If anyone could time travel and go tell someone in 2019 that good ventilators and some vaccines have been discovered for the covid pandemic, do you think it would be good news or bad? I think the person would be shocked to know that there is a pandemic to go through in the next year. And it probably is an acceptable reaction from someone with no clue of the pandemic.
But, what about a person coughing their lungs out. If the news about a ventilator doesn't make them happy, and surprisingly even, offends him/ her, what would you say about them? Wouldn't we think that they have lost touch with reality? Even so, the good news that there is a Saviour is often baffling (and even offensive) to many who think they need no saving. And this thought process seems to be 2000 years old!
Let’s read the conversation between Jews and Jesus where Jews claim to have never been slaves of anyone and wonder how they need to be saved. They even dared to ask God - ‘Who do you think you are?’
John 8:31- 36, 51-59 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. [Link to the passage in the Bible]
The claims the Jews make about their race are demonstrably wrong! The Jews were slaves in Egypt after the time of Joseph. They had been through Babylonian and other exiles. At the time of Jesus too, they were under the Roman empire. Their claim, ‘we have never been slaves of anyone’ is pathetically wrong. Yet, that is what they claimed and that is what they believed. Many of them were too proud to accept that they need saving. At times, I think God places us in difficult situations physically, so that we understand that we need to be saved. For, if we can't accept a physical reality, it makes it even harder to understand that we need to be saved in the spiritual sense.
This sort of blindness to reality was demonstrated even in the previous century. How could a Christian nation such as Germany claim to be a race superior to the race in which their Lord was born? Yet, that is what they claimed and that is what they believed. The result was a horrendous holocaust.
The blindness exists even now. Even probably in you. Well, right now, do you think you, your choices, your job, your family, or your ancestry is superior and need no correction? Think about it. If Christ would send any of His servants to offer correction, is there a possibility of your unknowingly replying, ‘Who do you think you are?’
Link to the previous article: Are You here to support or oppose? Link to the next article: If God is with us, then why has all of this happened to us?
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