Wounds Are Where Light Enters by Walter Wangerin Jr

Author:Walter Wangerin Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2017-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

MATTHEW: BECAUSE HE CRIED

Twice in time God established a covenant, a testament, with humankind. Twice he made a people to be his own. The first failed. The second is everlasting.

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,” the Lord said to Israel, “how I bore you out of slavery on eagles’ wings and how I brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my commandments, you shall be my own possession among all peoples.”

This first covenant was defined by God’s laws. The benefits to Israel would have been incalculable: to be given their own land where flowed milk and honey; to become a great nation; to live with him, with the Lord God himself.

It was not for ignorance, then, that they broke the commandments, nor for want of trying, since they repented over and over again. Rather, “the imagination of the human heart is evil continually.”

In the first covenant God’s part was to offer blessings, and the people’s part was to obey. On account of the failure of the people to uphold their part, it was the covenant itself that failed.

In the second covenant, therefore, God in Christ decided to take both parts upon himself.

Mercy hath a human face.

Jesus entered the sorry sphere of human affairs. He became flesh. With a perfect obedience he fulfilled not only the righteousness demanded by the first covenant, but also our ruination of that covenant, which demanded the sentence of death. He died. Was crucified and died, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. And from his fullness have we all received grace upon grace. “Jesus is Lord!”

There follows, then, this mystery and this miracle, for which Matthew is the evidence: that we can be changed.

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