When a church must rely on the power of force or compulsion to insure its own preservation, it has lost sight of any truth it may have once known. The God of both Old and New Testaments has never compelled mankind to love and serve Him, for it is impossible to “force” love. Love must always be a choice if it is to be love. Our God of love “chose” to save us, and take on our punishment in order to redeem us. Our God offers us the “choice” of being saved from the pain we inflict on ourselves and others. Our God longs to save us from the fate of death that inevitably accompanies the evil we embrace. But He does not force us to make this choice. He cannot. He can only offer. We are free to accept or reject. It is our freedom to choose hate and death; that makes it a true choice when we pick love and life.
It was this same freedom that allowed Lucifer to break trust with God, and choose to pursue his own wisdom instead of God’s; and evil which had never been known, was born into the universe. Up until that time, Lucifer had chosen to follow God and trust in God as had every other sentient being in the universe. But up to that time the choice was natural and logical. No one had ever put themselves or their own wisdom ahead of God’s. No one had ever challenged love or its motives. No one had ever looked to themselves as a source of wisdom that might match or rival God’s; until Lucifer made that choice. He broke trust with God, and decided to follow self, and the negative spiral that ensued defines the evil that now lies in the hearts of the Pharisees, who lead the church of His day.
But the doctrine of Satan is nothing like the doctrines of God. Where God would offer us a choice to be free from self, Satan would gladly compel us to serve self with an addiction we are unable to break. Satan is uninterested in freedom, but keenly happy to enslave any who even briefly look away from God. The doctrine of Satan is most happy when it is able to compel others to submit to its authority. It is happier still when it can compel truth to be silent, mix it with error, and present it as the “will” of God. The Pharisees had abandoned truth for power, and in so doing were now doing the will of the father of evil. The doctrine that would compel the conscious of others is authored and preserved by Satan himself. When a church adopts compulsion, it adopts with it, Satanic doctrine from which it will be powerless to escape. Power and control have a high allure to unconverted minds that know not what it means to truly love. This was the lot of the Pharisees in the days of Christ, this was the path they had chosen. I wonder, if the Catholic and Protestant churches of today, that claim the name of Christ, would also be willing to completely abandon the power and influence they seek to exert in the halls of governments around the world, opting instead to offer only truth and love to all who have need?
But Jesus was not there to compel, He was there to make an offer of freedom to His listeners. And Christ knew something the people there did not: He would not always be with them. There was a limit to the time He would be permitted to spend with them. His offer to them bore a sense of immediacy. He had a sense of urgency. There was a real need, that required a real solution, and it required it now. To those sent to take Him, Jesus responds in verse 33 … “Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. [verse 34] Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.” God longs to be with mankind, His creation. Love longs to be with its object. Every precious minute spent with Christ, was one that Christ wanted to spend with us, and one we should have treasured to spend with Him. The life of Christ was not to be one that would last indefinitely with His people. His work required an end to His earthly life, and a return to the Father who sent Him. Once removed physically from our presence, we would be unable to follow Him where He was going.
The offer of Christ was not that we should be saved from evil within us, only at the last great day. It was an offer of salvation that could begin immediately. Our pain does not delay, our cure must not either. Christ had come to meet our need of salvation, and meet it in the here and now. He does not defer His offer until a last great day of judgment. He does not require us to live in the pain of self-service the entirety of our lives, die, and only then be resurrected to finally know the freedom from serving self that His offer truly brings. He offers it here. He offers it now. He offers that a belief in Him is able to meet our most immediate need, it is able to end the pain we inflict on ourselves and others in the here and now. This is why He was so passionate with what time He had left among us. It is why He so longed to free us, because He saw that our need was so great. He knew we would want to simply be with Him, for when we are in the presence of Christ our pain is taken away. He knew that when we seek Him, we find relief when we find Him. And He knew, that soon the punishment justice would require would remove Him from our lives in a physical way.
Only Christ would transcend death, and be reunited to His Father. Only Christ, being God, could be something more than mortal. Christ knew that even when we die, we do not escape our graves, we do not follow Him to heaven. We sleep. If it were otherwise, His words that day may have been different. He may have said, fear not, when you die believing in me you will be instantly reunited with me in heaven just after your death. Instead He says … “where I am, thither ye cannot come”. We are not immortal. We are not transcendent. We do not enter the door of death, only to re-emerge in some other higher state of being. We are dust, and to dust we return. We sleep when we die, knowing nothing. We sleep awaiting the last great day of resurrection, and in that hope, but our consciousness ceases to exist. It is this truth that Christ knows, and His listeners do not. Time for us, is not without limits, at least not yet. We have only the limits of our mortal existence in which to choose to be made free from our pain and sin. We have only now to choose to embrace life, and let go of the path of death that follows trusting to self, instead of to God. Jesus preaches with an urgency, to reach those that are listening. His would-be kidnappers are stopped in their tracks, the urgency with which love calls to them, reaching into the innermost parts of their hearts, causes them to completely lose track of the mission they have been assigned.
But the leaders present at His sermon are not so moved, they are puzzled. Beginning in verse 35 they begin to wonder aloud where Christ might go that they could not find Him. Is He going to teach the Gentiles maybe in some far off land? What on earth could He mean that He is going somewhere they cannot go? This saying makes no sense to them, as once again, they are thinking in physical terms and not in spiritual ones. This is often the case when unconverted minds who trust not in any wisdom outside of their own, attempt to interpret truth. When we decide it is our job to “tell” God what truth is, we rarely get it right. What we do instead, is attempt to “tell” each other what truth is, in no uncertain terms, and use this as a basis to form an organized church. What Christ told His listeners did not make sense to those who were not there to follow, but to lead. Leaders could make no sense of this. They had the means and power and influence to track Christ down, no matter where He tried to run from them. But frankly to be rid of Him, was not an unpleasant idea anyway. It was the concept that having been rid of Him, they would only then want to actually find Him that perplexed them. Why would they want to find Him, after they had won? This idea was troubling.
Time though, was growing short. The Feast was nearly over. People would be returning to their homes, some of them may never have the chance to hear the author of truth and love ever again. And so the urgency increases even more, in verse 37 it states … “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. [verse 38] He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. [verse 39] (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” Again Jesus quotes the scriptures of His day, again Jesus ratifies that the Old Testament spoke truth despite what misinterpretations the people of His day, or ours, had associated with it. Again Jesus speaks of “living” waters that spring from “within” us. This is the gift He is here to offer and His Holy Spirit will see fulfilled. We are not the source of this blessing, we are the recipient of it. It is something that will be placed within us, not grown there of our own deeds and intentions. We that “believe” on Him will see this transformation take place in our lives. We that “believe” on Him and not ourselves, truth His wisdom and not our own, will see a river, not just a trinkle, but a flowing river of living water flow out of us. For it is His power, His love, and His truth that can flow through us, when we submit ourselves out of His way. When we submit to Christ, we can be a vessel for His Spirit; instead of predisposed to wish credit for His actions, and fame for our part in His service. But because Jesus was not glorified yet, and was still with us personally, His Spirit had not yet been poured out on His followers.
The words of Christ, like seeds on the ground, encountered a variety of responses in the ears of His listeners. There were some who heard and did not fully understand, but they knew His words had the ring of truth to them. Perhaps they could not fully understand them, but they knew them to be true. These would gladly call Him “the prophet”. Others heard the love in Him, others knew that the source of love was in Him like in no other man that had ever been, or would ever be. And so they gladly called Him the Messiah, the Christ, the long awaited hope of Israel. These were even more blessed. But there were some, who though they were convicted He was the Messiah, could not reconcile their own prejudices with what they knew of His background or origin. They perceived Him to be from Galilee and from Nazareth, not from Bethlehem of the house of David. After all, Herod had slaughtered all the male children of Bethlehem about the time which Christ was born, no one had survived to their knowledge, so even based on the scriptures they knew – the perceived the facts could not line up with this Jesus being the Messiah. And verse 43 pens the painful reality of His age, and of ours … “So there was a division among the people because of him.”
How painful it must be to Jesus our Lord, that so many people who claim His name, are so divided from each other “because” of Him? For He is one Lord, so why do we divide ourselves from each other, while all still claiming our method of following the one Lord is the only “one” He would approve of? It was not the Old Testament that was in error in the day of Christ, nor the prophecies of His place of origin that were mistaken, it was the understanding of the people who simply did not know, or refused to accept, the truth of Him. Christ was born in Bethlehem from the lineage of David, as the prophets foretold. It was true. Whether people knew, or chose to believe it, was the only question at issue. There was no “real” need for division over the truth, for the truth was true, and did fit the facts. It was us, in the error. It was again when we applied “our” knowledge of scripture and the facts, that “we” drew a different conclusion and division arose. It is the same today. We look at scripture and attempt to teach, rather than to learn. We apply our “knowledge” of the facts, and draw conclusions different from each other. And we allow these differing conclusions to become so important to us, that we separate ourselves from each other over them. Instead of cherishing the uniting principle and motive of love, that could supersede all other ideas of truth; we allow our pride in our “understanding” of doctrine to keep us from free association with fellow believers so as to keep “pure” our ideas of doctrine, over simple love. The division of His listeners is little different than the division of hundreds of protestant churches who color the landscape of Christianity today.
Verse 44 continues … “And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.” Some of the officers sent to take Him, now gave it careful consideration. But all in all, His passion, His love, and His truth touched them deep in their minds and souls. The power of love in the message of truth was so compelling, that men under orders who knew the penalty for failure, decided they could not fulfill their mission. Instead they return empty handed to the eagerly awaiting Pharisees, who expected to judge Christ, condemn Him, and see Him killed in their presence. They were to be disappointed. When the soldiers appeared without Him, the Pharisees demand to know why they did not bring Him? They could have lied. They could have simply told the truth that there were so many there who did believe, it might have caused a riot to attempt to grab Him then. The Pharisees would have believed that answer, and likely been satisfied with it. But instead they told a different truth, the real truth in verse 46 … “The officers answered, Never a man spake like this man.” The power of truth in love had reached the hearts of those sent to take Him. To this the furious Pharisees ask … “are ye also deceived?” They add in verse 48 … “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?” This they offered as “proof” He was not the Messiah. Since none of the church leaders of the day had endorsed Him, He could not be the one. As if truth and love, require the endorsement of the leadership of the church, before they can be “truth and love”.
In verse 49, in order to further prove their point about leadership knowing what is best, and simple parishioners not knowing that facts they add the commentary … “But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.” Simpletons. These idiot guards are cursed for not knowing the truth the exalted leadership knew. But in his account of this incident, John did not go with allowing this unjust idea to stand. Instead it was debunked in real time. Nicodemus, a venerated leader, and one of the Pharisees was in attendance that day. Nicodemus, unbeknownst to any of them, had sought Christ out at night and learned directly from Jesus the words of truth, love, and light. None of these men knew it. But Nicodemus did, and he was educated. Nicodemus then calls to their attention the hypocrisy of claiming a curse on the uneducated guards based on the law, when attempting to use the law to condemn a man without trial, and without even hearing from Him? In verse 51 … “Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” Salt in a wound there my friend, salt in a wound. The stunned Pharisees hardly could recover from this, one of their own just called them out on their shenanigans. Now they are just plain mad at Nicodemus for this humiliation and respond in verse 52 … “They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. [verse 53] And every man went unto his own house.”
To the truth of the words of Nicodemus in exposing their hypocrisy they offer further “prejudice” as proof. Asking if Nicodemus too was from Galilee (knowing he was not), they ask him to ever disprove the notion that Galilee was not a place from where great prophets ever came from. Of course this idea too, ignores that Bethlehem was the place of His birth, and that He descended from the lineage of David. But to keep this argument from coming up, in verse 53 they take an immediate action – meeting adjourned. Better to go home disappointed they did not get to judge Christ that night, than to have further conversations that may reveal the truth of His heritage and origin of birth. If ever forced to confront the truth of Him, they would be forced to admit they had no leg to stand on in regards to their hatred of Him, other than He threatened their power over the minds of the people. Satan HATES losing control over his subjects. So too, do religious leaders hate losing influence over the minds and hearts of their flocks. But truth needs no guardian. Love needs no army. The true power of the gospel is found in humility. The transformation that follows a real encounter with Christ, cannot be stopped by edict, or any other device of Satan. So it was in His day, and in ours …
No comments:
Post a Comment