One
of my students, after reading the Gospels for the very first time, expressed
surprise that the Jesus of the Gospels was not the Jesus she expected to find.
I'm not sure what she expected to find, but I fear that many people in American churches tend to view Jesus as an all-tolerant, non-judgmental, teacher of niceness and dispenser of prosperity. Some people seem to have made Jesus into an idol more closely resembling Santa Claus than the Jesus of the Gospels.
While
it is certainly true that the Jesus of the Gospels had a lot to say about love
and compassion, that’s not all he had to say. The Gospels present a Jesus who
condemned malice, deceit, greed, envy, slander, arrogance, lewdness, evil
thoughts and sexual immorality—and who went around warning people to repent of
their sins or they would perish (Mark 7:20-23; Luke 13:5; Mark 1:15;
Matthew 4:17; John 3:18-19; 5:28-29).
While
the Jesus of the Gospels was certainly compassionate and loving, he was not
always “nice.” He told one of his own disciples to “get behind me, Satan.” He
called self-righteous religious leaders greedy, self-indulgent fools;
hypocrites, blind guides, whitewashed tombs and children of hell (Matthew
23:15-17, cf. Luke 11:42-44). He told a crowd they were of their father, the
Devil (John 8:44). He even condemned his entire generation as evil, adulterous,
sinful, faithless and perverse (Mark 8:8; Lk 11:31-32//Mt 12:42, 41; Mk 9:19;
Mt 17:17; Lk 9:41). On numerous occasions he warned people of being cast into
an eternal fire where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth
(Mark
9:43-48; Matthew 5:28-30; 8:12, 13:42; 25:14-30).
In
short, his teachings condemn all of us (see, for example, Matthew 5-7), but he
claimed to have come to give his life a “ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Those
who sincerely repent of their sin and turn to him as savior and King will be
saved from the wrath of God of which Jesus spoke. According to the Gospel of
John, those who refuse him are condemned already because they have not believed
in Jesus, and because their deeds are evil, loving darkness more than light
(John 3:16-20).
Not
everyone will like the Jesus of the Gospels and that is their right, but to
present a more politically correct Jesus by cherry-picking “nice” parts of the
Gospels and ignoring the rest is either ignorance or dishonesty. The Bible
would define it as idolatry.
