Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets
whom your fathers killed.
Consequently, you bear witness and give consent
to the deeds of your ancestors,
for they killed them and you do the building.
If one builds memorials of the prophets but remains closed to what the message of those prophets it is as if to say that he prefers those prophets as dead and voiceless. It confirms that such a one is in the same lineage as the fathers who tried silenced them by killing them.
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (see John 8:44).
God knew that there was a hardness on the hearts of his people, and an unwillingness to hear the prophets he sent. Any yet, one after another he sent them. And when they were not heeded he finally sent his own Son, who in himself, as Paul wrote, summed up, or recapitulated, all of the prophets before him.
But why would God do this? Why would his plan from before the foundation of the world involve "this generation" being "charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world"? It only makes sense when we realize that he did not set it up this way merely to encourage the condemnation of the hardened hearts of that or any generation. He did it in order to expose the sinful condition of humankind. By exposing it in the full spectrum of its ugliness Jesus emptied it of its power. Indeed, the very blood that that generation, and all sinners together with them, spilled as a consequence of their (our) revolt against God and his prophets proved to be the very means by which they could be redeemed.
In Christ we have redemption by his Blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions,
in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.
Our redemption did not come about in virtue of the good we did. It was rather a love that accepted us in spite of the evil within us, that took the very worst of what was within us, and made it the means by which we could be healed. What we meant for harm, to silence any voice that dared to contradict our selfish impulses, became, in the providence of God, the source of "every spiritual blessing in the heavens".
Woe to you, scholars of the law!
You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.
Jesus was not content to witness the misuse of the technical errata of religion as a means of asserting superiority. He restored the key of knowledge to his Church by rooting it in something deeper than mere proficiency or expertise. Jesus taught in a way that only the humble could receive, a way that was always opened outward toward God by faith. It was not a knowledge that one could possess as a skill and then assert as a matter of pride. It could only be a gift, a spiritual blessing, for which thanksgiving was the only appropriate response.
In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us
the mystery of his will in accord with his favor
that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times
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