The Jewish Non-Elect

 

The Jewish Non-Elect

John 10:25-27 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you did not believe. The miracles I do in My Father’s name speak for Me, but you do not believe because you are NOT My sheep. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them and they follow Me.

John 8:37-47 I know you are Abraham’s descendants (offspring). Yet you are ready to kill Me because you have no room for My word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence and you do what you have heard from your father.”

“Abraham is our father,” they answered,

“If you were Abraham’s children (a child as produced: - a son, daughter),” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is you are determined to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God Himself.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on My own; but He sent Me. Why is My language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me! Can any of you prove Me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe Me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is because you do not belong to God.”

The devil is a liar and there is no truth in him. These people belong to the devil in whom there is no truth. Thus they cannot hear/believe Jesus because as their father has no room for truth neither do they. Our Lord Jesus then goes on to say that the one who belongs to God hears what God says. These people do not hear because they do not belong to God!

If the scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the law – the said custodians of the law - who taught the people had no room for the truth, what were they teaching the people?

Matthew 23

Our Lord Jesus Christ describes the Pharisees and the teachers of the law as hypocrites.

Matt 23:3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. 

Here the Lord instructed the disciples to do what the teachers of the law and the Pharisees said but not to follow their example. He stated outrightly that they did not practice what they preached.

This is quite an indictment considering that these guys masqueraded as perfect keepers of the law or as near perfect as could be. They were good at heavily laying out the law on the people yet they themselves did not keep it.

Everything about them was outward. They had large phylacteries and long tassels on their clothes. At banquets they’d have the high seats and the prominent ones in the synagogues. It was their pleasure to be greeted at market places and to be called ‘teacher.’

It is interesting how today’s preachers have all these titles attached to their names. They are bishop, doctor, reverend, teacher, prophet and apostle so and so. The Lord always has His remnant though at times it is difficult to see them amidst all the flashy and titled ‘ministers of the gospel’ who we have today.

Prominent seats are still kept for the preachers and ministers of the gospel. While it is good to give honour where honour is due, the plush leather seats given to preachers while their brothers sit on wooden benches conflict with this teaching.

The Lord instructs His disciples that they are not to be called Rabbi, or to call anyone Father, or be called teacher. Jesus is our Teacher, Master and God is our Father.  Among Christian circles it is very common to have people referring to their pastor as Dad or Mum.

Description of Pharisees from Matthew 23

Verse 13-14 They are described as hypocrites because they shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces and prevent those who try to get in from entering even though they themselves do not go in.

·         They don’t go in.

·         They shut the door of the kingdom to men.

·         They don’t allow those who want to enter to get in.

Verse 14-15 They go over land and sea to seek converts.

·         When they convert someone they make him twice as much a son of hell as they are.

·         They are sons of hell.

Verse 16-22 They are called blind guides because of the foolish counsel that they give.

·         They make the gold of the temple greater than the temple in their counsel.

·         They make the gift on the altar greater than the altar on which it is offered.

The Lord sets this counsel aside and declares that the temple makes the gold sacred and the altar makes the gift sacred. Thus when one swears by the altar they swear by it and all that is on it, and he who swears by the temple swears by it and the One in it, and the one who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by God who sits on it.

Verse 23-24 They neglect important parts of the law such as justice, mercy and faithfulness yet they give tithes of even their spices.

Verse 25-28 They cleaned the outside of the vessel but inside it was dirty. Outwardly they appeared righteous but inwardly they were full of greed and self-indulgence.

·         The Lord referred to them as white-washed tombs which look presentable on the outside but inside were full of dead men’s bones. The Pharisees and teachers of the law were wicked and hypocrites regardless of their clean outward appearance.

Verse 29-32 These guys were involved in building tombs for the prophets and distanced themselves from the acts of their fathers who murdered these prophets claiming that if they had lived in their day, they would not have taken part in these acts.

·         They would evidently have taken part in this because in other parts they refuse to acknowledge that John – the greatest prophet that ever lived- was from God. They were also pre-occupied with trapping Jesus (Matt 22:15-22, 21:23-27; Lk 20:1-8; Mk 11:27-33) and ridding themselves of Him. They were thus their father’s sons by blood and by their deeds.

·         The Lord tells them to fill up the measure of their fathers’ sins.

Verse 33-36 These Pharisees and teachers of the law were queer people. They refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah and would not allow the people to do so either. Their reaction to the guards and to Nicodemus in the following passage demonstrates this attitude.

John 7:45-52 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring Him in?”

“No one ever spoke the way this Man does,” the guards declared.

“You mean He has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in Him? No! But this mob which knows nothing of the law – there is a curse on them.”

Nicodemus who had gone to Jesus earlier, and who was one of their number, asked, “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”

They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

In another passage where a blind man received his sight, we learn that the Jews (obviously the leadership) had decided to banish from the synagogue anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ (John 9:13-34). They did this to this man when he challenged their assertions that they did not know where Jesus came from.

They had refused to acknowledge John as a messenger from God. They lived to be seen and revered by men (Matt 23:1-12) but they really had no concern for what God thought of them.

The Lord then calls them snakes and a brood of vipers and goes on to prophesy of their deeds in the coming days - things that they would do within that generation. They would kill His messengers and crucify them (Stephen, James, and the disciples who were martyred), they would flog others and chase them from town to town (Saul did this). The blood of all the righteous men who had been killed from Abel to Zechariah would be accounted to them.

It is like a connection to the wickedness of those who went before them. By their acts they enjoin themselves with their predecessors and thus are condemned of all the righteous blood that was shed from the beginning up to Zechariah.