The Lord Jesus knew their hearts and all their motives. This is why He answered them in these words which must have intensified their hatred and which must have confirmed some of His friends in the idea that perhaps He was out of His mind. Here again was the announcement of His death and His resurrection. They should have no other sign but that.
The men of Christ’s day heard Him speak and saw Him work and were at a loss to account for Him. They were not willing to call Him God, for that would have meant the acceptance of His standards of righteousness and the consequent condemnation of themselves. Yet they knew He was not an ordinary man. They asked Him whether He were Elijah, John or another of the prophets. They called Him a wine–bibber, as though to associate His sayings with those of some of His companions.
It must be realized that there was something in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that was not intelligible on the basis of any ordinary human explanation. His enemies saw this and said that He had a demon, His friends and family tried to protect Him from this outrageous accusation by the equally foolish apology that He was a lunatic! What an example of dullness of perception of the human mind untouched by the Spirit of God! It is no wonder that God says that "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).
In the book of the Psalms, there is the great prophetic picture of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ (Psalm 22), which begins with the words He uttered on the cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" There is a phrase in the midst of the well-known description that needs a little explaining. We read, "Many bulls have compassed Me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset Me round" (Psalm 22:12). One commentator writes as follows of this passage, "The mighty ones in the crowd are here marked by the tearful eye of their victim. The priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees, rulers and captains bellowed round the cross like wild cattle, fed in the fat and solitary pastures of Bashan, full of strength and fury; they stamped and foamed around the innocent One, and longed to gore Him to death with their cruelties. . ." Yes, and adding one further word: that which most infuriates a bull is the sight and smell of blood. That which most infuriates the followers of the Pharisees in our day is the doctrine of salvation by the blood of Jesus Christ.
The idea that it is possible to judge whether or not a man is a Christian by the outward manifestations of his life is an idea that Jesus rejected on several occasions. The disciples asked if they were to root up the tares that the enemy had planted in the midst of the wheat. The Lord told them that they were to let them alone, for in seeking to destroy tares they might root up some of the wheat. God has His program of good works which He desires the believer to experience. He tells us that the born again ones have been "created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that ye should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10), but He also tells us that some Christians are "babes in Christ," and are "carnal," walking as unsaved men so that it would be difficult for the outsider to tell the difference (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
There are those who claim that the Kingdom of God is within the hearts of all men. There are some very broad, liberal interpretations of the Scripture which seize upon the famous phrase, "The Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). They would try to make it mean that the Kingdom and power of God are to be found within the hearts of men, and that all that is necessary is to appeal to this highest element within man. Such an idea is palpably nonsensical. In the first place, Jesus said these words to a group of His bitterest enemies, the very men who later crucified Him. The true translation is, "The Kingdom of God is in the midst of you," or "among you." It is the same idea that He gave when they accused Him of working through the power of the devil. "No," was His answer. "The work I am doing is the proof that I am the Messiah. Heaven’s King is in the midst of you. This is the power which you see at work."
