By: W.L. Boone/ACMTC
[EMPHASIS / PUNCT. ADDED]
THE POINT IS that it can’t be even remotely proven that Jesus was temperamentally quiet, soft-spoken, introverted or retiring. He may have been, or He may have been exactly the opposite, or He may have been somewhere in between: IT IS NOT IMPORTANT.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS FOR US TO SEE THAT TRUE HUMILITY IS A BEAUTIFUL AND HEAVENLY SPIRIT THAT FUNCTIONS WITHIN ANY TEMPERAMENTAL VARIATION. I ask each of us the obvious question in connection with Jesus and His temperament.: “Was He ‘meek and lowly’ as He excoriated the honor-seeking Pharisees, and castigated the hypocritical scribes, and passionately ‘read the pedigree’ of the chief priests?” Certainly!
“Was He less humble when He was responding in the emotional heat of righteous anger?” Certainly not. While we are at this juncture, something sensible needs to be said about voice raising. I have a perfectly reasonable question to raise (pun intended): If God never intended for us to raise our voices, why are we able to do so? Will there be somebody arise to tell us that our ability to yell or shout or holler is the result of the fall, and that we were originally created to speak in a monotone?
…Listen to what God told His prophet, Isaiah, in 58:1: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.”
When John, the Baptist, was revealed to Israel six months before Jesus started His ministry, his message of repentance was as: “the voice of one crying in the wilderness…”
Our Lord was moved to raise His voice more than once when the occasion demanded it, as we can observe in John 7:37. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and CRIED, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” The Amplified says: “Jesus stood forth and He cried in a loud voice…” The NIV says: “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice…” The LB says that: “Jesus shouted to the crowds…”
The Greek word here actually has the prefix “EK” with it, meaning “out”, and should be translated “cried out” to be accurate, The same word is used two other times in reference to Jesus’ proclamations. Verse 28 of this same chapter states that: “Jesus cried out in the temple as He taught, saying, Ye both know Me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, Whom ye know not. But I know Him: for I am come from Him, and He hath sent Me.”
The same word and expression is used about Jesus’ passionate statements in John 12:44, and says: “Jesus cried out and said, He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him That sent Me. And he that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me.”
It is both biblically inaccurate and unfair to think, believe, and/or teach that if a person is humble and Christlike, that he will never raise his voice or become emotional in how he expresses himself. THERE IS NOTHING IN THE BIBLE THAT TEACHES A STATE OF GRACE THAT OBVIATES A CHRISTIAN’S FEELINGS OR EMOTIONS.
Two of the godliest and wisest men I have ever known, Reverends Robert H. Heckart and Thomas Lee, were both outspoken, extremely frank and strongly opinionated temperamentally. Both men were greatly misunderstood because of the frank way they would “call the shots as they saw them,” so to speak.
Both men could “snap off” quick and fearless judgments when they saw what they understood to be improper behavior or unfounded and unwise choices in the work of the church. What impressed me at the time, and now in review, is that they were usually correct in their judgments. I was privileged to work closely with both men over long periods of time and in varied circumstances, and never once observed either carnal pride or carnal anger in either of them. Both of them had pure motives and didn’t [financially] profit from lifetimes of faithful service to God and the church. I think that most people in the church who opposed and criticized them were simply unaccustomed to the stern commitment to honesty they subscribed to and lived by.
You could trust them to be the same anywhere and everywhere….We have been privileged to have Brother Lee in our home often, and he was always courteous, gracious and gentlemanly. I would guess that most people who knew him would not think of him as an humble man, but I do, and this is why I use him for an example of humility. This is one of the main purposes of this message: to define and teach what true humility is.
* It is not necessarily quietness, but it is a softness of spirit. * It is not necessarily acquiescence, but it is selflessness that places the well-being of others over its own.
Having said that, I can think of a good number of life situations that need firmness and sterness and bold confrontation and stout refusal—in and out of the church. Jesus seemed to be nearly always in a confrontation of some sort. We need to think about that quite a bit.
The uncovering of deceit and hypocrisy is not a job to be accomplished by timid souls, with kid gloves and smiles: think with me a bit. The usual response to the confrontations of Jesus from His listeners was ANGER. I don’t mean displeasure, or being upset, or grumbling, or mere hurt feelings. THEY WANTED TO KILL HIM!!
I need to ask us: Was Jesus “meek and lowly” as He forthrightly confronted and condemned the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the religionists? Of course. Not only was He still meek and lowly and humble at heart, BUT THAT VERY NATURE OF HUMILITY MADE DEMANDS OF HIS SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG. Whatever it was in Him that He identified as “meek and lowly in heart” ROSE UP AGAINST ALL THAT WAS EVIL AND UNHOLY.
THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION AGAINST WRONGDOING AND HUMILITY. We must recognize this, and believe it, and practice it. Humility doesn’t make weak-kneed wimps out of the saints, There are times that HUMILITY INSISTS THAT WE STAND UP and be counted without the slightest suggestion of the surrender of its nature and virtue.