Grace’s first and foremost enemy - religion, part 2. John 16:2-3; 12:1-8

Title: Grace’s first and foremost enemy - religion, part 2. John 16:2-3; 12:1-8

 

 

John 16:1 "These things I have spoken to you [chapter 13-15], that you may be kept from stumbling.

 

The believer must be prepared through doctrine for the intensification of the angelic conflict. Since he is the target God has made special provision - God the HS.

 

John 16:2 "They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

 

Through the Church grace becomes known to the world and religion is the first and most diabolical antagonist of it.

 

Religion is like a weed. It grows when it has something to prey on and what it preys on are the minds of the ignorant and emotional who sincerely think they are doing God a favor by stomping out truth and grace.

 

 

GEN 3:15

And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed [cosmos/religion] and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel."

                                                                                     

Attempting to anielate Christians didn’t work so satan adopted a scheme from his playbook of old and that was to infiltrate the church with religion.

 

When the high-priestly party tried to have the Nazarenes officially banned, a protest was voiced by no less a personality than the leader of the Pharisaic party, the illustrious Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder and the instructor of Saul of Tarsus.

 

John 16:3 "And these things they will do [future], because they have not known the Father, or Me.

 

If you do not know God you cannot love God. Religion is blinded towards God and therefore cannot love God.

 

This is a party at Simon the leper’s house, who is no longer a leper, but he kept the moniker as a testimony to the miracle. What are going to make this party great are the resuscitated Lazarus and the love of Christ from Mary, Lazarus’ sister. Notice how Martha hasn’t really changed her MO, even after witnessing Lazarus raised.

 

John 12:1 Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

 

John 12:2 So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him.

 

Lazarus has already been dead and risen. He will go into the CA. So then, he has a relaxed posture to match his relaxed mental attitude.

 

Every believer has died and been raised and entered into the CA in union with Christ, therefore every believer should have a relaxed mental attitude concerning the details of life?

 

2 Tim 2:4

No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

 

John 12:3 Mary therefore took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard [one year’s salary], and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

 

The imagery is amazing here and it may be the greatest visual in the word of God concerning the difference between grace and religion. Matthew and Mark’s account says that she also anointed His head. This was customary to honor your most important guest.

 

The fragrance filled the house, which fragrance represented the work of Christ which would ascend to heaven to please the Father filling the whole world with redemption. This is the doctrine of propitiation.

 

The fragrance filled the house as propitiation would fill the world.

 

John 16:8, 10

And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment … concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me

 

LEV 1:9 [burnt offering]

And the priest shall offer up in smoke all of it on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.

 

2 Cor 2:14

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests [bring to the light] through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.

 

Whose triumph is it? That is grace. Religion is man’s triumph or attempt at it. In their struggle to produce their own sweet aroma they seek to destroy the grace oriented believer who relaxes in the faith rest that results from the sweet aroma that is the cross of Christ.

 

2 Cor 2:15

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God [bringing the gospel] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;

 

God brings Himself to the light every man as we are all in darkness and he does so through the royal ambassador.

 

John 1:9

There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

 

This verse reveals that those who are perishing in unbelief do hear the gospel, unfortunately they don’t like the smell. It’s too good, to wonderful, too free, for they must work, and the sweat of work stinks therefore a sweet fragrance is false.

 

Through religion and legalism man is only working under his curse, which cannot please God. How could a curse please God?

 

GEN 3:19

By the sweat of your face [stinky aroma]

You shall eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return."

 

Martha, the food server, did not produce what was fragrant as Mary did, and in like fashion she tried to impede the resuscitation of Lazarus.

 

John 11:39

Jesus said, "Remove the stone." Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days."

 

The religious person wants to smell sweat while the grace oriented believer who loves wants to smell the fragrant aroma that is Christ.

 

The fragrant odor overpowered the smell of Martha’s cooking just as Abel’s offering overpowered Cain’s.

 

Mary honored His spiritual death as Abel did with the animal sacrifice while Cain honored earthly life life as Martha did with food. Food is no good to the dead.

 

Food helped the party be a success, but without the doctrine of propitiation, redemption, reconciliation, and justification there would be no party.

 

Beware that the normal details of life do not hinder the intake, remembrance, and application of doctrine.

 

The costly fragrance was first applied to Jesus and as Mary wiped His feet with her hair. She undid her hair, something that Jewish women did not do in public, as a sign of laying her glory at the feet of her Lord. The hair of the woman represents her as a responder.

 

1 Cor 11:15

if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

 

Mary responded to the work of our Lord in the most beautiful way, she laid her glory at the feet of the Savior in faith, reverence, and love.

 

By drying His feet with her hair now she smells of the fragrance. This shows how Christ’s beautiful propitiation would now be on anyone who believed and the odor of justification would be recognized by the Father from all believers.

 

And also, for a while after this Mary will continue to smell the fragrance. This reveals the grace oriented believer’s memory of the work of Christ rather than the religious person’s work to add to the work of Christ. “It is finished,” is a beautiful fragrance of the memory and an adoration of the One who redeemed us.

 

Of course, Mary was criticized, and not only by Judas but the rest of them joined in; that that is what usually happens when someone gives his or her best to the Lord.

 

Don’t let the criticism of the religious stop you from honoring the Lord in the way that you, as a priest, see fit.

 

Mary did not receive a command to do this. She did it as one who revered her Lord. Every believer in the CA is a royal priest and can honor the Lord with the same reverence in a way that originates from their own understanding.

 

Little did Mary know that this would be recorded for all time by those who were there. In the same way your reverent acts will be recorded in NJMH forever. Never let the religious or legalistic interfere with that.

 

In verse 7:

John 12:7 Jesus therefore said, "Let her alone, in order that she may keep it for the day of My burial.

 

Anointed with the fragrance and wrapped as the body was means that the resurrection body of Christ would possess this known fragrance, so rare as to be readily recognizable by anyone who had come in contact with Him.

 

It was the resurrection that was so greatly emphasized by the disciples in the beginning and that resurrection body smelled of justification.

 

Mary Magdalene was there. I’m sure of it. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, did not go to the grave on resurrection Sunday, but it would be Mary Magdalene who saw Him first and she would cling to Him and He would fill her nostrils with this same fragrance that she smelled in Simon’s house just over a week prior.

 

Martha is a believer and I’m not putting her down, but what this imagery does clearly show is the difference between religion and grace.

 

Understanding grace leads to adoration of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The legalist or religious person who attributes even a fraction of a percent of the work for salvation and the spiritual life to himself demeans Christ’s glory dramatically. He therefore cannot adore Christ as He should since he lowers Christ to a status of almost complete but not quite enough to complete everything.

 

John 12:8 "For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me."

 

Remember that He who was rich became poor so that we might become rich. Christ here is not saying that He has no sympathy for the poor of wealth, but what is more important is the poor of spirit who need salvation. Defending Mary is the same as defending the work that she is representing by her action. “You don’t always have Me,” meaning that this is right to do now as it will become a testimony for thousands of years of the propitiation of the Father by the work of Christ so that whosoever might become rich through faith in Him.

 

Judas has that same religious mentality. A claim for the poor in terms of a sympathy that is misplaced since all he wants to do is take some of the money. Such is legalism and religion where they believe that the ends justifies the means and so truth, grace, and virtue love is absent from their hearts while self-promotion, approbation, and greed abound.