Think about the evidence Christ presented that He was indeed the Messiah. Indeed; supernatural blindness HAD to be given; for Jesus even told people to believe Him even for the sake of His works ( John 14:11). And the verse was indicative of His being part of the Godhead. There were HUGE numbers of people being miraculously fed at least twice; people healed of blindness which had NEVER occurred even with the Old Testament miracles ( John 10:21); people who had demons cast out of them; as well as the miracles entrusted to the 12 Apostles and the 70 sent out two by two ( Luke 10:11). There was the undeniable proof of natural phenomenon at the crucifixion ( Matt. 27:54); as well as the 500 witnesses that saw Him; including the Apostles AFTER He was Resurrected and they all died except for John as martyrs; clearly they knew and believed the truth since denial would have saved their lives.
Unbelief therefore is something learned. Children are all born into sin; but scripture makes it clear that they have angels beholding the Father continually and that they were drawn to Christ (see Matt. 18:10). Children came to Christ ( Mark 10:13-16) and praised Him as a fulfillment of Psalm 8:2 and mentioned by the Lord in Matthew 21:16. To deny the obvious requires a hardness of heart and soul; and deliberate rejection of known truths; which of course made the condemnation of the Pharisees greater than most; and was much of the reason Jesus excoriated them in nearly the entirety of Matthew 23. They knew the prophecies but were blinded because of their obsession on the law and all other traditions that were added to put men in bondage and to render mercy and justice meaningless ( Matthew 23:23) with their myopic tunnel vision. The rest of the world if NOT enlightened by the Spirit only looked at Christ as some great miracle worker but didn't worship Him as God in the flesh.
Hence Matthew 16:17 must occur for true salvation.
Think about the evidence Christ presented that He was indeed the Messiah. Indeed; supernatural blindness HAD to be given; for Jesus even told people to believe Him even for the sake of His works ( John 14:11). And the verse was indicative of His being part of the Godhead. There were HUGE numbers of people being miraculously fed at least twice; people healed of blindness which had NEVER occurred even with the Old Testament miracles ( John 10:21); people who had demons cast out of them; as well as the miracles entrusted to the 12 Apostles and the 70 sent out two by two ( Luke 10:11). There was the undeniable proof of natural phenomenon at the crucifixion ( Matt. 27:54); as well as the 500 witnesses that saw Him; including the Apostles AFTER He was Resurrected and they all died except for John as martyrs; clearly they knew and believed the truth since denial would have saved their lives.
Unbelief therefore is something learned. Children are all born into sin; but scripture makes it clear that they have angels beholding the Father continually and that they were drawn to Christ (see Matt. 18:10). Children came to Christ ( Mark 10:13-16) and praised Him as a fulfillment of Psalm 8:2 and mentioned by the Lord in Matthew 21:16. To deny the obvious requires a hardness of heart and soul; and deliberate rejection of known truths; which of course made the condemnation of the Pharisees greater than most; and was much of the reason Jesus excoriated them in nearly the entirety of Matthew 23. They knew the prophecies but were blinded because of their obsession on the law and all other traditions that were added to put men in bondage and to render mercy and justice meaningless ( Matthew 23:23) with their myopic tunnel vision. The rest of the world if NOT enlightened by the Spirit only looked at Christ as some great miracle worker but didn't worship Him as God in the flesh.
Hence Matthew 16:17 must occur for true salvation.
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