Now before you try to read through the whole Bible to find where he did such an awful thing, let me explain.
IF
…you forget about Jesus, then he taught moralism.You might ask, “How can I forget Jesus when he is the one saying something in the Scriptures?”
Very easily. Here is how it works.
Take a saying of Jesus, preferably a command. I have a few good ones here:
“…whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” -Matthew 5.22
“…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you might be sons of your Father who is heaven… You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” -Matthew 5.44-45, 48
“…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 5.20
See? Jesus gave us commands and rules to follow and if we complete them, we enter heaven!
But!
Jesus knows that we could NEVER fulfill the law or even the commands to love others that he gave us. How are we to be perfect, righteous, peaceable, et cetera? This is where forgetting who Jesus is leads to despair. Some how people are able to take these and many other commands an make them about themselves instead of Jesus. Jesus is the center of the whole Bible, even (or especially) His commands. We cannot be righteous on our own!
Why else would Jesus begin the Sermon on the Mount in this way:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-20 ESV)
