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Honey From The Rock Psalm 81:16 |
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PARADOX OF THE CROSS #6 This entry was posted on 02-11-2009 and is filed under PARADOXES. Paradox of the Cross #6 - Jesus was rejected by men that we might be accepted by God. It is my opinion that John 1:10, 11 are among the saddest verses in the Gospels. Let's read them together. "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (NKJV). The world - that He made - did not know Him. His own - the Jewish people, for Jesus was born and died a Jew, did not receive Him. How crushing would that be? The prophet predicted this terrible rejection. "He is despised and rejected by men...And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him" (Isa. 53:3). At some point in our lives, we rejected Him too!
What a twist there is in this paradox! Our Lord was rejected by men in order that we might be accepted by God! Paul writes about Israel's rejection of the Messiah. "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!" (Rom. 11:11-12 NKJV). Most of my readers are Gentiles. Had it not been for the rejection of Jesus by His own, we would have never come to know Christ. Those who do receive Him are given the right to become the children of God (see John 1:12). NOTE: Tomorrow we shall "interrupt this program" for a special devotion on the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. And someone else's too! |
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