The Bride of Jesus Christ – Mark 2
The religious leaders tried to bring the Lord Jesus under control. The Lord Jesus explained through his parables that he was new wine which would not be contained by old wine skins. He would not fit into their system of dead religion.
They attempted to prove that the Lord Jesus broke scriptures by his different methods of ministry. They thought he blasphemed when he publicly forgave a man. They criticized him for eating and drinking with sinners. The Lord Jesus was criticized for not fasting like the Pharisees and John's disciples. He was criticized for not observing the Sabbath.
The Lord Jesus did not fit into a religious system. I wonder today how much people try to fit God into a religious system. I wonder if the Lord Jesus walked among us as a visible man if people would criticize him today as he was then.
The Lord Jesus lived in a religious environment where religious leaders controlled everything. The religious leaders did not perform their duties for the benefit of the people. The Lord Jesus described them as putting burdens on people and did not lift a finger to help them. Instead, they operated like the world system. They lorded themselves over people. They loved prestige, position, and power.
The Lord Jesus forgave sins. A man who could not walk was let down on a bed through a roof where Jesus taught. His friends had faith that the Lord Jesus would heal him. When the Lord saw their faith he told the sick man that his sins were forgiven. The religious leaders challenged the authority of the Lord Jesus to forgive sins. The Lord Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked them which is easier: to forgive sins or to heal the man. To prove his authority to forgive he then healed the man. He told the man to pick up his mat and go home. The man was immediately healed, picked up his mat, and obeyed the word of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus called Levi the tax collector as his disciple. During that time the Lord Jesus ate with Levi and Levi's friends who were tax collectors and sinners. The religious leaders used this occasion to accuse the Lord Jesus. In their mind because the Lord Jesus ate with tax collectors then he must be a sinner also. The answer the Lord Jesus gave turned their entire logic on its head. He told them that he did not call the righteous to repent but sinners. This was the job which they, the religious leaders, should have done.
The disciples of Jesus did not fast. This provided the critics of Jesus another opportunity to slander him. However, this also provided the Lord Jesus with an opportunity to reveal himself. He used the picture of the Jewish wedding to describe who he was and who his disciples were in relationship to him. He painted a picture of his disciples as a bride and he was a bridegroom. The true church of Jesus, the remnant of overcoming Christians, is the bride of Jesus Christ.
The disciples of the Lord Jesus did not follow Sabbath rules which the religious leaders created for the people. They picked corn on the Sabbath which broke the man-made religious rules. The Lord Jesus taught us that man is not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. The Lord Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the fulfillment of this Old Testament shadow. He is our Sabbath. He is our day of rest. He is God's rest for us. We can rest in the Lord Jesus Christ and fulfill the law of the Sabbath. Whenever I hear men who try to bring others into the bondage of Sabbath day keeping I know they are deceived and deceiving other people. They do not understand what Christ did for us in his death, burial, and resurrection.
I am thankful for all of these examples of the Lord Jesus correcting the religious leaders. It provides us with a good understanding of how to avoid religious traps in churches and around religious people.
