And they were all amazed at the greatness of God. While everyone was marvelling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, ‘Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.’ But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Luke 9:43-46 NIVUK
Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, ‘We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.’ The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.
Luke 18:31-34 NIVUK
I showed quite a lot of promise in French classes when I was in secondary school. It's not an easy language to learn, but I seemed to be doing quite well. I wouldn't have been able to spend a week in Paris on my own, but my test results were consistently good and my fourth year exams weren't that hard for me.
But one teacher stopped my progress in its tracks. You see, she saw the ability that some of us had and wanted to use this to make her life easier. So she put us to teach the kids she didn't want to teach because they didn't want to learn.
Have you ever tried to teach kids like that? They're swinging on their chairs, chewing gum, etching graffitti on their desks and disrupting other pupils behind the teacher's back, all while you're trying to teach them how to conjugate verbs, string a sentence together or understand various tenses.
I dropped French as soon as I could after that. I thought that if the teacher couldn't be bothered to teach me, then why should I be bothered to learn?
Which was a shame. But at least the abilities I picked up were not wasted.
Years later, I used them to learn Romanian.
But what I also learned is that you can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn. You can try your best to engage them, but if they defy your efforts every time, then sometimes you need to admit defeat.
We read this verse in the Bible:
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 4:4 NIVUK
Jesus told His disciples in a clear, succinct manner what was about to happen to Him. It was one of His clearest, simplest teachings. But His disciples didn't get it. Does the verse from 2 Corinthians explain why?
No, I don't think it does. I believe there are three reasons why the disciples couldn't understand this crystal clear teaching:
Firstly, because it was so far removed from their concept of the Messiah that they just could not make the logical connection between it and Jesus dying on the cross.
Secondly, it was so far removed from their concept of life that they could not conceive of anyone, let alone Jesus, rising from the dead. We can understand this. It's not every day that death is defeated in this way.
Thirdly, they didn't want to understand it. Why would they want to? Jesus has just explained to them that He'll be crucified! For them the very prospect was impossible to even contemplate.
And this is exactly why so many people struggle today with the cross. They can't accept the idea that God the Father would allow, let alone deliberately will, that His Son would be crucified. They struggle with the resurrection as it seems unscientific and impossible to them. And they don't want to contemplate the horror of Jesus Christ, whom they love, being treated so disgracefully.
But, just as it was with the disciples, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gospel.
The Bible is painfully clear that it was God the Father's will to send Jesus to the cross, whatever we think of this decision:
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
Isaiah 53:6, 10 NIVUK
As for the resurrection, again, we can think of this whatever we like, but the Word of God is plain: without the resurrection there is no Christianity:
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
1 Corinthians 15:16-20 NIVUK
As for the horror of Jesus Christ being mistreated in the cross, this should cause our stomach to churn and our eyes to recoil. It should cause us problems. If we consider the cross and don't feel a sense of serious unease at the incredibly high price Jesus paid for us, then there is something deeply wrong with us.
But at the same time, we can't dismiss it or seek to ignore it. Jesus even set in place a regular memorial of it:
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
Luke 22:19-20 NIVUK
And the reason why such blood-thirsty, inhumane violence was necessary is clear:
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:22 NIVUK
The terrible violence is necessary because sin itself is a terrible act of violence - against our relationship with God. Therefore a violent act is necessary to resolve the issue.
This is the Gospel (Philippians 2:6-11). The disgusting violence and inhumane depravity Jesus Christ endured for us, before rising to the right hand of the Father, is the Gospel. Reject it and you cease to believe the Gospel (Galatians 1:6-9). Reject it and you are no longer following Christ.
As much as our politically-correct, 'woke' culture hates such forthrightness, let me state it plainly and directly: reject this Gospel and, by definition, you cannot call yourself a Christian.
There are many who struggle to understand the Gospel. The word used to describe the disciples lack of understanding is 'krypto' - as if it was hidden from them, concealed, encrypted or encoded, if we like.
I believe the reason for that is because it was beyond their understanding and, because it seemed so radical to them, they chose not to question it or to try to understand it.
But where this leads is equally as shocking.
You see, before and after the splendid poem or hymn in Philippians 2 that contains the essence of the Gospel in such a beautiful way, we find verses that appeal to the divided church in Philippi to abandon their petty differences and divisions and come together. And Paul does not hold back. His appeal is loaded with deep emotion. Even just a passive reading of these words reveals his heartfelt longing:
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Philippians 2:1-5 NIVUK
He is pleading with the Philippians to have the same humility towards others that Jesus had towards them.
And the disciples? Well, having not understood the Gospel, they were headed in a very different direction:
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Luke 9:46 NIVUK
They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.’ But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
Mark 9:30-34 NIVUK
Peter (yes, him again), James and John, after yet another occasion when Jesus told them of His arrest, trial, conviction, crucifixion and resurrection, tried to even use their own mother to get the highest positions below Jesus when He came into His Kingdom (Matthew 20:20-28).
In fact, and this really is astonishing, the argument continued right into the Upper Room, after the Lord Jesus had instituted the Lord's Supper and before Gethsemane (Luke 22:24)!
Isn't it striking that these arguments are preceeded, without exception, by Jesus proclaiming in one form or another that He will be betrayed, crucified and rise from the dead?
Paul's teaching in Philippians 2 hits the mark. If we are always competing, comparing and complaining, then the verdict is clear: we have completely misunderstood the Gospel and are not being Christ-like. We are not following Jesus.
But a correct understanding of the Gospel leads is to stop competing, to stop comparing, to stop climbing, to stop complaining. And it is the cross that stops us in our tracks.
After all, what value is there in all the wealth and position and possessions we could accrue and accumulate compared to what Jesus achieved on the cross? Where is our pride and our boasting if we are so evil that it takes abhorrent violence and injustice like this to save us? Where is anything we could achieve compared to defeating death and rising from the grave?
We find ourselves again in a binary situation. If we shut the cross out because it seems to defy all our human logic, expectation and desire, then we will find ourselves on the never-ending hamster wheel of comparing ourselves to others and always seeking to have more or be more or achieve more than them.
That will get us nowhere and leave us empty and unfulfilled.
But if we are willing to let go of all our preconceptions and simply believe and trust what Jesus is telling us?
Then...
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’
John 8:31-32 NIVUK
Questions
1) What made it so hard for Jesus' own disciples to understand the plain and simple truth He was teaching them?
2) A theologian once remarked, 'It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that cause me problems, but the parts that I do understand.' Are there other Biblical teachings that are plain and straightforward but still difficult for you to take in? What are they?
3) How can you make sure that your preconceptions don't prevent you from 'correctly handling the Word of Truth' (2 Timothy 2:15)?
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