The Messiah and His Miracles

The Conflict with the Sanhedrists

The Reason for the Rejection of the Generation that rejected their Messiah

The Unpardonable Sin

The national rejection of Jesus as Messiah, coupled with the slander that He was demon possessed, constituted the unpardonable sin.  At that point in Israel’s history, Jesus withdrew His offer of the immediate Messianic kingdom.  He changed the Messianic programme from one coming to two.  The nation will not now know the reign of their Messiah until Israel’s national leaders, in a spirit of humility and repentance, call for His return. The Sanhedrin, the leaders of the nation, were, at the time of the first coming of their Messiah, servants of Mammon,[1] not servants of God, and thus failed to do what was right.  Jesus said He would not return until a future generation of the nation calls for Him, and welcomes Him with the appropriate Messianic greeting: “For I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”[2]

The language of the Messiah, after His rejection, was very direct. Facing His opponents, He powerfully described them as a “generation of vipers”,[3] “an evil and adulterous generation”[4] and a “wicked generation”.[5]  He prophesied their decline and destruction, and said that since they had mouthed the doctrines of the serpent; they would have to justify their words in the judgement chamber of God.[6]  Jesus warned them, that the men of Nineveh will be called as prosecution witnesses against them. Because Nineveh repented, and turned to God, under the preaching of a prophet, while the leaders of this generation would not repent, even under the ministry of such a man as John, the greatest of the old dispensation prophets, or even more incredibly, under the ministry of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.[7]  Similarly, testimony from the Queen of the South would also condemn them, because she travelled a great distance to listen to and marvel at the glory and the wisdom of Solomon; but they had rejected a greater that Solomon.[8]  Within four decades, the rejection of their Messiah brought the nation to a condition seven times worse than when He began His public ministry.[9] While, at the beginning of the Messianic visitation, they were a subjugated nation, within forty years, they were to lose their lives, their privileges and their Temple; and in 100 years, they would lose their land for nearly 2000 years!   What a price to pay!

So the offered Messianic kingdom was rejected, the unpardonable sin committed and a judgement pronounced on that generation.

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[1] Matt.6.24

[2] Matt.23.39

[3] Matt.12.34

[4] Matt.12.39

[5] Matt.12.45

[6] Matt.12.36,37

[7] Cf. Matt.12.41

[8] Matt.12.42

[9] Matt.12.45