Who killed Jesus?

God breathed his spirit into man. (In both Hebrew and Greek the words for 'spirit' are respectively the same as the words these languages use for 'breath'.) We were made to be "like God". If we were any more like him, we would be gods ourselves. This is exactly the temptation Eve fell for but instead of becoming more like God, she fell under the influence of another spirit.

The Hebrew word "satan" can be translated "opposer". After Adam and Eve both sinned, the opposer somehow got an ally in the form of our "flesh". The natural tendency of man is to oppose God. That is one of the themes of the Bible which will be abundantly clear to anyone who is willing to read it without prejudice. The Israelites had to be saved again and again from the sticky situations they got themselves into when they drifted into what came naturally, namely immorality, sacrificing children, oppressing the poor etc.

When Jesus was born it was as if there was a conspiracy to kill him. The Jewish nation had a king of whom the Roman emperor said: "I would rather be his pig than his son". Augustus based this on the fact that Herod would not eat pork but he had killed his son. The spirit of the opposer caused Herod to feel threatened by anyone who had the slightest chance of becoming king in his place.

Finally a human being was born who was more "like God" than anyone who had lived before. But the rulers of this world would not let him live. The religious leaders condemned him because he upset their hypocritical lifestyle and broke their silly rules. The secular state did not care enough to do the right thing which would be to protect him. They rather caved in and did what was politically correct. Many of Jesus' followers suffered the same fate. They were condemned by the murderers who had become leaders in the Church and executed by the state. Among them were Jan Huss and William Tyndale.

Throughout the last 2000 years true believers in Jesus were persecuted by the same people who persecuted the Jews. By observing the news media an unbiased observer will notice that today this tendency is becoming even more pronounced than before.

God warned the Jewish religious leaders that he was going to find other custodians of his people. Judaism was no longer going to be the religion by which his people would be identified. That is the meaning of the fig tree which Jesus cursed. He made it abundantly clear that those who reject him can in no way expect to be accepted by his Father. In this way the prophesy in Isaiah 49:6 was fulfilled as well as Psalm 118:22.

It follows that not all religion is good. In fact, satan uses religion and there is probably more bad religion out there than good. But Jesus said: "I will build my church". His true church is the only institution of which the mission is completely altruistic. (Matthew 28:18-20)