Can the word of the Lord promise more in the way of
destruction? It is truly a horrible word
given to Jeremiah. They will be devoted
to destruction, a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. The voice
of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice
of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp will all
be banished. The devastation of the land
and those nations surrounding it will be complete and it will not be restored
for seventy years, multiple generations, a life span of a man given in
Scripture. They will be exiled for
nearly twice as long as they were in the wilderness. Their disobedience is worse and therefore
their punishment will be worse as well.
The charge is that they have not obeyed His words, same as Adam who
listened to the voice of his wife rather than the voice of his God.
The man born blind is accustomed to being an outcast. He has been seen as a pariah since he was
born, the disciples aren't the only ones who believed there was sin
involved. Imperfection was seen as God's
judgment on sin. He has less to lose
than any of the others, he has never been accepted as an equal member of Jewish
society due to his handicap. He is
willing then to align himself with his healer as soon as he learns who it
is. The threat to all is any who do
align themselves with Jesus are to be cast out of the fellowship and this
threat is too great for even his parents to risk. Compare this man, however, with the man in
John 5, the cripple at the pool of Bethesda.
That man didn't stand with Jesus, he threw Jesus under the bus. Here, there is obviously a play on the idea
of seeing. Jesus has restored a man's
sight and he sees clearly while the Pharisees claim to see but they do not see
at all clearly. Remember that God
frequently would speak through prophets with words like those found in Psalm
135, "They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but
they see not."
When Paul writes that they have a zeal for God but not
according to knowledge, he speaks from personal experience. He was guilty of substituting his own
righteousness for God's and in doing so he missed out on the Messiah. He is, however, the man of the supreme second
chance. He is the one who was taught
directly by God that he must call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Paul could have died in his sin, the sin of
self-righteousness, but the call from heaven, "I am Jesus" changed
Paul's idea of righteousness completely.
The righteousness of God looks like mercy and grace to sinners, and it
was so far surpassing any notion of righteousness Paul had that his own looked like
filthy rags in comparison. Paul, like
Jeremiah, had a simple message to preach, repent and turn to the Lord for
mercy.
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