Thoughts on Jesus of Nazareth: Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you shall in no way enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). In this scene from the movie Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord is continuing His healing and teaching ministry in the house of His heavenly Father--the Second Temple standing in Jerusalem. Indeed, during the Passion week Jesus spent all of His ministry time mainly in the Temple. When He did come to cleanse it, this fulfilled the great Messianic prophecies of Daniel and Malachi. Daniel 9:26 foretold Messiah would come and be cut off in death before the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans. Malachi 4:2 also predicts Messiah will suddenly come to His Temple and will bring the New Covenant during that time. And this is what Jesus did as Messiah in fulfillment of these two First Coming prophecies. Director Franco Zeffirelli merges two events into one in this scene from the life of Yeshua--Matthew 21:14-17 with 21:28-32. Jesus is spending time ministering to the young children with their mothers. The Greek text in Matthew may indicate these children were of Bar Mitzvah age--12 years old.The little children are calling Jesus the Son of God and the Son of David. These are biblical names for the Messiah. The children are calling Jesus the Messiah! Suddenly, two grim and sour looking Pharisees come to the fore and sternly rebuke Jesus for allowing this blasphemy to be spoken! Obviously, they still refuse to believe that Jesus is Messiah in spite of the fact He has demonstrated over and over through fulfillment of Messianic prophecy and the performance of miracles He is Messiah. Jesus reply is to quote Psalm 8:2--Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Thou hast perfected praise. Look closely here at what Jesus was affirming in His rebuke of the Pharisees. The simple meaning of Psalm 8:2, which the Lord who authored it knew, was that it is God who places the praises that children vocalize to Him in their hearts. So Jesus is claiming here to be that very God who does this and the children in the Temple were doing what He, God now in the flesh, ordained them to do! Jesus takes it a step higher to infinity here. For He not only affirms the childrens declaration of Him to be the human, Jewish Messiah to be true, but that He is the very God who has ordained them to praise Him. Not only that, Jesus was claiming He had the right to receive worship as God from them--all of this based on what is written in Psalm 8:2! Earlier in the Lords ministry, Jesus said that we have to be like these children to become heirs of Gods kingdom (Matthew 18:3). We must be open, eager, humble and teachable and willing to believe in dependence on the Lord, as if children looking only to Him--if we are to be saved. The Pharisees showed otherwise. Next they come up to Him and challenge His authority asking, By what authority do You do these things? Here the same two Pharisees acknowledge Jesus has authority--for they saw too many miracles and heard the power and force of His teaching that they could not be dismissed out of hand. Using the common rabbinic method, Jesus answers their question with a question: Before I answer, I will ask you a question; from where did John the Baptist receive authority--from heaven or from men? The Pharisees answer, We dont know, we cant tell. By this answer the reluctant leaders show they did not have the authority or ability to be spiritual leaders of the people. If they said John was from God, then they would have to automatically accept Jesus as Messiah since Johns mission was to point Israel to Him. So Jesus did not recognize the Pharisees competence to tell Him where His Messianic authority came from in that they already did not believe in Him. Jesus then gives the parable of the two sons to the children within the hearing of the two Pharisees who are standing nearby. The first son says no to the fathers command, but later on obeys it, while the second son says yes to it, but does not obey in the end. Jesus then asks which son obeyed. The first one did. The Lord then gently and compassionately warns the Pharisees that for all their verbal boasts about being believers in the God of Israel, they were not obeying His servant John by repenting of sin and trusting in Jesus the Messiah as God directed John to instruct Israel to do. The worst sinners of Jewish society at the time (tax collectors and harlots) were repenting and believing in Jesus. They would find entrance into the the kingdom of heaven before the most religious because they believed God and followed that belief with the proper actions God requires, whereas the Pharisees claimed to verbally follow God, but by their acts of unbelief towards Jesus proved otherwise. Take heed professed Christian to the word of the Lord here: Saying you are a Christian does not make you a Christian. A true saving faith will follow with loving obedience to what the Lord commands (James 2). The first son represented the tax collectors and harlots and the second son represented the Pharisees. The scene ends with a shocked and surprised look on the Pharisees faces--that someone like Jesus would dare talk to them this way was unthinkable to them. After this, their desire to have Jesus killed only grows! Begin the movie at 4:11:33 and end it at 4:14:42. Click on: https://youtube/watch?v=tFUTEWi5EsY
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 20:08:37 +0000