The Gospel of John - Christ the Rabbi
John · Vern Peterman · Nov 17, 2013
Gospel of John (2013), No. 44
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492646502540

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

What we're doing here in November and December is going through topics that come out of the Gospel of John, and in doing so we will often refer to the other Gospels or other references if that's helpful to us. One of the things that last week we covered Christ born of a virgin, and then this week we're going to cover Christ the Rabbi.

And so hopefully you've got a handout available to you to track with us here. And any of you ever met or talked with a rabbi? Roy lifts up a hand here. Yeah. Oh, roughly a decade back, Nancy arranged through a contact she had for me to sit down for a couple hours with an Orthodox rabbi. here in the Denver area and That was just fascinating every other sentence coming out of his mouth was just stunning but Anyway, it's a fairly long-standing tradition it it originated between the Testaments between the old the end of the Old Testament around 400 BC and the beginning of the New Testament era So in between there, the system of rabbis and the traditions of rabbis began, as well as synagogues. By the way, synagogue is a Greek word, right? So not Hebrew or Aramaic. So the whole system of having synagogues developed during that time. And so there were a number of traditions that got started during that period between the Old and New Testaments.

What we have here in the handout is some of the main groups. We list first the Sadducees, who were primarily around Jerusalem. And they were a minority party and one of the things that shows here is their social class was priests and aristocrats. And then the Pharisees, while some of them were also aristocrats, were generally more common people. They were the culture heroes of the Jews during that time. It was like, boy, a Pharisee, these are the great ones.

And then the Essenes were a reclusive group that disavowed everybody else. In other words, we're the ones that are saved, and God chose, and God hates everybody else, and we do too. And this is where Jesus spoke. Jesus never, in fact, the New Testament never mentions them by name. When Jesus said, you know, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, the Sadducees and the Pharisees didn't teach that. The Essenes taught that. The Essenes taught that.

So they tended to be a rather reclusive group. As a matter of fact, let's skip down. There's a line there called Free Will. This is real interesting. The Essenes were the hardline Calvinists. God has chosen those who are to be saved and chosen those who are lost and we're the ones who are chosen to be saved. So they were the hardline Calvinists of the era. The Armenians, the ones with free will, are the Sadducees, and the Pharisees were somewhere in between.

So, real interesting, the theological controversy has been around for a long time. So, what we have underneath there, the traditions of the rabbis and their disciples were carried on most prominently among the Pharisees. There were rabbis among the Sadducees, but they were a lesser-known group, not so widely distributed, and they tended to congregate around Jerusalem, which is why when the Romans attacked, the Sadducees just went away. There were no more Sadducees after that time. In fact, the rabbi that I sat down with About a decade ago, the first thing he said was, we are the Pharisees.

So they inherited the traditions of the Pharisees. That survived. The Sadducees and the Essenes did not. The Pharisees taught that what we call the Old Testament are the holy books, and that in addition to the written books, oral tradition is to be regarded. And the oral tradition is what Jesus spoke against very commonly.

By some estimates, there were about 150 rabbis in Israel during the time of Jesus' ministry. A rabbi might have a small number of disciples or a great number. Gamaliel, Paul's rabbi, This is early and later on in Acts, he's mentioned. He's said to have had about a thousand disciples over his lifetime. He was asked, because it was a tradition that the Pharisees got married, and he didn't get married until later, and he was asked, why didn't you get married earlier? He says, because I'm so in love with the law. I'm so in love with the law. There are oral traditions about being a rabbi and about being a disciple. As we examine the Gospels, we find that Jesus was called rabbi by his disciples and by others.

There were things that Jesus said and did that were consistent with rabbinic tradition, and also things that he said and did that were outside of or even against rabbinic tradition. We'll go over some of those here as we go through this passage. Here are the things that he did that were consistent with rabbinic tradition. And one of the reasons why we're going over this, think about this, one of the reasons why we're going over this is because some of the things that Jesus said were consistent with rabbinic tradition under the law. Are we under the law? We're not under the law. Therefore, when people talk about, well, Jesus said this and disciples are supposed to do that, a lot of this is based on being under the law and rabbinic tradition rather than being under grace.

And so understanding what the Jews said was characteristic of a disciple and a rabbi and what place we have in the church is important. So that's the reason for going over this. It's not just simply historical exercise, it's looking at what was there because it was part of the rabbinic tradition, and part of Jesus' message to Israel, and what's there that we can take away from. So it's important, I think, to make the distinction so that we don't start saying, well, whatever Jesus said, that's what you do. Or, whatever the disciples did, that's what we're supposed to do. Because it was in Israel, under the law, And we're not in Israel, and not under the law, right? Okay. So let's take a look here.

When a rabbi spoke, his disciples were expected to listen carefully and to memorize the words of the rabbi by chanting the words out loud, often in a group. The Mishnah, which is the oral traditions finally put in writing, says, the person who repeats it less than a hundred times is not to be compared with one who repeats it 101 times. If the student learns Torah and does not go over it again and again, he is like a man who sows without reaping. So the idea was the great learning is to pick some rabbi's words and go over and over and over it. Some people will say, well heavens, a lot of these gospels were not written until decades later.

How do we know we have anything reliable? Well, why would that be? How would they know they have anything reliable? Because these guys had drilled, drilled on Jesus' words. So when Jesus would say something, boy, they would go over and over and over and over it again. And a hundred times, as you see here, was not too much. So they would drill, memorizing the words. So Jesus made repeated reference in the Gospel of John to hearing, continuing in, and keeping his word. And we get references there from chapter 5 to chapter 15. Now, here's another one.

The rabbis would both invite men to be disciples, and they would challenge their disciples to count the costs and be fully committed without excuses. Jesus did both of these things. So people will read this and not understand this was what the rabbis all did. And if we don't understand that, what will happen is people will say, well, that's Jesus' unique words and take it outside of its cultural context and somehow start making that apply to us as Christians. So it's important, I think, to look through it and say, okay, what applies to us and what was specifically directed to them?

So Matthew 4, just given right prior to the Sermon on the Mount, Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, also called in the Aramaic Cephas is the way we've anglicized it, but actually Cephas in the Aramaic, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. And he called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."

So this invitation to various ones like that was common to the rabbinical system. The rabbis all did this sort of thing. They all invited people to be their disciples. But here's the other part of it. They also challenged their disciples. Unless you do this, you can't be my disciple. So here is Luke 14, 25-33. Now large crowds were going along with him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

So there's a real strong message of commitment to being a disciple. This isn't something you just do casually. Right? But let's talk about one more thing. Does that mean that Jesus wants us to hate our father and mother and sister and brothers? Is that what that means? No. And why not? I mean, that's what he said. Right?

Yes, and so this hate term is a Jewish figure of speech, which means that you love more the Lord than you do father and mother, etc. So that relatively speaking, it's hate. So that's a Jewish figure of speech, and this isn't the only place it's used. Yes, God hated one. No, it isn't that he hated him. It's the expression of hating, meaning caring for one greater than another. It's relative.

I remember one time, Nancy and I were coming from a town in Germany, Bamberg, to Frankfurt to try to catch a plane, which we just barely made. But I was driving a little Volkswagen Rabbit about 120 to 130 miles an hour to get to the airport on time. But still, and you might think that's pretty fast, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that here in front of the church, but still there were people that just passed me like I was going backwards on the Autobahn. Must be 200 miles an hour. just flying past me.

And so compared to what I was doing, they were going very fast. And like I said, I use the expression like I'm going backwards. It doesn't mean I was going backwards, not at all. But compared to me, they were going much, much faster. So that expression, that Jewish expression, to hate, it doesn't mean you're supposed to hate. It means compared to, the care for is greater.

Verse 27, for whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. You also have another statement, pick up your cross daily. So, is that for us as Christians? Are we supposed to pick up our cross? You left yours at the door. Think about it. To us, what is the cross? Well, certainly we're going to have trials and tribulations, right? But think about what's our relationship to the cross? Yeah, the cross is something we were identified with. And so for us, it is not a matter of carrying our cross or carrying it daily, but recognizing that we've been identified with Christ in His death on the cross. and what God accomplished. We said before, separated from the sin nature, the law, and the world. That's what the New Testament reveals. So our relationship with a cross, and specifically Christ's cross, is different from what's being presented right here.

For which one of you, when he wants to build the tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." So on the basis of that, I knew a fellow that actually took his guitar and smashed it against a telephone pole. He was giving up all his possessions.

But is that what this is talking about? This is a Jewish disciple under the rabbinical system, and this kind of challenge was common to the rabbis. Did you know Jesus was not the only rabbi that said, take up my yoke upon you? Yeah, Jesus was not the only rabbi that said that.

So where Jesus accepted a tradition of the Pharisees, he continued it. He apparently did this with the Passover, which have developed a number of traditions beyond what was required in the Law of Moses. Jesus seems to have followed the customs of the four cups of wine. And what you see here is four slides out of the Last Supper and Passover traditions. This was during his crucifixion week on a Thursday night. Each serving of the cup was for a specific purpose. And by the way, Exodus doesn't have anything about a cup. But they developed traditions of four cups.

The first cup, taking Exodus 6, 6, and 7, they said the first cup was a cup of deliverance, and they would have an opening prayer for the Passover. The next cup, I will rid you of your bondage, so it was a cup of freedom. and they would explain the Passover and sing Psalm 113 and 114, which, by the way, they also sang when they were going up for a feast.

And this is what they were singing when Jesus had the so-called triumphal entry. They were singing these Psalms. The next one, I will redeem you, the one of redemption, eat the bread, lamb, and bitter herbs. The bitter herbs was what was used to denote, Judas, you're the one. You're the one.

And it was at that third cup, which we have in a slide there. So the first one, in the sequence of the cups, the first one there, Luke 22, 17, describes Christ saying the blessing before they all drank from the first cup. And then at the third cup, that was the one used to signal that Judas is the one who's the betrayer.

That's also the time when Jesus said, this is my body and this is my blood. So Jesus followed the four cups, which is traditional, not in the Law of Moses, so he embraced that but rejected other traditions. Jesus also reclined at table with his disciples at the Last Supper, which was a Passover.

The Hebrew word is Pesach. And going through the cups and the words that you say, that's called a Haggadah. Even though the Law of Moses required those in the Exodus to stand with staff in hand while eating the Passover meal in haste. And here's another thing, they leisurely went through the Passover meal and had these four cups and took their time. whereas the Passover meal originally was to be eaten in haste because they were getting ready to go out the next morning. Here's John 13 12 when he had washed their feet and had taken garments and reclined at table. So he reclined rather than what was original at the Passover where you stood and you had your staff in hand and the other hand was eating.

So Jesus did things that were consistent with the other rabbis and what they did even in some cases like this things that added to what the Law of Moses said. But at other points he did something quite contrary to and in fact we won't be going through all of them but I put it in bullet points just so we could get a number of them in there. Jesus claimed to be deity What would any other rabbi be accused of if they claimed to be deity? Blasphemy. Yeah, this is enough to get you killed. Which is, that by itself was enough.

So here's Caiaphas asking Jesus at his Jewish side of the trial, are you the Son of God? Claim to deity. And are you the Christ, the Messiah, and the Son of God? So, and Jesus early on began claiming deity in the various I am, seven I am statements, okay? Ego, Emi, I am the bread of life, I am the door, I am the good shepherd. He multiple times claimed to be deity. Jesus allowed others to call him the son of God and the Messiah and that is exactly what Caiaphas asked him. Are you that?

Jesus says, it's as you say. Jesus claimed to have a unique relationship with the Father. It was traditional, and what we often hear called the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, that was okay. But to say my Father was to claim a unique relationship with the Father, and that was not okay. And so guess what Jesus did again and again and again? My Father, right?

So that was not okay. This was a behavior for a rabbi. This was stunning. I mean, this was way, way out of bounds. Right? Way out of bounds. The next one, Jesus said that men were not to be called rabbi, essentially saying that he was the only valid rabbi, while the other rabbis usually called him invalid. Okay? So isn't it interesting?

Here's a rabbi who's telling everyone, you know, this is the end of the rabbinical system. Because I'm the only valid rabbi. Don't call anyone rabbi. Matter of fact, when you, when I get done training you, guess what? You don't get to call yourself rabbi. This is the end of the rabbinical system. He's announced that early on. This is the end of the rabbinical system. Okay, let's take a look at page four there. Jesus taught women as well as men. But the other rabbis only taught men. You do not, if you're a decent, God-fearing rabbi, you do not teach women. You teach men. But Jesus broke that code and taught women.

Can you think of anything else where Jesus went against the male-female traditions? When he was with the Samaritan woman, who's not only a Samaritan, but a woman of ill repute, and a woman, and is it interesting out of, you know, you're going to go among the Samaritans, you'd think you'd at least pick somebody respectable, right? And no, I'm going to go out there in the middle of the day when only women of ill repute would be out there, and I'm going to talk to her like a regular, everyday, you know, person, and treat her respectfully. Yeah, he went against it. Can you think of any other examples where he went against the tradition?

Yes, this is John chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery. You see, the law of Moses said you bring the man and the woman, but the tradition was they could just bring the woman. Jesus said, eh, eh, eh. We don't know what Jesus wrote in the dirt. We don't know. But it's very possible he wrote that out of the law of Moses, you bring the man and the woman. So you guys are breaking the law by bringing just her here.

So that was another example. One more I could think of, and it was a matter of Jesus could voluntarily appear to people when he was resurrected. And who did he first appear to? Mary Magdalene, right? It's interesting, a woman who in that culture was not considered to have any valid testimony. You couldn't trust the testimony of a woman, they were completely discounted. So that's who Jesus appears to first.

He multiple times then thwarted what was a very chauvinistic tradition. Jesus did not go through the usual means to become a rabbi, which was to be trained as a disciple under another rabbi, but already had an amazing understanding at age 12. He didn't go through the usual procedure where you go under a recognized rabbi in order to get trained. We have no evidence that he did that, and at age 12 he was already astounding to those who were supposedly learned.

So the next one, Jesus said that Nicodemus must be born again, John chapter 3, even though the rabbis have said that Nicodemus had already been born again several times. We have here, and I won't go over the detail on it, but basically there were six ways that a person could be born again in the Jewish culture. And none of them was what Jesus referred to. So when Nicodemus, who was already born again several times by the Jewish traditions, Here's Nicodemus, and he's hearing, you must be born again.

Nicodemus is going, what? I've already been born again several times. Matter of fact, you can't be born again anymore. And so he's stunned. That's why he's asking, well, do I have to go back into my mother's womb? What kind of crazy thing are you telling me? Right?

Then the next one, Jesus spoke in favor of the law of Moses for Israel, but against the traditions of the Pharisees. In addition to the things listed above, Jesus seemed to deliberately act and speak contrary to the Pharisees' traditions about the Sabbath. Jesus not only healed on the Sabbath, but told others to do things that were against the traditions of the Pharisees. The Sabbath controversies chart shown below gives the incidents in which Jesus was in conflict with the Jewish traditions. What you find is every single one of the Gospels records multiple instances of Jesus going against their Sabbath traditions. And their Sabbath traditions are rather complicated. Here's one.

Here's the fellow who was lame, who was lying by the pool of Bethesda, and it was allowed on the Sabbath for a couple of men to hold his pallet and carry him to the edge of the water. But it was not allowed for that lame man to pick up his pallet and walk. So what did Jesus do? He healed on the Sabbath, which was against the traditions, but he told the man, after he'd been healed, pick up your pallet and walk, right? So the conflict between the traditions were, yeah, two guys could carry this lame man to the pool, and that was OK. But the lame man, once healed, couldn't pick up his own pallet. Jesus was saying, uh-uh. That's an invalid understanding of what the Sabbath means. So there was that. OK, one more I want to bring up.

How about Jesus, and John records here, just before the Last Supper, he washes the disciples' feet. Well, the rabbis had various rules of what they could and couldn't ask their disciples to do. And so a rabbi could ask the disciples to do, you know, get this and do that and do various things. But one of the prohibitions was a rabbi could not ask his disciples to wash his feet.

So what did Jesus do with that? He turned around and washed their feet, and there was no prohibition against that, right? Who would even think that the rabbi would turn around and wash all his disciples' feet? So Jesus turns that rule on its head. by serving all of his disciples and washing their feet.

Rather amazing, rather astounding. So here are all these rabbinical traditions, and Jesus abides by some, but some others he acts against, acts contrary to, does an end run around them, speaks out against them. It's really rather astounding when you start to put it together.

It's no wonder they wanted to kill him. He says, you're wrecking our system! And you're going around telling your disciples that you're the last rabbi. That after discipling them for several years, that they can't turn around and be rabbis. So you can understand that they were very upset. He did a number of things that were just very contrary to all the systems that they had developed over centuries.

Yeah, it's interesting. Make disciples, but you're not to be called rabbi. And that's what we're going to go to next. Let's look at page 5. Christ's disciples in the church. Because the word disciple is used throughout the book of Acts for those in the church. It is used for those in the church.

Interestingly enough, the word disciple never shows up again in the entire rest of the New Testament. And never are any of the Apostles called Rabbi. Never are they called Rabbi. Towards the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus began instructing his disciples regarding ministry in the church, and we saw that in John chapters 14, 15, and 16, which began in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit came upon them.

Jesus' twelve disciples, and Matthias, of course, replacing Judas, were then apostles and that's a special messenger to the church and by Acts chapter 6 until Acts chapter 21 we find that the church believers are called disciples while the word disciple or disciples is not found once in the New Testament after this point in the book of Acts what we do find is the Greek verb for disciple exemplified by this example Ephesians 4.20 so here's the Apostle Paul Here's the Apostle Paul who is writing some decades, about three decades, after Jesus' ascension.

He says, but you did not learn as a disciple the Christ, the Messiah, in this way. The verb there is the verb form for disciple. You did not learn as a disciple the Christ in this way. So we can make these points a comparison and contrast between disciples in Israel and disciples in the church.

First bullet point. Both the disciples under Jesus' earthly ministry and believers in the church are referred to as being Christ's disciples, but only in the church are believers called disciples after Jesus had died. No matter who the earthly teacher was or is, the disciples in the church are disciples of Christ. So here is the difference. Jesus tells all his disciples, don't be called rabbi.

For one is your teacher. Who's that? Christ. Christ himself. Don't be called rabbi. One is your teacher. And so what the disciples carried on and conveyed and communicated was that Jesus is the teacher, the rabbi, for all of us. And as human beings, we're not rabbis, but we are disciples of Christ.

And that's how it's conveyed in the rest of the New Testament. Second bullet point there. Disciples of Christ in Israel will train under the law of Moses and sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel in the land of Israel. So that's Matthew chapter 10. And Jesus sends them out two by two.

But disciples of Christ in the church are trained under the principle of grace, Romans 5.21, a reigning principle. Apart from the law of Moses and no land or ethnic distinctions matter any more as Galatians 327 And 328 as the Apostles were told to go to all the nations with the gospel of salvation baptizing and teaching them so make disciples but disciples of who disciples of Peter and Disciples of Paul? Disciples of John? No. Disciples of Christ.

This is the difference. The end of the rabbinic system. Yes. Yes. One way to put it, I would say a fully devoted follower. A fully devoted follower. Alright, in the next one, the position of disciples in Israel is based on being physically descended from Abraham, or descended physically from Abraham, but the position of those in the church is based on their having believed, being then spiritual descendants of Abraham, and God then places the believers into Christ, into the body of Christ, and Christ in the believer, and everything else regarding their eternal position. Israel was under the law of Moses under a principle of law, but believers in the church are entirely under a principle of grace. So this is one thing, is the rabbis in Israel would be training their disciples entirely under the law of Moses.

And here's Gamaliel, who is said to have had a total of about a thousand disciples, Paul being one of them, over his lifetime. And here's Gamaliel, and he's in love with the law, and he's passing on the law. But here is Paul, who was qualified to be a rabbi, saying, you're not under law, you're under grace. Grace is now the reigning principle. Israel was under the law of Moses, under a principle of law. But believers in the church are entirely under the principle of grace. So it's a radical distinction.

While the Jewish rabbinical system had the followers learning the law, and getting it down, and getting all the insights into the law, and that's what they were supposed to be doing, and that's what all the traditions were directed towards, Jesus tells the disciples, no more rabbis.

And you're not to be called rabbi, but The followers that you train, the ones who you bring up, are to look to me as the teacher. So it's no longer, I'm under this guy or under that guy. No. We're disciples of Christ. His disciples. And that's what the rest of the New Testament teaches.

The end of the rabbinical system. Which is why it's important and why I pointed out earlier, when we read what Jesus says about being a rabbi and him being addressed as a rabbi, and what he says about disciples and to his disciples, we need to understand that there's a distinction between the rabbinical system and our place as disciples of Christ. And we're not continuing the rabbinical system. As a matter of fact, Jesus isn't saying, none of you should be called rabbi. He's ending the rabbinical system.

It's done. And so it's real important we look at the distinction there and realize we're not under law, we're under grace. The rabbis would have thought that their main task, their assignment from God is to pass on the law and to drill it into their disciples and have their disciples be fully committed to understanding the law. Yes?

Well, what's interesting is where he says this is Matthew 23, which is right towards the end. It's only a couple days away from him being crucified. And he's actually preparing them for church ministry. One of the things we pointed out when we studied through Matthew is chapter 13 is the turning point. Remember the whole book is a chiasm? It's the turning point where he begins introducing principles for the church.

So where he says, no more rabbis, that's where he's directing them as now those who will found the church. You're not to be rabbis. Instead, I'm the teacher. So we are disciples of Christ directly and not under some rabbi. In view of these things, it is not biblically correct to take what Jesus said about disciples in Israel and apply those things directly to the believers who are in the body of Christ. We are always in a place to compare and contrast, finding confirmation in the New Testament letters as to what does apply to those in the church. No matter who our teacher or teachers are, we are disciples of Christ. We are His disciples. Directly. So who's doing the teaching?

It's like Paul says, you know, one waters and the other, you know, reaps and another one plants. That's not what matters, right? That's not what matters. Okay, thoughts, questions? Yes, Morgan. Yes, yes, make disciples in the church, but he didn't say be rabbis, right? So, make disciples. And by the way, make disciples, they're disciples of who? Of Christ, right? Not the Apostles' disciples. They're disciples of Christ.

So the full length goes to all nations? That applies, right? Well, one thing is, when we went through that when we were studying Matthew, what was that, about a year ago, We went through that, but it says the go is not an imperative. As you are going.

And the word nations is ethnos, and that's the word that's also translated the gentiles. But they didn't understand that until later. It would be ten years before they understood that the gospel was actually to go to the gentiles. So that even the disciples turned apostles, they themselves were learning all through the book of Acts. One of the things we've pointed out is the book of Acts is not flat where, okay, now you guys go out and make disciples and it's all the same.

We have instead a growing understanding. It isn't until Paul is in Rome writing Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians that he says you're blessed with every spiritual blessing, where? In the heavenly places. And in Ephesians 2.6 that you are seated with Christ. In Philippians that you have a heavenly citizenship those those things are all Things that are only brought out right at the end of the book of Acts when Paul is in under house arrest in Rome and So we find the disciples the Apostles are learning and over time.

Paul wrote Romans, this great 16 chapter book, and the believer never gets off the ground. He apparently hasn't learned that yet. So even the apostles are learning over time. Even the apostles are learning. Yeah, Stan? Yeah, good question. Interestingly, Amos, the prophet Amos, actually wrote against reclining at the table. Because they thought that was a very slothful, worldly thing to do.

Did this happen between the Testaments? Probably this was a tradition that happened between the Testaments, but I would say we don't know. Because what we have is what was established there in the books of Moses, and these traditions were probably added much later. Over a thousand years later was when the traditions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees began to be added. Specifically the Pharisees that really carried on most of those added traditions.

There wasn't any mention of cups. What was mentioned is nothing about the cups and then what you see is by New Testament times Jesus is using apparently the four cups tradition and not objecting to that, and even using it, using the added tradition in what he does there on the Last Supper. He begins by praying with the first cup. He, at the third cup, uses the dipping the morsel in the bitter herbs as the signal that this is Judas, who is the betrayer.

So, yeah, added traditions, but they were oral traditions in great part until actually a couple centuries after the New Testament era. Then they started writing them down. So, because of that, we don't really have any real record as to when they began, but very likely between the period of the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New.

Yeah. Actually, I have a picture of Christ being sold in sin. Here's another question that comes up. People will say, four cups of wine, isn't that a bit much? The rabbis specified that the wine be diluted. Various traditions I've read, at least four or five to one. That is, you know, four or five parts of water to one of wine. So the wine that they drank when they had four cups was quite dilute.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, still carried on. Yeah, and they have other traditions that have been added on as well. Aside from just the four cups You know one of the things that's real interesting is here is the Passover lamb and Paul says that Christ is our Passover, right? And one of the things that says right there in Exodus is you will not break a bone of this lamb Isn't it interesting as Christ was sacrificed? It's it was noted that His bones were not broken unlike the thieves either side of him, right? so very interesting that that was put in there and spelled out, you're not going to see a cut or broken bone in an observant Jewish household. They will have the whole bone there of the lamb.

Other thoughts, questions? Yeah. Yes, they carry on a very similar rabbinic tradition. Now the one thing that's come along, especially in the Reformers, they have Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. And I'm told that the Conservative Jews in this area are very close to Orthodox. But Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, and it's not Reformed, it's Reform, Reform Jews, and the Reform group is more liberal. They will have, for example, female rabbis, which, of course, what we just said here is the rabbis in the New Testament era, no way would they even teach a woman, because that would imply that a woman might be a rabbi. Whereas under the Reform Judaism, that's acceptable. Well, and that varies because you have, again, you've got the Orthodox and then the Conservative and the Reform. And the Reform, they're free to go pretty wild.

A Reform congregation in Los Angeles, the rabbi told the congregation, this exodus never happened. It's all just myth. It never happened. Whereas talking to an Orthodox rabbi, he's going to say, yes, the Exodus happened, and the creation account is how it happened, and those kinds of things. So real different understandings depending on which group you're talking about. So basically, they were just following the rule of tradition, and they lost the importance of the law being good, holy, and true.

Yeah, in other words, one of the things that Jesus said there in Matthew 5, He says, I have not come to abolish the law, which for Israel that was the case. But He also said, you have heard this and you have heard that, and He spoke against the various things that had come up by tradition. And he pointed them back to the law of Moses. Back to that.

Because what had happened is people had tried to logic their way through, well, if the law doesn't allow this, then we've got to do this and this to make sure that we don't break the law. And so they made a whole bunch of extra laws. And so now in our era of modern technology, they've concluded a whole bunch of different things, like the toilet paper.

You know how you break the sheets off of the roll? That's work. You can't do that on the Sabbath. You've got to have them broken off already and set there next to the toilet ready to go. You cannot pull them off the roll. That's work. You cannot turn a light off and on on the Sabbath. That's work. If you go in an elevator on the Sabbath, you cannot push the buttons. That's work. So a whole bunch of added definitions as to what it means to observe the Sabbath.

And so every law, they had 613 laws, every law, and of course some of them they can't carry out because they don't have a temple, right? But every law that they can carry out, they've got a bunch of additional laws to go around it. They would say be fruitful and multiply is one of those 613 laws, right? So if a man marries a woman and she doesn't have you know started having kids fairly soon He's fully justified in divorcing her marrying another one because he's got to be fruitful and multiply, right?

So and never never mind the question that it might be his fault but I But it's that kind of a system where you're allowed 40 lashes, but I might miscount, so I'm really only going to lash with 39. And it goes on and on and on with additional details about how you're supposed to carry out the law. You're not allowed to boil a kid, a baby goat, in its mother's milk. So now we're going to make sure you really don't do anything like that, and we're going to make a law that you can't have milk and meat within six hours of each other. So you've got laws like that that you have to carry out. Right. Right. That's right.

And as a matter of fact, you get your eyes off the Lord, right? And so then what Jesus also spoke against was, you know, because it was certainly forbidden that you tell a lie, right? But the rabbis developed ways that you could. You could tell a lie to a Roman tax collector. In order to protect property, you could tell a lie to a Roman tax collector. You could tell a lie as long as you swore by the right thing. I swear by this and this and this. Unless somebody knows all the rules, they don't know if you're lying or not. So they would come up with that. They said, well, you know, yeah, we're supposed to bring the man and the woman in adultery, but we've developed this set of rules where we'll just bring the woman.

And the Law of Moses said, under the testimony of two or three, you bring a conviction, right? And so the rabbis said, yeah, but not if it's a woman. So they developed a whole bunch of additional rules on top of what the Law of Moses said. And Jesus spoke strongly against those additional rules, especially where those rules ended up violating the Law of Moses, or violating the spirit of the Law of Moses.

In no way was a woman to be discounted. But that's what they did again and again in their interpretations. There was even a daily prayer that the men said they thank God that they were born a man and not a woman. Because there were more laws that applied to men. Including circumcision. So there was a tremendous arrogance, there was a tremendous deflection away from focus on the Lord. In order to make sure you had all these details down just right. And then that also brought up areas of debate. Yeah, areas of debate.

And then Jesus taught, it says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus taught unlike any of the rest of them. Because often the rabbis, in addition to having lots of little details that they focus on, they like to leave things in tension. That's why Arnold Fruchtenbaum tells a joke. I told it before, but just in case you haven't heard it.

He tells a joke where here's a group of Jewish people, and they get in an argument over what the tradition is. And so one group is saying this, and one group is saying that, and they're arguing back and forth about what the tradition is. And so finally a rabbi walks into the room, and they say, oh, rabbi! And they all run up and start asking the rabbi about their argument about the tradition. So the rabbi listens to this, and one group says, well, this is what we've been saying, and the rabbi says, no, that's not the tradition. And then the other group says, this is what we've been saying, and the rabbi says, no, that's not the tradition. And then the group just starts arguing all over again, and the rabbi says, that's the tradition!

So this is another thing that Jesus did that was different from the rabbis. Rather than leaving things in a sort of a questionable tension, as the rabbis often did, Jesus said definitively, this is the truth. And he laid it down and he never left them in a quandary like that. This is the truth. Bang. And sometimes it just was stunning. But he told them the truth, and he told it clearly, unlike the rabbis. Okay, anything else? Okay, let's pray. Lord, thank you for making things clear. Thank you for laying out for us what is the truth and what is not.

And thank you for laying out that we are in fact to have a relationship with you, that we are disciples of you directly. And you have made it such that, yes, there are teachers here in the body of Christ, but they're not the ones that matter ultimately. Ultimately, it's you. And relationship with you is essential and not optional.

And thank you, Lord, that we're under the principle of grace, that we need not get all caught up in details of the law and how it's to be interpreted and understood. But instead, we're under a principle of grace. And we would ask that you would disciple us as you have been under that reigning principle. We thank you for that amazing grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.