The day of reckoning will come in spite of the denials of
the kings, officials, priests and prophets.
That day will come indeed for Jerusalem and the nation and the reaction
among the leaders is that they will be appalled and astounded. The devastation in the land is such that it
seems that the earth has returned to its primordial state, the earth formless and
void, no light in the heavens, the mountains and hills not settled in their
places, no man to be found, the fruitful land now a desert. We live in a time when judgment and reckoning
are defined out of the picture. Surely a
loving God would not judge in this way but the Bible should keep us from such
ideas. God judges sin and no sin is more
decisively and harshly judged than apostasy.
His people have a job, to be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, making
Him known, and when they fail, judgment comes.
Repentance and revival both begin the same place, in the assembly of the
redeemed.
The picture Jesus is painting here is that He is an
ambassador of God and to reject Him is to reject the one who sent Him. It is similar to the parable He tells right
at the end in Jerusalem concerning the wicked tenants of the vineyard who
reject those sent to collect the rent due the owner and then, when the son
comes, the tenants kill him. Jesus says
that the Son only does what the Father shows Himself to be doing and so the Son
makes the Father known in the works He does.
Jesus promises that there is more to come, even more amazing things,
like raising the dead to life, which He points to as the penultimate sign and
we will see the Son do that very thing at the tomb of Lazarus. Final confirmation of Jesus as Son is at
Easter. Here, He also says that judgment
has been committed to the Son and those who believe are the ones who will be
found innocent. Does belief mean more
than assent? Does it not entail life
lived in keeping with that belief? It
always has, always will.
Paul says all will be judged and that judgment will be based
in one simple thing, faithfulness to what you know. “It is not the hearers of the law who are
righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” Gentiles are responsible for the knowledge
they have of God based on the witness of creation. Denying creation by positing some other means
of the appearance of the universe is no excuse.
Yes, faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness but clearly that
faith was active not simply passive. Paul says that if you don’t have the Law,
i.e. you don’t know the specific will of God in all things, the evidence of
creation and your conscience, the remnant of creation in the image of God, both
guide you. Paul’s attention, however, is
diverted to the Jews who have the Law but don’t keep it. This is the same message Jesus preached, “The
scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they
tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.” The problem is that because of their failure
to do anything but give lip service to the law is the Name of God is blasphemed
among the Gentiles. How does the world
feel about the church? Some of that is
down to rejection of the truth but some is due to our failure to make Him truly
known.
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