Book of Matthew in The New Testament

Book of Matthew

What many people do not know is that in the book of Matthew in the New Testament there is a song that describes how God will judge the world.

And this song has rung long over the centuries by those who think their own religious values are so great and who think their own perspectives are the ones who know all there is to know about life and how to live it.

This little songbook of Matthew has been the favorite of church choirs attendant doctors and marital therapists down through the ages. Only in recent decades has it stirred up in my perception and understanding of how I view the world and how I view the life process and how I relate it to my own life.

The story of the singing doctors goes as follows

This morality song is written as a song written for the common man on the street. Above all, it is a song written to elicit a response from the common man on the street.

As such, Jesus starts out by stating the common belief in the fact that there is one God and that he is both the creator of all things and all people.

As the story goes, Jesus was asked by a lawyer how he could attain eternal life. To this, the Lord’s famous teacher gave the familiar reply that there is no way to attain eternal life except by believing in three things. These were the belief that God is the existence of everything that exists, he is the essence of all existence, he is himself pure, and he is the creator of all things that exist. In other words, the belief that God exists as everything that exists was coupled to the belief that he gave to the world.

In exchange for believing in these realities three things were required, acceptance of Jesus as the savior, belief in his teachings, and the belief that he would soon return.

Today, more than 2,000 years later, the lesson is very clear, still today the only thing that matters in our eternal lives is the word of God. Our beliefs in our world and how we view those beliefs are the fleeting part that will fade in eternity. The eternal reality is that there can be only one All in all things and by faith alone, the acceptance of that truth empowers us to be partakers of that eternal.

The Bible tells us that eternal life is the result of believing in Jesus, the belief that his name is the only one. It is the faith alone in God’s Word alone that makes it so.

So what does the Bible tell us? It certainly doesn’t say that our beliefs in these concepts are the problem, but then God would not tell us everything, would He?

The verse that most perplexed me as an evangelist was John 3:16. For almost every one of us, we must surely know this to be a truth.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

But does this mean that believing in God makes our belief in Him true?

Consider these words from 2 Peter 1:3

“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

The keyword in this verse is “believing”, for it is not believing in a bread snake. It is believing in the Word of God. So what does it mean? Every true believer will tell you that before the Word came into the world, it had to be spiritually interpreted already. That means before the basic doctrines of Christianity were proposed, the first chapter of Hebrews had to been summarised.

This means that believing what God’s Word says is the foundation of our faith. It is the evidence of what Jesus believed (John 1:1). Through this lens, doesn’t it mean that anything from the outside looking in is not going to affect what we believe, or rather our manner or attitude towards what we believe.

This is why Romans 8:26-27 is so crucial; “For what shall we say to these things; if God is for us, who is against us?– Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?–Will be proud, and do proud things?–Be evil, and do evil things?” (verse 2)

Let’s put this verse in its full context and approach it with a Hopefully more correct approach.

Because of the gospel, we have a claim on God and His entire Divine nature. Not only are we able to claim it through faith, but we are called to claim it through the power of the truth (1 John 5:4). The Word of God has set us free from the bondage of sin and the law.