“When the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance’ ” (Matthew 21:38).
When Adam sinned in the garden, it was far more than just disobeying some abstract moral principle. Adam personally rebelled against a personal God, whose Word was delivered to him “face to face.” Adam rebelled against God, rejecting the notion that God could tell him what to do. From that time on, humanity has been conceived in a condition of hatred toward God. We inescapably know God, because He is omnipresent to all human beings and all (apart from Christ) hate Him.
Because we hate God, we would kill Him if we could. Jesus said that those who hate in their heart are guilty of murder, and we are guilty of murdering God because we hate Him. The fact that we cannot possibly murder God does not change the fact that we would if we could.
The more we hate God, the more we claim to love Him. Our world is a very religious world, filled with people who say they love God. In fact, though, what they love is their own false notions regarding the deity, and their religion is a cloak for their intense hatred of the true God. The Bible says that there are none who seek God (Romans 3:11). The purpose of every false religion is to help us to flee from God and help murder God in our hearts.
The lost world, however, is not satisfied with mere mental murder. Since they cannot lay their hands on God, they murder those closest to Him, those who remind them of the hated presence and person of God. In the Parable of the Tenants Jesus explained that they murdered the prophets sent to warn them and then finally murdered the Son. The Son became man and put Himself within the reach of murderous men to die at their hands, in order to save the world. Those who follow the Son will also suffer at the hands of those who hate God, as Jesus promised when He told us to rejoice when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness and that our reward would be great when people falsely speak all kinds of evil against us.
Was it ordinary sinners or religious leaders who hated Jesus the most and sought His death? Why? A faithful person is revealed by those who hate him or her. Are you hated for your faith or ethics? If nobody hates you, maybe you have not displayed Christ openly enough.
