When Jesus Says “Insensitive” Things
No one ever loved His fellow men more than Jesus of Nazareth. He kept God’s Law perfectly, which included right there at the top, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39). Part of His messianic mission is described by Isaiah as, “A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench” (42:3). He tells everyone that He is “meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). It is this side of Christ’s character that the world is most comfortable with. This is why so many people believe that He was “a good moral teacher” when they would never confess Him as Lord.
Yet, one thing Jesus was not, was reticent about giving people reality checks in the sternest possible terms. If nonbelievers read much of the Gospels for themselves, it wouldn’t take them very long to find words from Jesus’s mouth that would shock them. Some of them would strike a modern ear as downright insensitive.
I think the clearest example of this is Luke 13:1-5. People come to Him asking about some Galileans whom Pilate had murdered in the act of worship. Jesus adds to this example of tragedy some others who were killed by a falling tower. Most mainline Christian leaders would say, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims,” and, “Of course, God didn’t mean this to happen.” Had some of the family come forward grieving, no doubt Jesus would have comforted them. But evidently, these people are questioning God’s power, wisdom, or justice. Jesus defends God’s sovereignty and His justice in these calamities and twice says, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (v. 3 and 5). In the preceding chapter, Jesus tells His hearers to fear God, “which after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell” (12:5). The greatest moral teacher ever was a “fire-and-brimstone preacher.”
Jesus even occasionally expresses frustration with the very people He has come to serve. In Mark 9:19, when His disciples can’t cast out a demon, Jesus groans, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?” (Note, however, that He still heals the boy with the demon.) In Luke 12:49, Jesus says that He came “to send fire on the earth” and that He wishes it “be already kindled!” He frequently asks His disciples, “Are you still without understanding?” He even tells His leading disciple, Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan! Thou art an offense unto Me” (Matthew 16:23).
Not surprisingly, Jesus’s harshest words are for His harshest critics. He frequently calls them, “hypocrites.” He flat-out tells them, “Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:44). He spends all of Matthew 23 literally cursing the Pharisees and Scribes, asking, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?” (v. 33).
What are we to make of all this? This is the same Man who said, “Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the Judgment [...] but whosoever shall say, ‘Thou fool,’ shall be in danger of Hellfire” (Matthew 5:22). Is Jesus not practicing what He preaches? (I speak as a man.)
Far from it! No one ever lived by the words, “Be ye angry and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26), as perfectly as Jesus. It may strike you as strange, but the motivation behind all these stringent criticisms is love. Jesus tells the lukewarm Laodiceans that they are so disgusting that “I will spew you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:16), then explains, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent” (3:19). Even when He says that we all deserve for buildings to collapse on and crush us to death, it’s clear that He says that to induce repentance, not to quench smoking flax or break bruised reeds. To put it in St. Augustine’s famous phrase, He “loves the sinner but hates the sin.”
Even when He curses the Scribes and Pharisees, it’s apparent from the context that this is mainly to warn His beloved disciples of His opponents’ spiritually lethal teaching. He doesn’t want them to fall into the same condemnation; He’s not just venting His spleen against His critics. The woes are spoken in a discourse addressed to the disciples, not just Jesus’s railing back at the Pharisees.
Liberal Christianity can find much in the words of Christ that they like to tout. Loving your friends and enemies alike, giving generously, going the extra mile, and things like those are indeed beautiful and very important teachings. But when sin rears its ugly head, Jesus doesn’t mince words. He calls it like He sees it, even if that means using language that would make a universalist blush. But remember, if you feel the blood rising in your cheeks, the words of Jesus, “For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy Angels” (Luke 9:26). Jesus was the greatest moral teacher, but a large part of that was giving His people their badly needed reality checks.