Page 83 - Biblical Theology Textbook - masters

Study Section 12: The Messiah Obeys the Law

12.1 Connect

When Mary looked at her newborn baby and all the circumstances that she and Joseph went
through to give Him birth, she “pondered all these things in her heart.” We know very little
about Jesus as He was growing up. We are told about the incident when He was taken to
Jerusalem and was left when He was 12. But otherwise, we don’t know anything about his
childhood or early years. So, we can only imagine. We do know that Jesus was a perfect kid.
He always obeyed and never sinned. Can you imagine what it was like to raise a perfect child?

We are all sinners and when someone around us is “perfect” it demonstrates even more what rascals
we are. I’m sure that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’s half brothers and sisters had difficulties when
comparing their attitudes and behaviors with that of Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus’s half-brothers did
not believe Him to be the Christ and they even communicated to Him their shortness of patience when
asking Him about going to Jerusalem. They all had to live and grow up with the perfect Son of God.
Wow, that must have been difficult, because He always did everything right. He was sinless! Today we
are going to look at why this characteristic of Jesus is so very important…

12.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain the reason that it is important for Christ to keep the Law
perfectly.

2. The student should be able to describe how Messiah offered Himself up as a Sacrificial Lamb.

3. The student should be able to explain the significance of the resurrection.

12.3 The Messiah Obeys the Law

For Jesus Christ to become our perfect and sinless sacrifice, He had to live a perfect life. That
means Jesus had to keep the Law of Moses, which demonstrates God’s holiness, in every
point. Had Jesus broken the Law of God, He would have been sinful and could not have laid
His life down as a sinless sacrifice. He would have had to die for His own sin. But on several
occasions during His life, the religious leaders declared him a lawbreaker! Did He break the
law?

Much of it depends on what we mean by “law.” Quite frequently and openly, Jesus broke traditional
Jewish interpretation in His day of the religious laws.

They accused Him of breaking laws concerning the Sabbath on multiple occasions, but Jesus didn’t
actually break an Old Testament command. He violated the interpretations religious leaders had
developed around the biblical commands of keeping the Sabbath day holy.

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