It isn’t that Jesus didn’t clearly tell people publicly who He was.
Jesus said that He is the source of eternal life (Jn. 5:24), the resurrection (Jn. 5:25-29, 11:25), that He is the one the scriptures testify of (Jn. 5:39), the bread of life (Jn. 6:32-33, 48), the light of the world (Jn. 8:12, 12:46), the liberator from sin (Jn. 8:36), the divine “I am” (Jn. 8:58), the good shepherd (Jn. 10:11), Lord and Master (Jn. 13:13), and “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
Yet the religious and political elites in Jerusalem rejected Jesus of Nazareth in part on the basis of His low social status. They rejected Jesus based upon their own biased prejudice for wealth and power according to the norms of worldly conventional thinking…thus condemning this very mindset in not being able to come down to the lower level of humility…as brilliantly and intentionally expressed in Jesus the Son of God and Messiah …presenting Himself to the world in the unexpected low estate of a common carpenter.
Respect is the foundation for every positive human relationship. In pinning the already beaten and battered body of Jesus Christ to a wooden cross using 7-inch long metal spikes…the religious and political elites in Jerusalem demonstrated the most disrespectful and de-valuing rejection of Jesus imaginable.
This exposed the true violent character of the worldview of “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 Jn. 2:16) at the extreme margin of self-sovereignty living apart from God and “going about to establish their own righteousness” (Rom. 10:3) according to our own thinking and standards (Isa. 53:6).
In one brilliant stroke God simultaneously judged the rebellion aspect of going our own way…against His rightful rulership… expressed violently at the cross…demonstrated through self-sovereign self-autonomy…and unexpectedly in the same cross at Calvary enabling and providing eternal salvation to all those who will put their faith and trust in Him…who will voluntarily come to God in faith.
Spirit-born Christians look upward in admiration to Jesus on the cross…and the blood He shed…for our salvation…and not to our own good works (Eph. 2:8-9). Christian discipleship is about surrendering and yielding our misguided claim to self-autonomy…to instead follow God’s higher ways for our lives…in faith and in trust in God…going forward from the moment of our salvation conversion.
The injunction of 1Thessalonians 5:18…”In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” is a vital part of a living and vibrant faith that trusts God for everything that comes our way in the Christian life…whether up on the mountaintop, down in the valley, or in-between…and like the apostle Paul…places our trust in God to lead us into all truth and into a personal knowledge of Him…come what may (Phil. 4:11-13).
This is the epitome…the pinnacle…of respect for Jesus Christ and for God the Father (2 Thes. 1:10).
But this actualization of Hebrews 11:1 biblical-quality faith can only become reality within a God-composed journey of faith life-script as patterned for us in the biblical narrative stories of faith…creating the context for personal relationships with God as prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34 for Christian believers…in the new covenant age…from the least to the greatest.
As argued in this book, this reality is simply outside of any conceivable motivation originating from within the worldly conventional normalcy and thinking of self-sovereign self-rulership…the default worldview that produced the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Calvary Hill in Jerusalem nearly two-thousand years ago…and is still the prevalent worldview of modern mankind today.
Ask anyone on the street today to articulate the difference between self-sovereignty and God-sovereignty…and they will say they have no idea what we are talking about.
The innovative novelty of the living God displacing our ways with His higher ways as described in the life-scripts of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Ruth, David, Esther and Mordecai, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Peter, John, James, and Paul…to name but a few…is an important part of the gospel message of hope…of the liberation from our own life of sin…lost in our own foibles and shortcomings…now with a God who can bring new, real, positive change into our lives.
If this displacement element is a powerful argument for the divine origin and inspiration of the Bible…then an Abraham-style adventure of faith should be a normal and expected function of our Christian discipleship being lived and preached throughout Christendom.
But oddly and sadly it is not. The all-important displacement part is left out.
In a church growth, seeker-friendly approach toward bringing in the un-churched, God’s “plans” are reduced to over-simplified 3-point or 5-point plans that often only manage to confirm our own hopes and dreams in conformity to worldly conventional aspirations and expectations…rather than picking up our cross to follow Jesus Christ into a whole new world of faith and trust…following God-scripts unique to the Bible alone.
A Popular Defense of the Bible and Christianity
The Cross in the Christian Life 