Wrath for who?

Wrath for who?

By Richard P. Joseph

In Matthew 23 we find Jesus addressing the religious leaders of Israel; and it wasn’t nice!  Chapter 23 is followed by chapter 22 (of course) in which Jesus was pelted with backhanded questions by the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and the Herodians.  These groups were usually somewhat opposed to each other but seemed to find a common enemy in Jesus, so it is not surprising to find Jesus lambasting them in chapter 23.  

Jesus started out saying that the Leaders were in an important position to lead the people but never followed their own advice.  He gives a series of woes that are followed by terms such as hypocrites, blind guides, brood of vipers and fools who love to be recognized in public but never lifted a finger to advance the kingdom of God.  He reminds them that they are full of extortion and self indulgence.   He continues by saying:

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.   

Jesus was building a case against them that would win in God’s court of law:

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

Jesus makes it clear that they are a guilty party and that their punishment is soon to come.  He sets out to prove that they were implemented in the crimes that were against the righteous prophets and that they will also be charged with killing the messiah and his disciples.  He told them that he was about to prove that they were the guilty party and that their end was in sight:

31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Jesus then laments over Jerusalem because he knew that it’s glory was about to be stamped out.  He leaves them one more prophecy in which they also ignored:

38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”[g]

My point in all this is to ask one simple question; “Who was Jesus’ wrath for”?  If you ask a futurist they will tell you it is for us today.  That, of course, is not totally wrong because those that reject Jesus today will end up in the same place that the religious leaders ended up.  But Jesus warned that “their” house would be left desolate.  It seems the wrath that he was warning them about was his second coming and that is why he capped it all off by proclaiming that they will not see him again until they learned to say “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”.  

It was at the parousia that they finally understood that their house was indeed left desolate and that he truly was He who came in the name of the Lord.  Anyone who studied the last 3 ½ years of Jerusalem’s ancient history will clearly see the absolute desolation that came upon that generation.  Jesus clearly stated in verse 36 that it would be “their” generation that would experience this catastrophe.  He was not talking about our generation or any other generation and he was not talking about the United States or Russia or Europe, he was talking about the first century generation Israel only.  So if you are one that believes that Jesus was talking about some other generation than the one he specifically identified then please show me where he said that in scripture so that I can review it.  Otherwise, I assume Jesus didn’t make any mistakes and his second coming was to deal with Jerusalem and to reward those that stood strong through it all.