Despite all the miracles of healing and exorcism, His matchless teaching, and His sinless life, the Pharisees still demanded from Jesus some proof of His authority! He rebuked them in two ways: By calling them “an evil and adulterous generation” and by denying to them any “sign” other than His resurrection. (As He explained immediately, “the sign of Jonah” refers to his “resurrection” from the belly of the great fish, which is a type of the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.) They were “evil” because they hated God’s only Son and the salvation He brought. He called them “adulterous” because their hearts had wandered from God. Instead, they worshiped their own righteousness, which was a sham. They could not believe in Christ, because they would not. They had their own ideas of what the Messiah would be like, and Jesus did not fit their mental image. They could not discern God’s love in His actions, or truth in His teachings. What about us? Do we seek some sort of proof from God that Jesus is Savior and Lord? Do we demand a “sign” from heaven to convince us that God’s love is found in Christ? Let us remember that the ultimate proof of God’s love for us consists in Christ’s death for the ungodly (Romans 5:8). And the decisive indication that His death was a sacrifice accepted by God lies in His resurrection. No matter what our circumstances, trials, troubles, and suffering, to look any further is to join the Pharisees, and to miss God’s blessing.