On one occasion, Jesus’ brothers treated him as if he were running for public office. They told him that those looking for popular support could best find it in Jerusalem during the annual Feasts. Ironically, though they didn’t believe in him at that point, they knew that the work of their miracle-working brother could attract more disciples in the capital than in Galilee (see John 7:1-5).
No serious reader of the Four Gospels will mistake Jesus for someone trying to win a popularity contest. Instead, they will find him rejecting the praise of men and openly speaking his mind; and that being in its very nature the mind of God!
Therefore, he was not going to be censored. He taught that acceptance of his words would bring salvation, and rejection of his words would bring condemnation (John 12:47-48).
With profound clarity, he stated, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).
In The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), we are told to “go and make disciples…teaching them to obey everything I [Jesus] have commanded you.”
In our outreach, the Righteous Judgement that Jesus calls us to is made known by its fruit. The man who teaches Christ will make sons of the Kingdom of Heaven, but the man who teaches anything else will make sons of the kingdom of hell.
Jesus exposed the unholy fruits of the religious leaders of his day. They had replaced the Righteous Judgements of God with an unrighteous judgemental spirit.
But worse still, they took it on the road. Of their evangelistic efforts Jesus gave his Righteous Judgement:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Matthew 23:15).
John Staiger
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