The wisdom from above as seen in the life of Christ – Part 7 – without hypocrisy

"But the wisdom that is from above is first truly pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy."

 

I think it is fairly apparent that Christ's ministry was totally without hypocrisy. As Luke wrote in the beginning of Acts his first book showed what Jesus did and taught (Acts 1:1). Christ's teaching was phenomenal, so much so that even many atheists have praised it, but more remarkably He lived what He taught. He not only told us to love our enemies, but He loved His, He prayed for forgiveness for those who crucified Him and wept over the coming destruction of the city that rejected Him. Studying His actions is the best way to understand what He meant when He spoke things, because with Him His actions were never at variance with His words. Jesus told His generation that a greater than Solomon was with them, Solomon had been renowned for his wisdom and yet an even cursory comparison of his proverbs with his life, shows a great variance in what He said and what he did (Compare Proverbs 25:16 with Ecc. 2:10 for example). One problem that we often have with the truth is that when we first hear it and it enlightens us we rejoice, but yet when it comes to really assimilating it, it can be difficult. This is much like the scrolls given to Ezekiel and John sweet to the mouth, but bitter to the stomach (Eze. 2:8-10, Rev. 10:9-10).

 

There are two basic types of hypocrisy to which humans are prone. The one is to think that because we know something we can get away with not actually doing it. That is what could be called blatant hypocrisy. The other type is perhaps more common and is a hypocrisy caused by ignorance of how we are contradicting what we say with our lives. This second sort of hypocrisy is the type that even good Christians can get caught in, like Peter did before Paul took him publicly to task (Gal. 2:11-18). This hypocrisy can often be caused because we want to be well received or we want to avoid persecution. Christ was true because He sought not His own glory but the glory of the One who sent Him. Public opinion had no hold on Him.

 

Christ was the way (how He walked is the way we should walk), the truth (The reality of what things are), and the life (the ability and source for all we do). As the embodiment of Truth He did not lie or evade even when it would have saved His life, when the high priest adjured Him to say whether He was the Christ, He replied in the affirmative (Matt. 26:63-65). When He stood before Pilate He acknowledged His Kingship, but not as an earthly ruler, even in His darkest hour He was true and bore witness to the truth. May we be a faithful and true witness even as He was the Faithful and True Witness. Amen.