Monday, November 10, 2008
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Treasures Old and New
"Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old" (Matthew 13:52).
When God initially appeared to Abram, he gave him a promise that, while it included some other things, was primarily about the creation of a people of faith. Abram was the first to believe that God would do what he had promised, but it would have ended there if he had not taught his children the life of faith that had been revealed to him. Many years later, the law was added under Moses to help the people of faith in their quest to be faithful to the God who had called them out from among the nations of the world. This, however, did not change the fact that faith was the central thing in this whole adventure of living. In fact, if we take the Old Testament word for law — Torah — the emphasis should not be much less on what is "legal" and much more on "instruction" or direction for how we are to live. God never intended for his people to live legalistic lives, not under the old covenant any more than under the new! The apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear:
"Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring — not only to those who are of the law [the Jewish people] but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: 'I have made you a father of many nations' (Genesis 17:5). He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed — the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were" (Romans 4:16-17).
It is important that we see that, "the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good" (Romans 7:12). Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law [Torah] or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them [to give them even more meaning!]" (Matthew 5:17). And, much of what follows this declaration of Jesus with respect to the law in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is exactly that, Jesus giving even more weight to the law. We need only to look at how many times in these chapters, he says something like, "You have heard it said, followed with a particular commandment from the Old testament, but I say unto you, followed with New covenant theology and practice." Jesus accepts all of the Old Testament and intensifies it! And, as New Testament believers, we dare not treat the Old Testament with any less respect than Jesus did! We must embrace it!
At the same time, we have permission to see it as it really is, not a "law" to which we are bound, but as Paul says, as "our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24 KJV). The difference comes about because of shift of focus. It is the kingdom of heaven that John the Baptist came preaching (Matthew 3:2) and it was this kingdom that Jesus continued to proclaim (Mark 1:14-15). The Reign of God in the earth. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We see glimpses of this in the Old Testament. In his prayer of dedication of the temple, David said, "Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all" (1 Chronicles 29:11) and in Psalms he wrote, "The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all" (Psalm 103:19). Daniel prophesied that, "In the time of those kings [a clear reference to the Roman empire], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever" (Daniel 2:44).
While the Kingdom of God was not absent from the Old Testament, kingdom mostly was interpreted in a national sense — in other words, the nation of Israel was seen as the kingdom. With the coming of Jesus, we discover that the kingdom which is to say, the reign of God, is not of this world but is "from another place" (John 18:36). It is a kingdom of faith unbounded by geography or nationality the way that it was originally promised to Abraham and before the law was even given.
To get back to the verse with which we started, Jesus had taught about the law and intensified it (Matthew 5-7). He had later taught about the kingdom (Matthew 13). And he concludes by saying that anyone who has been taught by both the old and the new will become a storehouse of treasures. What is he saying? He is encouraging us not to despise the Old Testament, which has been the practice of many Christians in one form or another, but to fully embrace it, reading it through the reign of God glasses which the coming of Jesus has given us. Let it be our Torah, our instruction, that which was written for our encouragement (Romans 15:4) and that which is intended to lead us to hope and faith.
Even more importantly, I think that Jesus is encouraging us to live in the kingdom of God, to live with the reign of God being the overwhelming reality in our lives right now! Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven should not be in one iota separate from what we need "this day." It is kingdom now. May God reign in my life and in yours today! We should be like the owners of a house, and I would daresay that it must be a mansion, who bring out not only old treasures, things that God showed us or did in the past, but new things, fresh things that he has just barely taught us or shown us or done, and maybe even things that he is just even now in the process of doing!
We must study the scriptures, Old and New, and get all that we can out of all of the revelation that we have been given (2 Timothy 2:15). But we must ask for the kingdom reign of God to come into our lives as well. Then we will be like the owner of a house that has treasures new and old to bring out. And yes, the treasures are in jars of clay, but that simply places the focus back on God and his all-surpassing power and greatness (2 Corinthians 4:7). How big is your storeroom? God wants to fill it with treasures old and new! Come to think of it, didn't Jesus say elsewhere that we should "seek first the kingdom of heaven and all other things would be ours as well" (Matthew 6:33)?
See also the October 14/08 Faith Challenge "Jars of Clay"
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