If You Are!
“Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!” Jesus said to him, “It is as you said….Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, “He has spoken blasphemy!
Matthew 26:63-64
Someone has wisely said, “Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.” The high priest questioning Jesus on that night of betrayal was one such man. Unfortunately, the high priest never paused long enough to understand the very question he was asking.
Consider the very audacity of such a question, “Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God?” After all, it is not everyday and of everyone, one asks if they are the Son of God. What event or events had precipitated and given validity to such a question? The Gospel narratives answer this for us. Jesus was facing trial because there was something about Him that was getting hard to ignore, and something that the Pharisees did not want to admit. Every miracle, every changed life, every new follower challenged their position and their worldview. On hearing the witness of the resurrected Lazarus, they admitted “that they were accomplishing nothing” and that “the world had gone after Him.”
The question of the high priest was not born out of an honest quest for information, it was simply a prop for justification of his predetermined answer. He did not want Jesus to be the Son of God. Therefore, when Jesus answered in the affirmative, he tore his clothes saying, “He has spoken blasphemy”. The question was only a way to legitimatize his presupposition. Nothing that Christ would have said or done would have changed his mind.
I suspect that many questions that are asked by skeptics are of the same nature. Sam Harris, one of the modern and perhaps one of the most ardent evangelists of atheism complains that if the Bible was authored of God then it would have predicted something like the “Internet”. What if it had done that? I suspect he would accuse someone of reading about it and naming the current global linking of computers as the internet to cause this prophecy to come true, or perhaps he would complain that it did not quite accurately predict the communication protocol that this internet would use. Besides, what about the predictions that have come to pass? Would anything cause him to believe?
Was Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of mankind? This question occupies the conscious thought like no other in the short span of history recorded in the Gospels, and it is often expressed by a question that begins with, “If you are..” The Pharisees who did not want to believe a ask, “If you are the Christ then tell us”. The devil who knew it to be true and hoping to manipulate this truth asks “If you are the Son of God then turn these stones into bread”. The crucified thief, angry at life and its consequences asks, “If you are the Christ then save us and yourself.” The bystanders scorning at the cross ask, “If you are the Son of God then come down.” Worlds have changed, space has been conquered, empires have been built and destroyed, yet the stir caused by Jesus in a small center of Jerusalem has never stopped reverberating through the centuries. It is because for over two thousand years lives honest seekers have never been disappointed in Christ, and lives are still transformed by Him.
The man born blind in the Gospel of John asked Jesus who the Son of God was. And when Jesus revealed that it was Himself, John writes that the man replied, “Lord I believe,” and worshipped Him. All hearts who have come to Christ humbly and honestly have responded in the same way. They have found in Jesus coherent answers for this life and a hope for eternity. May I invite you to come to Christ with a humble and a honest heart today.
Danesh Manik
References
1. Reply to A Christian, Sam Harris, in Free Inquiry, June/July 2006
Matthew 26:63-64
Someone has wisely said, “Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.” The high priest questioning Jesus on that night of betrayal was one such man. Unfortunately, the high priest never paused long enough to understand the very question he was asking.
Consider the very audacity of such a question, “Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God?” After all, it is not everyday and of everyone, one asks if they are the Son of God. What event or events had precipitated and given validity to such a question? The Gospel narratives answer this for us. Jesus was facing trial because there was something about Him that was getting hard to ignore, and something that the Pharisees did not want to admit. Every miracle, every changed life, every new follower challenged their position and their worldview. On hearing the witness of the resurrected Lazarus, they admitted “that they were accomplishing nothing” and that “the world had gone after Him.”
The question of the high priest was not born out of an honest quest for information, it was simply a prop for justification of his predetermined answer. He did not want Jesus to be the Son of God. Therefore, when Jesus answered in the affirmative, he tore his clothes saying, “He has spoken blasphemy”. The question was only a way to legitimatize his presupposition. Nothing that Christ would have said or done would have changed his mind.
I suspect that many questions that are asked by skeptics are of the same nature. Sam Harris, one of the modern and perhaps one of the most ardent evangelists of atheism complains that if the Bible was authored of God then it would have predicted something like the “Internet”. What if it had done that? I suspect he would accuse someone of reading about it and naming the current global linking of computers as the internet to cause this prophecy to come true, or perhaps he would complain that it did not quite accurately predict the communication protocol that this internet would use. Besides, what about the predictions that have come to pass? Would anything cause him to believe?
Was Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of mankind? This question occupies the conscious thought like no other in the short span of history recorded in the Gospels, and it is often expressed by a question that begins with, “If you are..” The Pharisees who did not want to believe a ask, “If you are the Christ then tell us”. The devil who knew it to be true and hoping to manipulate this truth asks “If you are the Son of God then turn these stones into bread”. The crucified thief, angry at life and its consequences asks, “If you are the Christ then save us and yourself.” The bystanders scorning at the cross ask, “If you are the Son of God then come down.” Worlds have changed, space has been conquered, empires have been built and destroyed, yet the stir caused by Jesus in a small center of Jerusalem has never stopped reverberating through the centuries. It is because for over two thousand years lives honest seekers have never been disappointed in Christ, and lives are still transformed by Him.
The man born blind in the Gospel of John asked Jesus who the Son of God was. And when Jesus revealed that it was Himself, John writes that the man replied, “Lord I believe,” and worshipped Him. All hearts who have come to Christ humbly and honestly have responded in the same way. They have found in Jesus coherent answers for this life and a hope for eternity. May I invite you to come to Christ with a humble and a honest heart today.
Danesh Manik
References
1. Reply to A Christian, Sam Harris, in Free Inquiry, June/July 2006
posted by Danesh Manik | 8:57 AM
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