Zach’s Theological Musings

  Matthew 19:21:

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Luke 14:25,33:

Now great crowds accompanied [Jesus], and he turned and said to them… “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

Many who profess the name of Christ today will ask, “But that doesn’t mean that we today have to forsake everything in order to follow Jesus, does it?” This question reveals a presupposition on the part of the questioner that he views forsaking earthly possessions in order to gain Christ as a burdensome, “do I really have to” sort of thing. But Peter’s response after hearing Jesus’ call to the rich young man reveals a very different heart:

Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” (Matthew 19:27)

The rich young ruler heard Jesus say, “SELL WHAT YOU POSSESS AND GIVE TO THE POOR, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Peter, at precisely the same moment, heard Jesus say, “sell what you possess, and give to the poor, AND YOU WILL HAVE TREASURE IN HEAVEN; AND COME, FOLLOW ME!” The rich young ruler went away sad and grieved because he thought Jesus had demanded an overwhelmingly burdensome requirement of him. Peter got excited because he heard Jesus offering some overwhelmingly great blessings, and even though Jesus was not addressing him directly, Peter was eager to shove his way in and ask, “Can I get some of that?”

So, do you have to forsake all you possess in order to follow Jesus? No, in a very real sense it would not be right to say that. The followers of Jesus are those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good… so good, in fact, that the idea of forsaking all they possess in order to be with Him and receive His heavenly treasures is not at all a “have to” sort of thing.

  How many cases have you heard of church discipline being exercised in modern times? Now, in contrast how often do you hear “counseling” offered as the solution to Christian “struggles”, and how much psychologizing do you hear taught in Christian circles?

  These days the so-called Christian life isn’t about engaging in full-fledged war against indwelling sin. It is about realizing and actualizing the “wonderful plan” that God has for your life, which gosh-darnit you just need to follow these steps and stop missing out on.

  Perhaps that is one reason why Christ isn’t central either. Even the very name God chose for His Son—Jesus—was given because, “He will save his people from their sins.” Not just from the consequences of their sins, but from their sins! If salvation and the gospel are a thing we accepted in the past and then move on from to searching out the “abundant Christian life” down other paths, then the primacy of ongoing battle against sin, and hence the centrality of Jesus, gets sidelined.

  I thought this was interesting in light of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46):

He who oppresses the poor taunts his Maker,
         But he who is gracious to the needy honors Him. - Proverbs 14:31 (NASB)

  On a related note, when reading the Old Testament, I so often hear echoes of things Jesus said, even in bits and pieces of “obscure” (i.e. not well known or recognized today) phrases from the Prophets, the Writings, or sections of the Law. Specifically, much of the wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount can be found in Proverbs. I realize more and more how His speech is saturated with the Jewish Scriptures, whether in the form of direct quotes, paraphrases, or simply continuity with its imagery and ideas. Indeed, I have a suspicion that a person could do a careful study and find Old Testament roots for every word recorded from our Savior in the gospels. Perhaps someone has. (Tell me if you know of such a work!) I’m not saying that Jesus incarnate didn’t say or add anything new (though perhaps in some limited sense you could say that). He definely is the fullness and completion of God’s revelation. But I am saying that you could find at least clear seeds for everything that came from His mouth.

Matthew 11:28-30: 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Some observations about the context preceding this passage:
  Jesus had just finished declaring “woe” upon the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum (Matt 11:20-24). The crucial question is why, why these cities? We might expect that it was because these cities had ignored him, rejected him, or refused to believe in His power. We might think of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown where he was not received as a prophet and could not do many miracles because of the people’s unbelief (Matt 13:58). But no, the situation in these woeful cities was just the opposite, they were the very “cities in which most His miracles were done” (Matt 11:20)! Jesus here is denouncing the cities that did witness His miracles, and thus did believe in His power to do them. Though the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum did come to Jesus for healing, they did not respond to Him with repentance. And for their lack of repentance Jesus announced a worse judgment awaiting these cities than that of Sodom which God overthrew with a storm of fire and brimstone.

  What happens next might seem strange. Jesus’ stern warning about the fate that awaits these unrepentant cities turns Him to praise the Father:

At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” Matt 11:25-27

Before we consider why Jesus said this, first we need to clarify what He is actually talking about. When Jesus says in verse 25, “You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants,” what are the “these things” He is referring to?

  From the context, “these things” certainly include repentance. This is supported by the fact that Luke also puts this same quote just after Jesus’ denunciation of the unrepentant cities (Lk 10:13-22). Also consider Luke 5:8. After witnessing Jesus’ power displayed in the miraculous catch of fish, Peter fell at Jesus knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” By God’s grace Peter’s eyes were opened to see Jesus’ miracles as signs pointing to His identity as the Holy One of God. Likewise, when you see Jesus heal a leper in Chorazin, your first response should not be, “Yeah, the leper is healed, let’s eat and drink and celebrate.” Rather, your first response should be to tremble and say, “Who is this man who even heals the lepers, and makes the unclean into something clean?” But the identity of the Holy Son of the Father was hidden from the Chorazites, even right in the face of His miraculous signs. Therefore the rightful response of repentance was hidden from them as well.

  My one year old son used to get nervous when he heard a big thunderstorm. That is wise. When you realize that you are in the presence of something much, much more powerful than you are, the wise reaction is to shake, and to ask, “Am I safe? Can that thing harm me?” And the wise response is to not be settled until you have a sure answer to those questions. All the more so when you realize that the thing you are in the presence of is infinitely more powerful than you will ever be. Contrast the wisdom God gave to baby Arrow with the foolishness of the grown man apart from Christ who hears a thunderclap (which is probably only a whisper compared to God’s voice in declaring His final judgment on the wicked) and calmly, confidently, proudly says to himself, “I’m safe because I’m inside a building.” It is right to tremble at displays of such power; on this point infants are often greater recipients of the revelation of God than the “wise and intelligent”.

  In her testimony, our friend Rachel Bemenderfer provides another great illustration of a God granting a child to surpass most adults in revelation of the truth:

I date my actual acceptance of Jesus as personal Savior to my 5th birthday. Grandpa Searcy had made me a beautiful wooden toy, but I played with it too hard and broke it. Guilt flooded my heart as I realized how utterly sinful I was. I needed Jesus to clean me up inside. So I prayed in my heart right then and there and asked Him to come into my life and forgive me. I remember feeling so light and relieved after that simple prayer.

  So the list of things that God consistently reveals to infants while hiding from the wise and learned at least includes: that they are bad, that when the power of God is displayed man should fall to his knees before Him and not just flippantly carry on along his merry way, and that they need forgiveness much more than physical healing or anything else.

  Of course this doesn’t mean that children are always full of humility and repentance! Just moments earlier (Matt 11:16) Jesus used children to make another spiritual analogy, but this time with a negative meaning. He compared His contemporary generation to immature children who wouldn’t accept Him because He wasn’t doing things they way they expected. Jesus is not saying that all infants will have a experience like Rachel’s, nor that those who have such an experience will necessarily continue to walk in repentance. (Though if it is a genuine conversion God will of course carry that work on to completion.) But the point is that God reveals things like repentance and faith to many of the weak, foolish, and poor, and not to so many of the strong, wise, and rich (1 Cor 1, Matt 19:23). In doing so God glorifies Himself by showing that salvation truly is not by [human] might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit. Jesus delights in God’s glory being manifest above all else, and therefore He delights in God’s hiding and revealing work.

  Finally, we reach Matt 11:28 itself, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Now we are ready to ask: who are the weary and burdened that Jesus is calling to? Well, the residents of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum were weary and burdened by their physical ailments. They were tired. They were glad to have a powerful healer come through town and make them feel better. According to the way that this passage is often quoted today, we would have to say that the Chorazites were an example of coming to Jesus with your burdens! But He just finished declaring that the response of these cities to His healing ministry had already heaped upon them so much accountability that they were facing the strictest and sternest judgment of any cities in the history of the world! So I don’t think, at least in this passage itself, that Jesus is inviting them, or anyone else, to come to Him for more healing.

  Rather, Jesus was talking to the infants and children (cf. Matt 18:3). Not just to five-year olds, but to anyone willing to admit that they’ve been acting like a rebellious five-year old. Anyone who knows that he has broken the gifts that God made for us and gave to us, and that he did it not on accident but because he was being bad. It is those people —humbled, broken, weary, burdened by their sin — to whom Jesus speaks kindly and gently. He doesn’t break off a battered reed or put out a smoldering wick. He doesn’t come to the little girl who feels terrible for what she did and speak harsh, demeaning, accusatory, or condemnatory words. He doesn’t give her a list of all the things she’d better do to make up for what she did wrong. For He is gentle and humble in heart.

  Now on the one hand, everyone feels weary about something, and we can and should come to Jesus in all of our weariness. Every detail matters to Him. Don’t forget that He did indeed heal the Chorazites and Capernaumites without turning anyone away. But on the other hand, different forms of “weariness” ultimately lead to drastically different outcomes with Jesus. The Chorazites and Capernaumites, weary of their sicknesses but not weary of their sins or their rebellion against God, were headed straight for hell (according to Jesus’ own words, see Matt 11:23 KJV). Though weary, they were sadly not weary enough. Likewise as long as we MERELY or dary I say even PRIMARILY come to Jesus with weary bodies, weary hearts, weary minds, weary wallets, weary relationships, and general weariness from all of the problems in the world around us, we are still among the Chorazites who did not enter into His rest for their souls.

  The Chorazites “believed in Jesus” in the way that Christianity is often presented today. They believed that Jesus was real (of course!, so did all of His enemies) and that He could solve some of their felt needs, their most pressing problems of the moment. But that is not the gospel, and therefore such “belief” did not save them from Jesus’ words of utter condemnation. Faith in the true gospel requires seeing God in His Holiness, being led to repentance, and finding soul rest in Jesus. Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it (Hebrews 4:1). Be weary over the burden of your sin, and come to Jesus who alone can carry it.