Jesus promised His disciples an intimate connection with Him, even while the world remained uncertain about His true identity. Many then, as now, viewed Him primarily as a miracle worker rather than as the Master Teacher He came to be. His miracles certainly served a purpose—they were signs pointing to His identity as the promised Messiah. Yet He Himself warned that even the most extraordinary wonders cannot force belief: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
Like passionate preaching, miracles can stir the soul and spark excitement. But when people become captivated by divine power rather than divine truth, they miss the very point of His coming. His presence remains as real today as when He walked the shores of Galilee, yet it becomes tragically easy to overlook when we’re drawn only to the spectacular, the charismatic, the miraculous. Consider the profound humility of the One who willingly set aside the very signs that made Him remarkable—allowing Himself to be traded for a criminal named Barabbas, choosing surrender over spectacle.
The Storm and the Sleeping Savior
“Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’ He replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!’ (Matthew 8:24-27)
That question echoes through the ages: “What kind of man is this?” The disciples witnessed something beyond their understanding—not just power over nature, but a serenity that could sleep through a storm while others panicked. This was humanity as it was meant to be: perfectly at peace, perfectly trusting.
When Miracles Don’t Move the Heart
In the name of this same Jesus, Peter and John later healed a crippled man at the temple gate called Beautiful. Peter seized the moment to declare that it was through Jesus—the very One they had rejected and killed—that this miracle occurred (Acts 3:2-26). Though no longer physically present, Jesus continued His work through those who carried His Spirit. Yet the response to this undeniable miracle was not repentance but resistance.
The religious leaders arrested Peter and John, throwing them into prison (Acts 4:1-3). This reveals a startling truth: miracles alone cannot produce genuine faith. These same leaders knew the tomb was empty. They had heard the reports, considered the evidence, and still chose to believe their own fabricated story—that the disciples had stolen the body while guards slept (Matthew 28:12-15).
Confronted with overwhelming proof, they clung tenaciously to disbelief. Jesus remained the Son of God whether they acknowledged Him or not. But this raises the deeper question: What causes human hearts to close their eyes and stop their ears against truth? These were men who studied the Law and the Prophets—Scriptures that pointed unmistakably to the coming Messiah, fulfilled in Jesus.
Did they truly believe what they read? They thought they did, wielding those same Scriptures as weapons against those they deemed lawbreakers. But would they apply the Law’s demands to themselves? Clearly not; though their own Scriptures condemned false testimony, they paid soldiers to spread lies, making themselves comfortable in deception (Matthew 28:12-15). This manufactured falsehood became, tragically, a cornerstone of their religious identity.
The Root of Resistance
If the chief priests hadn’t bribed those guards, their entire religious system might have crumbled. This reveals something profound: the human need for self-justification can overpower even the clearest evidence. But what drives this desperate search for justification against truth?
We see the pattern’s origin in the garden. When God confronted Adam and Eve about their disobedience, their responses revealed the birth of blame-shifting:
“The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate'” (Genesis 3:11-13).
Here lies the anatomy of evasion: rather than owning their choices, they transferred responsibility—Adam to Eve (and implicitly to God for giving her to him), Eve to the serpent (and implicitly to God for allowing the serpent in the garden). Justification had entered human experience, and with it came the ability to ignore the obvious truth.
Why do we blame others rather than accept responsibility? Real responsibility is about having both the ability and the willingness to face what’s wrong and make it right. A careful driver checks brakes and tires before a trip, knowing they can’t blame anyone else for negligence. But Adam and Eve’s reaction reveals something deeper: a reluctance to take accountability, rooted in the very nature of being human.
The Image of God and the Dust of the Earth
The serpent’s deception raises a troubling question: Why would God permit such a deceiver to mislead His children? But before pointing fingers at the Creator, we must consider what Scripture reveals about human nature. We were made in God’s image—yet Adam, bearing that image, still fell to the tempter’s wiles. Was Adam truly the image of God?
Yes, in the sense described in Genesis 1:26-27. But no, if we consider the part formed from dust:
“The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
After the fall, God reminded Adam of his Earthly origin, preventing him from assuming divinity in his sinful state.
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).
Adam learned that his physical body—the part formed from earth—was not made in God’s image. It was dust, and to dust it would return. But that which truly reflects the divine likeness is not made of dust at all: it is the spirit, which death cannot touch. Out of His great love, God immediately spoke a prophecy of hope for humanity caught in deception:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
The Seed of the Woman
Throughout history, believers have recognized this “seed of the woman” as the first promise of the Messiah—the One who would crush the serpent’s head. But what made Jesus different from other humans while still appearing fully human?
According to Scripture, Jesus was Mary’s son but not Joseph’s (though Joseph would become His stepfather). His birth, while miraculous, had an Old Testament parallel in Isaac, born to Sarah long after childbearing age. Yet Jesus’ conception carried a unique dimension:
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit'” (Matthew 1:18-20).
God had told Adam, “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” This statement requires careful understanding. What returns to dust is not from God. As Ecclesiastes 12:7 affirms: “The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Through Jesus, God could begin a new humanity—one freed from Adam’s inheritance of sin. What returns to dust comes from the ground, consistent with God’s words to Adam. But the spirit returns to God who gave it. Here we glimpse why Jesus could rightly say He was not of this world: He came directly from God. Though born of a woman, Jesus was God’s Son.
Does this make Him different from us? In one sense, yes—for He came from the Father without the inheritance of Adam’s fallen nature. In another sense, no, for we too were created in God’s image, meant to reflect His likeness.
The Veil of Deception
Jesus declared Himself “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Humanity lives under a veil of deception inherited from our first parent. Someone had to come and lead us out of that darkness—and who else could do this but One who came directly from the Father, untouched by the world’s lies? This is the mystery of Jesus that so many failed to grasp.
They were born into a world wrapped in deception, a veil that only the Messenger from God could lift. Scripture presents Jesus as the Messiah sent to free humanity from the chains of self-justification—not by confronting sin through condemnation, but by embodying truth so completely that falsehood lost its power.
The danger of self-justification is that it offers false security while being utterly wrong. After bribing the guards to lie about His resurrection, the chief priests clung to their fabricated story. That false comfort trapped them in sin, even though Jesus stood before them as the only escape. The truth that He came from heaven cannot register with those convinced that humanity comes only from dust and returns to nothingness.
The Only Way to Understanding
The mysteries of faith unfold only to those willing to surrender everything and follow Him. Yet caught in the web of self-justification, some who call themselves Christians reshape Jesus to fit their systems—reducing Him to a component of theological formulas rather than embracing His testimony that we are God’s children.
Jesus is the Son of God, and we, too, become God’s children when we abandon self-justification and believe in Him alone. He told His disciples not to call anyone on earth “father,” because their only Father is in heaven (Matthew 23:9). Why this specific instruction to them? Because salvation comes only through Christ, and those who follow Him must understand their true identity and lineage.
The blindness to this truth stems from the same impulse that drove Adam to blame Eve and Eve to blame the serpent: the desperate need to be right, to justify ourselves, to maintain our position. While this may provide temporary comfort, it anchors us firmly in the very sin from which Christ came to free us.
By God’s grace, a person can eventually recognize the foolishness of such self-protection. The apostle Paul expressed this awakening powerfully:
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God based on faith” (Philippians 3:7-9).
If what applied to Paul does not apply to those calling themselves Christians, then they are not truly Christians. They may feel comfortable in their self-justification, believing themselves secure. But like the chief priests who bribed guards to maintain their false narrative, they deceive only themselves. Tragically, they may lead others into the same duplicity—and will answer for that influence.
The Warning Jesus Gave
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” (Matthew 7:21-23).
These are sobering words. Miracles, prophecies, mighty works—none of these guarantee the relationship that matters most: being known by Him. The question is not what we have done in His name, but whether we have done the will of the Father, which begins with abandoning our own righteousness and receiving His.
What Set Jesus Apart
What ultimately distinguished Jesus from us is this: He never lied, never defended Himself, never justified Himself before accusers. Standing before Pilate with His life at stake (John 18:37), He did not argue against false charges. He simply bore witness to the truth and stood firm in it. His mission was not merely to die for us, but to show us how to live—making His life an example we could truly follow.
He often said to His disciples, “You of little faith”—not as condemnation, but as invitation. The faith He spoke of was not mere belief in propositions, but deep knowing: knowing what it means to be God’s child, knowing one’s identity and inheritance, knowing the Father so intimately that life’s fiercest storms cannot shake that peace.
Just as Jesus calmed the furious storm threatening to sink the disciples’ boat (Matthew 8:24-27), those who possess this kind of faith can live with the same unshakeable confidence. In His humanity, Jesus demonstrated what it means to be made in God’s image—not as a distant ideal, but as a living reality accessible to all who will abandon self-justification and follow Him.
He came to show us who we truly are: children of God, created in His likeness, destined for more than dust. The question remains what it has always been: Will we recognize Him? Will we abandon our carefully constructed justifications and simply believe? Will we, like the disciples in the storm, stop being afraid and discover the peace of the One who sleeps through the tempest?
“What kind of man is this?” They asked it then. We must ask it still—and be willing to receive the answer. Rather than linking this mysterious condition to Jesus, the main point is that it symbolizes humanity, wandering and bewildered in a state of sin.
Andrew Masuku is the author of Dimensions of a New Civilisation, laying down standards for uplifting Zimbabwe from the current state of economic depression into a model for other nations worldwide. A decaying tree provides an opportunity for a blossoming sprout. Written from a Christian perspective, the book is a product of inspiration, relieving those who have witnessed the strings of unworkable solutions, leading to the current economic and social decay. Most Zimbabweans should find the book to be a long-awaited providential oasis of hope, in a simple conversational tone.
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