The Wisdom of God (Luke 11:49)

            In the Scriptures, Jesus is the Master of referring to Himself without anyone picking up on it.  Whether He is mentioning that the “Son of Man” will suffer and be killed or quoting Himself by an alias – as in this case, He always seems to find a way to seem more mysterious.  If you search the Scriptures for a time when someone says anything like what Jesus quotes “The Wisdom of God” to have said, you will find that only once is something similar said.  And guess who said it.  That’s right, Jesus Himself said it – search for yourself, but it is found in Matthew 23.  Interesting side note, I think.

            The Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, called Jesus “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God”.  If you have ever read Proverbs 8, it seems like when “Wisdom” is talking that Jesus is speaking.  Here in Luke 11 Jesus is confronting the spirit of legalism.  Many have wrongly defined “legalism” as being a mindset of works unto righteousness.  Legalism may be related to this, but it is slightly different.  The mindset that many believers hold for at least a small part of their walk with the Lord before being set free that they gain righteousness through the things they do is mostly a subconscious belief system.  This would more rightly be called a “works mentality”.  Legalism, however, is the demonically induced religious structure that emphasizes rules over relationship.  This is a huge problem for those set free for freedom.

            As the Lord confronted the lawyers, He rebuked them for hindering people from entering into what they had not themselves accessed.  In verse 52, He says that they keep the key of knowing Him from the people that are entering into the Kingdom.  Lawyers here are not the people that one would go to for legal suits, they were experts of the Law.  They had spent their lives studying and trying to understand all of the rules that were given to Moses.  They would interpret the Laws where they seemed unclear.  They would define what “work” was on the Sabbath beyond what the Lord revealed, using the Scriptures, but not in a way that freed people to enjoy the Lord like the Sabbath was for.

            The same spirit that worked on the lawyers that Jesus rebuked then is still around, trying to keep the liberated sons of God live under rules and regulations that manipulate us back into servitude to religion when we have been freed to be free.  Sometimes shows up as control or manipulation, but many times it those being wounded by this legalism spirit think that they are protecting themselves from sinning by putting rules up to keep them from access.  Accountability can be a good thing, but if the only reason a man does not give into lust is because he knows that he will have to tell his accountability group then he is not free, he just isn’t acting on the lustful desires of his flesh.  It was for freedom that Christ set us free, Paul wrote to the Galatian church, we don’t want to go from one for of bondage to another.  There is something far better than accountability.

            Freedom is not merely lack of oppression, true freedom is having authority over the oppressor.  Our view of almost everything in the Kingdom needs to expand.  We must take our end goals and go “too far” with them.  If we are striving to not gossip, we are under that legalism.  The law that we are bound to is “Thou shalt not gossip.”  Taking that thought to the next step is saying “I am dedicated to encouraging  everyone around me.”  This is taking the negative law and finding the positive, life-giving direction.  The removal of negative is ineffective if there is not an insertion of power.  Removing darkness is not difficult if you are a lit lamp.  Law kills, the Spirit gives life.

*O Wisdom of God, give us righteous understanding and hearts that burn to bring Your glory and grace into every place the soles of our feet tread with You.  Amen*