THE QUESTION OF ETERNAL IMPORTANCE 

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

Mark 8:27-29 NKJV

²⁷ Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?”

²⁸ So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.” 

In the text before us Jesus asked two questions.  One was directed to the general population who were familiar with Him, both His life as the son of the carpenter Joseph, and His traveling ministry. 

It is evident that these were religious people with a background in the Hebrew Scripture.  They recognized something different about Him and were willing to accord Him a place among the Prophets.  Even further they admitted He evidenced a special mission from God.  They could say John the Baptist had risen from the dead, or He was the promised appearing of a revived Elijah.  He was accorded a special religious place among them.  They honored Him.  But they didn’t know Him.

The confession of the Jews of that day is the common confession of false Christianity known as Moderates or Liberals.  They cannot deny the historical fact of the man Jesus.  So they make Him to be what suits them, a great teacher, a mystic of great influence, or a revolutionary who was caught in His own web of deceit.

 They cannot deny the fact of His existence.  They can deny what they do not, will not, cannot believe that His was a supernatural existence from a supernatural purpose with a supernatural conclusion.

This brings Jesus to the second question.  This was directed to a different audience.  This was directed to believers.  The response is entirely different.  The confession is both true and necessary.

In Matthew 16:13-17, a parallel passage, after the response Jesus makes a statement that one overlooks to his great loss.  “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” 

There are three basic truths that are so primary they must not be overlooked.

1.       Jesus in His fullness cannot be known by natural intelligence.  This was not a new fact for those disciples.  In Matthew 11:27 He plainly states the mystery of the incarnation.  In Matthew 16:17, He states the source of His identity known by all His disciples.

The identity of Jesus is a revelation God makes to His elect.  This is no new fact that began with Jesus.  In Acts 7:2 Stephen states Abraham’s introduction to God, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.”  This is the principle of the saving knowledge of God.  Paul’s statement to the Corinthian church in I Cor. 2:6-14  is the same. “ However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing”.

⁷ But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,

⁸ which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

⁹ But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

¹⁰ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

¹¹ For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

¹³ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

¹⁴ But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

2.       Please look closely at verses 10,11, 14.  Look at the absolutes of man’s ignorance of God. It is a misunderstanding of Scripture to believe that anyone separate from a personal visitation of God’s Spirit can know Jesus in a saving way.

3.      That person and that person alone is blessed who truly knows the identity of this man Jesus.  All of the darkness of humanity lies in this failure. John 1:9  That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. 

Paul in Romans 3:11 takes this saving knowledge one step further.  Not only does the natural man not know God, but he has no desire for God.  He doesn’t “seek after God.” 

This brings us back to Jesus’ question.  Do you really know who that very ordinary appearing man with the most unusual credentials really is?  This is the question which will be point of divide between those saved and those lost.

 

Charles Wesley, in verse, describes this revelation of Christ to the blind sinner. 

And Can It Be

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray-
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.