1 Thessalonians 2:15

But the Jewish people made light of their privileges and threw them away. They killed the prophets who pressed their unfaithfulness and their falling away from God on their consciences. Their guilt reached its peak at a time when outward religion still looked orderly. Then the shameful rejection and death of their own Messiah exposed their real unbelief and hatred of God. But evil is never satisfied. Even the cross only sharpened their bitterness against those who witnessed to God's grace. They "drove us out."

In the past God's great case against the Jews was their constant idolatry. The Old Testament prophets are full of it. The New Testament adds a still greater charge: they "killed the Lord Jesus." On top of that, they drove the Apostle out by persecution and, as far as they could, blocked the gospel from going out to the Gentiles. They refused to go through the door of salvation themselves, and as far as they could they stopped others from going through it.

The death of Jesus was the peak of Israel's sin, but it was not a new kind of sin for them. In earlier times the mere report of His coming was enough to make that nation hate and murder all the prophets sent to them. What hatred this shows! They did not only murder Him when He appeared. Their bitterness ran so deep that they killed anyone who prophesied of His coming, even before they saw Him. Stephen charged this bloodthirsty spirit home on the council as the nation's crowning sin against the Lord. And him they murdered — the first martyr in the church. It may help us to remember that in Israel God was testing human nature itself. So in their conduct we see what the Gentiles would have done, if they had had the same chance.

The preaching of grace drives those who hold the law into fury. Grace makes little of any earthly privilege, and insists that the Jew is as ruined as the Gentile. So the Jew's hatred of the gospel never dies... But grace goes further. It proclaims blessings in Christ beyond compare, it wipes out every distinction, and it brings the believer, Jew or Gentile alike, into a new place of heavenly relationship and everlasting favour. That they cannot bear.

Certainly this was not pleasing to God, no matter how zealous for God they claimed to be. It was "contrary to all men," or "against all men," for it was against the proper interests of all mankind. Many might agree with them, but it was still to the actual harm of them all.

It was religion that led the attack on Christ while He was here on earth. Later it was religion that persecuted His followers. Religion not only refused the gospel; it tried to stop it from flowing out to others.

Jerusalem will be a rejoicing, instead of a heartache, as it is now. Her people will be a joy, instead of "contrary to all men" (1 Thess. 2:15) as they are now. Sorrow will depart and prosperity be established.