READ: Luke 23: 13-26
“But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. … And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.” – Luke 23: 21-23
On the night that Jesus was betrayed and crucified, prostitutes, drunkards and murderers were asleep in bed and did not rise up to harm our Saviour. The people who fought against Jesus Christ were not irreligious sinners. The people who crucified our Saviour were the most established religious leaders of the day. They knew what was right and what was wrong. They fasted, they prayed, they paid tithes, and did all that was right in their eyes to the exclusion of God and His Son Jesus Christ.
The “good” people who knew all about God and whose profession it was to write the Scriptures (the Scribes) were at the forefront of the mob that could not recognize the Messiah. The pastors of the day, the highest Priests, invented charges and accused the holiest and the best. They made Him out to be the worst of scum and declared Him unfit to live.
This reality should send chills down the spines of long-standing Christians or religious persons who claim to be in the service of God. God cannot be substituted for a set of rules or principles. God is not a book. He is much more than a book. Loving God and focusing on God is a hundred times greater than knowing many things about God and religion.
That is what Paul meant when he said the love of Christ surpasses knowledge.
And to know the LOVE OF CHRIST, which PASSETH KNOWLEDGE, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Ephesians 3:19
The lesson is simply this: We must not depend on what we know. We must depend on God. We must love God and know God. We must follow God and get close to Him.