread that week.

So he's saying, have you met the standards of the ritual of this law?

Like the priest has to meet the standards. And David's answer is, yes.

Me and my men with me have met the ritual standards of the priest over a three-day period. And he didn't ask, you know, are you committing adultery? Because he's, no, you're not doing those things. Are you, remember this is on the Sabbath. He didn't ask, are you keeping the Sabbath?

He didn't ask them, are you actually breaking the letter of the foundational laws? Are you, David, have you worshiped idols this week? That's not what he's asking him. Because he knows he hasn't done those things. What he's saying is, okay, let's go to the minimal standards of requirement. For me as a priest to eat this, the minimal standard is, the minimal standard is, you have to do this, this, this, and this. Have your men done that?

Yes. But what I really find interesting is David's argument in verse 5.

David answered the priest and said to him, truly, we might have been kept from us about three days since they came out. And the vessels of the young men are holy, their clothes are clean, everything's right here. Everything's okay. The men are ceremonially clean, and they met the minimal standards of what a priest would have to have to eat this. And then he says, and the bread is in effect common. David says, when we look at the law here, the bread has already fulfilled its holy purpose. Where would he get that from? Verse 6. So the bread gave him, or the priest gave him, the holy bread. For there was no bread there but the showbread which had been taken from before the Lord in order to put hot bread in its place on the day when it was taken away. They had taken away, this was the showbread that was a week old. They had put in the new bread. Now, he did not give them the bread that was before God. That offering, giving them that, would have been blasphemy against the offerings of God. They did not do that. They did not give them the fresh bread. You know, they could say, oh, look, when you get fresh bread, it's still hot. They gave them day-old bread that had frankincense in it. I can't imagine what that takes. I mean, not day-old, I mean week-old bread. They gave them week-old bread that was what? Remember what it said in Leviticus?

That after the Sabbath, when they replaced the bread, who ate the bread? The priests.

The priests had to make a judgment here. The priests made a judgment. We can't give them the bread before God because that's breaking too serious of a commandment. Now, we're commanded to eat this bread that's a week old that's ours to eat. And the priest's decision was, the high priest's decision was, there had to be a principle here, David's hunger. I mean, he was desperate. He's kind of begging the priest for something to eat. David's hunger, as someone made in the image of God, love your neighbor as yourself, was more important than his bread. So he gave him his bread.

Can you make that argument that Christ is doing away with the Sabbath?

See, the argument has no water to it. It holds nothing.

Because what he's saying is, come on, guys! My disciples are hungry! We're walking, probably to the synagogue or something. We're walking here, and they picked some food out of a person's grain field, which is allowed by law, all but not on the Sabbath. Oh, come on! The priest even gave his own bread to David, which the law said was his. And the priest decided he had the right to give it, because David was hungry. My men are hungry, and they could pick a little grain out of a field. See his argument now? See how he's applying the law? He's applying a principle and saying, in this little picky point, the principle overrides it. I mean, technically speaking, the bread was to be given to Aaron and the priests. Right? That priest decided God now gave the bread to me. And here's a hungry man, and I will go hungry and give my bread to him.

That's a principle-centered decision. That's what he's trying to say.

But I want you to notice they did not take the bread that was still offered to God.

That would have been a serious sin. They did not touch that bread.

So now let's go back to Matthew 12. See, he's teaching them how to apply the principle or the spirit of the law. So that's his first argument in verses 3 and 4.

Verse 5, he says, Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath, this priest of the temple profane the Sabbath, that are blameless? He says, Now, wait a minute. I'm doing the work of God here with the disciples. You know, every Sabbath we have here, 140, 150 people show up, and there's lots of people that do lots of work. There are people here sometimes two hours before, setting up the screens and setting up, making sure the chairs are okay, and setting up the sound system, making sure the Sabbath schools are right. There'll be people here afterwards working, doing choir practice. There's people who make coffee. There's people who bring cookies. Everybody's doing this. Why is that work okay? Because it's the work of God.

That's another one of his arguments. If David, if that priest could serve David by giving him his bread, surely you can understand even the priest's work on the Sabbath when it's God's work. I'm doing God's work! My disciples are doing God's work.

Then verse 16 says, Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple, but if you had known this, he quotes from the Old Testament, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the guiltless, for the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. That last couple verses is amazing, because what he's telling them is, I determined what is allowed on the Sabbath, not you. I'm the master of the Sabbath, and I determined. You can see why, if you read through the rest of this chapter, they decided they were going to kill him.

This is one of the things that drove them to decide to kill him. They decided what you did on the Sabbath, and he said, No, you don't. I decide what you do and not do on the Sabbath.

He was declaring himself the Messiah.

The coastlands will wait for his law, and he will absolve the law and make it honorable. You know what he's saying right there? That's me, and that's what I'm doing. The three arguments are amazing.

Let's go back and look at a priest who gave up his bread. Let's look at the fact that doing God's work on the Sabbath is acceptable work. Let's look at the fact that Jesus says, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. I determined how this law is applied, not you.

Three amazing points, and it's all based on telling them you don't understand the principle.

You try to keep the laws without understanding the principle. The law of God is being written on your hearts and in your minds as part of the New Covenant.

As participants in the New Covenant, he was saying, which of the all-covenant laws apply to us?

Well, the ones that apply to a civil government don't. The ones that apply directly to punishments don't. The ones that apply to the exact operation of the temple of the tabernacle don't. You know, sacrifices, those kinds of things. But you know the principles of all those still apply?

Every one of them. The principle of every sacrifice is Jesus Christ. So how can that principle not still apply? If the principle of Jesus Christ, the principle still applies.

What is the principle of the Passover? What is the principle of the way she's offering? What is the principle of the sin offering? Jesus Christ. So the principle still applies. Every one of those laws should be studied. Every one should be looked at in terms of the principle. Because Jesus Christ is the high priest, and he is now in heaven carrying that out, not men in some tabernacle someplace.

That reality and everything they did symbolized him. The moral law, which includes the Ten Commandments, the moral law is just as—no, this is wrong. It is more applicable today than it was when Moses got it. Isn't that what Jesus said in Matthew 5?

I'm going to exalt this law. I'm going to magnify this law. I'm going to extend it out into its principle, into its spirit, and you're going to have to learn to apply this in a deeper way than you ever did. What he was telling them, it's more applicable. And that's who we are. This law gives us insight into the mind of God, and through the transforming of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can look in that spiritual mirror day by day. We look a little bit more like our elder brother, Jesus Christ.