Did Jesus preach judgement to all Israel?

Well, he preached a lot more than that! His was a message of grace and salvation; so much so that he (or John, it is a little bit hard to work it out) could say "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:17)

Not that judgement and grace are ever separated in Jesus' message. The very next verse of John's account makes that plain: "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." (John 3:18)

Now all of this is by way of getting back to this post, where I suggested that Jesus preached judgement in the clearest and starkest possible terms. And that he did this not only to the smug religious people but to the whole of Israel, as he instructed 72 of his disciples to take such a message right through the towns and villages of the nation. Speaking to his disciples, he set matters out without any hint of ambiguity:

I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

-Luke 10:12.

Lurid as this warning was, we might ask ourselves whether the 72 disciples, when they went out, were as harsh as Jesus himself when they actually spoke to the people of Israel?

After all, Jesus' words about Sodom were not addressed to the villages themselves, but could almost be read as an aside to the disciples.

We don't have any direct evidence on this question, since the actual preaching of the 72 on this mission is not recorded.

But we do have one reliable judge regarding what was preached, and that is the Lord Jesus himself.

With this in mind, we note that whatever asides Jesus may have made to his disciples about Sodom, the very next words he speaks are addressed not to the disciples but to the villages that they will be visiting

though they still form part of his briefing session for the 72, and so are meant to be heard by them.

They likewise are words of judgement:

13Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.

and they continue the thought that Jesus has begun by his mention of Sodom

and indeed, by his mention of what the disciples ought to do if the message they preach is not received.

Not only this, but Jesus' response on their return

"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven", Luke 10:18

indicates satisfaction over the way they've fulfilled their commission, showing that they passed on the message exactly as they heard it. We don't have any reason at all to think that the disciples as they preached their way through Israel watered down their message, or the horrifying terms in which it was stated by their Lord.

Not that we need to doubt that the disciples themselves were fired up to deliver a message of judgement on their master's behalf. Immediately before this mission, James and John, foaming at the mouth over Samaria's rejection of Jesus, have asked Jesus:“Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54). No wonder Jesus called them Sons of Thunder!

Jesus on that occasion tones them down; the people of the towns of Israel, however, receive no such postponement of his judgement message. As far as Jesus himself is concerned, the news he brings is

judgement,

judgement,

judgement,

judgement,

judgement,

judgement,

and more judgement

every step of the way from the North of Israel, on his journey south towards Jerusalem. Until finally when we see him arriving at Jerusalem, what does he then preach to all his Israelite hearers? Sure enough, judgement.

This is only a selection of some from the central section of Luke's gospel (Luke 9:51-19:27). Many, equally harsh words are addressed to the religious insiders (for example here, here, here, and here, not to mention here.

Yet in agreeing that Jesus pressed home this message of judgement particularly amongst righteous religious hypocrites, we don't lose sight of the reality that Jesus' message for all the crowds he spoke to was exactly the same: You must repent, or face the wrath of God for all eternity. Jesus himself preached this. He required his disciples to preach accordingly.

Small wonder then, that the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed who heard this message of judgement flocked to Jesus, and found in him grace, peace, mercy, and the lifting of their burdens.

Unless we consider ourselves and our audience, for some bizarre reason, to be more righteous than the Israel that heard Jesus' preaching for themselves, then we ought to preach this same terrible judgement of God to our own burdened, depressed, weary and hopeless hearers. We ought to preach it with the full intensity and ferocity and tears that true love demands. As we do, we should pray that somehow they (and we) might not harden our hearts, but instead find mercy in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus.