Jesus "Sets Justice in the Earth" - Jesus Clarifies "What Justice Is"

Jesus loved Jehovah's Law and lived by it.  But the religious leaders of his day twisted and misapplied that Law.  Jesus said to them:  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! . . . You have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice and mercy and faithfulness."  (Matthew 23:23)   Decidedly, those teachers of God's Law were not  making clear "what justice is."  Rather, they were obscuring divine justice. How so?  Consider a few examples. 

Jehovah directed his people to keep separate from the pagan nations surrounding them.  (1 Kings 11:1, 2)  However, some fanatic religious leaders encouraged the people to hold all non-Jews in contempt.  The Mishnah even included this rule:  "Cattle may not be left in  the inns of the gentiles since they are suspected of bestiality."  Such blanket prejudice against all non-Jews was unjust and quite contrary  to the spirit of the Mosaic Law.  (Leviticus 19:34)  Other man-made rules demeaned women.  The oral law said that a wife should walk behind, not beside, her husband.  A man was warned against conversing with a woman in public, even his own wife. Like slaves, women were not allowed to offer testimony in court.  There was even  a formal prayer in which men thanked God that they were not women. 

The religious leaders buried God's Law under a mass of man-made rules and regulations.  The Sabbath law, for instance, simply forbade work on the Sabbath, setting that day aside for worship, spiritual refreshment, and rest.  But the Pharisees made a burden of that law.  They took it upon themselves to decide just what "work" meant.  They labeled as work 39 different activities, such as reaping or hunting.  These categories gave rise to endless questions.  If a man killed a flea on the Sabbath, was he hunting?  If he plucked a handful of grain to eat as he walked along, was he reaping?  If he healed someone who was ill, was he working?  Such questions were addressed with rigid, detailed rules. 

Next time: Jesus "Set Justice in the Earth" - Conclusion of Jesus Clarifies "What Justice Is"

From the book: Draw Close to Jehovah