Thursday: The Mastery of the Old by the New
WEEK 36
THURSDAY
THE MASTERY OF THE OLD BY THE NEW
Matthew 9:14-17
This leads us to a new mastery—the mastery of the old by the new.
The gospel of Jesus was set in the midst of a people who held tenaciously to what they felt was a God-inspired and God-given system, a system so important to them that they said that if the people of Israel would keep the whole Law for a day, the Messiah would come. The Messiah came, and instead of keeping the whole Law, he substituted for it a new Law. How did he do it? The pivot upon which the whole thing turns is this verse: “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17).
What an amazing way to get rid of something that was imperfect and inadequate! He didn’t say, I’ll wipe the slate clean, and we’ll begin all over. He picked out the good and fulfilled it, and the irrelevant dropped off as a dead leaf. Someone has said, “You cannot overthrow a wrong thing unless you recognize the good in that thing—the good that makes it float—then when you have recognized the good, you can strike at the bad.” Jesus did even better than that, for he recognized the good and fulfilled it with such wondrous meanings that the people saw their relevant old as so beautiful that they simply did not want the irrelevant old. It dropped away in the light of this new.
Jesus didn’t say a word against animal sacrifices as atonement for sin, but he did something better; he went to the cross, gave himself for sin, and in the light of this divine sacrifice animal sacrifices dropped away.
How did he get rid of the 3,600 burdensome commandments held by the Jews? Fight them? Oh no, he picked out two: “you must love the Lord your God” and “you must love your neighbor.” Love to God and love to people, and when the people looked at them as illustrated in Jesus, they knew that the other commandments were irrelevant, and they dropped away. The glorious new pushed out the fading old. He didn’t fight the old; he fulfilled the good in it, and the other dropped out.
O Jesus, your wisdom shines upon us and illuminates our footsteps. In your light we see light. And your light never fades; it shines more and more to the perfect day. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall pick out of the passing old the good that makes it float and redeem it.