What If Jesus Really Meant What He
Said? – By Rev George Ong (Dated 1 Mar 2021)
Most of us would have been taken aback
and even shocked at the words of the Lord Jesus. This is because many of His
words and teachings are rather radical and hard to accept. Many, including
Bible scholars and commentators, have tried to explain away the hard sayings of
Jesus by the view that He didn’t really mean what He said.
But what if Jesus really meant what He
said?
What if His simple and straightforward
message was meant to be taken at face value that a child could understand it
even though it may be hard to accept?
What if Jesus really meant what He said
that the narrow road to eternal life is only for the few who would make it
(Matt 7:14)?
What if Jesus meant what He said that
we are to strive to enter the narrow gate and walk the narrow road of salvation
that many will try to enter but couldn’t (Lk 13:24)?
What if Jesus meant what He said that
the Christian life is one of reproach, persecution, suffering, and possible
martyrdom (Matt 5:10; 24:9, Mk 13:13; Lk 21:17; Jn 15:19-20)?
What if Jesus meant what He said that
if we do not hate our father, mother, wife, children, siblings (love Christ
more than we love them) and even our own lives, and give up everything, we cannot be His disciple (Lk 14:26,33)?
Why do we hold the view that Jesus
only meant some of the things He said and not others?
Almost every believer, without any
hesitance, would say that Jesus meant what He said in Matthew 11:28: “Come
to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you
rest,” and Matthew 28:20: “And surely I am with you always, to the very
end of the age.”
But many would have problems with what
Jesus said to the rich man that he had to obey the commandments of God and sell
away his possessions in order to inherit eternal life (Matt 19:18-21).
They would also have problems with what
Jesus said in the parable in Matthew 18:34-35: “In anger his master handed him over
to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will
treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Did Jesus really mean what he said to
the rich man in Matthew 19:18-21 and us in the parable in Matthew 18:34-35?
Strangely, we are not so sure that Jesus really meant those words. What if
Jesus was just as serious about those words as He was with all the rest of what
He said in the scriptures?
What if it were true that we would not
enter heaven if we do not take the narrow road, and only a few would travel on
it (Matt 7:14)?
What if it were true that we would
actually be banished to hell if we do not deal with the sin of anger, which, to
Jesus, is equivalent to murder (Matt 5:21-22)?
What if it were true that Jesus said
Father God would not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others (Matt 18:21-35)?
What if it were true that Jesus would
judge us and decide our eternal destiny based on our deeds, not just our
beliefs (Matt 25)?
What if it were true that Jesus would
bar those who fail to obey the Father’s will from entering the kingdom of
heaven (Matt 7:21-23)?
What if it were true that what you didn’t do – the five foolish virgins who didn’t
have enough oil, the servant who didn’t invest his only talent, and those who
didn’t take care of the least of their brethren – can send you to hell (Matt
25:8-13, 24-30, 41-46)?
Jesus must have meant everything that
He said whether those things were soothingly comforting or disturbingly
discomforting.
If we are honest, it now becomes
clear that the real reason we easily accept those things Jesus said is that
they are soothingly comforting. But those things we find hard to accept that
Jesus really meant what He said are that which are disturbingly discomforting.
What is said by Jesus that is easy or
hard to accept is finally not because it is an interpretive issue due to the
difficulty of a passage, but whether it impinges on our comfort zone?
Friends, we cannot allow our comfort
zone to affect how we see and interpret the scriptures and determine the truth
and acceptability of Jesus’ words and teachings.
If we do, we are no different from
Joseph Prince, who twists and distorts the scriptures through the eyes of his
cheap grace theology – thereby making his grace doctrine as the final authority
and not the scriptures.
Anything of what Jesus said in the
scriptures that goes along with his cheap grace doctrine, Joseph Prince readily
embraces. But anything of what Jesus said in the scriptures that demands a
price and represents costly grace, and does not flow with his cheap grace
theology, he resoundingly rejects or ‘imaginatively’ explains it away.
Would a true teacher of God’s word
selectively accept or reject the words and teachings of Jesus based on the
authority of his own human grace doctrine?
Rev George Ong