What Would Have Been...

²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Matthew 11:21

In Matthew 11 Jesus is rebuking the Nation of Israel for not recognizing that He, the Messiah, had come unto them.  His fulfillment of the promise of God was attested to by His birth, by the timing of his arrival, by His teaching ministry, and by His many miracles…yet they had failed to believe in Him.  This is a powerful reminder that we are held accountable for the clear ways in which God has revealed Himself to us at any time in world history…but this verse has another interesting insight for us.  Jesus explains that if others had seen what the Israelites of His day saw they would have repented.  This tells us that God does not simply “know everything that is” He also knows everything that would be, could be or might have been.  This extends God’s divine knowledge past the actual into any possible contingency that could imagine or even those that could never be imagined.  Thus, when God does something or allows something, we can always be absolutely confident that there is no better thing that He could have done for His own glory, and for the ultimate benefit of those who love Him.