New Thoughts (01/01/11)
This passage, it seems to me, demands a fairly singular focus from us. That focus is established immediately in verse 15. “The priests and scribes saw the wonderful things He had done.” The experts were now eye-witnesses to the miraculous occurring before their very eyes at the hand of this Jesus. Let me bring forward a piece of the definition given for the word we have translated as ‘wonderful things’. This could as easily have been rendered simply as miracles, but I suppose that by comparison to other things Jesus has done, these seem almost too small for so grand a word. So, they settled on ‘wonderful things’. What are these wonderful things? I rather like the sense that comes out in what Zhodiates writes in defining the term. These are miracles such as should rightly provoke admiration and astonishment.
While it must be granted that every magician and like charlatan of the period would describe their own efforts as wonderful things, even as miracles, it is one thing to make that claim on your own behalf, and quite another to be forced to concede that what has just transpired certainly fits the bill. It is in this latter situation that the priests and scribes now find themselves. What their own eyes have witnessed is such as leaves no room any longer for doubt. I touched on this in the previous study (Mt 21:14), but it bears repeating on this occasion. Indeed, the whole scene bears a bit of review, because the whole thing, it seems, is a most marvelous setup.
Consider: Jesus has, on this second day in Jerusalem, entered the temple grounds on a tear (Mt 21:12). What He saw yesterday has been boiling in Him overnight and has now a very full head of steam. So, He arrives with a very distinct purpose in mind, and He sets to it with a vengeance. Tables and coins are being scattered in every direction as He determines to put an end to the thievery that had become common to the process of collecting the annual contribution. Pigeons fill the air as the cages that held them are shattered. Salesmen are no doubt milling about in most agitated fashion, and if you’ve ever heard an agitated discussion amongst those of Middle Eastern lineage, it’s no quiet matter! Then, there’s all that turning away of folks at the gates. Again, the shouts, the anger, the confusion. All of this was certain to be reported up through the chain of command from those of the temple guard who were posted about the property.
Oh, and given that the market out there in the court of the Gentiles was a particular profit center for the priests of the temple, you can be sure that when they caught wind of what was happening, they found they had a vested interest in getting out there to take command of the situation. This disruption of business as usual must be stopped, and frankly, the guards had shown themselves incompetent often enough for them to feel the need to see to it personally. So, they are storming the courts, as determined to stop this disruption as Jesus is determined to stop their thievery.
As I said, it’s a most marvelous setup. They have found the bate utterly irresistible, and so they have arrived just in time to see for themselves the sort of Man it is with Whom they take such issue. And, what is He doing as they come to confront Him? Why, He’s healing folks. Those who have groped their blind way into the courts of the Temple are now walking about freely, clearly able to see their way, and shouting with utmost joy at their newly restored function (Mt 21:14). Then, there’s the lame. If those authorities might have found it in their hearts to suppose that these so-called blind men had been faking their injuries all along, when a foot reappears at the end of a limb, it’s awfully hard to write that off as fake.
The sum of the whole thing is that these officials are now standing about Jesus with all viable reason for opposing Him removed. They have been stripped of every last reason for unbelief. They are now, in themselves, eye-witnesses to miracles such as must rightly provoke admiration and astonishment. They have been exposed to such evidence as ought to have them joining the chorus of praises they hear ringing out from “even the children in the Temple,” as the NLT offers us the scene. Yes, even the youngest of children there are catching the sense of what’s happening before their eyes. Had this been done yesterday, we might write that off as the child simply aping what they had seen the adults do. But, that was yesterday and this is today, and the scene before them has little obvious connection to that royal procession. And yet, they are praising with gusto!
The reaction of those officials is tragic. With such a body of evidence before them, and that set atop all the reports of the preceding years, rather than rejoice at the revelation of the long awaited Messiah standing before them, they “became indignant”. What a terrible, terrible thing! Those most fully equipped to appreciate the hand of God are instead left opposing His hand, and that is a most awful place to be left. Instead of rejoicing with Messiah, they come to confront Him, to disabuse Him of any thought that He is the One – as if that could ever work! So, they storm up to Him as He is there healing yet another lame child of God, and even as they watch that foot restored, they complain: “Do you hear what they are saying? Don’t you realize that they’re making you out to be far more than you could possibly be? Don’t you realize that they’re calling you Messiah, declaring you the king of Israel? Are you just going to let this go on? You’re supposed to be a teacher, right? So, teach your disciples a bit of restraint, Jesus!”
They missed it. They out and out missed it. Poor, blinded and benighted men who, for all their knowledge of the sacred texts could not for the life of them fathom that all which those texts proclaimed was unfolding right here and right now. They had so many signs, and now at first hand, and yet they refused to believe. Refused! Yes, I understand that their failure to see is rooted in the determination of God that they would not, yet there remains personal culpability. Even Jesus declares this the case, when He sings out His praises to the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth Who hid these things from the wise and the intelligent, and yet revealed them to merest babes (Mt 11:25). Even so, it is left to their own account that they refused to recognize what they were witnessing, suppressing the Truth in unrighteousness, even as Paul would write in Romans 1:18.
In this, sadly, they are no more or less evil than we. We have this inclination, when reading about the shocking failure of the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all those who ought best to have comprehended what God was doing: We wonder what more they could possibly have needed in order to believe. If these signs weren’t enough, if the body of evidence set before them was insufficient, what further proof might have turned them around? Of course, the answer is that no proof would ever satisfy the likes of such men. It is thus that Jesus had said of them, “An evil and adulterous generation goes seeking sign after sign, and no sign will be given beyond that of Jonah” (Mt 16:4). It is also to this point that the parable of Lazarus and the rich man’s funeral had been spoken (Lk 16:20-31). Recall the upshot of that tale. “Even were one to return from the grave, still they would not believe.” The two messages are in reality one. It lies yet a short ways ahead in the course of this study, but we know how it falls out. One did come back from the grave, and still, even as He had said, they would not believe. The sign of Jonah was again set before the people, this time the people of Jerusalem. Sadly, unlike Ninevah, the message of the sign was not received this time, and judgment was only made more certain.
But, let me return to this point: They are no more or less evil than we. We, for all our greater faith, for all our clearer understanding of the meaning of Holy Scripture, are even today standing in the exact same position. If we don’t realize that this is true, then we are at as great a peril of failing the critical test as they were, and the outcome is likely just as certain. Consider: These were men of standing in their community and particularly in their religious community. They were the pastors, the elders, the councils. By such systems as they had at the time, they had been selected to serve as navigators on the ship of Faith. Those they led could but pray that those selected would prove able. There can be no doubt that those they led did so pray, particularly given the corrupting political environment then prevailing. And yet, the failed. They utterly failed to so much as make the attempt to convey themselves as servants of the Most High God. Rather, they had by and large fallen into trying to make the Most High God servant to their own hungers for power and profit.
Don’t you even think to suppose that such issues are gone in our own day! Don’t you even think to suppose that this denomination or that, this council or that pastorate or whatever is immune. Look around! Open your eyes! Indeed, look to your own house, for the danger and indeed the reality are there just as well as in any larger organization representing God’s Kingdom. We are saved, it is entirely true. Yet we are still here in the corruption of Adam. We are still of a nature that necessarily corrupts even the best intended actions. We are incapable of presenting an offering untainted by our fallen estate. It is only by the grace of God given to us in the person and in the shed blood of Jesus, the Chosen Messiah, the Anointed Christ of God, that we are made acceptable in spite of ourselves.
Here is the crux of what ought to be our concern: If it was possible for those so deeply versed in Scripture to utterly miss the fulfillment of Scripture and indeed find themselves firmly opposed to the very God they were to be serving, how can we think ourselves free of the very same danger? If they could be blinded to the Truth, what do we suppose prevents us from likewise setting ourselves resolutely on the wrong side of an argument with God? I tell you there is only one thing that can thus hold us on the right course, and it that very same grace of God by which we find ourselves saved!
We, who can be so very prideful in our knowledge of things theological – and I must of necessity count myself in that prideful number, even if I count my knowledge to be less than many I know – we must take the greater care. We must discern the very narrow point of balance. To the one side, we most certainly ought to defend the clear Truth of God against every attempt to distort it. To the other, we must not become so certain in our opinions as to refuse correction. It is terrifyingly easy to find oneself so fully confident in one’s own knowledge as to reject out of hand any perspective which does not fully align with what we suppose ourselves to know. That way lies the very danger that these various religious elites faced in facing Jesus. They already knew that anything that might mark out Messiah was actually blasphemous!
That sounds paradoxical to the point of being shocking. And yet, how different is that from the large portion of what purports to be Christianity today which insists that every last hint of the miraculous must either be explained by natural causes or written off entire? If one starts the investigation with the certain determination that any evidence that might prove the miracle miraculous is assuredly faulty, what sort of investigation is that? It is equally paradoxical for such as would hold to this sort of approach to claim to be pursuing the Truth of God, for they have denied God the opportunity to speak!
How does this apply to these ministries or para-ministries that are so focused on matters of miracle and healing today? Well, it’s clearly not a call to simply take all such claims at face value. That way lies such simpleness of soul as only lays us open to the least of Satan’s deceptions. There is no virtue in that. True, we are taught to be as innocent as doves, but we are simultaneously to be as shrewd as serpents (Mt 10:16). It is not ignorance that we are called to, nor is it gullibility. It is a particularly wise and knowing sort of innocence – aware of the evils and deceptions that surround, yet unwilling to participate.
At one and the same time, if we cannot simply accept such ministries out of hand, neither can we reject them out of hand. Surely, they are worthy of a hearing at least. Yet, one must listen to the evidence proffered with careful ears. You know, if we were each granted to witness the sorts of things that these priests and scribes were witnessing, I would like to think that every good and earnest child of God would gladly accept the undeniable evidence of His working with whomever we thus witnessed. But, the fact of the matter is that much of the purported evidence is given in a form that cannot easily be confirmed.
I look, for instance at this book I have been reading at my wife’s behest. Many claims are made of how many physicians nationwide are consulting with this man, to get his superior insight into matters of disease and healing. Really? I mean, it may actually be the case, but one would think that if this has been happening for years on end, there might be something in one of the medical journals pursuant to the fact. Indeed, if they had become convinced that these healings that he claims to have achieved have been occurring for years now, and with fairly reliable results, don’t you suppose that there would be more said about it? Incurable diseases are being cured, or so it is claimed, and you really suppose maybe there’s some sort of conspiracy out there to keep the medical profession from making it known?
This is a problem, in my opinion – at least as it stands thus far. There are claims of medical confirmation for these healings, but are they a matter that can be checked, or does doctor / patient privilege preclude that? If there are these numerous MDs who are convinced (and presumably certain) that this stuff is legitimate, let’s have names, numbers and diplomas, please! Thus far, the closest I’ve seen is one citation of a practitioner of alternate medicines. Forgive me, but that doesn’t count in my book. At risk of denying the only evidence possible, I’ll take that stance. Somehow, convincing a group that also supposes that pushing on your arm while asking the wind what vitamins might suit your need is a valid medical approach doesn’t strike me as a terribly strong argument.
Oh, I pray that I am willing to look at real evidence of real healing with an openness to it being a real move of the undeniably real Lord of heaven and earth. I have to say, though, that the majority of what I have seen of such ministries as are so focused on producing miraculous healings are sadly lacking in anything that might constitute a real and undeniable proof. A woman’s hips suddenly being on the horizontal rather than a slight slant doesn’t really count as I see it. I mean, I can achieve the same results even sitting here in this chair typing, and often do very much the same thing when standing for any length of time. That’s not a healing, so far as I can tell. It’s potentially a very cheap attempt at exciting the masses.
So, yes: It’s a struggle to be open minded in any way, when presented with yet another claimant to this constant procession of miracles. Oh, but you don’t want to be called out by Jesus as having the name but not the power! Agreed. But, what defines that power which Jesus is concerned with? Is it really the power to heal this disease or that, or is it the power to achieve results of eternal value? Ever and always, it seems to come back to this simple point for me: However wonderful, particularly for the recipient, to receive a physical healing, to find one’s chronic illness done away with, it remains at best a temporary reprieve. There is no cheating death. The grave is still to come, and if this disease doesn’t wind up as the cause, then there will be another.
I don’t see where it is that Scripture makes promises that we are going to walk the streets of blessed ease in this life. I’m sorry, but bringing forth the covenants of the Old Testament doesn’t quite do it, does it? For, by those covenants we are all of us guilty, dead and buried even though we walk. Meanwhile, He Who became the curse for us that we might have Life says that in this life, we’re going to have trials, persecutions, difficulties. We die daily. We are as sheep being led to the slaughter. We are under constant assault, spiritual, physical, emotional, by those who are declared enemies of King Jesus and even by those who suppose that by their actions they are actually supporting Him. If then, there is a power of which Jesus is deeply concerned that His Church ought ever and always to possess and always to put to work, it is the power of His blood to save to the uttermost!
The focus is not on this life only, for if our hope is for this life only we are most fully to be pitied for our stupid wasting of our days. But, the focus is NOT on this life only or even primarily. The focus is on eternity, on that which will continue and in most ways be inaugurated on the other side of the grave. The focus is on that day when Jesus shall wipe away every tear, when sin and death will have lost their last and least grip upon the saints of God. The focus is upon that New Jerusalem towards which we make our slow but constant progress, not upon the ruins of a dying world and how long we can cling to our existence therein.
There is need for great care, lest opinion and tradition prevent us from seeing what God is doing. But, there is an equal need for great care, lest we allow desperation or desire to convince us that what we want to be seeing is therefore what God is doing. Therein are the two sides of that two-edged sword which is the Word of God, and we must learn how to balance ourselves upon the edge that divides. Wise yet simple, believing yet discerning, a workman with the Word and yet a child before His wisdom; it is our goal to hold these opposing characteristics in simultaneous fashion, in balance one with another, that we might in that fashion more fully reflect the perfect balance of a perfect God.
How would that be as a resolution for this new year: to seek more fully to walk in Godly balance.
