Listening to an
interview by Mark Dever with Thabiti Anyabwile, I heard Mark use an
illustration that I found tremendously helpful. It relates to the
question whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God under
different names.
He said that we should picture two old classmates from college discussing a common friend from thirty years ago. They begin to wonder if they are talking about the same person. One of them is convinced they are, and the other keeps thinking this is not quite the way he remembers the friend. Finally, they decide to dig out an old yearbook and settle the issue. They open the book, and as soon as they see the picture of their classmate, one says, “No, that’s not who I am talking about.” So it was not the same person after all.
...
Jesus is the yearbook photograph that the Pharisees do not recognize. The reason they don’t is because they want a Messiah who will confirm their love of the praise of men for their own achievements (John 5:43-44). The follower of this self-exalting religion may genuinely be thankful to God for some of his outward moral purity (“God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” Luke 18:11). But his confidence before God is what he is (regardless of who made him that way). Whether one should call this religion a “self-help moralism” is an open question. But that it is a religion that trusts in its own morality and exalts self is clear. What Jesus thought of it is also clear:
Fixing my eyes on Jesus with you,
Pastor John
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/jesus-islam-pharisees-and-the-new-perspective-on-paul
He said that we should picture two old classmates from college discussing a common friend from thirty years ago. They begin to wonder if they are talking about the same person. One of them is convinced they are, and the other keeps thinking this is not quite the way he remembers the friend. Finally, they decide to dig out an old yearbook and settle the issue. They open the book, and as soon as they see the picture of their classmate, one says, “No, that’s not who I am talking about.” So it was not the same person after all.
...
Jesus is the yearbook photograph that the Pharisees do not recognize. The reason they don’t is because they want a Messiah who will confirm their love of the praise of men for their own achievements (John 5:43-44). The follower of this self-exalting religion may genuinely be thankful to God for some of his outward moral purity (“God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” Luke 18:11). But his confidence before God is what he is (regardless of who made him that way). Whether one should call this religion a “self-help moralism” is an open question. But that it is a religion that trusts in its own morality and exalts self is clear. What Jesus thought of it is also clear:
- They accused Jesus of being demonic (Matthew 12:24).
- They do not know how to understand the law (Matthew 12:2-7).
- They sought to destroy Jesus (Matthew 12:14).
- They are “an evil and adulterous generation” (16:4).
- They break the commandments with their traditions (Matthew 15:6).
- They worship vainly and their heart is far from God (Matthew 15:8-9).
- They are not planted by the Father (Matthew 15:12).
- Their teaching is leaven to be avoided (Matthew 16:12).
- They do not bear the fruit of the kingdom and will lose it (Matthew 21:43-45).
- They are children of hell (Matthew 23:15, 33).
- They neglect the weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23).
- They are full of greed and self-indulgence (Matthew 23:25, 27).
- Outwardly they appear righteous, but are lawless within (Matthew 23:28).
- They were lovers of money (Luke 16:14).
Fixing my eyes on Jesus with you,
Pastor John
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/jesus-islam-pharisees-and-the-new-perspective-on-paul
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