Paul’s anguish is on display as he wrestles with how the Jewish people could possibly miss Jesus, their Messiah. They had it all—the patriarchs, covenants, laws, worship, temple….everything! Yet, they missed the most important thing—the Messiah!
There are a lot of reasons that this could be so, and this is what Paul addresses in these chapters. Sometimes we want Jesus to look a lot differently than He actually does, and so his real life and ministry ends up being a stumbling block for our belief. We want Him to align with our beliefs rather than us aligning with who He is.
Sometimes people miss Jesus because they are continuing to pursue a salvation and righteousness that comes from their own good works—or as Paul puts it, adherence to the law. In the pursuit of just trying harder to be “better” we miss the gift of God that is Jesus Christ by through faith by grace and not works.
Jesus can be missed because people haven’t heard about Him. We have the responsibility to incarnate and articulate the Lordship of Jesus in our lives.
Still some miss Jesus because they outright reject Him. They have heard about Him, they understand what is necessary, but they just reject it. Unfortunately, this is all too common.
In our own anguish for those who seem to miss Jesus, our posture should be that of prayer.
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