Tues.’s Devo - The Kingdom of God

Read Luke 16:16-18 Jesus marked the end of the “law and the prophets” with John. He was the beginning of a new kind of prophet. He proclaimed the kingdom of God which was the first time that phrased was used in scripture. It was a new concept. It was not the end of the actual law and actual prophets which Jesus explained in the next verse. He said, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” Jesus came as the fulfillment of the law and what the prophets prophecied. There are mysteries in these two verses that I don’t understand. Jesus was the law that became flesh so it is important to know just what that law was. The only way we truly know Jesus is to study the law and the prophets. Then to muddy the waters even further he gives us his next statement which seems totally out of context. He talks about putting your wife away. If you do and marry someone else then you are committing adultery. What we aren’t told is that during that time men were putting their wives out of the house and refusing to give them a writ of divorcement so they were still married by law. To remarry would be to commit adultery since they were still married to their former wife. He was using this as a clue to what he said in the first two verses. The marriage contract with God was between Israel and God. Israel had prostituted herself with other gods and chosen to put God away. But they still esteemed the law as a formality though their hearts were far from him. They had spurned the law and killed the prophets. So they were the ones committing adultery with foreign gods. Because they did this the law would contemn them. Lord, I only see in part… open our eyes to see more of you and understand more of your mysteries. May we not go after anything other than you.