God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. Genesis 1:4-5
I have been sharing over the past few blogs just how much God is revealing the reality of His Son Jesus throughout the opening few verses of Genesis. In only five verses we have already read about Jesus ‘the beginning’, Jesus ‘the light’, and Jesus ‘the day’.
We can also see something really important happening at the same time, and that is how God was making it clear that there is Jesus, and then there is everything else that is not Jesus. God introduced the reality of Jesus (the light), and then He makes it clear that Jesus is separate from the reality of the world (the darkness). In the same way God names Jesus specifically as ‘the day’, and then goes on to show that He is separate from everything else, by naming everything else ‘night’. I’m sure to the Father, Jesus is so wonderfully glorious that nothing can compare to His light!
Jesus has always been God’s chosen saviour; He has an exclusive ministry that no one else in all of creation could also receive or partake in. God never intended for there to be any other way to come to Him except through His Son Jesus, and we can already see God revealing the exclusive ministry of Jesus right from the beginning of the Bible.
Jesus Himself plainly declared this gospel truth while he was walking the earth: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
The truth however, is that God is not ultimately about separation, but rather inclusion. It’s God’s desire for all mankind to be saved and included in Christ, but it was also important for God to introduce the understanding of separation so that mankind could accept the one way of salvation. God knew that man would seek to invent his own ways of salvation, and so right from the beginning of the Bible we see God making it clear that the ministry of Jesus is separated from any other manmade ways of salvation.
We see God continuing to teach this truth in repeated patterns throughout the Old Testament. There is a repeated theme that clearly shows who God’s chosen one is, and who is clearly not. We see it with Abel and Cain’s offering, with Isaac and Ishmael, and ultimately with Israel and the gentile world. All of these were leading up to the wonderful moment when Jesus would come in flesh and blood into the world and fulfil the work the Father had given Him to complete from the beginning of time.
The good news is now that Jesus has finished His work of salvation; God has torn down the walls of separation, and has made all of mankind, who call on the name of Jesus, one in Christ! God is now proclaiming inclusion, for the gospel of God’s grace is the good news that all of mankind can come freely to God through the perfect finished work of Jesus.
Jesus was set apart, so that He could bring us all in! This is the wonderful mystery of the gospel that the Apostle Paul spent His whole life preaching. The good news that now we are included, we are accepted and we are considered one in Christ!
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) — remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Ephesians 2:11-18
Jesus did not abolish the law with its commandments and regulations. I know this because He himself said this.:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
You're right Dustin, he didn't abolish it, but he did fulfil it! You can read my thoughts on the scripture you just quoted in my latest blog here
God bless