I know - that's a pretty lame attempt at replicating the cliché of a Nazi interrogator expecting some sort of authentication from the protagonist of the movie. But if we've been caught up in the plot, we sense the growing tension. Will his credentials past muster? Will he make it through the checkpoint?
The demand for authentication is at the heart of the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees. In Mark 8 we learn that they “argue with him” and seek “from him a sign from heaven to test him.” They were not looking for another miracle. Jesus had done miracles in abundance, even before their eyes. What they wanted was proof that what he did, he did with the blessing of heaven and thereby verify that he was who he was purported to be, the Messiah.
“Peypahz, peypahz, peypahz pleese.”
Jesus refuses. He is not going to subjugate the glory of the Covenant of Grace to the self-justifying, man-made, Pharisaical conceptions of the Messiah. There was enough already before their eyes to authenticate who he was: the testimony of Scripture, the fulfillment of prophecy, the anointed teaching, and, in fact, extraordinary, unparalleled miracles. They had seen enough if only they had eyes to see.
The demand for an authenticating sign persists. It manifests itself every time someone asks a Christian why Jesus should be regarded as the “only way.” “Why should I believe that Jesus was God in the flesh? Why should I believe that it is only faith in him that saves me from the torments of hell? What proof do you have that authenticates these claims?”
“Peypahz, peypahz, peypahz pleese.”
Though we are to prepare thoughtful answers for such questions (1 Peter 3:15) and we are to faithfully preach Christ and him crucified (that in and of itself being a sign, 1 Corinthians 1:22-24), the sign we have been given to authenticate that Jesus was who the Bible says he was is our love. This love is to be evident to those watching. It grows out of our being in union with Christ (John 13:31-35, 17:20-23).
Why would the world make the connection between Christians loving each other and his coming? Perhaps Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians helps us to understand: “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31).
Prior to these words Paul acknowledges the world’s demand for authentication. Yet, he says, God has chosen the despised things of the world to expose the motivation of such expectations. He uses sinful human beings who've been redeemed by him; they stand as a testimony to his grace. As this passage attests, there's no room for boasting among Christians for we cannot think of ourselves as deserving such favor. There is only room for humility and love. We cannot put ourselves forward. We can only put Christ forward. As Paul says, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” In fact, Paul writes elsewhere in 1 Corinthians (13:1-3) that if love is lacking in our Christianity all authenticating signs amount to nothing. It is love extended in humility toward all that marks us out as people who understand the need for a heaven sent Savior. It is our answer to the demand for “Peypahz, peypahz, peypahz pleese.”
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