And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Matthew 22:46
The Jewish religious leaders had been on a mission to stir controversy and try to trip Jesus up with some sort of misstatement that would hinder his popularity with the people and give the leaders an advantage to turn Jesus into a failed teacher. But they failed miserably in their attempts. And in their final defeat they gave up on this strategy to silence Jesus. You can’t turn the Word of God against its own Author!
First they tried to get Jesus to enter into a political trap with a question about the lawfulness of paying taxes to Rome, the hated occupier. Jesus simply tells them that Caesar should get his own coins back. Rome gets what belongs to Rome, but God must get what belongs to God. You cannot mix the two (Matthew 22:19-22). The critics went away silenced. Strikeout number one.
Then the Sadducees stepped up to the plate trying to embroil Jesus in a doctrinal controversy about the resurrection of the dead with a weird hypothetical construct about a woman who had been widowed seven times over. Again, Jesus calmly defuses the ludicrous elements of their doctrinal mess of a question, and affirms how God is more important than their hangup about resurrection, since He is the God of living saints. They too, clearly shown the scriptures, left Him silenced as the crowd marveled (Matthew 22:33). Strikeout number two.
Finally, the Pharisees gather once again. They go to Him but Jesus takes the offensive and asked them a question that got to His direct Messianic mission. He points them again clearly to scripture when they talk about the Messiah being exclusively the descendent of David. Jesus proves the Messiah to be not just the son of David, but the Son of God in the flesh... quoting none other than David himself. The Pharisees have no answer back to Jesus once this is shown to them. Strikeout number three.
The strategy to get Jesus to misspeak had failed abysmally. The Word of God speaks and overrules human attempts at manipulation. We can only listen, agree, and follow! Jesus will answer your questions... they usually are not the answers you expect. But they will be definitive, correct, and leave you with a sense of the wonder of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment