8:11-13
The people had come to listen to Jesus and some of them to be healed. The Pharisees came to judge Jesus, to test Him. So the “people” were far wiser than the “elite”. The Pharisees saw themselves as judges of the matter, and of Jesus. Just think how ridiculous this was, for Jesus is the Son of God, who are they, or anyone else, to judge Jesus? Yet we can do the same today, and many do. We can think that we are here to decide whether or not Jesus is the Son of God, to decide whether or not the gospel is in fact the only way of salvation. But think about this for a moment. If Jesus is the Son of God, and if the gospel is God’s chosen way of salvation then our job is not to judge Jesus or the gospel, but to believe Jesus and the gospel. But this also presents us with a problem, for there are other individuals, religions, philosophies that claim to be “right”. So in one sense at least we have to make a judgement, but that judgement is about deciding to whom or what we will bow down to. We have to submit to something, for we know that we ourselves are not gods. In the words of Bob Dylan, everybody has to serve somebody.
The Pharisees wanted a sign from heaven, ie an indication from heaven that Jesus was who He claimed to be. Given all the things that Jesus had been doing one might wonder how blind were the Pharisees? Yet if someone does not want to believe no amount of evidence will convince them. Jesus gave the Pharisees short shrift. There is a time to answer people’s questions, and there is a time to ignore them. Just because someone asks it does not necessarily mean we need to answer (Prov 26:4,5).
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