Did Jesus Come To Correct Moses & The Old Testament?

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. The New Testament scriptures would be more relevant to New Testament Christians. I get all of that, but here's the thing.

The Old Testament is still really, really, really important. Remember, it's just as much the word of God as the New Testament is. There's not different levels of the word of God that this is. This is more the word of God than this.

Well, it's either the word of God or it's not. So, here's the thing we need to realize. Everything that Jesus did and said, everything was perfectly in line with what Moses said in the scriptures. So, Jesus and Moses are not opposites.

Jesus fulfilled what Moses wrote about. They were on the same page, you could say. So, Jesus was the one of whom Moses and the prophets spoke. So, that's why the idea that Christianity is something totally different or detached is so bizarre.

Years ago, we had a person come and that wanted support from this church. And he came and he was telling me about how he viewed Christianity as completely different. Like the Old Covenant was, this is a new religion.

Christianity was completely separate from the commandments. So, his attitude was the Ten Commandments, it's like, don't even worry about that. Christianity and the teachings of Jesus is completely, radically new.

And within a year, it came out that he was violating the Ten Commandments and multiple commandments. So, where he was really disqualified from ministry. I think that's part of why people want to do away with it.

They don't like the commandments because they're breaking the commandments. So, this strange interpretation is, there's an ulterior motive, I think, for many people. Now, obviously, the Old Testament, not everything applies to us.

It's for us, but it doesn't apply to us, not everything. The Apostle Paul says what was written in the Old Testament is for our edification. It's written as an example, but not everything applies. So, just a basic example, the Passover lamb, right?

The Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb on the Passover. Do we do that? No, we don't have to offer those sacrifices.

Why?

Because Christ fulfilled that. So, yeah, there are some things, some commandments in the Old Testament that are not applicable. That's true, but everything in the Old Testament is still true, it's just about understanding it correctly.

So, Jesus, did he come to destroy the law? No, he came to fulfill it. What does the word fulfill mean? I looked it up. Fulfill means to bring to completion or to carry out or to satisfy requirements and obligations.

And that's what Jesus did. So, over the years I've realized there are many Christians, some of them I would say, I don't think this is a stretch, there are some professing Christians who don't like the Old Testament.

Have you encountered this? I bet you have. Not only are there some who don't think it's as important, which I could see to a certain degree, but there are some who just don't like it. As a matter of fact, you start reading some of these stories in the Old Testament and they get upset.

Or maybe you've heard that, well, you know, the God of the Old Testament was really mean. And the God of the New Testament, he's just so much more loving. Have you heard that? What are you talking about?

It's the same God. Or they'll recognize, yeah, it's the same God, but God in the Old Testament was more angry and now he's kind of lightened up a little bit. See, these are people, they're not reading the Bible.

Anyone who says that has never really read or studied the Scripture. That is not true. So, Jesus is on the same page as Moses. In fact, Jesus is on every page of the Old Testament Scriptures. All of it points to him.

Jesus said in John 539 about the Old Testament Scriptures, these are they which testify of me. What Moses wrote is all about Jesus. What the prophets wrote is all about Jesus. So, what's the application for you?

The two-thirds of the Bible that some of you have been ignoring, that's the Word of God that you need to start paying attention to. It's not irrelevant, so don't ever think that. So, let me encourage you.

Let me challenge some of you. Start reading the Old Testament. If you've been ignoring it, start reading it. I realize it's a challenge, but once you do, hey, there's some great stories. Is there some great stories in the Old Testament?

Amen.

And then, once you realize that it's all pointing to Christ, it can open up your understanding. You know, Noah's Ark. You realize the Ark represents Christ. We already talked about the Passover Lamb, Jesus is.

Remember the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? The Jewish Day of Atonement, Jesus made Atonement on the cross. It was all about him. So, Jesus definitely did not come to do away with the book that was all about himself.

Misreading Matthew 5:43-44 as a Correction of Moses

So, where do people get this idea? Let's look at the text. Where do people get this idea that Jesus came to correct or destroy the law? Well, it really comes from a misinterpretation of some of these verses.

Look at verses 43 and 44. So, we're in Matthew chapter 5. And, you know, I understand why reading for the first time, someone might conclude this. So, I get it. But it's really a misinterpretation. I'll show you why.

Verse 43, Matthew 5, 43, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you and do good to those who hate you.

And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Okay, notice what Jesus says. You have heard that it was said. Because what people have in their mind is, okay, the Old Testament said this.

Jesus is correcting the scriptures. That's what a lot of people think. Notice what Jesus said. Did he say it is written? No, he said, you have heard that it was said. So, what does that mean? Well, there's people saying this.

There's a lot of people saying a lot of things. It doesn't make it correct. If Jesus said it is written, that would be a reference to the scriptures, right? Like Jesus said back in chapter 4, How it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

That was a quotation of scripture. But Jesus is not quoting scripture here. What's he quoting? Yeah, he's quoting what people are saying about the scripture. That's what he is correcting. But people will read this, that you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

And again, in their mind, Jesus is correcting Moses. But Moses didn't write that. Moses wrote half of it, that you shall love your neighbor. He did write that in the book of Leviticus. But did Moses then say, and you shall hate your enemy?

Did Moses say that? He did not say that. Who was saying that? The rabbis were saying that. You can go to Morse Corner Church, and hopefully we strive to teach what the Bible says, and teach it in context.

You can go to another church, and who knows what they're teaching. A lot of pastors, and it's sort of a temptation for anyone to sort of share their opinion. Here's my opinion, as though it's authoritative.

So, Jesus is correcting the rabbis. He's not correcting Moses. Do you see that?

Okay.

Here's another example. It's not quite as obvious. Look at verses 27 and 28. So, just as in churches today, there's a lot of pastors saying the wrong thing. A lot of the rabbis were teaching the Word of God out of context.

Okay, verses 27 and 28. Jesus says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Now, here's the thing. This is in Scripture. Thou shalt not commit adultery. This is the seventh commandment of the law, which Jesus upholds. He's not undoing it. He's upholding it. So, Jesus upheld all of the commandments, even the Sabbath.

Jesus kept the Sabbath day. There's some people who think Jesus and his disciples were breaking the Sabbath.

Wrong.

Jesus kept the Sabbath. But what Jesus is doing here, this statement about adultery, he's going down to the root cause of adultery. Adultery doesn't just happen. Like, whoops, you know, just a mistake.

It just kind of happened. People might say that, but that's not the way it works. It starts where?

In the heart.

It starts maybe in the eyes. With the eyes, someone will lust after someone else that they're not married to in their heart. So, Jesus is addressing the root cause, that before a person actually commits adultery, they first lust after that person in their heart.

So, where does sin begin? It begins in the heart. That's what Jesus is addressing. So, people often think that Jesus doesn't really care about behavior and, you know, all Jesus cared, not what you're doing, not behavior.

All Jesus really cares about is the heart.

Have you heard that?

Jesus isn't worried about this. He's not worried about that. Jesus, he only cares about the heart. Well, that's a ridiculous statement since the heart is the problem.

The heart is the problem.

And if people are doing things they shouldn't be doing, it's because of the heart, right? Now, how to fix that, this is all law. The sermon on that is all law. The gospel is something else. But what does Jesus do with the gospel?

He gives us a, if the problem is in the heart, what does Jesus do with the gospel? He gives us a new heart. God puts those desires in us that we no longer want to do those things. We no longer want to live the way we once did.

Now, the sinful flesh still wants to do all that stuff. So, that's why we need to walk in the spirit and mortify the flesh and deny the flesh but put on the new man. So, through prayer, once a person is born again, through prayer, worship, iron, sharpening iron, having Christian fellowship, holding each other accountable, being part of a local church, partaking in the ordinances, all of that helps us to get victory.

But Jesus is talking about the issue of the heart. So, Jesus, you see again, he's not correcting Moses. He's just getting down to the root issue, right? You all see that? So, Jesus, again, he's not coming up with some new religion.

He's not coming up with a new system of ethics. Rather, Jesus is correctly applying what Moses said. Now, the problem was the rabbis and many of the Jews, because they were taught by the rabbis, they had all these wrong ideas.

And this is still true within churches today. There's a lot of Christians that they don't know better because they were never taught. So, there's all sorts of false ideas out there. One of the problems back then, during the days of Christ, was something we call legalism.

Legalism is the teaching that you are saved by keeping rules. You're saved by keeping the law. So, as long as you don't do this and you don't do that and you don't do that, then you're going to heaven.

Is that true? Well, that's what a lot of the rabbis, the scribes, and Pharisees were teaching. And their obedience maybe had other motives. But what should our obedience be? It should be from what? From the heart.

People sometimes try to change from the outside in rather than changing from the inside out. We need Christ in our heart. That way, we change from in here and then eventually it comes out here. But if you try just to change from the outside in, you're not addressing the root issue.

So, all of this, this is what Jesus is getting at. But again, there are people who still have the idea that the Ten Commandments, the law of God, the Old Testament, all that, out the window. We talked about this a couple months ago.

You know, legalism was the problem back then. Right now, legalism is not the problem. Right now, the problem is the opposite. What is it called? Legalism and license. I mentioned a few months ago the story about the Christian contemporary singer Amy Grant.

And so, if you like Amy Grant, listen, I'm not against you if you like her music. This is just the perfect illustration. So, you'll have to excuse me. But she talked about how she justified hosting a gay wedding at her home because she essentially said, this is the point of the message really, she said that God no longer is worried about the Ten Commandments.

He only reduced it to one commandment. And that commandment is what? You know this by now.

Love. Right.

And then people redefine love. Talked about this a lot. They redefine love. They detach it from the context, which is the law. And there you go. People now have a license to kind of do whatever they wish.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.