September 26, 2023

Preparing For The Days Ahead

“They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.” John 16:2-4 (NASB)

Martyrs for Christ are seen everywhere in history. Here is an example of those who stood the test of time for Christ: “Polycarp was probably a disciple of the Apostle John who wrote the books of the Gospel of John, the three Epistles of John, and the book of Revelation. Polycarp may have been one of the chief people responsible for compiling the New Testament of the Bible that we have today. Because of his refusal to burn incense to the Roman Emperor he was sentenced to burn at the stake. Tradition says that the flames did not kill him so he was stabbed to death.”[1]

      “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue,” If we look back at our studies from the past few months, we see the plot of the Jews. When the Jews had a problem with Jesus, their first response was to put Him out of the temple. This is seen in John 9:22, “... for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.” To the ordinary Jew, temple life was to be a part of society. To be cast out (or excommunicated) from the temple would be to end one’s association with Jewish culture, and worst of all, to be away from their God. This would lead to the ruin of their life and life after.

Paul was one of these people who thought he was doing right by God in his persecution of Christians. “... but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.” Robertson says, “The rabbis so felt when they crucified Jesus and when they persecuted the disciples (Acts 6:13; 7:57f.). No persecution is more bitter than when done by religious enthusiasts and bigots like the Spanish Inquisition.”[2] Calvin brings a strong thought to the thought of ex-communication: “Nay more, nothing is more desirable than to be driven out of that assembly from which Christ is banished. Yet let us observe that, though the abuse of ex-communication was so gross, still it did not effect the destruction of that discipline which God had appointed in his Church from the beginning; for, though Satan devotes his utmost efforts to corrupt all the ordinances of God, we must not yield to him, so as to take away, on account of corruptions, what God has appointed to be perpetual. Excommunication, therefore, not less than Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, must be brought back, by the correction of abuses, to its pure and lawful use.”[3] How thin would the church be today if these acts occurred? But as Jesus spoke these words, He was preparing the disciples for their days ahead. Trials were coming. Although He was able to speak to the injustices while He was with them there would come a time when the disciples could look back to His teachings. Then, they would remember what He told them to do when it came.

      We in the Christian church today do not know what persecution is. It is coming though...

[1] https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/10-famous-christian-martyrs/.

[2] Robertson, A. T. (1933). Word Pictures in the New Testament (Jn 16:2). Broadman Press.

[3] Calvin, J., & Pringle, W. (2010). Commentary on the Gospel according to John (Vol. 2, p. 134). Logos Bible Software.