What Kind of Person Should We Be in Welcoming the Lord’s Return? | The Bible

What Kind of Person Should We Be in Welcoming the Lord’s Return?

By Liu Xin

In the morning, my friend came to my home and read the Bible with me. We read John 9:1-39:“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1-3). “When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing” (John 9:6-7).

“Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keeps not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They say to the blind man again, What say you of him, that he has opened your eyes? He said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: But by what means he now sees, we know not; or who has opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself. These words spoke his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, he is of age; ask him” (John 16-23).

“The man answered and said to them, Why herein is a marvelous thing, that you know not from where he is, and yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God hears not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him he hears. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said to him, You were altogether born in sins, and do you teach us? And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said to him, Do you believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said to him, You have both seen him, and it is he that talks with you. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind” (John 9:30-39).

Jesus Curing a Born Blind

After reading this passage in the Bible, we both felt there were profound meanings in it and pondered it for a while. Then we started to express our own opinions about this story.

I first said: “From this story, I can see three types of believers’ different attitudes toward God. The Pharisees represent one type of people who believed in God but resisted Him; the blind man represents one type of people who saw the wondrous deeds of the Lord Jesus and then confessed that He is from God; the parents of the blind man represent one type of people who were timid and cowardly, feared the influence, and esteemed the status, so that they dared not confess that the Lord Jesus is Christ. However, I can’t understand: Jesus did such a great deed, curing a man who was born blind, but why didn’t the Pharisees realize the Lord Jesus is Christ from it? Why did the Pharisees believe in God but resist Him?”

When I was thinking, my friend suddenly said: “In fact, it is not difficult to solve these questions. Some time ago, I saw a passage of words on a gospel website, which can clearly answer your questions. Let’s look at these words.” In order to understand the reason, I agreed with her readily. Thereupon, she opened the gospel website, found that passage of words and read: “Do you wish to know the root of why the Pharisees opposed Jesus? Do you wish to know the substance of the Pharisees? They were full of fantasies about the Messiah. What’s more, they believed only that the Messiah would come, yet did not seek the truth of life. And so, even today they still await the Messiah, for they have no knowledge of the way of life, and do not know what the way of truth is. How, say you, could such foolish, stubborn and ignorant people gain God’s blessing? How could they behold the Messiah? They opposed Jesus because they did not know the direction of the Holy Spirit’s work, because they did not know the way of truth spoken by Jesus, and, furthermore, because they did not understand the Messiah. And since they had never seen the Messiah, and had never been in the company of the Messiah, they made the mistake of paying empty tribute to the name of the Messiah while opposing the substance of the Messiah by any means. These Pharisees in substance were stubborn, arrogant, and did not obey the truth. The principle of their belief in God is: No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how high Your authority, You are not Christ unless You are called the Messiah. Are these views not preposterous and ridiculous?” (“When You Behold the Spiritual Body of Jesus Will Be When God Has Made Anew Heaven and Earth”).

After reading, she said: “From this passage of words I understand the reason why the Pharisees believed in God but resisted Him is because their natures were arrogant and they stubbornly held to their views, did not seek the truth, much less did they accept the truth. From these two sentences the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not of God, because He keeps not the Sabbath day’ and ‘How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles,’ we can see that they randomly judged and accused the work of the Lord Jesus without the tiniest bit of fear in their hearts. Though they believed that the Messiah would descend, they didn’t know the Messiah at all. Therefore, when the Lord Jesus came to do His work, they didn’t accept that He comes from God but condemned the Lord Jesus because He didn’t abide by the law of the Old Testament but worked and performed miracles on the Sabbath day. They had found the authority and power in the Lord Jesus’ words and work, yet they refused to accept Him, even attacked, slandered and blasphemed Him just because God’s name was not the Messiah. In the end, they nailed the Lord to the cross, committed a heinous crime and severely offended the disposition of God.”

After hearing her knowledge, I nodded approval. At this moment, I also thought of the fact that not only did the Pharisees themselves resist God, but they also deceived believers and incited them to oppose and condemn the Lord Jesus. Whoever accepted that Jesus is Savior, the Pharisees would put him out of the synagogue. In this way, the believers dared not follow and rely on the Lord Jesus, so that they lost the Lord’s salvation. Thus the Lord Jesus cursed the Pharisees: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). I could see from this that in essence the Pharisees hated the truth. Not only didn’t they accept the truth, but they also obstructed others from accepting the truth.

Soon after, she continued saying: “And you mentioned just now that the blind man’s parents also represent one type of people. Though they were deceived by the Pharisees, they were revealed that they didn’t love the truth. Just as the passage of words says: ‘Some people do not rejoice in the truth, much less judgment. Rather, they rejoice in power…. For they only value position, prestige, and power; what they hold in high regard are large groups and sects. They have no regard at all for those led by Christ; they are simply traitors who have turned their backs on Christ, on truth, and on life’ (‘Are You a True Believer of God?’).

From the passage of words and the verses in the Bible we read just now, we can see that the blind man’s parents esteemed influence and were in fear of the Pharisees, priests and scribes in high positions. They believed in the Pharisees and their influence instead of God. They clearly knew that the Lord Jesus had worked such a great wonder and, by rights, they should be grateful that He cured their son’s eyes, and should bear witness for Jesus’ deeds before the crowd. However, seeing that the Lord Jesus, like a normal person, didn’t have a high position in society, they dared not acknowledge the power of the Lord Jesus in order not to be put out of the synagogue. In their hearts, they saw the status and influence as being above all else instead of respecting God as great. They saw that the Pharisees knew the Bible very well, often explained scriptural knowledge and theological theories, had status and a good reputation and were endorsed, idolized and looked up to by the crowd, so they were willing to submit under the status and influence of the Pharisees and follow them. They believed that they could be saved only if they weren’t put out of the synagogue. They entrusted their own hopes of salvation to the Pharisees; how could they know that these people had been resisting the Lord, so their own futures and fates had been ruined by the Pharisees.”

At this point, I felt what she said was very enlightening After that, she talked about the kind of people like the blind man and read a passage of words to me: “Knowledge of God’s authority, God’s power, God’s own identity, and God’s substance cannot be achieved by relying on your imagination. Since you cannot rely on imagination to know the authority of God, then in what way can you achieve a true knowledge of God’s authority? … appreciating, verifying, and confirming that the God you believe in has authority, confirming that He holds sovereignty over your fate, and that His power at all times proves Him to be the true God Himself, through the words of God, through the truth, through everything that you encounter in life. This is the only way that anyone can achieve an understanding of God” (“God Himself, the Unique I”).

“The passage of words reveals that the way of understanding God is to experience God’s deeds through the words God has expressed and through practical experiences. Just as the blind man knew Jesus, according to our imagination, the eye troubles will be more serious if we anoint our eyes with the clay and the spittle. Nevertheless, the blind man could see after washing in the pool of Siloam according to the Lord Jesus’ word. He understood that the Lord Jesus has authority and power that an ordinary created man can’t possess. So he said: ‘Now we know that God hears not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him he hears. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing’ (John 9:31-33). We can see from the blind man’s words that he had known the Lord Jesus is from God. That he could appreciate God’s authority and power doesn’t depend on how much scriptural knowledge and literal meaning he understood or on how far he ran around and how much work he did. Instead, it was through Jesus’ words and work that he appreciated it. We can know from this that the blind man’s spiritual eyes were not blind.”

Hearing what she shared with me, I could not but be in a whirlwind of thought: These people had been looking forward to the Messiah’s descending in the Age of Grace but when the Lord truly came, they had different attitudes, which determined whether they would succeed or fail in believing in God. Now we as believers in the Lord Jesus are all looking forward to the Lord’s return. On the subject of the Lord’s coming, will we become one of these three types of people?

I could not help sighing with feeling: “I can’t be a Pharisee to resist and condemn God’s work, nor can I be the kind of people like the blind man’s parents, who didn’t have sense of justice and were timid and cowardly. They had seen God’s work, authority and power but couldn’t break free from the control and bonds of status and influence; they would be in collusion with those leaders and die in the synagogue rather than bear witness to God’s deeds and follow the footsteps of God, so that they lost God’s salvation. I will learn from the blind man to know God from His word and work, to experience and confirm His authority and to verify His identity and status from His deeds. Only in this way will we follow the footsteps of God and welcome the Lord’s return.”

After she heard this, she nodded in agreement. I really thank the Lord that today I can receive these gains through reading the Bible ​with her. May all glory be to the Lord!

Recommendation: Every Christian in The Church of Almighty God fully recognizes that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus.