FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
August 19
CHRIST UPLIFTED: ‘BEHOLD THE SON OF MAN’ – NOT THE ‘MAN OF SIN’! (Part 6)
A SECRET INTERVIEW, ITS UNIVERSALITY AND ETERNAL RESULTS:
Nicodemus “greatly desired an INTERVIEW with Jesus, but shrank from seeking Him openly. It would be too HUMILIATING for a RULER OF THE JEWS to acknowledge himself in sympathy with a teacher AS YET SO LITTLE KNOWN. And should his visit come to the knowledge of the Sanhedrin, it would draw upon him their SCORN AND DENUNCIATION.
He resolved upon a SECRET INTERVIEW, excusing this on the ground that if he were to go openly, others might follow his example. Learning by special inquiry the Savior’s place of retirement in the Mount of Olives, he waited until the city was HUSHED IN SLUMBER, and then sought Him.
“In the presence of Christ, Nicodemus felt a strange timidity, which he endeavored to conceal under an air of COMPOSURE AND DIGNITY. ‘Rabbi,’ he said, ‘we know that Thou art a TEACHER COME FROM GOD: for no MAN [mortal human being or soul] can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him.’
By speaking of Christ’s RARE GIFTS as a teacher, and also His WONDERFUL POWER to perform miracles, he hoped to pave the way for his INTERVIEW. His words were designed to invite CONFIDENCE but they really expressed UNBELIEF. [Take note of that!].
He did NOT acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah, BUT ONLY A TEACHER SENT FROM GOD. [Sounds familiar isn’t it!]!”- DA 170, 171.
Ask yourself this question: If an intellectual, highly educated man of letters, a teacher of the Israel, immensely wealthy and prominent member of the Sanhedrin, the highest governing national authority of the very chosen people from Abraham, through whom the promised “Seed of a woman” (Gen. 3: 15) was to come, and who were responsible for first receiving Him as their King and introducing Him to the world as the promised Savior of fallen mankind——did not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah, verily God Creator incarnate in human flesh and blood, the only begotten Son of God and only immaculately sinless Son of man, the Author, Source, Giver, and Sustainer of LIFE eternal, original, unborrowed, and underived——how about you and me, born two thousand years after that fateful night Nicodemus had that secret interview with Jesus?
(To be continued). Bless all, NMF.