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share with them. And God promised to bless them in accordance
with their deeds of love and mercy. But like the rich man, they put
forth no helping hand to relieve the temporal or spiritual necessities of
suffering humanity. Filled with pride, they regarded themselves as the
chosen and favored people of God; yet they did not serve or worship
God. They put their dependence in the fact that they were children
of Abraham. “We be Abraham’s seed,” they said proudly. (
John
8:33
.) When the crisis came, it was revealed that they had divorced
themselves from God, and had placed their trust in Abraham, as if he
were God.
Christ longed to let light shine into the darkened minds of the
Jewish people. He said to them, “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye
would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill Me, a man
that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not
Abraham.”
John 8:39, 40
.
Christ recognized no virtue in lineage. He taught that spiritual
connection supersedes all natural connection. The Jews claimed to
have descended from Abraham; but by failing to do the works of
Abraham, they proved that they were not his true children. Only those
who prove themselves to be spiritually in harmony with Abraham by
obeying the voice of God, are reckoned as of true descent. Although
the beggar belonged to the class looked upon by men as inferior, Christ
recognized him as one whom Abraham would take into the very closest
friendship.
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The rich man though surrounded with all the luxuries of life was so
ignorant that he put Abraham where God should have been. If he had
appreciated his exalted privileges and had allowed God’s Spirit to mold
his mind and heart, he would have had an altogether different position.
So with the nation he represented. If they had responded to the divine
call, their future would have been wholly different. They would have
shown true spiritual discernment. They had means which God would
have increased, making it sufficient to bless and enlighten the whole
world. But they had so far separated from the Lord’s arrangement that
their whole life was perverted. They failed to use their gifts as God’s
stewards in accordance with truth and righteousness. Eternity was not
brought into their reckoning, and the result of their unfaithfulness was
ruin to the whole nation.