Lesson for September 13, 2020
The Parables of Jesus
Lesson 3
Two Houses and their Foundation
In this parable in Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus contrasts a house built on a firm foundation and one built on sand, which is not a solid foundation. As believers, we are to make sure that we build on the correct foundation. The Greek word for building a house is “oikodome” meaning edification, the act of building or erecting a structure. (Ephesians 4:11-29) Like any structure, our “building” in the soul must have a firm foundation and properly constructed “floors.” Our foundation is Jesus Christ and the “floors” are categories of Bible doctrine. Once the foundation is in place, then the believer can begin to build upon it with full confidence that it will stand. The foundation is received at salvation, but the floors must be built over a period of time, as Bible doctrine is learned, believed and properly applied. (Ephesians 4:12,16,29; Colossians 2:7; I Timothy 1:4; James 1:4)
The basis for any system from God is always grace. The word grace itself makes it clear that God’s system for building the spiritual building is void of any human merit, human works, human ability or human viewpoint thinking. The reason that God planned it this way is to eliminate human viewpoint thinking and human production as the means for building anything spiritual. Instead, He provided a non-meritorious system for both perception and execution of the Christian Way of Life: FAITH. We learn how to erect this building in our souls by faith (doctrine) and it takes faith (belief) to put into practice. This method is the only one that can bring honor and glory to God. (Hebrews 11:6)
The spiritual building is built using the stored Bible doctrine in the mind of the believer. Consistent study and accurate use of doctrine over a period of time is the method for developing our complex. This building is literally Christ being formed in the soul of the believer. Positionally, Christ is “in” every believer, but He is not “formed” in every believer. Jesus Christ had this spiritual building formed in His soul. He had all the characteristics of spiritual maturity: 1) He was full of grace and truth 2) He had a relaxed mental attitude 3) He was free from mental attitude sins 4) He had capacity for love and 5) He had divine inner happiness. Christ erected the spiritual building in His soul as a demonstration to all believers that it is possible for us to do the same through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
As believer-priests, we have the opportunity to build a spiritual building in our souls. With Christ as our example, we simply follow His pattern. Christ, as a perfect human being, built this building under the filling of the Holy Spirit as He learned and applied the Word of God. As we abide in Him (fellowship with God) and His word abides in us (Bible doctrine), we are allowing God the Holy Spirit to produce the character of Christ in our lives. (John 15:10) The Bible uses a number of terms to refer to this building process. For example, walking in the light (I John 2:3-11), walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-23), imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1), Christ at home in your hearts (Ephesians 3:17), and Christ formed in you. (Galatians 4:19) Your spiritual life is not what you do for God, the church or other people. Your true spiritual life is your invisible relationship with God. (Galatians 4:19; John 1:14)
Building our spiritual complex is a process of transformation (not reformation), which takes place in the mind of the believer as he thinks Bible doctrine (the mind of Christ). We call this thinking Divine Viewpoint Thinking. As our spiritual complex is being built, happiness, stability and blessing are being produced by God the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. (Romans 12:1-2; Galatians 5:22-23)
The Christian Way of Life is a supernatural way of life, which cannot be lived apart from knowledge of Bible doctrine and the guidance and power of God the Holy Spirit. (Romans 7:6, 8:2; Galatians 5:25; Ephesians 5:18) This way of life requires thinking. All changes in our lives must come from the inside. The true character of the believer is determined by what he thinks, not by what he does. God never forces a believer into any course of action. We determine what our own spiritual lives are going to look like based on what we allow ourselves to think. Divine Viewpoint Thinking equals a victorious Christian Way of Life. (Romans 12:1-2)
The Physician and His Patients
There are a few parables referring to the same thing found in Matthew 9:9-17. This series of parables begins with the calling of Matthew as a disciple. Jesus saw one person who just hated the hypocrisy of the religious Pharisees and recognized Matthew’s positive volition. So, Jesus went to Matthew and told him to follow Him, which Matthew did, which is analogous to believing in Christ as Savior.
There were people who were ostracized from religious society and hated by the Pharisees – tax collectors and prostitutes. Jesus had His greatest ministry among those who were hated and by contrast He had His worst ministry to the religious Pharisees. Only a few Pharisees trusted Christ as Savior in three years, as far as we know. Jesus always went where there was positive volition.
This day Jesus found positive volition among the tax collectors and the prostitutes, while the religious crowd was chanting some “mumbo jumbo” through the streets with ashes on their faces, wearing sackcloth all of which was a phoney front of hypocrisy.
Matthew was a tax collector and as such was hated by society. Jesus showed us something about looking down your nose attitude at segments of society which are being ostracized. Jesus spent a great deal of time with these kinds of people. Mary Magdalene was a prostitute (Luke 7:36-50) and after her she believed in Christ she became a great person of doctrine during Christ’s ministry. She knew more doctrine than many of the disciples. But Jesus didn’t look down His nose at Matthew because he is a publican (“publican” is Latin and means tax collector, public servant), and He didn’t look down His nose at the prostitutes.
Matthew was saved the day Jesus approached him and he is so happy with his new-found salvation that he wanted his friends to be saved. So, he threw a big party in his own house on the same night that they were going to have a religious parade. There are a lot of Christians who wouldn’t have gone to this party, and if they did, they wouldn’t have known what to do with themselves. It takes a spiritually mature believer to be able to handle themselves with poise and understanding in the midst of a group of unbelievers. Jesus was there for one purpose and that was to share the Gospel message with them. We know from Luke 5:27-30; Mark 2:14,15 that this was Matthew’s house. It doesn’t say so here because Matthew wrote it. Matthew just wrote “the house.”
Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and prostitutes was the question by the Pharisees. So, Jesus used a parable to explain. Jesus said that those who are healthy do not need a doctor, but those who are sick. The Pharisees viewed themselves as spiritually healthy because they supposedly “kept the Law of Moses.” However, they were anything but spiritually healthy because they were arrogant unbelievers unable to keep the Law of Moses and would not believe the Gospel anyway. So, Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6, “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice (rituals) and in knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (rituals).” The scribes and the Pharisees out in the streets chanting their songs was ritual without reality.
The Bridegroom
In Matthew 9:14-17 Jesus gives three parables in answer to a criticism from legalistic followers of John the Baptist who did not yet understand grace. They wanted to know why Jesus’ disciples weren’t fasting like they and the Pharisees were fasting. Fasting was a ritual observed by the Jewish religious leaders.
God commanded Israel to fast one day a year, on the Day of Atonement according to Leviticus 16:29-31. God told Israel that “you are to afflict your souls,” which is an idiom meaning to fasting. The Day of Atonement was so well observed that by the time of the New Testament it was known by “the fast” in Acts 27:9. Other times a fast was called for in the Old Testament for a time of mourning and sadness. (Joel 1:14; 2:12-14). Zechariah 7:3-5 shows that the Jews added fast days to their calendar to commemorate times of national disasters. By the time of Jesus, the Pharisees fasted quite often as part of their religious rituals without reality. (Luke 18:12).
Jesus, however, demonstrated the voluntary nature of fasting by not fasting. This confused the disciples of John the Baptist, who came to Jesus with the question, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus did not fast because his being on earth with his disciples was a time of happiness and rejoicing; the time for fasting would come later when He was no longer with them. The fact that Jesus did not fast above what the Law of Moses required means it is not required by God.
The wedding guests (attendants) cannot mourn the bridegroom being absent while he is with them? But when he leaves, then they can mourn. The wedding guests stayed in the home with the bride and the groom and feasted for seven days. When the bride and the bridegroom left and everyone was sad. The wedding guests represent believers and the bridegroom is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is on the earth and what Jesus was saying to them is: “As long as I am here personally, you ought to be having a wonderful time not spending time fasting (mourning and feeling sad).” But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them (return to Heaven), and then they will fast (mourn and feel sad).
Old and New Garments
If you have an old garment that has been washed many times and which has now been torn and you sew a new patch over it to cover it, that new patch has not been washed many times. So, the next time the garment is washed, the patch begins to shrink and you end up with a worse hole than was there before. The new cloth which is not pre-shrunk is legalism – fasting for the purpose of self-denial and not for denying yourself for the purpose of prayer and the study of God’s Word (the true New Testament meaning of fasting). Jesus was teaching them that salvation and the spiritual life (represented by the new patch) were not by keeping the Mosaic Law (represented by the old garment) and that meaningless ritual has no place in the spiritual life of a believer. Jesus came to introduce a new covenant called grace. So, if you try to insert the Pharisees’ ritual of fasting into the spiritual life, you are introducing legalism into spirituality which cancels grace and there is no longer spirituality. Spirituality is void of any form of legalism.
Spirituality is the term used for the filling of God the Holy Spirit. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you are either being controlled 100% by your sin nature (carnality) or 100% by the Holy Spirit (spirituality). Spirituality and carnality are mutually exclusive. You either reside in God’s power system or in Satan’s world system at any given time. You cannot be partially filled with the Holy Spirit and partially controlled by the sin nature at the same time according to I John 1:6-7, 2:10-11, 3:4-9. Every time a believer sins, he steps outside of God’s power system by using his volition to commit sin. He immediately re-enters Satan’s world system, loses the filling of the Holy Spirit and is said to be grieving and/or quenching the Holy Spirit.
Old and New Wine Skins
The wine skins were leather pouches that would eventually dry out and crack. So, what happened when you poured new wine into an old leather pouch that had dried out was that fermentation caused the wine to expand, the wine skin to crack and the wine spilled everywhere. The new wine refers to the believer’s spiritual life, the new wine skin to grace. The old wine skin refers to the Mosaic Law, the old wine to the keeping the rituals of the Mosaic Law. Jesus was saying that you can’t take grace and combine it with the Mosaic Law and have it result in the Christian Way of Life. You have to put the new wine (the spiritual life of the Church Age) into a new wine skin (New Covenant of grace). (Romans 11)
When you try to pour the Christian Way of Life into legalism, so to speak, the Christian Way of Life leaks out and there is no Christian Way of Life, only legalism. Remember what Paul said in Romans 11:6 regarding Israel seeking salvation by the works of the Mosaic Law, “But if by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” There is no place for legalism in the Christian Way of Life.
Many religions and denominations add certain requirements or obligations to faith in Christ, which is no salvation at all. Many who belong to these organizations claim that they believe that Christ died on the Cross for their sins. Hence, they allege to believe in Christ. But at the same time, their church has a system of penance and/or works which they must follow for salvation. If a person follows a system of penance and works for salvation, they are not saved. They have cancelled any benefit of their faith by adding works. If they are depending on the work of Christ on the Cross alone, they are saved. But if they add a system of penance and/or works, they are not saved. What people who believe this are saying is that the work of Christ on the Cross was not good enough to pay the penalty for their sin and they have to help Him out by some form of human effort. (I Corinthians 5:6)
Therefore, you do not have to practice a system of works to ensure or retain your salvation, as alleged by many churches. Some people in these churches are saved because at some moment they believed in Christ alone for salvation, totally apart from anything imposed by their church. At the moment they believe in Christ totally apart from their works, they received eternal life. Later, after hearing the false explanation of the Gospel from some minister in their church, they may have changed their minds about the requirement for salvation, but they are still saved because of that one decision to trust Christ alone for eternal life.
John 19:30 indicates that the work of salvation was completed on the Cross by Christ. When something is completed, you can’t add anything to it – it’s complete, finished. So, the only condition for eternal life is personal faith in Jesus Christ, whose substitutionary spiritual death on the Cross provided all the work for salvation. That is why Jesus said after He had been judged for our sins, “Finished!” Salvation was completed on the Cross and there is nothing we can add to it now or ever. Eternal salvation is a free gift which is compatible with God’s policy of grace. Therefore, it is attained by faith alone in Jesus Christ. By adding anything to faith for salvation, man is in competition with God, and that alone is blasphemous. (Ephesians 2:8-9; John 3:15-18, 11:25-26, 16:8-9; Romans 1:16, 3:20-24, 4:4-5, 5:1-2, 8, 15-17; Galatians 2:16, 3:13; I Peter 3:18)