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“It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33).
The Pharisees, who did not like the Lord Jesus, had warned Him that if He stayed around in Jerusalem, Herod would kill Him. The Lord Jesus did not die at Herod’s hands, but He told those Pharisees that a prophet could not perish out of Jerusalem. What did He mean?
The answer is rather solemn. All the prophets who had perished, all through the Old Testament, had generally been killed in or around Jerusalem—the very place where God’s temple was, and where people were supposed to be able to learn about the true God. The place had become so corrupted that the prophets God sent to warn His people were killed there. Finally, the Lord Jesus Himself would be taken outside that same city of Jerusalem, and crucified. This was the end of man’s testing; he had failed every test God could give him. But then God began to act in grace towards this world, and we can be saved now, not through our own efforts, but through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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