Knowing the Lord Jesus: Why Did the Lord Jesus Work Amongst Man in an Ordinary Form?
May 21, 2019
By Li Qian
I am a pastor and I’ve worked and preached for the Lord for many years. Each time I opened up the Bible, I saw the words written in Matthew 13:53–57 which say: “When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed there. And when He was come into His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, From where has this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not His mother called Mary? and His brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? From where then has this man all these things? And they were offended in Him.” And also John 19:6–7 which say: “When the chief priests therefore and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him. Pilate said to them, Take you Him, and crucify Him: for I find no fault in Him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” Each time I read these words, I couldn’t help but think: “When the Lord Jesus was performing His work, many people denied His identity and essence because He appeared normal and ordinary, and they treated Him as an ordinary man. The Jewish chief priests, scribes and Pharisees in particular knew perfectly well that the miracles performed and the way preached by the Lord came from God, but not only did they not seek or investigate this way with a God-fearing heart, on the contrary, they relied on their conceptions and imaginings to judge the Lord Jesus as being nothing more than a carpenter’s son, and they blasphemed against the Lord, saying that He cast out demons by the prince of the devils. In the end, they colluded with the Roman authorities and crucified the Lord Jesus upon the cross. God is so supreme, so why would He deliberately choose such a normal, ordinary form to come amongst man and perform His work? If God had been born into a king’s family in a high and noble form and after the manner of a great man, then not just the Pharisees but all the people of Israel would have easily accepted the Lord Jesus’ gospel.” This issue perplexed me for a long time.
