The Spiritual Blindness of Unbelief
Many among the Jewish people could not grasp how Jesus could declare,
"Before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8:58).
To them, such words constituted blasphemy. They failed to recognize that Jesus was not merely another teacher but the eternal Word made flesh, as John describes in his Gospel. Their rejection stemmed from spiritual blindness, a condition that still clouds hearts today when pride replaces faith.
Even at the cross, their disbelief reached its culmination. Yet when the Roman centurion witnessed the earthquake and all that transpired, he declared:
"Surely he was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:54).
What they rejected, heaven affirmed. ("This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased")
There's something profoundly unsettling about missing what's right in front of you. The religious leaders of Jesus's day had spent their entire lives studying the scriptures, memorizing the prophets, debating the finer points of the law. They knew the texts backward and forward. Yet when the Word himself stood before them, they couldn't see him. Or wouldn't.
This wasn't mere intellectual disagreement. It was spiritual cataracts.
When Religion Becomes the Enemy of Revelation
The irony cuts deep: the very law given to lead people to God became the barrier keeping them from him. Paul understood this tension intimately. He'd been there—a Pharisee among Pharisees, "as for righteousness based on the law, faultless" (Philippians 3:6). He had the credentials, the pedigree, the religious résumé that would make any modern believer envious.
And he counted it all as rubbish compared to knowing Christ.
The law, in its proper place, was never meant to be the destination. It was a tutor, Paul explains in Galatians 3:24, meant to lead us to Christ. But somewhere along the way, the Jewish religious establishment had turned the signpost into an idol. They polished it, protected it, preached about it—and completely missed where it was pointing.
Grace threatens this kind of religion. It always has.
Grace says you can't earn this. You can't achieve this through ritual perfection or doctrinal precision. You can't ladder your way to heaven on the rungs of your own righteousness. Grace insists that the playing field is level at the foot of the cross—the prostitute and the Pharisee both come with empty hands or they don't come at all.
This is scandalous. It was scandalous then, and it remains scandalous now.
The New Creation Versus Religious Performance
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"
This is the language of radical transformation, not incremental improvement. Not behavior modification. Not trying harder to keep rules you've already broken a thousand times.
New creation.
The law could diagnose the disease but couldn't cure it. It could show you the standard but couldn't help you reach it. It was like holding up a mirror to someone covered in mud and saying, "Look how dirty you are! Now clean yourself!" The mirror is useful—it reveals the problem—but you need water and soap to actually get clean.
Grace is the cleansing flood.
In Christ, we're not merely forgiven people trying to do better. We're new creatures operating from a new center. The old operating system has been replaced. We're no longer slaves trying to earn our master's approval but children secure in our Father's love. This changes everything about how we approach God, ourselves, and the spiritual life.
Yet many today—both inside and outside the church—still operate under law's shadow. They've replaced Jewish ceremonial regulations with different rules, but the basic software remains: perform, achieve, measure up, prove yourself worthy. The specifics change, but the bondage stays the same.
Present Deceptions: How the World Distracts from Christ
If the religious leaders of Jesus's day couldn't see him because they were blinded by law, what blinds people today?
The distractions are legion. Our age has perfected the art of spiritual anesthesia.
We're drowning in information while starving for wisdom. We scroll past the eternal in pursuit of the trending. We've developed sophisticated ways of keeping ourselves occupied, distracted, perpetually stimulated—anything to avoid the silence where God's voice might actually break through.
The modern world offers a thousand substitute saviors: political movements that promise utopia, self-help philosophies that preach salvation through self-realization, therapeutic approaches that replace sin with trauma and redemption with recovery. These aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but when they supplant Christ, they become deceptions.
Perhaps the most insidious blindness is the belief that we don't need saving at all. In a culture that's replaced sin with mistakes, rebellion with self-expression, and judgment with affirmation, the whole concept of needing a Savior feels antiquated. If we're fundamentally good people who occasionally mess up rather than fallen creatures in desperate need of rescue, then Jesus becomes optional—a helpful moral teacher, perhaps, but not the way, the truth, and the life.
This is the devil's most effective lie: not that Jesus doesn't exist, but that you don't need him.
The Urgency That Cannot Wait
Here's what must be said plainly, even if it sounds harsh to contemporary ears: time is running out.
Not in a fire-and-brimstone, street-corner-preacher way, but in the simple, sober recognition that each of us has an expiration date. You have an appointment with eternity. The question isn't whether you'll stand before God but what you'll stand on when you do.
Jesus didn't offer himself as one option among many. He said,
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
Either this is true or it's the most arrogant claim ever made. There's no comfortable middle ground where Jesus is a nice guy with some helpful insights.
The centurion at the cross got it: "Surely he was the Son of God!" Not a son of God. Not one manifestation of the divine among many. "The" Son of God. The one who could say "I am" and have it mean something that transcends time itself.
"Before Abraham was born, I am." Not "I was." I am. Present tense. Eternal present. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, standing in human flesh and offering himself as the bridge between holy God and broken humanity.
Grace: The Scandal That Saves
Scripture gives preeminence to grace because grace is the only thing that can address our actual condition. The law reveals the problem; grace provides the solution. The law shows us we're drowning; grace throws us the lifeline.
Paul drives this home throughout his letters:
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Gift. Not wage. Not reward. Not achievement unlocked. Gift.
This doesn't make us passive. Grace doesn't negate obedience; it reorders it. We don't obey to become children but because we already are children. We don't follow Jesus to earn his love but because his love has already captured us. The motivation shifts from fear and duty to gratitude and delight.
This is what the religious leaders missed. They were so focused on their scorecards—their tithes and fasts and prayers—that they couldn't receive what God wanted to freely give. They preferred the burden of self-righteousness to the lightness of grace.
How many today are making the same mistake?
What Must Be Done
So here we are. You, reading these words. Me, having written them. The question pressing on us both: what now?
If you've never truly surrendered to Christ—not just intellectually acknowledged his existence but actually bent the knee, transferred trust, handed over control—today is the day. Not tomorrow. Not when you get your life together or when you feel more worthy. Now.
You will never feel worthy. That's the point. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). He didn't wait for us to clean up. He entered the mess.
If you've been operating under law—trying to earn God's approval through religious performance, spiritual disciplines as merit badges, a faith that's more duty than joy—hear this: you're already approved if you're in Christ. The Father already looks at you with pleasure. Stop trying to become what you already are and start living from what's already true.
And if you've been distracted, numbed, scrolling through life while the most important question goes unanswered, wake up. Put down the phone. Turn off the noise. Sit in the silence long enough to hear the question God is asking: "Who do you say that I am?"
Your answer changes everything.
The centurion saw what the religious experts missed. A pagan soldier, standing at the cross, looked at the suffering God-man and recognized truth. Not because he had all the theological training or the right pedigree or the proper credentials. He simply saw what was actually there.
Heaven is still affirming what earth often rejects. The question is whether you'll see it—whether you'll let grace shatter the law's limitations and enter the new creation that Christ died to make possible.
The veil that blinded the religious leaders can blind anyone. Pride, religion, distraction, self-sufficiency—a hundred things can keep you from seeing what's right in front of you.
But grace tears veils.
If you'll let it.
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