Bridger asked the question, " are people good... or evil?"
Here are my first thoughts.
People are flawed. We have inherited the conseqences of the wrongs that have been done before us.. by our parents, and theirs.. all the way back to Adam. At the center of our flawed nature is a break with truth. We all lack truth. We are all deceived. We must seek to know the degree of our deception. People are absolutely capable of "good" things... Even an evil man will not give his son a serpent when he asks for bread. However our capacity and even our desire for good is distorted by the deception that we are under. We cannot cure our own deception by thinking our way out or learning our way through. It is our thinking and learning that have been affected! It is something that we need to be rescued from and healed of... and because you can't give away what you don't have. Truth can only come from the one that has never been decieved.
So you are saying that Jesus was never deceived because he knew Judas was going to betray him. Therefore, no deception? I thought the Bible concretely stated there was a deception.
ReplyDeleteThank you for The Heart of Man.
The New Testament accounts indicate that Jesus knew what was going on. Here are two descriptions of the "last supper".
ReplyDeleteHere's the related verses in Matthew 26 in Old King James (sorry, it's what I can access)
20 Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. 21 And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. 22 And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? 23 And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. 24 The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. 25 Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.
Here's another description of the same event in John 13.
26 Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. 27 And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. 28 Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. 29 For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. 30 He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night. 31 Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
Thank you so much for writing :-) you totally made my day!
ReplyDeleteI think its important to remember the perspective of the accounts that we read. They are after the fact looking back on some incredibly wierd things that happened. Events wierd enough (and significant enough) that there has been a battle ever since between people trying accurately preserve what happened and others trying to distort or erase them. At moments it's tough to know which voices are speaking truth. As we consider what we read, its valuable to recognize how our own deception influences how we experience what happened in that room that evening.