Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 21 May 22, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
They Knew Him Not
Dave Hunt - Berean Call
Any person of ordinary
intelligence, anywhere and at any time, can know that God exists as the Creator
of the universe (Ps 19:1-6; Rom
When the gospel is preached, the
sinner knows by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that this is the truth
and is the only means of escape from the wrath to come.
There are, however, many persons
who resist the witness of creation and of conscience. We should be prepared to
reason with them. God offers to all: "Come now and let us reason
together...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow..." (Is
We give skeptics valid reasons why
we accept the Bible as God's Word by faith-but it is not a blind faith. As
Peter indicates, there are reasons for our faith. There are many proofs for the
Bible, without which we could not demonstrate to unbelievers that it is
infallible. Not that we can understand everything Scripture says. That God is
the I AM (Ex 3:14), for example, without beginning or end (Ps 90:2; 103:17;
106:48) who created the universe out of nothing (Heb 11:3) is more than our
finite minds can understand-, but we know it must be.
Everything in the Bible that we are able to
verify (historically, scientifically, prophetically, etc.) has proved to be true.
It is therefore reasonable to believe whatever else the Bible says that we
cannot verify. Statements that are beyond our comprehension and thus
unverifiable include that God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24),
that man is made in His moral and spiritual image (Gen 1:26,27) and is body,
soul, and spirit (1 Thes 5:23), that Christ will rapture us from earth to
heaven as promised (Jn 14:3; 1 Thes 4:13-18), and
that there is a final judgment and a lake of fire-where the damned will be
eternally.
As we have often pointed out,
prophecy is the great proof that God exists, that the Bible is His Word, and
that Christ is His Son and man's only Savior. Prophecies were given to
indisputably identify the Messiah.
Proof does not, however, guarantee
faith. There must be a willing heart. In spite of hundreds of prophecies
proving that Jesus was the Messiah, the Jews rejected Him and remain largely in unbelief today.
We've often given many proofs that
the Bible is true. We have not emphasized, however, that, with few exceptions,
Scripture honestly reveals the flaws and sins of the best saints-even when such
facts could have been avoided. Such honesty gives the ring of truth to
Scripture. One of the strangest accounts concerns the disciples' unbelief in
the face of Christ's resurrection. In fact, their skepticism and apparent
unwillingness to believe, even when Christ met them face to face, seems so
unlikely that no fiction writer would have dared to portray it.
Christ indicts His disciples with
"hardness of heart" (Mk
There is a similar rejection of
truth today, even among those who claim to be Christians. Many who say they are
"born again" (including seminary professors and pastors) are not even
saved. A December 2003 Barna poll revealed
that 35 percent of those who claimed to
be "born again" didn't believe Christ rose from the dead; 26
percent said all religions are equal;
and 50 percent said good works would get a person to heaven.
All of the disciples as well as
the Rabbis-and even John the Baptist ("Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?" - Lk
7:19-20), who was "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's
womb" (Lk 1:15)-expected the Messiah to set up
His kingdom when He first came to
Yet numerous prophecies made it
clear that the Messiah's first coming would be as the Lamb of God to be
crucified: "they pierced my hands and my feet" (Ps 22:16); "they
shall look upon me, whom they have
pierced" (Zec 12:10). The prophets
declared that He would be "despised and rejected...wounded for our
transgressions...taken from prison and from judgment...cut off out of the land
of the living...his grave [would be] with the wicked" (Is 53:3,5,8,9) and that He would rise again the third day (Ps
Moreover, they also had to ignore
the many times Christ himself had told them plainly that He was going to be
crucified and rise from the dead the third day.
After Christ's resurrection, the
angels at the tomb reminded the women: "Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in
At least seven different occasions
on which He made His death and resurrection plain to His disciples are recorded
in the Gospels: (Mt 16:21; 17:22,23; 20:17-19; Mk 8:31,32; 9:31,32; Lk 13:32,33; Jn 12:32-34). Here
are some examples: "For he taught his disciples, and said...the Son of man
is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and... he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and
were afraid to ask him" (Mk
Sometimes Christ veiled His
speech: "There came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee
out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye,
and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to
morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected...for it cannot be that a
prophet perish out of Jerusalem." (Lk 13:31-33).
Obviously, He was referring to His death and resurrection.
Another time, the Pharisees asked,
"What sign shewest thou unto us...? Jesus
answered...Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said
the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear
it up in three days? But he spake
of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the
scripture, and the word which Jesus had said" (Jn
The rabbis knew what Christ meant.
Yet they sought false witnesses to twist His words at His trial before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin: "At the last...two false
witnesses...said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and
to build it in three days" (Mt 26:60- 61).
They knew, however, that He
referred to His resurrection: "Now the next day... the chief priests and
Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that
deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three
days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre
be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal
him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error
shall be worse than the first" (Mt 27:62-64).
The disciples' unbelief is itself
unbelievable. Jesus spoke at length with two followers on the road to Emmaus, yet they knew Him
not. Yes, it says that Christ appeared "in another form" to them.
That phrase, however, does not mean that He disguised Himself. It refers rather
to the disciples' unbelief that blinded them. Luke explains: "But their
eyes were holden that they should not know him"
(Lk 24:16).
That they knew Him not didn't mean
that He was unrecognizable but that He was the last person they expected to
see. Had they known the Scriptures, they would have been certain that He had
resurrected. For that ignorance, Christ rebuked them sharply: "O fools,
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into
his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them
in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk
24:25-27). Would He reprimand us as well for our ignorance of "all that
the prophets have spoken"?
What a Bible study these two
experienced as they walked with this amazing stranger! Yet having learned the prophecies
concerning the Messiah from the Lord himself, they still knew Him not! Faith is
a matter of the heart, and they were "slow of heart to
believe...." We need to ask the
Lord to search our own hearts to be certain that we, too, are not blinded in
certain areas by unbelief. At supper, "their eyes were [at last] opened,
and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked
with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Lk 24:31,32). Faith, though
inexcusably slow, came at last through the scriptures Christ had revealed.
Not to know the Lord Jesus Christ
carries serious consequences. It means a false view of the Savior and thus a
false hope of salvation. We must believe in the true Christ of God if we are to
have eternal life and be in the Father's house of many mansions for eternity.
As Christ declared in His high-priestly prayer to His Father, "And this is
life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent" (Jn 17:3).