Chapter 30 - Judgment on Christ Rejecters (12:38-42)

30 Judgment on Christ Rejecters (12:38-42)

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (12:38-42)

Man’s natural sinfulness and lostness are not always apparent. Many outwardly religious, moral, and decent people say they believe in God and are kind and helpful to others. Even completely irreligious people sometimes live law-abiding lives and behave as good neighbors. Sometimes the kindly attitude and good works of unbelievers even put the behavior of some Christians to shame. From the human perspective it can be difficult to see how such people could be inherently sinful and alienated from God. Many of them speak well of God, have high behavioral standards, are loving husbands and wives, caring parents, fair employers or employees, good citizens, and faithful friends. They may even go to church regularly, give generously to its support, serve on its boards and committees, and teach in Sunday school. How, it is often asked, could such obviously “good” people be spiritually depraved and lost?

Although truly righteous people will manifest the godly evidence of that righteousness, some people appear to be righteous who are not, because man’s basic sinfulness is not most fully revealed by what he does or says—despite the importance of those evidences, as Jesus has just made clear (vv. 33-37). Sin is most clearly and indisputably manifested by how a person responds to Jesus Christ. No matter what a person’s outward life is like, his innate spiritual nature and his true attitude toward God are seen with absolute certainty in his attitude toward Jesus Christ. The person who rejects Christ is dead spiritually and an enemy of God, no matter what religious profession he may make or how morally and selflessly he may appear to live. The issue of sin becomes perfectly focused when a person confronts Christ, and the crux of damning sin is rejection of Him. Men are convicted of “sin because they do not believe in Me,” Jesus said (John 16:9).

When Jesus met with His disciples in the Upper Room to celebrate the last Passover meal with them, Israel’s unbelief and rejection had reached their climax. Plans for Jesus’ death were already set in motion; and that was the night of His betrayal, arrest, and mock trials that led to His crucifixion.

As Jesus spoke to the disciples on that occasion, He revealed many deep insights into His divine plan and gave wonderful promises of encouragement and strength for the time after He was gone. In addition to such positive and appealing promises as the Holy Spirit’s being with them to teach and empower, He gave the less appealing but just as certain promise that the world would hate them just at it hated Him. “Remember the word that I said to you,” He said; “‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also” (John 15:20). Then He gave the reason behind the persecution: “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well” (vv. 21-24).

Jesus’ words on that occasion applied to everyone who had seen and rejected Him, but they applied with direct force to the Jewish religious leaders, those who represented the nation of Israel, God’s specially chosen, blessed, and enlightened people. On the surface, those leaders appeared to be righteous men of God, dedicated to His service and to His Word. They wore their religion on their sleeves for all men to see as a supposed testimony to their devotion to God. But when Jesus confronted them, their masks of godliness were ripped off and their real spiritual condition and their devotion to self were laid bare. Despite religious and moral pretensions, their hatred and rejection of Jesus proved their hatred and rejection of God. Both spiritually and morally they were “whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt. 23:27-28). They were a brood of spiritual vipers (12:34).

Had Jesus not come into their midst and declared to them God’s truth and demonstrated God’s power, their true evil natures would not have surfaced so dramatically. But Jesus left them no out as He confronted them with truth and righteousness incarnate. To reject Him is to reject truth, and to despise Him is to despise righteousness. To hate Jesus is to hate God; to hate the Son is to hate the Father (John 15:23).

A person may successfully hide his sin for a long time (cf. 1 Tim. 5:24), but when he rejects Jesus Christ, he reveals his true corrupt nature. No matter how good his life appears to be on the surface, and no matter what reasons or rationalizations may be given, the person who refuses to accept the lordship and saviorhood of Christ proves himself to be the most damnable of sinners and in the most literal and absolute sense a hater of God.

Until the present point in Jesus’ ministry, the scribes and Pharisees had generally managed to keep a facade of tolerance regarding Jesus. Because of His popularity and obvious supernatural power, they had kept their opposition largely to themselves. Much of their thinking and planning would be lost to us were it not that Jesus read their minds and openly exposed their wicked schemes. He continually pulled away their masks of false piety and refused to let them hide their evil character. It is for that perhaps more than for anything else that they hated him so intensely.

The attitude of the scribes and Pharisees is generally characteristic of any person who maintains an appearance of godliness but who does not have saving trust in Jesus Christ. It is especially true of members of denominations, cults, or other religious groups who purport to be followers of Christ. They have a false and distorted view of Jesus, just as the scribes and Pharisees had a false and distorted view of the Messiah. They may verbally praise God, honor Jesus, extol Scripture, and often hold high standards of morality—but when they are confronted with Jesus’ own claims of unique divine sonship and unique sacrifice for sin, they cannot hide their rejection of the true gospel and the true God. Like the scribes and Pharisees, they are deeply offended at the suggestion that their religion and their works, not to mention their hearts, are not acceptable to God and that they can be made right with Him only through humble and obedient trust in His Son to remove their sin. Their refusal to accept Christ as He declared Himself to be proves their rejection of God, because God’s only true and perfect revelation of Himself is through the Son. They do not love God, but hate and despise Him, because they hate and despise the Son and the way of salvation He provides.

By the time the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus to show them a special sign, their opposition to Him had already hardened into implacable hatred. Even before Jesus accused them of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and of thereby eternally forfeiting God’s forgiveness, they had been planning “how they might destroy Him” (12:14). He then told them they were corrupt trees bearing corrupt fruit, were a brood of spiritual vipers, and that the evil of their words proved the evil of their hearts, for which they faced God’s condemnation (vv. 33-37). Jesus had castigated them as strongly and unequivocally as was possible.

The more the Jewish leaders verbally attacked Jesus and sought to entrap Him, the more He exposed the foolishness, insensitivity, and ungodliness of their traditions and attitudes. They had failed to show that He had broken any scriptural commandment, that He had profaned the Sabbath, or that He cast out demons by the power of Satan. Because of their repeated embarrassment in failing to prove Jesus was either teaching or doing anything unscriptural, the Pharisees were concerned about losing their reputation with the people. They wanted to be sure the next attempt to discredit Him would succeed, and they believed that demanding a special sign from Him would be certain to prove that He was an imposter and deceiver and would save their own reputations.

THE LAST SIGN

Some of the scribes and Pharisees probably refers to a special committee delegated to present this final challenge to Jesus. Scribes had to be at least thirty years old and had to have spent many years in intensive study of the Hebrew scriptures, especially the Torah, or law, and of the rabbinic traditions as set forth in the Talmud. They were known as the supreme interpreters and teachers of the law (see Matt. 22:35; Luke 10:25). Although some scribes belonged to the party of the Sadducees, most of them were Pharisees, which explains their frequently being mentioned together in the gospels. They were the authorized interpretive scholars and lawyers of Judaism and were generally held in great honor.

That they answered Jesus’ scathing accusations by asking Him a seemingly forthright and nondefensive question indicates they were biting their tongues, as it were, determined to give the impression of civility and patience until the appropriate moment to condemn Him.

THE CHALLENGE

“Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” (12:38b)

That group of scholars and religious leaders considered no person outside their own ranks to be qualified to teach them the least truth about Jewish law and tradition. Their addressing Jesus as Teacher was therefore both sarcastic and hypocritical. It was sarcastic in that they considered Jesus to be a heretic and blasphemer, and it was their intention here, as on previous occasions, to expose Him as a false teacher. It was hypocritical in that they used the title to show mock respect for Him in front of the crowd and possibly to try to put Him off guard by flattery.

The request we want to see a sign from You amounted to an official demand for Jesus to prove Himself to be the Messiah. For the sake of the people, the question was posed in a seemingly courteous and respectful form, but its purpose was to prove that Jesus was not the Messiah but a blasphemous imposter. Because the scribes and Pharisees were the uncontested experts on the law, the people would expect them to know how to properly test the claims of anyone who posed as the Messiah. The implication of the question was that, if Jesus truly was the Messiah, He would have no trouble performing an appropriate sign to validate His identity.

The kind of sign they wanted is not specified, but it must have been an absolutely extraordinary one and of perhaps worldwide magnitude—such as causing the sun to stand still or a constellation to change its configuration or the moon to race across the sky. Jesus had already performed thousands of public miracles of healing, casting out demons, and raising the dead. The additional sign now demanded was therefore obviously meant to be on an even grander scale.

From a parallel passage in Matthew 16 we learn that “the Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Him asked Him to show them a sign from heaven” (v. 1). “A sign from heaven” would be a vast and spectacular sign, one that came from heaven and perhaps could be seen in the heavens, such as those just mentioned relating to the sun, moon, and stars.

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul noted the commonly known fact that “Jews ask for signs” (1:22). Although the great majority of the Old Testament prophets did not perform miracles or confirm their God-given messages by anything but the truth of what they said, the Jews had come to expect miraculous signs to accompany every true prophet or great man of God, especially the Messiah.

According to fallacious Jewish tradition, a certain Rabbi Eliezar was challenged in regard to the authority of his teaching. To prove his genuineness, he is said to have made a locust tree move 300 cubits and a stream of water flow backwards. When he caused the wall of a building to lean forward, it was returned upright only by the bidding of another rabbi. Finally Eliezar exclaimed, “If the law is as I teach, let it be proved from heaven.” At that moment, the story goes, a voice came out of the sky saying, “What have you to do with Rabbi Eliezar? The instruction is as he teaches.”

No doubt the scribes and Pharisees wanted just such a celestial sign from Jesus—a spectacular, sensational demonstration of supernatural power. They perhaps expected Him to fulfill Joel’s prophecy of turning the moon into blood (Joel 2:31) or to paint the sky a rainbow of colors with a wave of His hand. Or perhaps He would cause a great procession of angels to descend a heavenly stairway into the Temple, heralding Him with anthems of praise as they came.

It is not that the Jewish leaders expected Jesus to perform any such sign, because their very purpose was to prove He could not do such a thing and thereby to discredit Him in the eyes of the people. Although no Old Testament prophecy predicted that the Messiah would perform a sign of the type they demanded, the leaders gave the impression to the people that such was the case.

THE REPLY

But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (12:39-40)

Jesus responded to the hypocritical challenge by first declaring that the very request for a sign reflected the wicked expectations of an evil and adulterous generation. The scribes and Pharisees represented the nation of Israel, which had wandered far from God’s Word and fellowship and which had become enmeshed in the superficial, self-righteous, and legalistic religion those leaders epitomized.

The unbelieving Jews were not only physically and mentally but spiritually adulterous because they had breached the vows of their unique covenant relationship with God, a relationship the Old Testament frequently speaks of in terms of marriage (see Ps. 73:27; Isa. 50:1; Jer. 3:6-10; 13:27; Hos. 9:1). Their idolatry, immorality, unbiblical traditions, and hardness of heart marked them as an evil people. During the Babylonian captivity Jews had forsaken formal idolatry, in the sense of worshiping physical objects carved from wood, stone, or metal. But in its place they erected idols of man-made tradition in which they trusted and put their hope. They had abandoned the Canaanite gods for ones of their own making and in doing so were just as much in rebellion against the true God as when they offered sacrifices to Baal or Molech.

A Jew who faithfully served God under the covenant given to Moses would accept His Son when He came, because anyone rightly related to the Father could not fail to recognize the Son—just as did the godly Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:25-38), John the Baptist (Matt. 3:14), and the twelve disciples, except Judas (4:20-22; Mark 3:13; Luke 5:27-28; John 1:41, 49). Because they knew the Father, they knew the Son and did not need a sign to verify His identity.

Consequently, Jesus continued, no such sign shall be given. It was not possible for Jesus to perform a miracle of the sort the scribes and Pharisees wanted—not because He did not have the power to do it, but because it was utterly contrary to God’s nature and plan. Jesus could easily have performed it from the standpoint of His omnipotence, but not from the standpoint of His moral nature—because God is not in the business of bending Himself to satisfy the whims of evil people who have no relationship to Him.

On the other hand, He said, another kind of sign would be given: the sign of Jonah the prophet. When Jonah refused to obey God’s call to preach to Nineveh and fled to Tarshish on a ship, the Lord sent a great storm and Jonah was thrown into the sea to save the rest of the men on board. God then caused him to be swallowed by “a great fish,” or sea monster, in whose stomach he remained unharmed for three days and nights (Jonah 1:17).

And just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, Jesus said, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The Old Testament contains two kinds of prophecy regarding Christ. One is what may be called the verbally predictive, in which specific and sometimes detailed predictions are given. Such prophecies include those that the Christ would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14), that He would be a descendant of David who would rule the entire earth with justice and righteousness (Jer. 23:5), and that He would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2).

The second type of messianic prophecy is typical, in which an Old Testament person or event foreshadowed the person or work of Christ. We can be certain of typical predictions only if they are specifically identified as such in the New Testament. Here Jesus Himself tells us that Jonah’s spending three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster before he was vomited up on the shore typified the burial of the Son of Man, for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth before His resurrection. It was a predictive prophecy in picture rather than in specific word. Just as Jonah was buried in the depths of the sea, Jesus was buried in the depths of the earth; and just as Jonah came out of the great fish after three days, Jesus came out of the grave after three days.

Jesus obviously believed in the full literalness of the biblical account of Jonah. If Jonah had not been literally swallowed and miraculously protected while submerged for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, that event could not have typified Jesus’ literal burial and resurrection. In light of Jonah’s hardhearted stubbornness, it is not difficult to believe that he would lie about his experience; but it is difficult indeed to believe that Jesus would join Jonah in such duplicity or be mistaken about the historicity of the story. In declaring Jonah’s experience to be a type of His own burial and resurrection, Jesus also verified the authenticity of Jonah’s account of himself.

The matter of three days and three nights is often used either to prove Jesus was mistaken about the time He would actually spend in the tomb or that He could not have been crucified on Friday afternoon and raised early on Sunday, the first day of the week. But as in modern usage, the phrase “day and night” can mean not only a full 24-hour day but any representative part of a day. To spend a day, or a day and night, visiting in a neighboring city does not require spending 24 hours there. It could refer to arriving in the late morning and leaving a few hours after dark. In the same way, Jesus’ use of three days and three nights does not have to be interpreted as 72 hours, three full 24-hour days. The Jewish Talmud held that “any part of a day is as the whole.” Jesus was simply using a common, well-understood generalization.

Jesus’ resurrection after three days was not the kind of sign the unbelieving religious leaders expected and demanded, but it was infinitely more miraculous and wonderful. It was the final sign Jesus directly gave to the world of His messianic credentials and saving power. In His glorified body He appeared miraculously to His disciples on numerous occasions after the resurrection and then dramatically ascended before their eyes into heaven. He also continued to work miracles through the apostles as verification of their unique authority in His behalf. But the resurrection was the last sign given to the world that involved Jesus directly. His own resurrection, Jesus told the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees, would be the only sign from heaven they would receive.

But the Jewish leaders, and most of the Jewish people, did not believe that sign either. Because they did not “listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither [would] they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). The Jewish leaders not only rejected the truth of Jesus’ resurrection but paid the soldiers who guarded the tomb to spread the false story that His disciples had stolen His body to create the illusion of a resurrection (Matt. 28:11-15).

When a person is confronted with the living Christ and with His atoning death and resurrection, the matter of that person’s eternal destiny is determined. To turn your back on Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for your sins is to show yourself to be the vilest of sinners, no matter how superficially religious and moral you might otherwise be.

THE LAST SENTENCE

The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (12:41-42)

Continuing with His illustration from the life of Jonah, Jesus contrasts the response of the pagan Ninevites to Jonah’s message with the response of the Jewish leaders to His. In one of His most scathing denunciations, the Lord tells the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees, those who thought they were the best of God’s favored people, that the men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

Despite Jonah’s reluctance to preach God’s message to the wicked, corrupt, idolatrous Assyrians of Nineveh, when the prophet finally began to preach, God effected an unprecedented awakening. “Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ashes” (Jonah 3:5-6). Covering oneself with sackcloth and sitting in ashes was an oriental way of showing genuine repentance and sorrow for wrongdoing. Because of their sincere repentance and belief, “God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it” (v. 10).

The men of Nineveh not only were Gentiles, and therefore apart from God’s covenant and law, but they were especially wicked and brutal, even by pagan standards. They had no previous knowledge of the true God or of His will, yet their repentance of sin and their belief in God brought them spiritual salvation and spared them physical destruction. Jonah did not preach a message of hope but of judgment: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). The prophet despised the Ninevites and preached to them only under the Lord’s compulsion. He performed no miracles and gave no promise of deliverance, but on the basis of that brief, direct, and confrontative message of doom from a loveless prophet, the people of Nineveh threw themselves on God’s mercy and were saved.

Israel, on the other hand, was the chosen covenant people of God, privileged to have been given His law, His promises, His leading, His protection, and His special blessings in ways too numerous to list. Yet her people would not repent and turn from their sin even when God’s own Son, something greater than Jonah, preached to them in gentle humility and gracious love, performed thousands of miracles as attesting signs of His divine authority, and offered God’s gracious forgiveness and eternal life with Him in heaven. God’s own chosen and uniquely blessed people turned their backs on Him—and for that they would stand under the condemnation of former pagans at the judgment.

Not only that, Jesus continued, but the Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it. The Queen of ancient Sheba, the country of the Sabeans, was often called the Queen of the South, because her country was in lower Arabia, some 1,200 miles to the southeast of Israel. The Sabeans were an extremely prosperous people, having earned their wealth from highly productive agriculture and from the lucrative Mediterranean to India trade routes that passed through their land. Yet the wealthy and prominent Queen of the South—who was a Gentile, a woman, a pagan, and an Arab—came to visit Solomon, the king of Israel, to learn God’s wisdom from him and to pay him homage (1 Kings 10:1-13).

To the people of ancient Palestine, the land of the South seemed to be at the ends of the earth. Joel referred to it as “a distant nation” (Joel 3:8), and Jeremiah spoke of it as “a distant land” (Jer. 6:20). Yet the Queen and her large entourage made the long and arduous trip across the Arabian desert to hear the wisdom of Solomon, a man of God. She brought treasure upon treasure to the king, who was already wealthy beyond description, as a testimony of honor and gratitude for the godly wisdom he taught.

Again Jesus makes a comparison to the rebellious Jews who rejected Him. “That pagan woman,” He said, in effect, “brought great treasures to Solomon and sat at his feet to glean wisdom from his lips. Yet behold, when I, something greater than Solomon, came here to you, preaching not only wisdom but salvation from sin and the way of eternal life, you refused to come. Therefore, that pagan Queen will rise up with this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it. That Gentile woman, with no advantage and no invitation, came on her own initiative to learn God’s truth from Solomon. But you Jews of this generation—who have had countless centuries of divine advantage and blessing and who have the invitation of God’s own Son to come to Him and be saved—have rejected the Son and thereby rejected forgiveness and eternal life. One day you will stand condemned even by the faith of Gentiles.”