Most of all, Jesus’ true identity and mission were hidden because of the blindness of unbelief that surrounded Him. Who He was and why He was there were plain from His words and His deeds, yet it was as if everything was performed before a people deprived of every sensibility, a people with ears that heard nothing, eyes that saw nothing, hearts and minds that could not comprehend what they were told. It was not so much that He concealed Himself as it was that sin and hardness of heart kept humanity from seeing who it was who stood before them. In this way, Jesus was hidden in plain sight.
To the lover of mystery novels, part of their appeal is the challenge they present: to solve the story’s puzzle using the clues scattered throughout its pages. The solution can always be deduced from information the author has provided—train schedules, ticket stubs, furniture arrangements, missing manuscripts, clothing of a telltale color. But the reader must determine which clues reveal the truth, which have no bearing on the case, and which will deliberately lead to the wrong conclusion. The answers are there, but they are mixed in with falsehoods and irrelevancies, “hidden in plain sight.”
Here is the question we must answer: what does it mean to have spiritual life, to have true fellowship with God while we live here on earth? The Pharisees and this worldly church-woman sought to purify the spirit by keeping the flesh clean. They believed they could solve the spiritual problem of sin with the solution of physical abstemiousness. But no, says Jesus, all that you do will never solve the problem of the human heart. It is what comes from the heart that determines one’s standing before God, and the uncleanness that Jesus cites reveals the truth of Jeremiah’s lament, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Man’s sinful, rebellious nature is tempted to sin by three different forces: the world, the flesh, and the devil. This unholy trinity does not have the power to make a man sinful when he is not: we are born in sin, and the evil we find in our hearts we received from Adam. The temptations from these three sources are more like invitations to express that sinful nature in particular ways. The believer in Christ who has received a new nature from God can meet these temptations successfully if he or she follows biblical principles in the power of the Holy Spirit. But often we are confused even as to the sources of the temptations we encounter.
The Bible teaches us that human sin does not come from the devil, and that’s one of the most important truth that anybody has to learn. You might say, “The devil tempted Adam.” He did not. The devil tempted Eve, and 1 Timothy 2:14 makes it clear that though the woman was deceived by Satan, Adam was not. He sinned with his eyes wide open. Adam’s sin was what theologians call a de novo transaction; there was no connection between Adam’s rebellion and the devil’s rebellion. They were alike. The devil had been given a free will and had said, “I will.”
