Resident Samaritan

Luk 10:25-29  And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  (26)  He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?  (27)  And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.  (28)  And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.  (29)  But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

At this point, Jesus launches into the parable of the Good Samaritan, which I assume you have read.  

This is kind of a funny story.  I wish I could have looked at Jesus eyes as he was having this conversation.  He allows the lawyer to dictate the terms of eternal life: loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  And those really are the terms of eternal life, as I understand it.  The first and second commandment are a complete summing up of the Law of God.  We must be perfectly holy as He is holy...and there comes the problem.  No one has ever done that, but Christ.  I wonder if there was a twinkle in Jesus eyes as he said..."Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live."  Essentially He is telling him to keep the complete law, and he shall live.  Galatians tells us that NO man was ever justified by the law, because if we find our justification in the law, then we have to keep the entire law, and then we can be justified, but no one has ever done this, which is the predicament that this lawyer finds himself in.  Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, and thereby highlights the lawyers lack of love, and therefore his inability to keep the whole law.  Christ says: do this and you shall live...but the "this" is something we have all failed to do.  And so we need Christ, who did keep the law perfectly, and then died, receiving the wrath of God for us...

Oops.  Sorry...I got off on the Gospel again.

What I was intending to say was that, as those who have been justified by Christ, and not as an attempt to justify ourselves (beware of Galatians "Christianity") we have been placed in our families as "resident Samaritans".  God has given us to our wives to bind up there wounds, to ensure they are cared for.  They don't have to lie on the side of the road waiting for someone...the someone has already come.  Christ has come to pay the price for our sins, for our wives sins, for our children's sins...and then, with Him as our head, we lead our families, love them and care for them.  

I think.