Have you noticed that diverse groups claim Jesus as their
own? The socialists claim that Jesus was a socialist, the anarchists as an
anarchist, the libertarians as a libertarian, the iconoclasts as an iconoclast.
I am even expecting the atheists to claim that Jesus was really an atheist.
Why this broad range of disagreement about Jesus? Jesus
spoke in parables:
·
And he answered them, “To you it has been given
to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been
given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an
abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and
hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. (Matthew 13:11-13 ESV)
Jesus only explained His teachings to those who were willing
to understand Him. However, even His disciples failed to understand Him.
Therefore, He explained His parables to them. However, we have only one example
of this in the Gospels – the parable of the Sower, Seeds, and Soils (Matthew
13).
Consequently, they continued to misunderstand Him even to
the end (John 16:17-18), and if they
did, it is no surprise that we would also misunderstand Jesus.
Therefore, is there little hope of understanding Jesus? No!
However, I think that we need to adhere to two very important principles.
Firstly, we have to understand Jesus according to the way He insisted that we
understand Him, according to the Scriptures:
·
“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.” (Matthew 5:17-19; 4:4; 22:29;
John 5:39-47; 12:49-50)
Jesus was thoroughly imbued with the Hebrew Scriptures and
never spoke a word against them. He criticized those who would elevate their
traditions to the level of Scripture (Matthew 15:1-9) and criticized those who
refused to follow them (John 14:21-24). Had Jesus ever spoken against the
Scriptures, He would have given the religious leadership all the reason they
needed to put Him to death. However, they were never able to do this, although
they repeatedly tried to get Him to speak against the Scriptures.
Here is the second principle. Jesus stated that there were
many things that He wanted to teach His disciples, but they were not yet ready
to hear them. Therefore, He promised that the Holy Spirit would later complete
His work:
·
“I still have many things to say to you, but you
cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into
all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he
hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He
will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that
the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and
declare it to you.” (John 16:12-15)
By themselves, Jesus’ teachings were not complete. In many
ways, He had not been explicit about His identity and His work. He never
explicitly told the disciples “I am God,” and only indirectly did He admit that
He is the Messiah. Only at His final Passover did He disclose that He was
bringing in the promised New Covenant. Instead, He would leave all that He had
left unsaid to the Spirit.
In many ways, Paul, and the other Apostles, had acknowledged
the critical role of the promised Spirit in their Apostolic ministry:
·
But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God,
which God decreed before the ages for our glory… these things God has revealed
to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths
of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person,
which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the
Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And
we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,
interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:7,10-13)
Consequently, if we are to understand Jesus’ teachings, we
also must understand the Hebrew Scriptures, but especially the Apostles, the
very men that Jesus had commissioned and validated with the miracles of the
Spirit:
·
…how shall we escape if we neglect such a great
salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by
those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various
miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews
2:3-4)
Consequently, by using the guidance of the rest of the
Bible, we can understand Jesus.
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