Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Matthew 21:42ff Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes'? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder."
TUESDAY: TEACHING IN HIS FATHER'S HOUSE
Having come into Jerusalem as the victorious King and then cleaning His Father's House, the Son spent many hours in the Temple fulfilling another of His offices, namely, that of Prophet. From the time of the temple cleansing until His arrest Christ completed His preaching ministry by days teaching in the temple. What was He teaching? In these final days before Jesus' death we're told that " ... He taught the people in the temple and preached the Gospel ..." (Luke 20:1).
Jesus did as He had since the beginning of His public ministry, for as He told the synagogue goers in Nazareth, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18f).
And so He not only proclaimed liberty to the captives (the Good News of the forgiveness of sins through Himself, the Messiah), but He also spent much of His time on Tuesday warning against going back under the yoke of the law peddled by the scribes and the Pharisees. For the past three years Jesus had been proclaiming the Gospel Message of God's grace, salvation through the Lamb of God, directly contradicting the message of the Jewish leaders. They told the people that salvation from sin could only be found in their good works in perfect obedience to God's Law.
Christ proclaimed Himself to be the Cornerstone of God's plan of salvation. In being lifted up from the earth on the cross, the devil would be defeated and the Savior would proclaim the forgiveness He had won for all people, Jew and Gentile (John 12:20-33). And so He proclaims Himself to us today in His Word, the Savior who was lifted up for us, that we do not depend on our own righteousness to be saved, but on His life, death, and resurrection.
