One attribute that separates Christ from other famous people in history is His perspective. There have been many world leaders who had foresight and excelled in long range planning. But none of them had the "long term view" of things that Christ spoke of. With Jesus, everything mattered in terms of eternity. He viewed life as everlasting.
In the book "Why Jesus Matters" by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz, the two authors talk about Jesus' long term view on life and eternity:
"The people who surrounded Christ didn't see things that way. They focused on the present. They thought about the "here and now," while Jesus talked about the "hereafter." This disparity in Perspectives led to quite a bit of confusion, especially between Jesus and His followers. When He talked about establishing His Kingdom, they thought He was referring to a military campaign that would overthrow the Roman Empire (or at least free the Jews from Caesar's oppression and occupation of Israel). They considered Christ's references to "the Kingdom of God" to be something immediate, physical, and political. They were off, way off.
Those disciples and other followers of Jesus correctly detected Christ's references to change. When Jesus spoke of the "Kingdom of God," He was talking about a change in the hearts of men and women. Their hearts needed to be redirected toward God. They had been living too long under the mistaken belief that they could earn favor with god by following behavioral mandates. When Jesus said He came to set them free from bondage, they mistakenly assumed that He was referring to the Roman Empire. He was referring to the constraints of the rules and regulations imposed through man-made laws of the Jewish religious hierarchy. Christ's battle cry was "freedom," but not in a military sense. It was a spiritual freedom.
Critics of Christ often point to His apparent heartlessness. The attacks go something like this: ' If He had supernatural healing powers as claimed, why didn't He spend more time attending to the sick and handicapped people around Him? Why did He often leave the sick and dying and walk away from people who could use His help to regain their health?
If He could work miracles as He claimed, why didn't He daily provide food for the hungry multitudes? If He could feed 5000 people on one or two occasions, why didn't He do it regularly? Wasn't it selfish of Him To withhold His miracles when so many people could have benefited from them?
If He had supernatural strength, why didn't He lead a revolt and alleviate the pain and suffering that the Jews endured under the Roman oppression? How could He turn His back on His own people that way?'
Such criticisms seem legitimate if you have the disciples short term perspective. But remember that Jesus was interested in people from an eternal perspective. The New Testament reports that He Healed the sick and fed the hungry out or compassion for them, but He refused to be sidetracked from His primary mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. He was more concerned about humanity's eternal well being than their temporary comfort. Those He fed were made comfortable until the next mealtime; those He healed of pain for a few years; but His spiritual message involved living with God forever. For Christ, it was a choice between: (a) giving momentary, temporal comforts; or (b) offering never-ending life with the almighty Creator of the universe. Understood in that context, the criticisms seem rather lame.
Christ took a society focused on the immediate and challenged it to think about the eternal. When people around Him talked about life, they referred to their current conditions. His concept of life included the immediate but also extended into eternity. He caused people to reevaluate their lives from the eternal perspective.
And that is why Jesus matters today. His challenge to evaluate life from an eternal perspective is as relevant to us as it was to the people in the first century. We can get so caught up in the busyness of life that our perspectives are obscured. We see only what is immediately before us; our long term vision is measured in years. But Jesus' teachings remind us to broaden our view of the future. His message tells us to define life using an eternal timeline.
Life on earth for seventy or eighty years is inconsequential when measured by the yardstick of eternity. That's why Jesus emphasized that our choices on earth should be made in light of their eternal consequences. Jesus matters because He raises the possibility that there may be more than life as we know it."
By George Konig
April 23, 2006
www.georgekonig.org
See a list of all of our commentaries