I was sitting with my mentor, and another pastor that I went to Bible College with. He's very solid, he's pastored for years, and we were sitting around talking, and he said: I've got a question: what must I do to be saved? If all you had was Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts, the historical narratives of the Bible; what could you tell me?
In other words, if we looked up every time Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or somebody important like that said: ‘salvation has come to you’; ‘you've been forgiven’; ‘you've been made righteous’ - what would salvation look like? What do you have to do to get saved? What must I do to be saved?
So I started looking at this, in the sense of ‘hope flows through suffering’; and there were all these really cool stories in the New Testament, and none of them were the same, yet all of their salvation experiences were legitimate...
Zaccheus was a tax collector in Jericho, one of the richest cities around, a resort town. He would have been hated by everybody; and Jesus was walking along, with thousands of people behind. Jesus stops the whole crowd, and gets him out of the tree, and He says: I'm coming to your house to eat with you today. Zaccheus is so moved by the compassion of Jesus Christ that he says: look, here and now - I'll give half of what I have to the poor. Jesus says: that's it, salvation has come to your house today. Whoa!
So what must I do to be saved? Do I need to give half of what I have to the poor? Most of us would say: man, I hope not!
Paul was an expert in the law - a master Pharisee, and he's on a donkey, on the road to Emmaus. This light appears, and knocks him off his donkey; and he asks Jesus a question: what must I do to be saved? In essence, Jesus says: you already are, I've prepared a man...
Zaccheus gave half of what he had to the poor; Paul asked a question.
There was this one lady (John 8) who was caught in the act of adultery, like in the act! Torah said you were supposed to stone her. The Mishnah, which was the Jewish compilation of civil and religious law, said that you could rough her up: you could strip her from the waist up to shame her, bring her out in public, and then stone her - so if they followed their culture, they would have beaten her up a bit.
Stripped her from the waist up (probably wasn't necessary, because they caught her in the act), and then they bring her out to Jesus. They needed Jesus - someone with authority to pass judgement; and they said to Jesus: the Torah says to stone her - what do you say?
He says: The Torah says stone her. I have to fulfil the Torah, so I say stone her; but I also say that you can't throw stones unless you haven't sinned - which is brilliant. So everybody's sitting there, and they get tired of holding their stones. They drop their stones; and it says: He doesn't say another word until they all leave. After they all leave, He asks a question.
He says woman, where are your accusers?
She says they're not here, they've all left. He says that's right, then neither do I condemn you. The Torah did say to stone adulterers; but the Torah also said: you have to have two witnesses, to condemn somebody. Jesus couldn't make her sin go away, so He made the witnesses go away - which automatically declared a mistrial. [
Therefore, there’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Christ's yoke rules heaven. Hope flows through suffering.
So what's the answer? Is it to give half of what you have to the poor? Paul just asked the question; this lady just answered a question (my accusers aren't here, and salvation came to us.)