Some time in March 2023 Julius Malema pronounced himself and his followers as equals to Jesus. His words are, “the same way the Christians are waiting for Jesus to come. We are not religious; we can’t wait for Jesus to come. We are Jesus ourselves. We are going to clean that place”. Whatever reason that made Malema make this pronouncement cannot be good enough to equal himself and his team to Jesus. Jesus is the saviour and no one can compare to Him on that quality; and other qualities that are unique just to Him.
Jesus foretold of such occurrences in Matthew 24:4-7, 13 where He says, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many”. He has not said it the exact same way but the message is the same.
Unlike in the world where ignorance is not an excuse, God overlooks ignorance yet He still calls all people to repentance (Acts 17:30). Out of a number of biblical exhortations to such proclamations, I will pick just two. I’ll go through the two points on which I give him the benefit of ignorance to have done such a thing.
- Taking the name of the Lord in vain. The third commandment says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Exodus 20:7). This is a common temptation that has overcome many people who are in authority, even among believes. Often we ridicule, mock, joke and downplay the name of the Lord – most of the time we are unaware that we are now taking the name of the Lord in vain.
- Claiming to be equal to Jesus. One way to study the Bible is through analysing examples of how God dealt with people in recorded circumstances. I have a tiktok account entitled ‘Examples from the Bible’ where I specifically give applicable lessons on how God deals with people, nature and animals.
The example of equalling oneself to God is taken from Numbers 20:10-12 where God takes a decision on Moses’ behaviour of not only disobeying Him but I believe it is also on equalling Himself with God. Verse 10 reads, “He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. 12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”
Then Moses thought He knew how to calm God down and started pleading with Him to reverse His words. God told Moses never to speak about this matter again. This is according to Deuteronomy 3:23-26. 23 “And I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, 24 ‘O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? 25 Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.’ 26 But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me, ‘Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again.
In conclusion, it must be known that God may shut His ear to people who offend Him, even when He does not necessarily reject them. No human effort cannot stop God from passing on punishment to His adversaries and mockers, whether they do so intentionally or not. Human thinking often ignores the anger side of God yet it is real and can be really severe.
To aid in understanding God’s likely behaviour from our actions, I have a compiled a list of Bible examples into 50 devotions. The devotionals are easy to read and follow for spiritual edification. A link to the devotions is shared in the comments window below.
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