Thoughts and commentary on John 5:19

John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

He healed a man, changed everything about him beginning with his circumstances, ordered him to take his bed roll and get out of the place he was in, and now He has told the Pharisees that he is the Son of God. They want Jesus dead, and will probably feel fairly justified in doing so. That is what has just happened.

Watch any of the television show COP's and you will observe human nature in its purest state, broken. Confronted with accusations, the defense system kicks in, and the mouth starts going. Attorneys are trained to give a strong defense and so are Christian apologists. The attack by the Jews is only verbal at this point; it could get worse, and according to the law they would be right in doing so.
Jesus responds to them, but watch the direction that he takes them. He goes to the source, the creator of the law. Only the originator can define and explain the hows and whys of what has happened before them. Speaking to Jews, deeply entrenched in religion, he speaks in clouded terms. This was no parable, but they did not get it.

"I tell you the truth, the son can do nothing by himself;.."
Jesus already told them that he was God's Son. If I gave a "prophetic word" to someone, and tacked on "this is what God says" then in a way I may have manipulated the persons response to the word that I gave.
(If God should tell me to say that, it would be a different story, but he never has. I know that far to much of my humanness gets involved in what I say.)

Jesus said that He was the Son because He was, and because He did exactly what the Father told him to do. God himself told him to speak such to these men. Consider the moment in the garden when the guards came to get him. They asked him "are you the one" and he responded with I AM. Oh dear lord, the Majesty. His response put them on their backs. This world has tacked the term Your Majesty to mere humans, and those humans have strutted around as though they were somebody. Someday they will fall prostrate before the King.

People may say that Jesus was being humble in making this statement. I say that the Father intended to put the religious community on its ear. The time of change had come. The Pharisees were up to their necks in the law, but then so was Moses and he saw through it, and saw that there was freedom being displayed through the law. Moses, because of his actions was deemed the most humble man on earth until Christ came.

What made Moses the most humble man on the earth?
When the going got tough he turned to God. He was like a cattle rancher, trying to herd some of the most unruly cattle on the face of the planet. When Moses came off the mountain and hears the big party going on, he finds his own brother Aaron leading the crowd around a golden idol that they had made; totally contrary to what they had been told to do. What does Aaron say about the idol? We threw all the gold in and this is what pop out. Are you kidding me, and if so you decided to worship it?

Even the Samaritans were looking for the Messiah to come. They knew it would be one like Moses. That would imply a humble man.

One of the Greek words for humble is tapeinos and it is an adjective. In the NT it is always used in a good sense, but metaphorically to denote someone of low degree or a low estate. It can also mean humble in spirit.
Webster's dictionary defines humbly as an adverb. Meaning: in a humble manner; or modest submissiveness.

Back to Moses. Though he was considered to be the most humble man on the earth, at the time, this was not a man without a backbone. You cannot rule over that many people without a backbone. Moses was trained in the Egyptian courts, with the potential of taking over as a future Pharaoh. Choosing instead to be a Jew, he eventually leads Israel into "freedom".

'he can do only what he see his Father doing,.."
A man with a backbone; a carpenter, and a man that learned to submit to the voice and instruction of the Father. Standing before these Pharisees he tells them that I am only doing what I see the Father doing.
So now we have gone from I can do nothing by myself (I suspect that is more of a submissive state, for this man before them spoke the worlds into existence, and they did not know it.), to I only do what I see the Father do. This to had to push them over the edge. How could you see what the Father was doing. These men were the trained, Doctors of the law, and there was nothing humble about them. They could see the into the law, and it showed them nothing more than what their reactions demonstrated.

Think about this. Paul, John, Peter, and James (the brother of Jesus) all had that same law, yet they came to see the freedom that was embedded in the law, and the basis for it's being written. Hebrews tells us that the law was a shadow of the good things to come. The man that cast the shadow was standing before them.

The Greek word for see is blepo, and means to behold, beware, to look on, regard.

Did Jesus see things differently than we see, or could he have meant that same ability to see in the spirit that we have. Looking into the spirit (that is hard to define) is something that you do in faith. God, by the Holy Spirit, gave us that ability. It is a special gift in some, and an everyday way of life in the rest of us.

"because what ever the Father does the Son also does."
God created the laws that the Jews were using against Jesus, and yet by this statement God was overriding those same laws. If Jesus was only doing what the Father does, then without further explanation God is breaking his own laws and that makes him a liar. That cannot happen so there is something more to the picture than what we see. Moses understood all that. I will say it again, "the law was only a shadow of good things to come." How could that possibly be? The law carries the connotation of restrictions and bondage when most hear the term. What are we missing?

Thoughts and commentary on John 5:18

John 5:18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

" For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him"
Does that register with anyone. If this was where we started reading we would miss out on a tremendous amount of drama. Drama was not exactly John's purpose in writing. John fully intended for you see Jesus as God. Jesus had just told them that God was his Father. If they were reacting badly to the bed roll, imagine their reactions now. If picking up firewood was worthy of stoning, certainly this arrogance demanded more.

This certainly implies something that John had not previously spelled out for us, and that was that they had already tried to kill him, and had not diminished in their vigor to do so.

"..not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father,.."
Jesus own disciples have not been with him for that long, and none of them really believed that he was the Son of God until after he was crucified.
Imagine yourself standing there listening to this exchange.
There is that possibility that John's head screamed out "what did you just say".
Many would have walked away at this statement. Why do you suppose they stayed? It did not matter that God said the Messiah would come. None of them expected that He would come in this manner.

In baseball we give a man three strikes and then call them out. Was this strike two or three? They had tried to kill him before by attempting to throw him off a cliff, but Jesus escaped.

.."making himself equal with God."
That is interesting because it seems like an external assessment, made by someone else, perhaps John. It might be that John is restating what he heard the Pharisees screaming out. There is no doubt that they were loud and vocal. They probably did their best to disrupt whatever he said from that point on, by going into argumentative rants.

Think about the time Jesus walked into the temple and the man with the demon speaks out against Jesus, saying "what have we to do with you".
No one said speak for yourself, and we all read that assuming that the crowd may have felt that this loud mouth was appropriate and spoke for the crowd.

Did Jesus say he was equal with God?
That seems to have been their assessment. He definitely declared God to be his Father. It must have been an entirely cultural understanding to say that the son was no less than the father. What does that say about the town drunk? He also told them directly that he and the Father were one, so I suppose we could say that.

John 10:33 (NIV) We are not stoning you for any of these, replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

For the Jews to go so ballistic over this it would have to lean toward a violation of blasphemy against God. We have some clear direction about taking God's name in vain, although there is huge argument as to what vain is. Here is a case where leaders rose up against Moses, and by extension God.

Exodus 22:28 (NIV) Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.

Numbers 26:9 (NIV) and the sons of Eliab were Nemuel, Dathan and Abiram. The same Dathan and Abiram were the community officials who rebelled against Moses and Aaron and were among Korah's followers when they rebelled against the LORD.

I give you this because scripturally there was a basis for the Pharisee's anger. This sounds like there is no room for argument, and yet Jesus has a response to this. If you take the time to read Numbers 26 you will see a rebellion against authority by refusing to recognize those that God had placed there. They attempted to subvert God's authority and were ultimately and quickly eliminated.

Thoughts and commentary on John 5:17

John 5:17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

They were already furious with him. He had, contrary to the law, ordered the man to carry his bed roll on the Sabbath. It did not matter that the Sabbath belonged to God; It did not matter that this man, a man they recognized (maybe) was now well; It did not matter that this kind of thing, a healing, was a rarity, and there should have been great excitement over that.

One of the early incidents, as Israel wandered, was someone caught gathering firewood on the Sabbath. Those that caught the man brought him to Moses for a judgment. The man was stoned to death. That should cause you to think that these Pharisee's, the keepers of the Jewish law, took this very serious.

Now, in response to their attack about the Sabbath issue, Jesus says, "My Father is..."
Father is the Greek word pater and means no less. The KJV also translated the word as parent.

Let's assume that was all he said, obviously it was not, but it was known that Jesus parentage was in question, for they (the Jews) had tried to throw him off the cliff previously over such a statement. If the Jews took it as a physical parent then the barrage about him being an illegitimate child would have begun again. There was nothing about this statement that was anything less than Jesus declaring his role as God's Son, and therefore the strengths of the Father were his, and they understood clearly what he meant.

The look on their faces must have been priceless. Silence filled the air for a moment, long enough for him to finish his thought. He buried them in the glory of who He was. Statements that should have sent them to their knees, and yet all they could do was scream and start looking for boulders to throw.

In the "Revelation", John says, "who is this King of Glory". Dear lord, he was standing before their faces. They should have been blinded by his glory; they were blinded alright, by the god of this world, for they could not see him standing directly in front of them.

"My Father is always at work to this very day, ..."
That seems like an odd statement. It tends to imply that there were those that did not know or believe that God was still at work. How could you not believe that?

Keep in mind that Israel had just gone through about 400 years of what appeared to be silence from God. Did not the man that was healed walk before them? Perhaps they attributed the miraculous to: the devils work, or some strange mysticism. In the Acts there is the story of Simon, the sorcerer, and he had a following. People have a tendency to follow the dramatic, at least for a time, but they also follow what appears to be results.

The word translated work is ergazomai in the Greek, and means to toil (as a task, or occupation), by implication it means to be engaged in or with.

Consider that not everything in Greek directly translates, therefore much of what we read has been conceptualized. An example of that is this verse. In the KJV it reads: "But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work". The word hitherto is the same concept used to produce "is always at" in the NIV. The word here is heos and it is a conjunction, preposition and adverb of continuance, until (of time and place). From Mickelson's Greek Dictionary

If I restated what Jesus said, I might be able to say that My Father has never stopped being engaged with us and will continue to do so until the desired time has been accomplished.

Jesus arrival on this earth was and is monumental, but even he stated that we were to hold on, because there is more to come. The end of all things will be a time of God showing us the things he has prepared for us.

Knowing that the Father is working toward a goal, Jesus stated that the goal was his cause also. You saw some of that goal demonstrated that day. Jesus went to one who was broken, unwanted, hopeless, had no way to change his life without the savior, and gave him the freedom to hope again. Jesus gave him a new life.

Thoughts and commentary on John 5:16

(John 5:16) So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.
Jesus comes into the pool area, on purpose, but we do not really know that. God has a reason for everything, and this may be no different.

Did he pick out the man and the location because it represented how broken and abused the Jews and their religion were at the time?

Was the man singled out, like Judas, knowing that he would rat out the Savior after being healed?

The man was clearly a Jew, because the first place he goes after being healed is the temple. I suppose it is like being in shock after a car crash, you may not make the clearest decisions, but you go to the familiar place, in his case the temple.

Had he been put out and declared unclean because of his illness, and now going to the temple to show them, hoping to be declared clean, and reestablished back into the community.

The crazy part of his return to the temple is that he carried his mat with him. That mat had been his close friend for many years, and he may not be thinking so straight. Now to give him the benefit of the doubt I will use myself as an example. Working at the hardware store I am asked for help constantly. I listen to the customers descriptions in an effort to ascertain what they need from me (what we saw here was Jesus asking questions of others about the man). If I do not understand (the vague way the man answered Jesus makes me think that he did not understand either) I continue to ask questions until I see that I am not going to get any further (When the man responded, logically but indirectly, to Jesus question about being well, Jesus changed tactics and ordered him to his feet). At that point I run with what I know. The problem with that is that the picture in my head may lead me to grab the objects at hand, because they are familiar, they make sense, but they have led me in the opposite direction of where I need to be.

If you did not know who healed you, or how, and you were a Jew, what might you do? Go to the temple. At this point what else does he have, family? I do not think so, for he himself said he had no one to put him in the water.

Back to the verse. "... because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath,.."
    What did Jesus do? He came, he saw, he asked questions about the man, he healed the man, and he told him to take up his bedroll.


Carrying the bedroll around on the Sabbath was a bad thing. Jesus knew the law, he spoke it; everyone else knew that, and yet the man did it anyway. Why? At least he was obedient.

Exodus 20:10 (NIV) "but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates."

Jeremiah 17:21 (NIV) "This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem."

Deuteronomy 5:13 (NIV) "Six days you shall labor and do all your work,"

This passage is difficult, for we want to understand what was happening here. It appears that Jesus broke his own laws. Fortunately for us he answers the ensuing questions shortly.

"..because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him."Again, what were the things? He healed on the Sabbath, and that may have been perceived as work. It must have meant something else to the religious community. Think about the cleansing process. Mark gives us a clue when he shows us the man coming to Jesus and asking him if he would make him clean. That responsibility fell upon the priesthood, and yet Jesus did it. Jesus pointed out how corrupt they were, and we may have seen a part of his anger over their corruption when he cleaned the temple of money changers and animal sellers. But he did something else, he ordered the man to pick up his bed and walk.

The word in Greek, that was translated persecuted, is dioko, and means to pursue. By implication - to persecute.
They certainly intended to persecute him, but until then they began to follow him with the intent to overtake him. This is evidenced by the fact that they showed up everywhere he went, trying to trip him up, and catch him saying something that they could have him killed for.

Thoughts and comments on Hebrews 10:1

(Hebrews 10:1) The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-- not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.

"The law is only a shadow..."
Only? What then was the purpose of the law? Consider the days of Noah; men did what they thought was right, and it was only evil.

The Greek word for shadow is skia, meaning shade or a shadow.

".. of the good things that are coming..."
What was coming?
- Christ, the Messiah
- The New covenant (it was part of the plan all along.)

".. for this reason it can never ..."
it? - the law, a shadow
What can a shadow do? Nothing

".. can never.."
But making sacrifices is what they did for years. Was it all just a waste of time?

It does not take that much effort to look and you will see the source of what caused the shadow. Is it possible that God intended for all this, to get them to look?
What then were they looking at?

You cannot have a shadow without a light source. God has always been the light source.

Things that made up the shadow:
- The tribes setup in the form of a cross around the sanctuary.
- The serpent on the pole. Jesus was made to be sin and was hung on a pole.
- The rock that Moses struck
- The water from the rock
- The manna from heaven, and he is our daily bread.
- The cloud by day and the fire by night.

"..it (the law) can never... (This statement just boggles my mind. )
    ".. by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year..."
    ".. make perfect.."  (Not even for a moment?)
    "..those who draw near to worship..."  (This was not about the sacrifices or cleansing themselves; God wanted relationships. That was impossible without giving the people a way to get close to him.
This is exactly why the writer of Hebrews could say "because we have such a high priest let us draw near.." Why? For worship, fellowship, and relationship.

".. by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year..."
Did they need to change the object sacrificed? Other religions tried that and it brought them no closer to God. The Samaritans had integrated child sacrifice into their religious practices and God sent lions in to destroy them. So that did not work. But yet we understand that a representative of man ( a sin free man, and without Christ that was impossible) had to pay the debt that man owed.
Jesus said here am I (verse 7)

"..if it could (make perfect) would they not have stopped (the sacrifices) being offered.
You struggle to make something work and suddenly one day you figure it out; do you continue to struggle? NO.

"...it could never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship"
Was that the intent, to make the worshipper perfect? God knew the inherent flaws from the very beginning. Clearly a restoration of man and creation is the ultimate goal, so the sacrificial system can only be a temporary fix.
There is an answer to this, but it is long. The annual reminder issue is not a positive feature, therefore it is not the answer. Verse 5 - "Therefore when Christ came into the world, he said: Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, with burnt offering and sin offerings you were not pleased."

Here comes the answer. - Verse 7 "Here am I ... I have come to do your will, O God."

Then entire purpose behind the sacrificial system had to do with obedience. Consider, Jesus said he only did what he saw the Father do. Cain had problems with his sacrifice because he chose to do his own thing. Shortly thereafter we find Cain pouting and so God tells him "that if you do right it will go well with you". You can ascertain from God's interaction with Cain, that Cain knew what was right. Notice that in that story we are not told that God had that conversation with Cain, so how did Cain know?

You and I are different. God has written his moral law upon our hearts. You can find that in Hebrews also. Should you be so lucky as to find a tribe of six cannibals,  in the bushes of South America, you would find that even they have a moral law or code embedded with in them, for they know that they cannot kill the chief, nor eat him, and they worship some strange god.

Commentary on Hebrews 9:7

(Hebrews 9:7) But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.

Here is the lead in to this verse.
 "The first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary." Exodus 26:1; Exodus 36:1

"..the priests entered regularly into the outer room... But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood,.." Exodus 30:10; Leviticus 16:34

"This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, ...He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal salvation." Hebrews 9:12

Having obtained eternal salvation.
One might read this and think that the salvation was for Jesus. Now why would Jesus need salvation? He had done no wrong, but he had taken upon himself, voluntarily, the sins of the world. He became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the Sons of God. But wasn't the purpose of the cross to eliminate sin, produce forgiveness within us, and give us the right to become God's sons? Absolutely, then are we not the ones that needed the salvation? Yes.

Verse 7 tells us that he offered his own blood and body, for himself, and for the sins of the people. 
That should have answered the question. If eternal salvation was gained, and everything was a pattern, then we gained an eternal salvation also. Jesus, upon his death, set the pattern, that was to be used upon us, in motion. He gained eternal security, and we who receive him gain this security also.

Now how does any of that apply to Hebrews 9:7?

1. It demonstrates that Jesus was qualified to make the sacrifice and offer it on our behalf.
2. He had to be a man. Since the inception of the law, the priesthood came from one tribe. 
3. He offered the sacrifice and atoning blood for himself and for us, just as the law prescribed.
4. What Jesus did was better than anything the Levitical priests could do, for this was greater. Greater because it was one time, not the blood of animals, but his own; he did this for the world, past, present, and future; His priestly act of love eliminated the sin of the world.

The high priest entered the inner room (the holy of holies), and offered for himself and "for the sins the people had committed in ignorance."
Let's talk about the word ignorance for a moment.
Webster's defines ignorance as the want, absence or destitution of knowledge. It is sometimes used for omissions or mistakes.
(Strange, the word destitution means want or absence. So let's just say that a person that is ignorant does not have enough knowledge, and perhaps they desire more, or they are content to not learn anything that might better their state of being - I am thinking of the fellow who beats his wife, kicks his dog, and orders the kids to get him a beer.)

We might crudely say that an individual does not know anything (Yes, we all have other horrid terms for that), but that is probably far from the truth, for most merely choose to ignore what they are told. If you have ever watched any of the live cop shows you will see this concept in action, all the time. Once the police catch  these people, the perpetrators mouth's start going off with all the excuses that they can make up. All for the purpose of covering up their choice to ignore the laws, and previous restrictions placed upon them.

 To refuse to acknowledge that there are laws, and restrictions (like no trespassing signs or danger-do not enter) does not make the act correct or legal.

One of the things that the writer of Hebrews points out is, that the law, that thing which causes so many of us to cringe, was a shadow of good things to come. Hebrews 10:1

Paul told us that the law had to pass away and that we now live under a new set of rules. Rules that God himself wrote upon our hearts and minds. No longer a posted sign, restricting your actions, but an inward lifestyle that has become a part of you.

When Jesus challenged the Pharisees he said, which is the greatest commandment? To love the Lord, your God; And the second, to love your neighbor as yourself. Who needs a sign restricting you when you have this emblazoned upon your heart. If you choose to perceive this as a command then it is one which asks to you move forward, not withdraw. It asks you to set aside your selfish desires and demonstrate the love that Christ showed you.

You were adopted into a family (God's), not because you sat, by tradition inside the building of a particular denomination, nor because you were acting so lovely, for no one was worthy to be adopted. But what did John tell us, that God so loved the World; a world filled with anger, hatred, ignorance, and a handful of people that tried to love God.

If the law was a shadow (not the real thing) of good things to come, and they did come, can you not see the freedom the God is trying to give us. Not a lifestyle of restrictions but a constant outward expression of his love. A love which sets aside our selfish desires, and chooses to serve others as he served us. This verse demonstrates that if we blow it down here, on this earth, whether through ignorance or error, Jesus was enough. He was enough to cover all our sins, and he did it once, finished, and sat down, never to offer himself again. Maybe now Paul's admonition about not being able to repent once again, because our trying to drag Christ back to the cross to cover our errors, is not going to happen. If Christ's death and resurrection was not enough, then all this is a lie, and you know that is not the case.

Hebrews 8:10-12 God forgave us all. So why do we struggle so?

Hebrews 8:10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time.."

This prophetic word is taken from Jeremiah 31:33. He goes on to explain the covenant. The question is, what does "after that time.." mean.

      The Greek word for time is hemera, and means (figuratively) a period. In Jeremiah the Hebrew word used is yowm. This is the same word used in Genesis 1:5 when God called the light "Day". It too carries the meaning of "a space of time defined by an associated term". This terminology is used throughout the Bible. Most often it has to do with end times events. I have yet to find a determinate for the phrase that will tell me specifically what it applies to in this case. I choose to believe that it has to do with Christ and the price he paid for our salvation.

The logic pushing my belief starts with: "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,"

1. The phrase is future tense, and yet the writer of Hebrews is requoting it as if it is fresh and vital now.

2. What would have been significant for the house of Israel? They were waiting for the Messiah to come. The woman at the well understood that concept, and when Jesus told her that he was the one she believed. Jesus told the religious leaders constantly that he was the one; the Son of God. The arrival of Jesus the Messiah was and should have been monumental. There is no reason not to believe that Jesus upon this earth was the "time" he was talking about.

3. There is the possibility that this is still a future declaration, but why, if we are in heaven, will we need to have God's laws put in our minds and written upon our hearts? We will be in the presence of God himself. Perfect knowledge, perfect relationship, perfect peace. Think about us in heaven, a place where sin cannot exist. You will not be permitted there, carrying your baggage called sin.

4. The Holy Spirit gives us the prophetic word "this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,". Israel knew they had a covenant, for that had been established with Abraham, and Israel knew it belonged to them. You cannot convince a Jew of anything less than that to this day. Yet, this is again a word given in the future tense. I ask you again, what purpose would it serve to have a covenant in Heaven? Therefore the covenant has to apply while here on earth. The only time that we can see another covenant is in reference to Christ's death. Another term used for the covenant is testament, and law establishes that a testament does not go into effect until the creator of that covenant dies. God made the covenants, and God put himself on that cross in the form of his only son, therefore the testator died. If you choose not to believe that Jesus was God then this argument is irrelevant to you, but your unbelief does not negate God nor his promises.

     There are references made to Jesus on the cross as being "that day". That could easily be rewritten as "that time".

"I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts."

      Laws (Grk, nomos) carries the meanings of: law, regulations and principles. What if we change the terminology so that it reads "I will put my principles in their minds". Most of us see the word law and think restrictions. Restrictions, whether real or perceived, is what keeps many away from a relationship with God. There is an interesting passage that says that the law was only a shadow of the good things to come. Do you realize that the implications are that the law was a good thing. Consider why? Safety, morality, health concerns, cleanliness, and all during a time when most of these concepts were a rarity. When Noah was saved from the flood, all men were doing what was right in their eyes, and every thought was nothing but evil. Clearly that did not mean Noah.

     So, having God's principles written upon our hearts, might eliminate the burden of trying to emblazon it upon our memory; without God doing that, man has proved that he would not do so on his own; those that have been rare. Even today I find that there are few who are interested in God's word. Don't believe that? Try sharing some aspect of His Word that has you excited and watch the reactions of people. I have a fellow employee, who tells me that he is a licensed minister, and the level of discomfort rises tremendously in him when I try to talk about scripture with him. To be honest I have sort of given up with some, and though they claim to know my God, none of them ever come to me to discuss what the Holy Spirit is currently sharing with them.

      There is another series of implications involved in this statement. In saying, "I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts." Is he referring only to those that are his? The passage refers to the house of Israel, and though many Jews take the law very serious, almost to the point of suffocating restrictions, and yet the Word tells us that they do not know Him. Let's just say for the moment that He has written his law upon their hearts. You might think that they would have recognized Him when he appeared on the earth; they did not. What if the statement is for today, and again still the Jew. Nothing has changed, with the exception of the few, and we Christians call them Messianic Jews.

     Jesus told us that he would send the comforter to do exactly what this passage describes. The Holy Spirit will bring all things to our remembrance, show us things to come, and teach us all things.

"I will be their God, and they will be my people."

     Zechariah 8:8 says, "I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God."

    God began bringing them back to Jerusalem many years ago and Israel became a state not that long ago. Jews still emigrate back to the homeland. God gave his promise that he would never again turn his back on Israel. To the Jew this may be confusing for even though God did punish them for turning their backs on God, by worshiping other Gods, they never seemed to relinquish their pride in being considered God's chosen people. Unless there had been a divorce, in a sense, there could not possibly be any truth behind a statement like this. Even though Israel seems to have returned I do not think you can really be comfortable in saying that they turned back to God. It would make sense if we looked at this in terms of God's determination to place them back into the place they hold in his heart.

(Hebrews 8:11) No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

    

God describes the covenant that he will make with the house of Israel.

If that is exclusive then none of this applies to those of us who are not of Jewish blood. Thankfully we have been accepted into the family, because we were adopted. The adopted have every legal right to what the family possesses. That makes us a part of Israel in a round about way. Even if not, we are a part of God's family, and therefore the promise of his kingdom applies to us too.

      Verse 10 has God putting his laws in their minds and writing those laws upon their hearts. This has the tendency to place everyone under the same umbrella. Clearly the Jews are not evidence of this, as many of them are atheists. What does that leave? The rest of us.

If God has written his law upon the hearts and minds of men, then why do we go about pursuing them as if they are lost?

"because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."

    This has the tendency to exclude anyone from the excuse of not knowing. The least of them could well be the those 10/20 window people as well.

"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

    Is the knowing an aspect of forgiveness?

     Here is what I see. God has forgiven the wickedness of the world and chosen to remember their sins no more. What does that mean? It sounds to me like exactly what it says. There are obvious problems with an open ended statement that gives us all a freedom from sin. For example: Romans says that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Why would He have to forgive something that has already been forgiven?

      Sin is an old english term meaning to miss the mark, and it comes from archery, where the archer might miss the targeted spot. That is something that we do on a daily basis, but it does not have anything to do with God's heart toward us. What it does do is cloud our relationship with Him, and falls entirely upon us.

      If we have freedom from sin then why do we struggle so? The answer to that falls into our court also. Romans 6:13 Tells us that we should not yield the parts of our bodies as instruments to be used for unrighteousness (sin). Why? Romans 6:14 says that sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

      You cannot escape the fact that (unless something has happened to your brain because of injury) the sin you involve yourself in is entirely a choice that you made.

      I spoke with a hypnotist once about the crazy things that people will do while under hypnosis. His response was that they are only doing things that they inwardly wanted to do anyway; much like the effects of alcohol. Alcohol loosens the inhibitions, and then you have the excuse to do what you wanted. I have the desire to dance freely before God, expressing myself as if no one was around, but I also have the desire to walk fearlessly upon the earth. Do not misunderstand, I have no desire to pound everyone into sand, although many need and deserve it, but I have spent my life wrapped in some level of fear. The moments of freedom that I have gained from that fear have been because of God in my life, and that was directly related to how much of His Word seemed to be in me.

      No, I do not make concerted efforts to memorize scripture, but my mind these days clings more to concepts. The fact that I put flesh and blood on biblical characters helps me, for now I can visualize them and they become real, with feelings and emotions. The Bible is not the sterile fearful book that people imagine it, but one that will speak to you no matter what depths you are in. God is in the business of relational communication. In other words he is actually one of those rarities that will listen to you, and not look for other things to do while you are talking to him. He cares deeply about you.

"because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."

      The word least is the Greek word mikros, meaning small (in size, quantity, or dignity). 

     That leaves no one out. We are so concerned that there are five people living in a jungle somewhere that have never heard the name of Jesus, and you might be right, but this says that all shall know Him. Some one would argue that the reason they would know is because they brought the gospel to them. What then do you do with the fact that God said he is the one that will write his laws upon their hearts and minds. Think about this, when National Geographic has gone to some lost people, and won their hearts enough to video tape their lives, you see that even they have some form of moral code that they live by. True some live more loosely than many of us, but there is some form of standard for civilized living within their community. Even cannibals have a code of conduct. You do not eat the chief.

     Least covers every base, economic, intelligence, and standard of living. Keep in mind that standard of living is a relative term.

(Hebrews 8:12) For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

For I will forgive...

     Future tense. The blood of sacrificed animals, we are told, could not remove the guilty conscience of those that brought the sacrifice, but under the old law it did cover the sins of the guilty. This is not just a covering we are talking about here, but a removal. A removal with the intent of clearing the conscience of the one coming to God. (I may have said that incorrectly, but this is an ever changing process.)

     We have been forgiven. There is no getting past that, but there is no getting past the sins that we so readily commit. Paul struggled with this too, for you find him saying that he was the chiefest of sinners, and why do I do the things that I do not want to do.

     Forgiven, no doubt; removed from the corrupted world that we live in no. You cannot stand next to a mud puddle, on a busy street, and not expect to get some on you. Perhaps the wisdom in this mud puddle situation is to move away from the mud. That becomes more difficult when there is no pavement on the street and the entire thing is muddy, and you have to get from one end to the other, but as most have observed that there are those who choose to let the mud become part of their character, and that something that you do not have to do.

Sometimes I feel that the writing of God's laws upon our hearts is more of a character issue.

     Why say that? Jesus spoke of the greatest of the laws, and they were this. Love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself. Even Jesus made God an inescapable aspect of our lives. It would only then be appropriate to love him, if you know how. To love your neighbor as yourself implies that you love yourself, not to some sick degree where you have to spend sixty five thousand dollars on a pair of sunglasses, but you have the dignity to hold your head up when necessary, and give a buck to the down and out that might be begging from you, because you know that there only circumstances that separate you being like the so called bum.

"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

     The NIV and the KJV differ in several ways, although they may well mean the same thing.

NIV - forgive; KJV - merciful

NIV - wickedness; KJV - unrighteousness

The Greek word for merciful is hileos, and means cheerful. It implies that God is disposed to be gracious or merciful toward us, ready to forgive sins and bestow blessing. It also implies favorable.

Wickedness in Greek is adikia, and means injustice, the quality, the act, or morally wrongfulness.

God has stated that he will be disposed toward mercy upon us and our deeds which violate another's rights.

Having forgiven us and graciously showed mercy toward us, what is God asking us to do? 

 

Romans 7 may be an answer to that. Verse 6 says, "but now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the spirit. 
 

Micah 6:8 Tells us that, "He has showed you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

      I must admit, at this point, that I am not clear as what that means to serve in the new way of the spirit. I can come up with an answer but that bothers me, so I will keep digging, but let me just say that though we are no longer under the law, we are under (in a sense) the spirit. It is not like the law in that it is a command for you are free to choose what you want to do, and many people do that. One character in scripture stands out in my mind, for Paul turned his body over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the soul could be saved. Sinning does not cut you off from God, but it certainly brings about death of the body. Created in Christ's image, we walk this earth as God's representatives. When someone who is a Christian dies, there is one less contender for the faith, and Satan has one less enemy.