Sunday, 25 October 2026
and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Matthew 23:30
“And you say, ‘If we were in the ‘days, the fathers, us’, not if we were ‘sharers with them’ in the ‘blood, the prophets’.’” (CG).
In the previous verse, Jesus began His eighth and final woe to the scribes and Pharisees, telling them that they built the tombs of the prophets and adorned the monuments of the righteous. He next says, “And you say, ‘If we were in the ‘days, the fathers, us’.’”
This is something we will do when we want to correct history. We will look back to a previous time and say, “Well, if I lived then, things would have been different.” The truth of the matter is that we didn’t live in those days, and we probably would not have done anything differently.
Rather, we have the cushion of time and the benefit of hindsight to rethink the past, giving us the ability to rationalize how we would have done things. Jesus knows this. He has stood and watched over human history since Adam. Therefore, He continues, saying, “not if we were ‘sharers with them’ in the ‘blood, the prophets’.”
A new word is seen here, koinónos, a sharer. Thus, it is an associate, companion, partaker, etc. It is from koinos, common (in possession). Thus, it is that which is shared by all or by several.
As for what Jesus says, this is the substance behind building the tombs and fixing up the sepulchers. It is a way of absolving oneself from what is now considered a failed part of the culture. In the Bible, there are recognized prophets, Isaiah or Jeremiah, for example.
There are also righteous people. Noah or Caleb could be considered as such. If something bad had been said about them or done to them, it would be considered appalling to those who came later. History has proven that what they did was proper according to their Scriptures. If they were maligned at some point, those in the present would want to make it up. This is what Jesus is referring to.
Life application: There are an innumerable number of instances of such things happening in our own countries today. In the UK and the US today, the fashionable idea is to remove statues of national heroes, replacing them with statues of people who may have suffered in the process as history unfolded.
The problem with this is that those whose statues are removed or defaced are often the ones who championed the cause of those who suffered. While those doing the destruction were on the side of those causing the harm to those who suffered.
In the UK, noted Christians are lambasted and held in contempt, but it is those Christians who ended slavery. Those on the other side may descend from the pro-slavery side, and yet they claim the moral upper hand and want to erase the truth from these pillars.
In the US, it was the Republican party who fought against slavery. It was the Christians who led slaves out of the South on the Underground Railroad. It was the democrats who fought to keep slavery.
To this day, democrats enslave blacks throughout the land by keeping them under government control in public housing, depriving them of the opportunity of becoming productive citizens through control of welfare and Medicare payments. It is not forced, but it is coerced slavery, nonetheless.
In the US, it was a democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, that led to the imprisonment of over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans. More than two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens. And yet, it is the democrat party that continually maligns their own country, saying they would never have agreed to what occurred.
If you want to know who is normally guilty in a matter, look for the one that makes the most noise against it later when things have gone back to normal. Stay away from such people. They are warped and depraved. They are unreasoning animals rushing headlong towards destruction.
This will become evident as Jesus continues His words to the religious leaders of Israel.
Lord God, may we carefully and rightly consider history, not being led astray by those who intend to manipulate the truth for their own perverse purposes. Help us to rightly consider the past so that we don’t fall into the same mistakes in the future. Amen.
