Sign Seekers

by Bill Irby

January 17, 2010

SIGN SEEKERS
The New Testament indicates that the majority of the “scribes and Pharisees” opposed Christ and objected to His teachings. Jesus, as the Master Teacher, would have none of it. They came to Him on one occasion and said, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
The Lord’s response to this request may have been a bit of a shock to their collective systems: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:38-41 NKJV).
The scribes and Pharisees were a self-righteous lot. Yet here the Lord compares them with, in their occluded minds, the worst of the worst, the ancient Ninevites. At least, the Lord said, the men of Nineveh repented when they heard Jonah preach the truth. That was better than the scribes and Pharisees were doing.
We can understand the conflict in the minds of the scribes and the Pharisees. It had been reported that Jesus was doing miracles. We understand the purpose of those miracles was to aid in the revelation and confirmation of the message Jesus and His disciples preached (see Hebrews 2:1-4). But the scribes and Pharisees, of all men of that time, should not have needed a sign. They were supposed to be students of God’s Word. They should have recognized that message as authentic and authoritative. They should have repented at hearing it. Indeed, they all should have become followers of the Lord. But they did not, blinded as they were by their political and social prejudices.
The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time have relatives here today. Many people, many good people, are hooked into this idea that a genuine relationship with God is not based on His Word, but rather the Word plus some sort of supernatural manifestation, “leading” or sign.
I have asked many people to tell me about their relationship with God. Frequently the central aspect of their response is to tell of something that they heard God say or saw or felt God do. Rarely do I hear someone say that they have come to God because of the truth of God’s Word and how that truth created faith in them. That is a shame.
It is a shame because nobody is saved by seeking a sign. The truth shall make us free from sin (John 8:31-32). Faith saves and comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 5:1ff. and Romans 10:17). Obedience to the Gospel saves a person. Obedience places the individual in Christ, wherein is His saving blood (Hebrews 5:8-9, Galatians 3:26-28, Romans 6:1-6). There is no other way revealed in Scripture for anyone to be saved.
There are those who do respect the Word but say, after John Calvin and others, that the Word has to be illuminated by a special action of the Holy Spirit before it can lead to faith. This is just another seeking for a sign. God is no respecter of persons and thus provides the gospel for all without favoritism.
The scribes and Pharisees were wrong to look for a sign. So are folks who do the same thing today. We love everybody, but the only way anyone will be saved is by listening to the Word of God, believing it and obeying it. Remember the words of Paul: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). The Gospel saves, not signs.