RUBBISH & TREASURE

 

Rubbish & Treasure

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. For alliteration’s sake, we prefer to use the word trash over rubbish. If the etymology of the word rubbish relates to rubble, then perhaps we might say that one man’s rubbish is another man’s ruble. There are various theories as to the source of the word ruble, or rouble, as some prefer. However, it shouldn’t be confused with rubble, which tended to mean bits of broken stone. So, we’re back to one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.

Jesus is the stone the builders rejected (1 Pet. 2:7-8; Psa. 118:22). He was counted as rubbish, rubble. Where we will spend eternity depends on whether we trash or treasure Jesus. As I first began to seriously study Jesus, I worked beside a couple of men who would go to great lengths to deny the eternal deity of the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14). They rejected God's triuneness, the Trinity, and by so doing, they rejected the same stone as the builders. It says in Isaiah, ‘The LORD Almighty is the One you are to regard as holy, He is the One you are to fear, He is the One you are to dread. He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah He will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem He will be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble; they will fall and be broken, they will be snared and captured’ (Isa. 8:13-15).

Peter, of course, is telling us that Jesus is ‘a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall’, the stone the builders rejected. I asked my two workmates why they were stumbling over the fact that Peter is saying that Jesus is the ‘LORD Almighty’, or, as they liked to say, Jehovah God? Like the Jews who wanted Jesus to be put to death for the same reason, they thought this was blasphemy! Yet, Jesus applies these verses to Himself. However, one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure, ‘When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, because they held Him to be a prophet’ (Matt. 21:45-46).

The chief priests and Pharisees were the builders rejecting Christ the stone. Like these builders who rejected the divinity of Jesus, my two workmates were in danger of losing their own souls and spending eternity without Christ. If they would put half as much effort into studying the Word as the LORD Almighty rather than devising ways to reject Him as such, they would not perish’ (John 3:16). Treasure the Word and His Commandments in your heart (Psa. 119:11, 162).

When Jesus was crucified, there was a man crucified on each side of Him. Like the mockers circling Christ on the cross, they too were hurling insults at Him. But one underwent a change, a change of heart. His insults were transformed into… ‘Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom’ (Luke 23:42). He went from rubbishing Jesus to treasuring Him. What was rubbish to him became his treasure. ‘Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise”’ (Luke 23:43).

In the 1^st Commandment God says, ‘You shall have no other gods before Me’ (Exod. 20:3). The 2^nd is the Command forbids false images, while the 3^rd forbids taking His name in vain, i.e., blaspheming, yes, rubbishing Him like those chief priests and Pharisees. They had a false image of God, i.e., they had another god in mind to what Jesus was revealing to them, i.e., that He was God in the flesh. 

Who is Jesus to you, rubbish or treasure?