The basic difference
between Jesus and people around Him was that Jesus was out to fulfill the will
of God the Father whereas the people around Him sought their own will. He
proved that He was the Son of God by subjecting Himself to His Father’s will
and setting His will on learning obedience to His Father through His sufferings.
In this He was led by the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God. Jesus also called
Him the Spirit of Truth. Because He was driven by the Spirit of Truth, He meant
what He said, and His actions never contradicted His speech.
On the other hand, the
people who opposed Him were driven by the spirit of the world. Ephesians 2:1-3
says this about it:
“And you He made alive,
who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all
once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath,
just as the others.”
This spirit made them sons
of disobedience. When he works in them, they invariably end up serving their
‘self’ through lusts of flesh, and desires of the flesh and mind. Bible calls
these desires evil. Because they center in their self, it renders them
absolutely limited in scope. Because their very ‘self’ is limited. In the light
of Jesus’ presence, they felt being exposed. They knew their reality so well
that in order to justify themselves and what they were doing, they took
recourse to false light, that is, hypocrisy.
I would like to draw your
attention to the path they follow, led by their hypocrisy:
1. They
wanted to eat Passover, but they just ate it without believing in the Passover!
They had a form of godliness but denied its power.
2. They
said that according to the Law, Jesus must die. Ironically, according to the
Law, Jesus must indeed die! But they said that He must die according to the Law
because He was a sinner. The truth was that He had to die according to and in
fulfillment of the Law; because He was the Paschal Lamb which must be
sacrificed to redeem the nation of Israel and set her apart from the world (the
Egyptians). The Passover was a sign/promise of Jesus’ coming as the Passover
Sacrifice, and in Him the Passover was fulfilled with finality. He perfected
the Passover. By calling Him a sinner, they had insulted Passover which they
said they believed in and honored by making themselves holy so that they might
eat it. Actually, they were defiling themselves before taking Passover. It was
their way of hurting Passover.
3. They
called Him King of the Jews just to mock Him. Their king was Caesar.
4. They
did not want to consider Jesus as their king; therefore they called Caesar to
be their king.
5. They
knew that He was righteous; therefore they punished Him.
6. They
said, according to the Law, Jesus must die because He claimed to be the Son of
God. But in the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 1, it is written: “You are the
children of the Lord your God.” Thus, they falsified the Law by which they tried
to condemn Jesus who was indeed the Son of God.
7. They,
by punishing Jesus for calling Himself the Son of God, and by evoking the Law
in doing so, declared that they were not the children of God. That was the
reason why they actually worked against the Law through their actions.
8. They
blackmailed Pilate by saying that if he would let Jesus go unpunished, he would
prove that he was not a friend of Caesar. In other words, they said that he
must prove himself to be Caesar’s friend. The same people were actually not
friends of Caesar. Therefore, they asked Pilate to free Barabbas instead of
Jesus. They became Caesar’s friend just because their enmity towards
Jesus was greater than that which they bore against Caesar. In forcing Pilate
to prove that he was a friend of Caesar, they made him an enemy of the One who
they knew was God.
They did and did not mean
anything; they did and did not accomplish anything. It was Jesus who
accomplished all that He did. Hallelujah. Therefore, only what He did is
established forever; what His opponents did was destroyed along with them.
There is wisdom in being part of God’s plan. That’s the whole point. It
requires obedience to God.
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