How would you like to be misquoted .....like Jesus Christ often is?

The Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, Under the Command of Titus, A.D.70

The following is one of clearest and most powerful messages by the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth

“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” He was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”Mark 8:38-9:1

Yet….I have so often heard this scripture erroneously used to install fear into both Christians and unbelievers in order to intimidate them into ‘obedience’ or ‘faith’ on the basis that Christ will somehow ‘deny,’ ‘reject’, or be so ‘ashamed’ as to refuse to represent them before the Father and the angels in heaven!

Many unfortunate vexed souls, believers and unbelievers are convinced that their foolishness and past failures and mistakes have earned them such disdain and permanent exclusion from their privileges in Christ.
What these legalistic preachers fail to mention, is that Jesus was clearly speaking this warning within a specific historic context and exclusively with His Jewish audience in mind! Ignorance or blatantly ignoring this fact, simply leads to abuse and misappropriation of Scripture and misrepresentation of Jesus Christ…..something that regretfully is endemic in the Church.

The context is expressly signified by the inclusion of the words.. ‘this adulterous and sinful generation’,…and …. ‘there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they …’


We must discern, that much of what Jesus declared, has to be understood against the backdrop of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, the final Divine judgement upon the then apostate Judaist Religious dispensation, and the passing away of the Old Covenant and Temple Order.

This dramatic and historic event took place 70 A.D. when the Temple and Jerusalem was laid waste by the Romans. Judaism had rejected their Chief Corner Stone…..the Man Jesus Christ .their promised Messiah, the Son of David….Heir to the Throne of David.

Jewish historians recorded that during the siege of Jerusalem, 1.1 million Jews perished and another 2.5 million were taken into slavery, yet not one faithful individual who heeded the warnings of Jesus perished.
If the importance of this major event is not properly considered, much of the recorded sayings and writings of John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul and Peter and John are and verses from the Book of Hebrews are inaccurately introduced into Post – Resurrection and New Covenant preaching and teaching.

Clearly Jesus was definitely not giving this warning to you, to me, or some absent and future ‘generation’ or third parties as it is inconsistent with His present tenure as Mediator and Guarantor of the New Covenant.

Unless we rightly ‘divide’ the Word of God, we will inevitably present as the Gospel, a confusing and false ‘mixed message’ of ‘condemnation’ and ‘salvation’.
This further tramples the already muddied waters of mankind’s already obscured spiritual condition. And further undermines man’ acumen and contaminates the spiritual and emotional life of people with insecurity and uncertainty and inhibits their intimacy with God.

We should rather be of producing the ‘faith’ , ‘hope’ and ‘love’ that comes from hearing the Good News of the ‘Grace and Peace that comes from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!