If a Super Bowl commercial gets people talking about Jesus, then that’s a good thing right?
Well, according to many Christians, it depends on which Jesus the commercials are advertising.
To no one’s surprise, this year’s He Gets Us Super Bowl ad featuring various people washing the feet of what is assumed to be sinners has sparked fierce debate on both sides of the proverbial aisle.
Some believe it is a gross misrepresentation of Jesus’ act of servant leadership when He washed the feet of His disciples, not the feet of unrepentant sinners.
On the other side of the coin, people think the reaction to He Gets Us ad is unnecessary and people need to calm down.
Weighing in on the debate is revivalist Isaiah Saldivar, who expressed to his audience that he wanted to tackle this issue from a biblical perspective and see whether He Gets Us got it right.
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Doing a live reaction video to the advertisement on his YouTube channel with his audience, Saldivar read what He Gets Us had to say about the commercial, and picked up a discrepancy right away that conflicts with biblical text.
“They’re saying Jesus washed His followers and friends feet, which actually it was His disciples’ feet,” Saldivar explains.
“Just to be clear…Jesus did not wash sinners’ feet. He did not wash prostitutes feet. He did not wash people in the world’s feet. He washed His disciples’ feet.”
One of the things that He Gets Us promotes is that they are not political in any way, and you can read their statements about staying neutral on their website. Watching the video, however, Saldivar notices it is in fact quite political.
“To me it looks very political. I could be wrong, but we have abortion, we have immigration. They say it’s not political at all but I don’t buy it personally,” Saldivar says.
Getting to the last image of the commercial where a priest appears to be washing the feet of a homosexual man, Saldivar really took issue with what he viewed as the message coming across to people watching it, and it is not based on the Jesus of the Bible.
“This is why Christ died: He knows we’re sinners. We’re dark. We’re evil. We think of evil things, so this seems to be to me…as if God is validating and okay with this lifestyle,” Saldivar says.
“The Bible says this, I know you’re going to get mad, that the homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of God. So to me, this looks like they’re validating. …They’re presenting an America incorporated Jesus. A woke Jesus.”
The commercial fades to black, which is standard for the He Gets Us campaign, and ends with a one-liner of some sort. This year’s message was, “Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate.” But what does that message really say?
“Here’s my problem with this statement,” says Saldivar. “Their version of Jesus didn’t teach hate is, ‘Don’t talk about the homosexual. Don’t talk about immigration. Don’t talk about anything. Don’t call these people out. Don’t talk about their sin,’ because that’s considered hate.
“So now this commercial is framing if we preach against those lifestyles as teaching hate. That’s my biggest problem with all of this.”
Pointing to the Word of God as his ultimate source of guidance and authority, Saldivar highlights where Paul warns Christians of those promoting a false Jesus in 2 Corinthians 11:4, which says:
“For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might submit to it readily enough.”
“I’m not trying to be ‘Negative Nancy’ here and talk bad about this. I’m just saying we have to be careful [in] not presenting an American Incorporated Jesus and a Jesus [that] is not in the Bible,” Saldivar shares.
“Because the Jesus of the Bible condemned sin. He condemned some of the lifestyles you saw in the trailer. Am I glad that a message of Jesus is being presented at the Super Bowl? Yeah, if it’s a biblical message of Jesus, but this is not the biblical message of Jesus.”{eoa}
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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.
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