Luke 16:15-18 The Law and the Ways of God

Luke 16:15-18 Jesus talks to the Pharisees about the Law. This seems to be a collection of statements, and a unifying theme is hard to discern. Verse 15 talks about the Pharisees justifying themselves before men, but excoriates them because God knows the heart, and He detests the things than men value. Verse 16 is difficult because it says that since John the Baptist had proclaimed the good news of the kingdom, people were somehow forcing their way into it. Verse 17 says that not one iota of the law will fail. Verse 18 gives Jesus' teaching on divorce and adultery, paralleled in Matthew 5:32 & 19:9 and Mark 10:11-12.

          Possibly the common element of these four verses is that things in God's kingdom are simply different from things in the world. God detests the things that men value. John preached the kingdom, but men didn't understand what he was saying and thought they could get in by force, rather than by obedience to God, because the Law will not fail. We cannot understand how the law works because it is spiritual and we are fleshly. (Romans 7:14). In another place (Mark 10:2-9), before Jesus explained that to divorce one's wife was to force her to commit adultery, He went back to the roots of marriage and quoted from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, in response to the Pharisees' quoting Deuteronomy 24:1. Jesus consistently seems to try to convey to His listeners that the ways of God are simply not comprehended by the natural man. Of course, the Pharisees had built their lives and careers on understanding and explaining the law and the ways of God, so Jesus is basically saying they got it all wrong.

          Where does this put us? We try to understand the Bible, and try to draw close to the presence of God through prayer and worship and other disciplines. Is this all futile? I think it should depend on how we approach these things. In John 8:39-40, Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life." In Jesus, we have eternal life, and through His enablement, we can understand the spiritual truths that God has laid before us. We still have the temptation and risk of falling into to fleshly understanding of spiritual things, just as the Pharisees did. If nothing else, this shows us our continual and continuing need for and dependence on the Holy Spirit.