If You Don't Know the Law, Are You Cursed?

Tom:

We are continuing with the Gospel of John and right now we are in John:7:49But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.
See All..., “But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.” Now before I go on, this is the religious officials, the Pharisees, right?

Dave:

Right, right.

Tom:

Pointing to the people with regard to the view of Jesus and these guys have the nerve to say “…who knoweth not the law are cursed.”But they’ve added more to the law, they have mixed around the law so much. Dave, I read in the commentary, because I didn’t count them myself, and this is our good friend Bill MacDonald, he said in the first five books of the Bible there are 600 laws.Now start with that, but then by the time it came around to the time of Jesus and the Pharisees, what—we are talking hundreds upon hundreds more that they’ve added.

Dave:

And Jesus said you’ve made void the Word of God by your tradition.A lot of them were traditions.But Tom, this is a typical attitude from the clergy class.I don’t want to offend anyone out there, but I don’t find that in the Bible.We are brothers and sisters in Christ.There’s no one that has some status above others.Now there are elders—

Tom:

But they’re to be the servants of all.

Dave:

That’s right.We are to obey those that have the rule over you.You don’t start a revolution in your church because you don’t like the pastor or you disagree.On the other hand, we must all be Bereans and we must check one another out.But here’s the attitude and this is very Catholic again and Tom we do not sit around and try to find fault with the Catholic Church or with anyone else. But these people, this people, “who knoweth not the law,” who says they don’t know the law?Let’s go back and see what the Bible says.Psalm 1, it speaks that blessed is THE man, it doesn’t say the rabbi,—an ordinary man and it says “…in God’s law doth he meditate day and night.”Now if an ordinary man can meditate on the law of God and Deuteronomy 8 says that we don’t live by bread alone, but by every word—and this is a man—man shall not live.Man in general, this is not rabbis.This is not somebody who has a doctor of divinity, or who studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary and therefore knows more than anyone else.Or you can go to Psalm:119:9(BETH.) Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
See All..., “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?By taking heed thereto according to thy word.”We can give many other scriptures.So the Bible tells us that the ordinary person can understand the Bible.But these rabbis, we’ve talked about it before.You know Matthew 23, Jesus says you stand in the way of those that would go to heaven.Not only don’t you enter in—

Tom:

But you prevent them.

Dave:

But you prevent them because you make up rules and they’ve got to go through you to get to heaven and that’s exactly what these rabbis are saying.Look they can’t understand the law—these ordinary people—we are the ones who understand and we will interpret it for them and as a former Catholic you know that is exactly what the Catholic Church says, the Magisterium, the bishops in concert with the pope, they alone can interpret the Bible.

Tom:

Right.Dave even within evangelical Christianity we have many, well some denominations in particular that have become so legalistic that there’s hardly any difference.They’ve gotten—well this brings me to an irony of this verse.Now help me out here Dave.Doesn’t the scripture say those who are under a law are under a curse?

Dave:

Tom, that’s all the law can do for you.

Tom:

Right, so my point is that not only are they not understanding the law for the purpose it was meant, but they’re imposing something here that doesn’t make any sense.

Dave:

Well they are under the curse themselves.

Tom:

Right, absolutely.

Dave:

The curse of the law.Well, it’s tragic Tom, but you know you can’t just blame the leaders.The people accept this.“My people love to have it so,” the scripture says.I’m not going to study my Bible for myself; I’ll let the pastor study it.Let him be the man of God and he can come out here and give me a three or four point sermon.Not too long.It’s Sunday morning.Then I’ll go home. Don’t take too long Pastor, because we’ve got a big ball game on you know.

Tom:

Yes, or tee time.

Dave:

Or whatever, my wife’s roast will burn.So we’re going to have to place part of the blame upon the people themselves who are not willing to study the Bible and are perfectly willing to let someone else interpret it for them and apparently the Jewish people were willing to let the rabbis.Let them be the experts.It’s a way to excuse one’s self.I’m not accountable now, but I’m just going along with what the church, you know this is the oldest church, it’s the largest church, and we have these traditions and so forth.

Tom:

Yes, or this leader or that leader is highly esteemed and how can they be attacking this person or that person.

Dave:

How could they be wrong?

Tom:

Yes, it’s a problem.Well here we have a man who’s a Pharisee, Nicodemus.Let me pick up with verse 50, “Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?

Dave:

They don’t want to do that, Tom.There must be witnesses, there must be an accusation.Of course they’re going to try this.They’re going to bring Jesus to trial.But they can’t get witnesses that agree.They bring many false witnesses.It’s a set up and they still can’t make it work.But Nicodemus, he first came to Jesus by night.That indicates a little bit of timidity.He doesn’t want to do this openly, or on the other hand, you could be a little more generous with Nicodemus and suggest that there were so many people crowding around Jesus all day long and Jesus is teaching them, that Nicodemus wanted a little time alone.Catch Jesus at night when you don’t have this crowd milling about and asking questions and so forth.But he’s sticking his neck out now and he’s simply asking a just and logical—

Tom:

Yes, there’s a little integrity here.

Dave:

—logical question.Guys have you really heard this man out?Have you been there and seen the miracles that he does?Are you really sure that he’s—well they’re going to say search the scriptures, no prophet comes from Galilee.Are you really from Galilee?Well have you checked it out?In fact, he wasn’t born in Galilee.He was born in Bethlehem of Judea and they only moved to Galilee later.But they’re not willing Tom.They have their minds made up and as we will see more clearly when we get into chapter 11, they want to defend their own positions.They’ve got their authority, their power that they are trying to maintain and Jesus is a threat to them.

Tom:

Yes.Dave, I find it interesting that here these men are in power, they are the religious leaders and Nicodemus is just asking them to be reasonable.But intimidation—it’s almost like they want to use their power, their prestige, and their position to coerce, to force people in their own way.That happens today in situations where even when you do it with a heart.Sometimes talking to a pastor about his position on something, or to elders, going before an elder board, sometimes these guys want to railroad you.Not in every case, but we’ve received letters from people who have tried to appeal to their pastor about something he was teaching, or to the board of elders and so on and intimidation often is their first response.

Dave:

The wisdom that is from above, James says, is first peaceable, pure, gentle, and easy to be intreated…” and if a pastor or the elders are truly men of God they will be willing to be corrected if they’re wrong.They will be willing to sit down and have a reasonable discussion.They have nothing to hide.They don’t have to defend their power, their rights, and their integrity.That’s in the Lord’s hands.On the other hand, there are some people who are very obstreperous and can be persistent and we’ve—

Tom:

In terms of how they approach their pastor or their elders, that’s right.

Dave:

Yes, or are unreasonable even when you give a reasonable response from the Scriptures, they are still intent upon pursuing their idea and you can’t deal with people like that.But Nicodemus is asking a sincere question.Hey guys, have you checked this out really?And they say look, out of Galilee comes no prophet, period.This guy is not a prophet.What?He does miracles, he opens the eyes of the blind, he raises the dead, and they can’t deny it.Yeah, that’s why they want to get rid of him because they can’t do that and he’s a threat to them.Well they come to a stalemate, verse 53.

Tom:

Well, it was the end of the message as far as they were concerned.And it says, “And every man went unto his own house.”End of story.But it’s not the end of the story.

Dave:

That’s right.