It must have been dizzying to listen to Jesus speak. The way in which he spoke, the authority with which he said the things that he said, and the audacity of the meaning behind what he was saying, all would make it a challenge to listen to Jesus. In some ways, I can understand why it would have been difficult for the Pharisees and other religious leaders to listen to him. No one else ever spoke the way that Jesus spoke.
Here is a great example:
All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Matthew 11:27
Wow – I can only imagine what it would have been like to hear Jesus say this directly. Let’s take it one step at a time:
All things have been committed to me by my Father.
This is similar to Jesus saying that he has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18) . His Father, God himself, had given Jesus authority over everything. Over all of heaven. Over all of the earth.
That is: Everything.
Why? Because Jesus is, himself, God.
That’s shocking because he is also standing there in front of all of the people, in human form, teaching them. He touched them with his hands. God touched them.
They heard him with their ears. The very voice of God was resounding.
He was God, right there, in the flesh. The ruler over all things. The king of heaven. The king of the earth. Speaking to them.
No one knows the Son except the Father…
Jesus referred to himself as the Son. He would typically say he was the Son of Man, but he called himself the Son regardless. There is no doubt that Jesus is referring to himself in this case as he speaks of the Son.
Jesus was being revealed to the world. He was being revealed to those to whom the Father called to know the Son. So at this time, Jesus says that the one who knows the Son is the Father, and yet we will see that the Son is revealed to the people by the Father.
…no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Jesus, as the Son, knew the Father. The Father was the one who had sent the Son and so there was an intimate relationship between the Father and the Son. Jesus was carrying out the mission of the Father, and at the same time, he was the mission of the Father. The Father had placed all things under the Son, and yet the Son was there to give his life as a ransom, to purchase people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to come into the kingdom of God, where the king himself is Jesus.
As I said, it must have been dizzying to listen to Jesus.
And yet we still have his words, even here today. It isn’t as if we have less of a possibility to understand Jesus because we weren’t there to hear him. It isn’t that we have less of an opportunity to know him because we weren’t there. No, perhaps we can know him even more. We have his words and we can hear him. We can understand him. We can know him.
We can know the king. The Father has revealed the Son to us and now we must seek to know him more. We must seek to know him even more deeply. Father, I pray that you would help us to know the Son!