In the course of the next few weeks the people of Scotland will make a significant historical decision – whether to remain in their 300 year-old union with the United Kingdom or to go it alone. GospelBlog takes no position on this debate, that is not our purpose, but the passion (and egg-throwing!) that has been aroused demonstrates just how seriously this important decision is being considered by the people of Scotland. Never before in my life-time has any political issue raised so much popular fervour, with the partial exception of the miners’ strike of the 1980’s. I say partial as, while it was a really big deal in the coal-mining areas, the referendum debate has gripped the whole of the nation in a way that the convulsions of the 1980’s did not.
Much of the argument has revolved around the validity of opposing assertions. How much oil remains in the North Sea? Can an independent Scotland continue to use the Pound, and under what conditions? Will Scots be better-off or poorer following a ‘Yes’ vote? Ultimately, the electorate will have to make a decision and choose which of the opposing visions of the future they believe. Even the most passionate supporters for both sides would probably acknowledge that, either way, the future is unlikely to be just as halcyon or apocalyptic as the rhetoric is currently presenting it … Well, maybe if you got them calmed down in a quiet corner and confiscated the eggs.
Choosing who we should follow is always a challenge when dealing with failing and, at times frankly duplicitous human beings. The Lord Jesus on one occasion famously fed five-thousand people from five barley loaves and two small fish. Please, don’t smile wryly at that statement … if He is God then that is no problem. If He is not God then there is no point to this website or to Christianity. I’ll explain why in a moment. In a time when food was scarce this was a hugely popular move and, unsurprisingly, the crowd turned up the next day for a repeat performance. The Lord Jesus had not come, however, merely to act as a divine ‘meals-on-wheels’ service. He challenged the crowd whether they had come purely because of the food or because of who He was:
“Do not labour for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” … Then they said to Him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom He has sent.”
This must have rocked them back on their heels. They had come to fill their bellies and here was this Galilean teacher speaking to them about eternal issues and questions of faith. He went further, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” … You want something to feed on? Feed on me! This man who looked like them, who had an accent that identified him as a Galilean was claiming to be the God of heaven. For many of them this was too much. Even an empty belly could not make them stay any longer and they turned and walked away from the man who made such claims.
The Lord Jesus turned to the small group of disciples who followed Him everywhere and asked “Will you also go away?.” Peter responds with one of the most lovely and challenging statements in the New Testament:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Peter understood exactly the nature of the choice he had before him. If Jesus of Nazareth was just an ordinary man – even one who could do extraordinary things with bread and fish – then he was a liar and a fraud, for he had just claimed to be the Son of God out of heaven. On the other hand, if He was who He claimed to be (and His words and actions supported this) then there could be no other source of eternal sustenance.
C.S Lewis in his book Mere Christianity puts in like this:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. … Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”
Choosing who to believe regarding Scotland’s future is one thing. Choosing to whom you should entrust the keeping of your soul for eternity is another matter all together.