The Last Prophecy

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     A few days ago I was reading in nay recently acquired copy of The New International Bible, when I decided to study again the gospel record of John. I found myself especially wrapped up in the account of the resurrection of Lazarus, which Alfred Edersheim declares "marks the highest point in the ministry of our Lord." It was this event which started the ball really rolling which made Golgotha the watershed of human history (John 11:51).

     All of us are going to be raised from the dead by the voice of Jesus, but the case of Lazarus was a little different. He became sick and died specifically that Jesus could reach the summit of his miraculous demonstration by calling him back from his dreamless sleep. When Martha and Mary sent messengers to inform Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick," Jesus returned the word, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

     It is not my purpose here to detail what happened. Suffice it to say that by the time Jesus arrived at Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem, Lazarus had been dead for four days. But when Jesus went to the grave and called for him to come out, the record says that he did so with his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to the onlookers, "Take off the graveclothes and let him go."

     So impressive was this event that a lot of the Jews who had come to console Mary, expressed faith in Jesus. But there were others who hastened back to Jerusalem to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done. They were so upset that they joined the chief priests in summoning a meeting of the Sanhedrin. When they convened the members were all in a dither. "What are we accomplishing in trying to stop the influence of Jesus?" they asked, and then added, "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs." The enemies of Jesus who were present acknowledged the miracles. It is only his enemies who were not present who deny them.

     The power of miracles such as the raising of Lazarus, to make believers was acknowledged freely by the members of the august council. They could not forget that they lived in an occupied country and that the Romans were suspicious of all Jews who began to amass a following. So they said, "If we let him go on like this, everyone will put their trust in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation."

     At this point, Joseph Caiaphas, the high priest that year, spoke up. "You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." The Sanhedrists were apt students of the Torah and the traditions, and thus recognized at once the quotation from the Midrash, or commentary, Bereshith Rabba, "It is better one man should die than the community perish."

     Here was justification for planning the death of Jesus. Despite the Roman prohibition, denying the right of the Jews to execute a man, the high priest had furnished them the motivation for ridding themselves of Jesus in order to preserve the nation which God had ordained. The power of miracles clashed with political expediency and the latter won. John writes, "So from that day they plotted to take his life."

     But John also writes something else about the adage of which Caiaphas reminded them. "He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one." Caiaphas, who later rent his garments when Jesus was brought before him, did not realize the final outreach of his words. A greater

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power was behind them, and although the high priest thought only of murdering Jesus to save a nation, God took his words and used them as prophetic of the atonement by which all men may be saved.

     It is interesting indeed that John says that the death of Jesus was for God's scattered children "to bring them together and make them one." This was involved in the prediction of Caiaphas although he knew it not. He was the chief religious adviser of those who thought of themselves as exclusively the children of God. In the temple environs where he presided there was a court of the gentiles with a wall separating it from the court of "the people," and on the wall a painted sign, "Any gentile crossing this line will incur the penalty of death."

     It was the design of an infinite God to use the cross to batter down such walls so that eventually in Christ there would be neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free. All who were called of God and who responded to that call to come out of the domain where sin reigned and trust in the righteousness of Christ Jesus would be one. Caiaphas did not realize this, nor did he know that with his statement Jewish prophecy came to an end. His was the final prophecy and it was involuntary. With him the prophecy of the Mosaic economy, as well as its high priesthood culminated. The goal of prophecy was reached in the atonement and the priesthood of Aaron ceased with the nailing to the cross of the handwriting of ordinances.

     I find it thrilling to realize that this last prophecy before the conquest of the arch-fiend of the universe with the weapon he had chosen, was dedicated to the unity of God's scattered children. It is for this reason that I would lend my feeble talents to help gather them together so that the dream of his death may be realized. So long as the children are not one, that long is the will of God not done on earth as it is in heaven.

     If he died to make us one I should live to help us realize that unity. I am resolved never to allow any issue, opinion, or human vagary of thought, to undo what His blood has accomplished. Nothing that my brethren may think under the Lordship of Jesus is as important to me as the blood which cleansed us and made possible the blessed new creation. Although my views of the implementation of his will and my ideas of his expressions through his twelve ambassadors are important to me, I shall never allow them to erase the effect of the cross, nor make that tragic death an inglorious failure.

     I shall receive all of God's scattered children when and where I find them. I shall receive them not because they agree with me but because they are his children. I shall not seek to make them one with me in any faction, segment or school of thought, but in Christ. If we are in Christ it is enough for me, because it is in Christ God proposed to make us one. I shall never again think, so help me Lord, that only those are his children who huddle around some partisan standard, even though that standard be correct.

     Nor will I ever confuse any movement, no matter how valid its claims, with the one body which the Spirit created. Call it restoration movement, unity movement, or whatsoever--movements are launched by men and most of them have worthy basic goals, but the one body is the creation of God and those who are in it have been accepted by God whether accepted by anyone else or not. Movements may be helpful, and even essential, at certain times and because of certain conditions, but when they cease to be regarded as movements, and are equated with the kingdom of heaven, they become dangerous and divisive. Then they cease to be a road to solution and become part of the agonizing problem.

     God regards nothing as the body of Christ which contains fewer than all the saved of all the earth. There are fac-

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tions many and parties many, but there is only one body. By one Spirit we are all baptized into it. The Spirit never baptized any person into a sect or party. And no one was ever baptized into the one body because he was either right or wrong about some secondary issue, but because he believed that Jesus was God's anointed Son.

     Let partisan promoters and factional agents cut their brethren off and cull them out because they will not forfeit their right to think for themselves; let them blast each other as liberals and antis, but I shall refuse to be made a political pawn by such childish claptrap. I shall recognize all of God's children and receive all of the redeemed. It is silly to think you can unite by dividing or combine by castigating one another. We will never achieve oneness by debate nor argue ourselves into harmony. We must receive one another where we are and as we are, if we are in Christ Jesus, and the Spirit will lead us into deeper unity and involvement with one another.

     We must build bridges rather than erode chasms and throw out lifelines rather than hurl challenges. It is only little men who measure the breadth of truth by their puny and imperfect understanding of it, or who limit the boundaries of divine love by their feeble comprehension of it. If I am mistaken in judgment, and I well may be, I would risk loving too much than too little. I would rather receive as a brother someone God may have rejected, than to reject one whom God has received. If I err in showing mercy let it be in the extension of it to someone undeserving rather than in the neglecting of someone who is.

     We are called out of sin and called together in Christ that we may further the divine purpose of uniting the scattered flock. Once we were bitter, carnal and worldly, hated and being hated. Now that we have been rescued from such ungodly behavior, shall we drag the old man of sin from the grave and exhibit these ruthless characteristics among the saints? I have renounced the works of the flesh and have received my brethren. In this path I shall walk!