Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
One of the strangest mysteries in the Bible is where we find Jesus blaming people of His day for a crime that someone else committed 800 years earlier. If someone were to blame me for starting World War I, for example, I would take offense because I wasn't even born when it started. How could Jesus, the Righteous One, be so apparently unfair?
The problem is in Matthew 23:35. Jesus is preaching His last sermon in the glorious Temple. Some may say that He was deliberately inviting His own death by laying out before the leaders their sins just as they were. (Why not be more political and soften up His words?) Then Jesus tells these august pastors of the flock that "Youmurdered Zechariah ... between the temple and the altar." The story goes that the blood of this martyr stained the stones in the pavement forever! (See 2 Chronicles 24:20, 21.)
Can't you imagine those scribes and Pharisees responding in indignation, "Why do You blame usfor a crime committed 800 years before we were born? How unfair can You be?"
But like He always did, Jesus told the truth. The same awful sin that King Joash and the leaders of his day committed when they stoned Zechariah right there in the holy Temple, these religious leaders were already nursing in their hearts--for within a few hours they would crucify the Son of God. So, in a corporate sense, they were guilty also of the murder of Zechariah!
The record of your sin is not like your electric light bill--you pay only for what you use; as sinners by nature we are truly guilty of all the sin ever committed--just give us enough time and opportunity. It wasn't only the Romans and the Pharisees who crucified Christ; "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Yes, in a corporate sense.
Christ prayed for corporate forgiveness to be given to them all, "for they know not what they do." Thank Him, and receive it.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 10, 2001.
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