THE DIFFICULTY OF UNDERSTANDING JESUS AND WHY EVERYONE CLAIMS HIM

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.