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In the passages that provide the setting for the Olivet
Discourse, Jesus seems to move up the hierarchy of the Jewish classes. First he
is greeted by the common people, he then has a confrontation with the chief
priests and elders of the people, followed by the Herodians, followed by the
Sadducees, followed by the Pharisees.
The setting of the prophecy is after Jesus had ridden into
Jerusalem to be greeted by the people with the waving of palm branches and
shouts of Hosanna (Matt. 21:8-11). He next went into the temple and chased out
the moneychangers, then people came to him in the temple to be healed, which
greatly displeased the chief priests and scribes. Jesus then left the city and
spent the night in Bethany (Matt. 21:12-17).
In the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry and
saw a fig tree, but there was no fruit on it. Jesus spoke to the fig tree, "Let
no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," and the tree very rapidly withered
away (Matt.21:18-22). In scripture, the fig tree represents Israel (Hos. 9:10;
Joel 1:8), and Israel was shortly going to reject and crucify Jesus because they
did not know the time of their visitation. Although they had the outward
appearance of righteousness and were intent on keeping the law right down to the
smallest jot and tittle, they did not have the word of God in their hearts which
would have produced good fruit.
In Matt. 21:23 Jesus enters the temple where the chief priests
and elders demand to know by what authority he teaches and who gave him this
authority. Jesus turns the tables on them and asks them if John baptized under
the authority of heaven or of men, they discuss it among themselves, then tell
Jesus they cannot tell. He responds that neither will he answer their question.
They completely fail to recognize the scripture that prophesied of John the
Baptist (Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1; Mal. 4:5). Jesus said of John (Matt 11:14) "And if
ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come." The "it" that Jesus
wanted them to receive was the fact that he was the Messiah of Israel. If they
had understood and accepted that fact, the kingdom of heaven (the millennium)
would have begun two thousand years ago. But they did not understand and accept,
and because of this, salvation was opened to the Gentiles. This turn of events
was tragic for the Jewish people, but glorious for the rest of the world. And it
should serve as a warning that those in our day who profess Jesus as Christ
should study the word of God so we truly know GOD and do not get stuck in our
own ideas about who he is, what he has done and what he yet will do. We need to
be able to recognize him, and the only way to know the real Jesus is to know
him, first hand, as revealed in the word of God.
Jesus continues his discussion with the chief priests and
elders and teaches them several parables regarding the rejection of Messiah by
his own people with the result that they will not enter the kingdom, thus the
kingdom will be opened to other people. Jesus seems to give this group more time
than he gives those who come after, perhaps because they were students of the
law and were considered legal experts, thus were teachers. Today they would be
called Rabbi.
Jesus is next questioned by the Herodians (Matt. 22:17), who
ask, "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar?" The Herodians appear to be a
political party, and Jesus tells them to render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.
Next come the Sadducees (Matt. 22: 23-32) who do not believe
in the resurrection. They present a scenario of a woman who had been
consecutively married to seven brothers, all of whom died, and they want to know
whose wife she will be in the resurrection. Matt 22:29 "Jesus answered and said
unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. 30 For
in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as
the angels of God in heaven." This is a very interesting statement because Jesus
identified a specific group of angels. Gen. 6 records the fact that the "sons of
God" were marrying the daughters of men, and a few verses later, were producing
children. The phrase "sons of God" is used six times in the New Testament
(speaking of Christians), but only five times in the Old Testament: twice in
Gen. 6 and three times in Job (where it is clearly a reference to angels). Jesus
specified the ‘angels of God in heaven’ because there was another group of
angels who did not keep their first estate but left their own habitation and are
currently reserved in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment of
the great day (Jude 6).
Jesus went on to tell the Sadducees that Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob are living, the implication being that they will be resurrected.
Finally, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees (Matt. 22:36).
They want to know which is the great commandment in the law. Jesus tells them it
is to love God first, then to love their neighbor as themself. In verse 42 Jesus
gives the Pharisees a chance: he asks, "what think ye of Christ? Whose son is
he?" Notice Jesus is not declaring himself to be the Messiah, he is asking the
Pharisees to identify the father of Messiah. They respond that he is the son of
David, and Jesus comes back by asking them how it is that David called him Lord,
and since this is so, how could he be David’s son. He is making the point that
Christ, Messiah, would be more than a human son of David, he would, in fact, be
God. Jesus is actually questioning them on their knowledge and understanding of
the scripture. They were supposed to be experts, but the Pharisees are not able
to answer this question, and the passage states that from that time forward no
one dared to question Jesus.
In Matt. 23 Jesus tells the multitude that the scribes and
Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, and they are to do what they say but not as they
do, because they do their works to be seen of men and to receive honor of men.
He then delivers a scathing indictment: woe to them because:
- they shut up the kingdom of heaven to others and do not go
in themselves
- they devour widow’s houses and for a pretense make long
prayer
- they make proselytes and then make them twice the children
of hell
- these blind guides say to swear by the temple is nothing
but to swear by the gold of the temple makes a man a debtor
- they pay tithes but omit the weightier matters of judgment,
mercy and faith - they should have done both
- they are clean outside but inside are filled with extortion
and excess
- they are like whitewashed tombs
- they honor the righteous dead but claim that they would not
have killed the prophets
Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees to fill up the measure
of their fathers and calls them a generation of vipers. He will send prophets,
wise men and scribes who will be murdered, scourged and persecuted by the
scribes and Pharisees, and upon them will come the blood of the righteous. Jesus
concludes by saying that all these things shall come upon this generation, and
he laments over the loss of Jerusalem.
The groups who confronted Jesus, and who were confronted in
return, have their modern parallels. I have heard criticisms of the Jewish
people because of their rejection of Jesus. The reason the rejection occurred
was because, as Jesus said repeatedly, the people of the time did not know their
scriptures thus they were not able to recognize him. They were relying on their
own or others’ ideas of what the scriptures said rather than on what the
scriptures actually said. Sadly, this same thing is happening in the church
today. In many churches the Bible has been replaced with The Purpose Driven
Life or some other book that is not the Bible. Like the Herodians, some
people are looking for their salvation in political action. Like the Sadducees,
some Christians are frozen and without joy in their faith because they do not
know Jesus. Like the Pharisees, the Word of Faith movement apparently knows the
scriptures, but they have a defective understanding of the word and they are in
fact preaching a different Jesus based on a different gospel leading people to
receive a different spirit (2 Cor 11:4): different from those presented in the
Bible.
It seems to me that rather than being critical of the Jewish
people for their failure, we would be wise to look at how they arrived at that
point of spiritual blindness and examine ourselves on an individual level to
make certain we are not committing the same offense. Two thousand years ago the
Jewish people had a visitation, but in our day, the entire world is going to
have an encounter with God. We need to put away the books and tapes and get back
to our foundation document to see if these things be so (Acts 17:11).
Olivet Discourse
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