"Who is Ashamed" by Scott Klaft

**Who**
Is Ashamed**?**

By *Scott Klaft*

When teaching new prospects about
the manner in which one becomes a Christian, having covered the necessity of
belief that drives everything that follows , it is not entirely inappropriate
to direct them to Matthew 10:32, 33 to explain the necessity of making the
verbal confession of faith. (It is probably more appropriate to discuss it in
view of Romans 10:9, 10 as it is illustrated by Acts 8:36 – 38.) On the
surface, the Matthew passage will do the job well enough, even though that is
not exactly the intended point Jesus is making there. “Whosoever therefore
shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is
in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before
my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32, 33).

The point He is making is not so
much the necessity of a verbal confession as much as He is rendering judgment
on the two types of reactions to the gospel. Contextually, the Lord was
describing the harsh reality that people don’t always react well. But there is
an implication to the disciples doing the preaching as well. Jesus is requiring
a certain depth of character from His disciples that would underlie a daily and
regular demonstration of fidelity to Him. They must not allow the harshness of
reactions to sway them. Whatever men

might
do to them, they should not be ashamed of their message, nor be intimidated
into silence. This is a repeated admonition in Jesus’ teaching.

                Those
carrying a futurist view regarding the coming of the Lord may not realize what
they are doing to passages when forcing them to fit their model of that event.
They have to avoid the plain and natural meaning of passages in context in
order to lift them out and force them to mean something completely unnatural.
Why not just teach them in their contexts? Is it that they are ashamed of how
it presents certain conflicts with their view that they cannot explain?

Take, for example, Matthew 16:24 –
28 in which Jesus was teaching His requirement of complete devotion to Him in
spite of hardships (bearing a cross v. 24). There, He indicates the
consequences of being unwilling to give up everything, even one’s own bodily
life in order to have life in Him (v. 25). He explains that no amount of gain
in the physical world could possibly be worth the value of one’s own soul (v.
26). Implying that justice and judgment occurs from a spiritual (not material)
view, Jesus further explains: “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of
his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his
works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not
taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matt.
16:27, 28).

Someone taking the view that Jesus’
coming with His angels in judgment is to be yet in the future has trouble with
these two verses being together. Jesus’ explicit words place that judgment
within the lifespan of some of those people who stood there that day. They
would personally see it come to pass in their lifetime. But normally, what we
hear people say is that v. 27 is referring to a future judgment of all the
creation, while v. 28 is only talking about the birth of the church in Acts 2.
This is incorrect for both verses, extracting them from their own immediate
context.

Yes, the parallel passage in Mark
has the two verses separated by a chapter heading. But before even looking at
the passage, let’s remember that the chapter and verse breaks in our modern
English Bibles were not placed there by inspired men. Jewish Masoretes in the
9th Century are credited for first having separated the Hebrew Scriptures into
verse form; and, it wasn’t until at least the 13th Century that certain men
have been credited to have made the chapter divisions. Even still, it was not
until 1557 – 1560 that the Geneva Bible (first the New Testament and then the
whole Bible) was the first English version printed with both chapter and verse
divisions. This is not the form in which the scriptures were originally given.
They were given without separation so that we should naturally look to the
immediate contexts for our initial understanding of any passage.

The way the parallel passage in Mark
was supposed to be read looks like this: “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed
of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also
shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with
the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be
some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have
seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 8:38 – 9:1).

Where Matthew did not mention a time
frame for Jesus coming with His angels in the judgment, Mark’s account of
Jesus’ speech places it within the time frame of “this adulterous and sinful
generation,” the same generation of those who stood there that day, to whom
Jesus promised they would see the kingdom come. But what of those who find
themselves ashamed of Jesus’ words in this connection? Are not these passages
Jesus’ words? Why would anyone handle these as if one verse were disconnected
from the other? Are they ashamed of the implications?

Consider also Luke’s account of the
very same speech:

“For
whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man
be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of
the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which
shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:26, 27).

It is easy to ask the question: If,
as in Matthew and Luke, the verses belong together, why should they be seen as
necessarily separate ideas in Mark? There is nothing in the language of any of
the three that would lead us to believe that Jesus has suddenly shifted his
thoughts from one thing to the next in mid-stream. There is nothing in the
context that justifies viewing the two verses separately in time. By what
hermeneutical rule do those believing in a future coming of Jesus in judgment
separate that idea from the coming of the kingdom? They are clearly linked by
these three accounts of Jesus’ speech.

Denominations usually buy into the
Premillennial view that neither the kingdom nor the Lord has yet come. This is
clearly an error. The church and the kingdom are obvious synonyms (cf. Matthew
16:18,19; Colossians 1:13; Hebrews 12:28; Revelation 1:9).

The popular notion in the churches
of Christ, presently, is the Amillennial view that says the kingdom came, which
is the church. And that is correct, but it cannot have been Acts 2 that Jesus
had in contemplation in our main texts. The kingdom would come with power in
their generation, which was directly linked to Jesus coming again in judgment
with His angels, and in the glory of the Father. The popular notion says that
Jesus has not yet come to bring judgment, and thus they have implied a
contradiction of their view with what Jesus said.

While it is true, the church had
it’s beginning in Acts 2, that is only when the construction of that house
began (cf. Ephesians 2:19 – 22), but its completion was not yet. There is not
enough space to explore that idea here, but just from our main texts, we can
see that by Acts 2 (and not for many years afterward), Jesus had not yet
brought that judgment by which He would “reward every man according to his
works” (Matt. 16:27).

The coming of Jesus in judgment and
the coming of the kingdom (as a completed and finished entity) are clearly and
inseparably linked and simultaneous events. Jesus used similar language to
describe His coming in Matthew 24:30, 31, which is greatly accepted as a part
of Jesus’ answer to the

question
about the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 21:20 – 28), which was fulfilled
in A.D. 70. Of necessity, I must then recognize that Paul uses the same
language to describe Jesus’ coming in 1st Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:4 looking
forward to the same fulfillment.

There is only one approach to
eschatology (the study of final things) that can unashamedly assert what Jesus
asserts in those three parallel-texts as well as the others cited. That is the
same approach the authors of this publication take in our attempts to teach
only God’s truth in the way He intended it. There is no shame in holding a
wrong position out of ignorance once the necessary corrections are made. But
when the truth of Jesus’ words are properly presented, and it is repeatedly
resisted, I fear for those souls, considering what Jesus says about those who
are too ashamed of His words to hold to them.