John F. MacArthur - Jesus Unleashed: A New Vision of the Bold Confrontations of Christ and Why They Matter

The Gospel According to Jesus

Our Sufficiency in Christ

Strange Fire

Ashamed of the Gospel

The Murder of Jesus

The Prodigal Son

Twelve Ordinary Men

The Truth War

The Jesus You Cant Ignore

Slave

One Perfect Life

The Gospel According to Paul

Parables

One Faithful Life

Jesus Unleashed

2021 John MacArthur

Derived from material previously published in The Jesus You Cant Ignore.

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ISBN 978-0-7852-4297-0

Epub Edition April 2021 9780785243014

Printed in the United States of America

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Try to imagine a Bible teacher so devoted to the truth that he never misses an opportunity to confront false teachers and refute their errors. He exposes and rebukes religious hypocrisy wherever he sees it. He is not an insider as far as the current power structure is concerned; he doesnt have any of the customary credentials. But advanced degrees and exalted titles do not intimidate him. He is, if anything, more forthright and severe with the priestly elite than with unschooled lay people. And he never shies away from controversy.

Someone like that would be despised and rejected by todays evangelicalsespecially by the movements most influential leaders. They would do their best to muzzle him and check his influence, even if they agreed with his views. Because in this postmodern era of tolerance and diversity, agreeability is deemed a higher virtue than faithfulness in the pursuit of biblical truth.

But the person in the above description is Jesus. He was deliberately provocative. He was passionate for the truth and therefore fiercely indignant against the religious hypocrisy and unbiblical doctrine of false teachersespecially the leading Pharisees. They wore a genteel, scholarly disguise and demanded His respect. He was relentlessly harsh with them.

It seems most evangelicals in the current generation would prefer a more domesticated, deferential Messiah. They want Him to be passive, polite, politically correct, and always pleasant. Any suggestion that our Lord might ever be angry or argumentative poses a severe challenge to the image they have created in their imaginations. They must at all costs keep Jesus subdued and make Him safe.

But Scripture stresses that Jesus spoke and taught as one having authority (Matthew 7:29)unrestrained, assertive, and at times angry.

Its true that Jesus is merciful, gracious, and sympathetic to our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness (5:2). He is portrayed in prophetic imagery as a lamb, and also as a tender shepherd.

But He is also depicted in Scripture as a lion. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5). And He is not to be muzzled or declawed. It is pure blasphemy to imagine that toning Him down would somehow improve His character, make Him seem nicer, or elevate His glory.

My objective in this book is to highlight the boldness and power of Jesus by examining the intensity of His interaction with the Phariseeslistening as He speaks for Himself, without attempting to soften or censor anything. See then the kindness and severity of God (Romans 11:22 NASB).

As C. S. Lewis wrote about Aslan (the messiah figure in The Chronicles of Narnia), He isnt safe. But hes good.

academic (ak e-DEM ik) adj. 1. abstract, speculative, or conjectural with very little practical significance. 2. pertaining to scholars and institutions of higher learning rather than to lay people or children. 3. of interest as an intellectual curiosity, but not particularly useful in real-world applications. 4. provoking curiosity and analysis rather than passion or devotion. 5. pedantic, casuistical; good for making a display of erudition but otherwise trivial. 6. belonging to that realm of scholastic theory and intellectual inquiry where certainty is always inappropriate. 7. not worth getting agitated about.

Spiritual truth is not academic by any of the above definitions. What you believe about God is the most important feature of your whole worldview. It will color how you think about everything elseespecially how you prioritize values, how you determine right and wrong, and what you think of your own place in the universe. That in turn will surely determine how you act.

The practical effects of apathy or unbelief are as potent as those of heartfelt devotiononly in the opposite direction. An atheists private life will inevitably become a living demonstration of the evils of unbelief. To whatever degree some atheists seek to maintain a public veneer of virtue and respectabilityas well as when they themselves make moral judgments about othersthey are walking contradictions. What possible virtue could there be in an accidental universe with no Lawgiver and no Judge?

People who profess faith in the Almighty but refuse to think seriously about Him are also living illustrations of this same principle. In fact, the hypocrisy of a superficially religious person has potentially even more sinister implications than outright atheism, because of its deceptiveness.

It is the height of irrationality and arrogance to call Christ Lord with the lips while defying Him with ones life. Yet that is precisely how multitudes live (Luke 6:46). Such people are even more preposterous examples of self-contradiction than the atheist who imagines he can deny the Source of all thats good and yet somehow be good himself. But the hypocrite is not only more irrational; he is also more contemptible than the out-and-out atheist, because he is actually doing gross violence to the truth while pretending to believe it. Nothing is more completely diabolical. Satan is the master hypocrite, disguising himself so that he appears good rather than evil. He transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works (2 Corinthians 11:1415).