Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar 1/61

Contributor - H. T. Roozendaal

Title - Slow To Believe

Topic - Jesus Christ

Luke 24: 25

"O, foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?"

Am I wrong when I see in these words of our Lord an expression of His disappointment? Here He was walking and talking with two men who belonged to His followers. They too had given expression to their disappointment. They had had a hope crushed, and, just now they were laboring under deep disappointment. Now Jesus feels disappointed in them because they were so quickly turned from the things they had been told. Surely the prophets had foretold that the Christ would suffer. Had they forgotten that He Himself had told them that these things should be fulfilled?

In this season of the year we are again walking the road of His suffering with Jesus. Again the Christian Church is broadcasting to the world the Truth of His sacrifice for the sake of mankind. Now, too, there are those who puzzle over these things, not having accepted the great Gospel message; and perhaps some sincerely question it. Perhaps some are sincerely disappointed and want to say, "We thought that He might be the Christ who was to come, but now we are disappointed; we did not think this would happen to the Christ." To such, if He were here, He would probably say, as He did to the two on the road to Emmaus, "Believe the prophets, was it not necessary?"

The Christian Church is busily engaged in reminding those within her ranks of the truth that Jesus suffered. There are those, too, who constantly hear these things proclaimed and who still stand afar. They have not appropriated these truths. Is it because they are "slow of heart to believe?" Why do so many keep a distance and fail to understand what the prophets had foretold?

Was it not necessary that He should suffer? But why was it so necessary? Thus He should enter into His glory. It was through the way of suffering that He went through to His heavenly home. It was through this way that, soon, He would pass on to the ascension, and then into heaven. But there was more connected with His entering into glory than that. It was His glory to do the Father's will. And the Father's will included the redemption of mankind to the extent that it entered into a fellowship of faith and trust and confidence with Him. Really it was necessary because it lay in the Plan of Redemption, planned by God in behalf of man. And this was the Saviour's entrance into His glory.

In this season, as we are constantly reminded of the suffering and death of Jesus, there is a purpose in it. It is that men may know and believe that the Christ did suffer for them; and that, "believing, they might have life", and this is possible when, through looking at Him as He passes through the suffering, we come to the knowledge of and sorrow for the extremity of our sin and natural unworthiness. Is it possible that we, having heard a great deal about the Saviour and His work for mankind, still continue "slow of heart to believe?" Are we still grieving the Master because of our tardiness in accepting and appropriating the good He wants to give us? If we have been doing so; look further at the incident and notice there what it was that pleased Him. Lay hold on Him in true faith and enter with Him into glory.

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