All That Jesus Commanded (eBook)

Introduction

The Aim of the Book

This book was originally published in 2006 under the title What Jesus Demands from the World. This new edition with a new title is substantially the same with minor revisions and rearrangements. The new title, All That Jesus Commanded: The Christian Life according to the Gospels, is intended to make more clear the relevance of this book for every Christian. It deals with every command Jesus gave and how it relates to Christian living today. It draws out the meaning of these commands from the four Gospels themselves not the rest of the New Testament.

The aim of this book is God-glorifying obedience to Jesus. To that end I am seeking to obey Jesus’s last command: “Make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). Jesus’s final command was to teach all nations to keep his commandments.

The Impossible Final Command

Actually, the final command was more precise than that. He did not say, “Teach them all my commandments.” He said, “Teach them to observe all my commandments.” You can teach a parrot all of Jesus’s commandments. But you cannot teach a parrot to observe them. Parrots will not repent, and worship Jesus, and lay up treasures in heaven, and love their enemies, and go out like sheep in the midst of wolves to herald the kingdom of God.

Teaching people to parrot all that Jesus commanded is easy. Teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded is impossible. Jesus used that word. When a rich man could not bring himself to let go of his riches and follow him, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. . . . With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:25–27).

Therefore, the person who sets himself to obey Jesus’s final commission—for example, to teach a rich man to observe the command to “renounce all that he has” (Luke 14:33)—attempts the impossible. But Jesus said it was not impossible. “All things are possible with God.” So the greatest challenge in writing this book has been to discern God’s way of making impossible obedience possible.

Jesus said that this impossible goal happens through teaching. “Make disciples . . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” There is, of course, more to it than that—like the atoning death of Jesus (Mark 10:45) and the work of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26) and prayer (Matt. 6:13). But in the end Jesus focused on teaching. I take this to mean that God has chosen to do the impossible through the teaching of all that Jesus commanded. That’s what I pray this book will prove to be—a kind of teaching that God will use to bring about impossible obedience to Jesus. And all of that for the glory of God.

Teaching and Obedience That Glorify God

The reason I emphasize the glory of God is because Jesus did. He said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). The ultimate goal of Jesus’s commandments is not that we observe them by doing good works. The ultimate goal is that God be glorified. The obedience of good works is penultimate. But what is ultimate is that in our obedient lives God be displayed as the most beautiful reality in the world. That is Jesus’s ultimate goal1 and mine.

This helps me answer the question: What kind of teaching of Jesus’s commandments might God be willing to use to bring about such impossible obedience? If the aim of obedience is ultimately the glory of God, then it is probable that the teaching God will use is the kind that keeps his glory at the center. Therefore, my aim has been to keep the supremely valuable beauty of God in proper focus throughout the book.

Keeping the Commandments Connected to Jesus and His Work

How then do we keep the beauty of God in proper focus in relation to Jesus’s commandments? By treating the meaning and motivation of the commands in connection with the person and work of Jesus. The person and work of Jesus are the primary means by which God has glorified himself in the world. No revelation of God’s glory is greater. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Therefore, his person is the manifestation of the glory of God. To see him as he really is means seeing the infinitely valuable beauty of God. Jesus also said, as he was praying, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4). Therefore, his work is a manifestation of the glory of God. When we see what he achieved and how he did it, we see the majesty and greatness of God.

Therefore, my aim has been to probe the meaning and the motivation of Jesus’s commands in connection with his person and work. What emerges again and again is that what he is commanding is a life that displays the worth of his person and the effect of his work. His intention is that we not disconnect what he commands from who he is and what he has done.

We should not be surprised, then, that Jesus’s final, climactic command is that we teach all nations to observe all that he commanded. This leads to his ultimate purpose. When obedience to his commands happens, what the world sees is the fruit of Jesus’s glorious work and the worth of his glorious person. In other words, they see the glory of God. This is why Jesus came and why his mission remains until he comes.

A Sketch of the Person and Work of Jesus

Anticipating what we will see later in the book, the briefest sketch of Jesus’s person and work should be given here, so that from the start the commands rest on their proper foundation. Jesus came into the world, sent by God, as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. When Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, Peter answered, “You are the Christ [that is, Messiah], the Son of the living God.” To this Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:16–17).

When Jesus was on trial for his life, the charge was blasphemy, and eventually treason against Caesar, because of his apparent claims to be the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Son of God. The Jewish high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61–62).

Why Jesus Favored the Title “Son of Man”

Even though Jesus acknowledged that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, his favorite designation for himself was “Son of Man.” At one level this title carries the obvious meaning that Jesus was truly human. But because of its use by the prophet Daniel, it probably is a very exalted claim of universal authority.

Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13–14)

The reason Jesus favored the title “Son of Man” for himself was that the terms Messiah and Son of God were loaded with popular political pretensions. They would give the wrong impression about the nature of his messiahship. They could easily imply that he fit in with the conceptions of the day that the Messiah would conquer Rome and liberate Israel and set up his earthly kingdom. But Jesus had to navigate these political waters by presenting himself as truly the Messiah, even the divine Son of God with universal authority, but also reject the popular notion that the Messiah would not suffer but immediately rule.

The term Son of Man proved most useful in this regard because though it did carry exalted claims for those who had ears to hear, on the face of it he was not making explicit claims to political power. Under this favorite title (while not rejecting the others), Jesus was able to make his claims that the long-awaited messianic kingdom of God had come in his ministry.2

The Kingdom of God Had Come into History

The Jewish people longed for the day when the Messiah would come and bring the kingdom of God. The kingdom would mean that the enemies of Israel are defeated, sins are wiped away, diseases are healed, the dead are raised, and righteousness, joy, and peace hold sway on the earth with the Messiah on the throne. Jesus arrived and said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). What he meant was that in his own ministry the liberating, saving reign of God had arrived. “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. . . . The kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke...