Reflective Bible Study

As Jesus nears the end of His famous “Sermon on the Mount”, He gives a warning to those listening to His words. This warning is about false prophets, and Jesus gives a very clear way we can single them out. Surprisingly, this way of identifying false prophets is not what people seem to use today.

Jesus tells those listening, “Watch out for false prophets! They dress up like sheep, but inside they are wolves who have come to attack you. You can tell what they are by what they do. No one picks grapes or figs from thornbushes. A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Every tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned. You can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.” (v. 15-20)

The incredibly simple test we can use is by looking at what the prophet does. How the prophet lives will determine whether they are from God. Jesus could have said, “Watch out for prophets, because anyone who comes after me who claims this title is trying to lead you astray.”

When we look at the broad Christian church throughout the centuries following Jesus, it would seem as though most take this stance, but Jesus doesn’t say this. Instead, Jesus hints at the possibility of more prophets coming in the years after He lived.

Most people believe prophets were simply people in the Old Testament who called the people back to God and/or who predicted about the upcoming birth of Jesus. The logic says that since Jesus came and fulfilled the prophecies, there is no more need for any prophet to come.

However, this is a poor way of looking at the Prophet’s role. Instead, each prophet was called to share a message from God for a people at a specific period of history. All of God’s prophets pointed towards Jesus in some way. The Old Testament examples we have all point forward to Jesus. But following the gospels, any new prophet must point back to Jesus and forward to His second coming to be eligible.

Also, to be considered a true prophet according to Jesus’ own words, the prophet’s actions must line up with God’s character. This doesn’t mean that they are sinless, because even the prophets in the Old Testament couldn’t claim this level of perfection. Instead, it means that they are continually striving towards God and better representing Him to those they are sent to.

Someone who claims to be a prophet must love like Jesus and be a genuine witness for God through both their words and their actions. False prophets always have great things to say and a convincing argument, but their actions betray their motives, and if they are not living in a way that is moving towards God then Jesus calls them false. If they have a sin that they don’t want to get rid of, then they cannot be from God. Because Jesus put this test in place, we can trust it will stand the test of time!

In these few verses is one of the greatest truths that we can wrap our minds around.

While the whole crucifixion event has been glamorized and marked in time through Easter weekend, the profound truth found within this passage is often missed, glossed over, or plain ignored: Jesus came and endured some of the worst torture that has ever been imagined in the course of history’s timeline so that everyone in the universe (that includes us) will see and know how much God loves us!

In this passage, we see both the character of God/Jesus, as well as how twisted we as a species have become. No other group of creatures has used their imagination to come up with more painful ways to kill one another. It is likely that no other group of creatures have even had this thought.

Having the ability to think this way is a gift from God, but Satan has twisted God’s gift so far that we don’t ever stop and ponder how special free thought really is.

And to top it off, as we have used this imagination throughout history, often we have created great things, but we have also devised some really evil things as well. In one of the most evil times in history, Jesus steps in, and He endures the cruelest and most painful punishment ever as a way to show us God’s love for us.

It is incredible to think that our Creator would be willing to submit to us as His creation. The Gift-Giver allows those who received His gifts the freedom to turn against Him. I really don’t understand it at times, but God sustains the life of both the good and the bad in this age for a reason – and His reasons come from an eternal perspective.

God showed us His love from this eternal perspective as well. Jesus chose this point in history to step into because He wanted us to see how much God loves us – even while we are actively rebelling against Him.

While Jesus wanted to be clear with His followers, sometimes we as His followers can get things twisted in our minds when reading some of the things that He has said. As an example, a simple reading of a statement Jesus shares with His disciples prior to being arrested and crucified may cause us to be confused over what He actually meant.

During this final conversation with the disciples before His arrest, Jesus tells them, “I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” (v. 24)

The next big thing to happen was Jesus’ death, and if we look for evidence that says Jesus went to the Father at death, we may find some verses that could help support that theory. However, just three days later, Jesus clearly stated that He had not yet returned to the Father. Jesus tells Mary, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17)

According to what Jesus told Mary, it was following the resurrection that Jesus ascended to heaven. Did He do this before meeting them in the upper room and while fishing on the lake, or was this a statement that foreshadowed the official ascension forty days later?

I don’t know the answer to this, but the clear truth John shares in His gospel is that Jesus did not leave to go to the Father at His death. Instead, Jesus’ death and resurrection marked the completion of His earthly ministry, and signaled the start of His heavenly ministry on our behalf.

This means that Jesus is in heaven right now looking at our life’s record. Jesus isn’t doing this to find reasons to keep us out of heaven. There are too many reasons to keep us out of heaven than even He could count. Instead, Jesus is looking for reasons that give us entrance into heaven – and the only reason we have that works is having accepted the free gift God has offered to us through Jesus’ death on the cross. We accept His gift by placing our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus, and when God finds this declaration in our life’s record, we are able to be saved for eternity.

The only gospel writer to include any details of the Sabbath Jesus was dead is Matthew, and the details that Matthew includes are amazingly significant to the gospel story. Nothing about this weekend was normal or ordinary, but in this extraordinary set of days, we learn of some people who actually paid attention to Jesus’ words even better than the disciples had.

Matthew describes what happens by saying, “On the next day, which was a Sabbath, the chief priests and the Pharisees went together to Pilate. They said, ‘Sir, we remember what that liar said while he was still alive. He claimed that in three days he would come back from death. So please order the tomb to be carefully guarded for three days. If you don’t, his disciples may come and steal his body. They will tell the people that he has been raised to life, and this last lie will be worse than the first one.’” (v. 62-64)

What is amazing about this when I read what these leaders say to Pilate is that they actually heard Jesus’ prediction about coming back to life. While they don’t believe Jesus to be capable of resurrecting Himself, they don’t trust Jesus’ followers to not steal the body and claim this. The Jewish leaders’ fear prompts one of the most understated, key details to happen surrounding Jesus’ resurrection.

Nowhere in the gospels do we read about the disciples thinking about crafting a resurrection lie or myth, but if they had thought this, the guards at the tomb would stop them from succeeding. In a strange way, the guards present actually validate the resurrection story because for those of us reading about this many centuries later, if no guards were present, a myth could spread that the disciples did come and steal the body. Even sleeping guards would discourage a midnight raid because the cost of waking them would be too high.

But Pilate’s response is even more amazing than the religious leaders’ request. Matthew tells us Pilate told the leaders, “All right, take some of your soldiers and guard the tomb as well as you know how.” (v. 65)

After John’s gospel record of Jesus’ conversation with Pilate the previous day, it is possible that Pilate actually believed the rumor these Jewish leaders brought to him. While the Jewish leaders believed Jesus to be lying about resurrecting, Pilate may have not been so sure. By saying “guard the tomb as well as you know how”, Pilate hints at his belief that Jesus may be capable of what they don’t believe. In Pilate’s mind, if Jesus was capable of returning to life, nothing the religious leaders could do would be enough to stop Him.

By placing guards at the tomb, the Jewish leaders unknowingly help prove that the resurrection miracle actually happened. While trying to prevent a heist that could become legend, they actually place credible witnesses in place for the ultimate miracle of all of history. Jesus was the only person to ever predict His death and resurrection days later, and then have history play out exactly as He said it would.

Reading about this Sabbath tells me that God can use anyone to help move His plan forward. Even the most unlikely individuals who had no faith and who were completely opposed to the thought of resurrection become a part of God’s plan. They end up being witnesses and the first to know of Jesus’ resurrection, and while they were trying to avoid rumors and speculations from spreading regarding a resurrection, they get the tables turned on them and have to create their own rumor about the heist they were trying to prevent.