How Could They Not Understand?

Luke 18:31-34

One of my bosses and I were headed to a job near Durango Colorado. After following a sequence of dirt roads, our directions said to go until you come to the tree in the road, then turn left at the next driveway. Since the terrain was hilly we didn’t dare go fast because we didn’t know what to expect. Our assumption was that a tree had fallen and not yet been removed, and we didn’t want to hit it.

Suddenly we came to a large pinon tree growing squarely in the middle of the road. Whoever built the road had simply put one lane on each side of it rather than take out the tree. We had not even considered such a possibility, and yet the words exactly described the situation. The tree was literally in the road.

Isaiah 53:7-9 made it clear that Messiah would be tortured and killed. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

Several other passages also teach the same thing. One of these, Daniel 9:26, even identified when it would occur, 434 years after Jerusalem was rebuilt in Nehemiah‘s day. “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” Despite such clear statements, the Jews were expecting the Messiah to deliver Israel from the Roman occupation and establish his kingdom on earth. They had no more understanding of what God was saying than my boss and I had of what was meant by the tree in the road. If he died they could not imagine how he could do the other things so logically they apparently assumed the statements of his death referred to something else. From our vantage of knowing what happened, it is difficult to understand how they failed to understand, but we need to remember we have a lot more information. Jesus specifically tells his disciples what is to happen.

“Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.” (Luke 18:31-33)

Notice the detail Jesus goes into in describing what was to happen. He will be scourged or whipped, mocked, abused, and spit on before he is killed. Then he will rise from the dead the third day. How much clearer could he make it?

“And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.” (Luke 18:34)

While they understood the words exactly, and believed Jesus implicitly, What they had been taught, and their hope for national independence prevented their understanding what Jesus said. We have the same propensity to ignore or even reject things that do not jive with what we have been taught or hope for. We tend to get upset when these preconceptions are challenged.

Peter rebuked the Lord when he insisted he would be killed, rejecting what he said in Matthew 16:21-22. “From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee."

The Lord’s response to Peter for rejecting his word is one of the sharpest rebukes he ever gave. “But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” (Matthew 16:23) I wonder how often our doctrine is an offense to God because it is based on human ideas and logic rather than what God actually said.

The Bereans were greater Christians than the Thessalonians in Acts 17:11 because “…they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” They were willing to lay aside their preconceptions and honestly study to see if what they had heard was true, rather than trying to prove they were right. II Timothy 2:15 commands, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." If we are to please God with our doctrine we must study honestly.L