His Yoke is Easy and His Burden is Light

(Image courtesy of www.gettyimages.com.)

“Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

The yoke of Judaism was the law. All the regulations, ceremonies, sacrifices, and every other form of regulative worship of Yahweh was purposefully commanded and carefully conducted from Abraham to Christ. But Peter makes a powerful statement in Acts 15:10: “Neither our father nor we have been able to bear [it].” The law brought self-righteousness, not real righteousness; therefore, the law brought condemnation. That is always what laws do: they convict us of wrongdoing, not justification or absolution from past wrongs committed.

Contrast this statement in Acts with what Jesus says in Matthew 11: “[M]y yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus’s yoke is easy and light because he fulfilled all the laws and regulations of God’s commandments in himself – every single one. He perfectly loved the Father and his neighbor, which is the summary of the entire Torah (Romans 13:10). Not only these did he do, but Christ also died to fulfill the sacrificial commands: he atoned for sin, providing the complete, once-and-for-all forgiveness through his blood sacrifice on the cross.

Through what Jesus did, Peter acknowledges to the church, made-up of both the races of Jews and Gentiles, that is by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone that one is made righteous before God. “By no works of the law shall anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, be made righteous,” says Paul in Romans.

Sometimes Protestants are accused by non-Protestants as practicing a Christianity that is “too easy.” Believing cannot be all that we do to be a Christian, right?

Yes and no.

The apostle James rightly delineates the reality that “faith without works is dead.” A faith in Christ that exacts righteousness and forgiveness not practiced is futile. Faith in Christ is evident when it produces the reality that we are now “dead to sin and alive to God.” In other words, believers justified by faith in Christ exhibit their saving faith by dying to sin and living to God. Peter and the other apostles acknowledge this much a few verses later in Acts 15, as they write a letter to the Gentile converts:

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.

Similarly, let us not miss the obvious in Jesus’s teaching in Matthew: his yoke is easy and his burden is light because he is carrying it for us. He will only carry it for us if we remain yoked to him. If we leave him, he ceases to carry the weight of the law and the commandments for us any longer. If we leave him, we are no longer under his grace.

It is faith that brings us under his yoke; it is faith that must hold us there, and we must not leave him.

Therefore, believe in the finished work of Christ, and walk with him daily under his light and easy yoke.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monoculturalism is the Way Forward

Image
(Image courtesy of greentumble.com.) “In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). He trusted in the Lord , the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord . He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled agains...
Read more

Ruled by Women

Image
(Image courtesy of Fine Art America.) “My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them…” (Isaiah 3:12). For thousands of years, societies were governed by the fathers; some still are. This is called patriarchy (literally, “father rule”). In our corner of the world, the egalitarian worldview has mislabeled patriarchy as one of the darkest and most horrible societal structures of all time. For the last sixty years, American society has been ruled by the weaker sex; however, righteous men have finally had enough, as feminism has brought with it unprecedented violence, child sacrifice (abortion), divorce, and promiscuity. [1] [2] [3] [4] In summary, the push by women in the 20 th century to gain a place at the gates, and the equally disastrous consequence of men abdicating their headship, has devastated families, declined society, and softened men.
Read more

Government: God's Gift

Image
(Image courtesy of loc.gov.) "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment" (Romans 13:1-2). During the government overreach of the COVID mayhem, we witnessed the limit of government jurisdiction and authority. In short, God never contradicts himself. We do not throw ourselves behind the support of all government edicts, with a sort of blind obedience, for then we might be guilty of obeying man but disobeying God himself. What COVID reminded us was that the Church by her very nature must meet together. It is essential and an apostolic command: "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together." Let no government silence the Church. Her Lord is not the State, but Christ.
Read more