Title: The Stumbling Stone
I. Right Idea, Wrong Method
read vv.30-31
Here Paul reviews the tragedy of his people, the Israelites. The real sad thing to Paul is that they were seeking the right thing. They were seeking righteousness. But years of following only the Law had damaged, and in some cases, eliminated their faith.
To many of the Jews, and in particular the Jewish spiritual and political leadership, had become so fixated on the law they had come to the conclusion that their discipline to the Law could earn them favor before God.
Now, before we just say, “for shame, silly Jews” Let us look into the mirror and see if their might be any modern day parallels with the Jewish line of thinking and our own. We know the Bible is the Word of God, yet some of our people have splintered into groups that teaches essentially the same doctrine as what was hindering the Jews, namely a salvation of works.
You partake in these sacraments, you obey the Church Law and discipline, you burn off any sins you’ve committed in purgatory, and viola, you too can spend eternity in Heaven.
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest to you this morning that this line of thought can also permeate into Baptist circles of faith as well. We tend to judge the authenticity of each other’s walks by little performance charts we keep in our heads.
Well, my attendance is better than so and so’s and I know I tithe more then they do, and I’m the one who remembers our Sunday School memory verse each week…so if THEY are saved, I must be…”
The Jews were seeking righteousness, but they had abandoned their first love, that is, a relationship with God. Meanwhile, we, the Gentiles, basically stumble upon Grace and Salvation, directly due tot he fact that the majority of the Jews had rejected it.
Again, I’d suggest this is another Biblical example of something that at first seems like a tragedy, but ends up happening for the greater purpose at hand.
Do you know what that single greatest evangelical tool is in the world? Do you know what has caused the Gospel to spread with more effect and power than any evangelism rally, any dynamic preacher, and writing ever?
Persecution. (Talk about the Diaspora.)
II. Why the stumbling stone?
Read 32-33
At we draw this discussion to close, some of you, in reading this passage, may have asked the same question as I did: Why the stumbling stone? Why did God want to trip his own people with this obstacle? Why didn’t he just make it easier for the Jews to understand that Christ was his son?
For example, if God really wanted the Jews to accept Christ as his son, why was he born as a child in a humble manger, why would he not have appeared over Jerusalem after a huge lightning storm, descending from the Heavens in a white robe as a fully grown man, with a white radiance about him. And when he spoke, why was his voice not thunderous and authoritative? And why did He speaks in riddles and parables, and mystery, instead of just laying out the plan of salvation?
In other words, why didn’t God just make it easier for the Jews to recognize Him as the Messiah?
There are two ways to answer this question. There is a broad stroke and answer (which is the important one) and there is the detailed answer (which is the theological defense of God’s methods.)
First, let’s defend God theologically:
Christ HAD to be born a baby, in a manger. Why? Two reasons, he had to be fully human to be the appropriate sacrifice, and it had to fulfill O.T. prophecy.
When he spoke, he had to speak as a man. And the riddles and parables he spoke in were to make sense only after the crucifixion took place.
Why? Because of the big reason: God wanted a relationship with the Jews, he wanted their faith in him, and they had traded that faith for the Law. The stumbling stone was set because God wanted them to see the folly of their ways, it was not his Law that was going to save them, it was his Son’s fulfillment of that Law!
Just look at the quotation Paul gives from Is. 8:14
“Behold, I lay a stumbling stone and a rock of offense,
and whoever believes on HIM will not be put to shame.”
HIM is JESUS!
And the Jews just didn’t see it. Perhaps one of the reasons it was “easier” for the gentiles to accept Christ was because they didn’t not have the stumbling stone of the Law to trip over, they just believed Christ was the son of God, which is all God wanted from the Jews to begin with.
How tragically ironic that the Jews had every advantage, yet were blinded because they didn’t have a personal relationship with God.
Are you perhaps among those? Raised in a Christian home? Attend church regularly? Know your Bible? None of that will save you. Only a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ has the power to make you whole again.
Let’s Pray.