Luke 10 vs 23 – 24. “Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
At this point in Luke’s narrative Jesus pauses to remind the disciples of their great privileges. He tells them that many prophets and kings of the Old Testament days would have loved to see just a little of what they were seeing, or hear just something of what they were hearing – but did not hear it. They looked forward to the time of the Messiah’s coming, but these disciples were there in his very presence. How blessed they were.
The godly kings and prophets of the Old Testament had their own privileges as God spoke to them. But those privileges were superseded by the joys of the disciples who lived for three years with the Messiah Himself. But now we who possess the whole revelation of God in the bible are even more privileged than these disciples. It is true we do not have Christ physically present with us as they did, but we have the Holy Spirit and the completed canon of scripture. We have all God wants us to know about Himself and his plan to rescue the world. These early disciples meeting with our Lord had not yet seen the crucifixion or the risen Christ, nor had they the great apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans to explain what happened on the Cross. But we have all this and much more.
In the New Testament we meet him as the Incarnate God and also as the crucified One. We also see Him as the Risen Redeemer and the Glorified King of His Church.
And because our privilege is so great, our responsibilities are great too. Not only should we be sure we have embraced all this knowledge but we should also be sure we share it with others.
The people who heard Jesus teach and preach or saw him work his miracles were faced with a great responsibility to respond positively to what they saw. Those who rejected that divine revelation did not escape Divine Judgement. How much more then is it our responsibility to respond positively to the completed revelation as we have it in the Bible. To reject such a privilege is to bring Divine Judgement upon ourselves.