Physical healing is coupled with spiritual healing throughout the Bible. This may be particularly true in Isaiah’s detailed prophecy about Jesus (Isaiah 53) and in the gospel accounts of Jesus. Healing and salvation are nearly inseparable. Long before “faith healers” or “Pentecostals” existed, physical healing was revealed to be the will of God.
You may be thinking at this point, “Spiritual healing, I’m convinced of, but physical healing rarely occurs, not in the supernatural sense. I’m saved, but I haven’t seen a person healed for a long time, if ever.”
The “supernatural sense” provides a useful qualification. We all see our bodies healing themselves, just as sometimes medical care may heal them. These healings should be received as gifts from God, just as should all sunshine, groceries, friends, and pets.
As you may have guessed this post is about supernatural healing—healing that cannot be accounted for by natural explanations, whether the medical care exceeds medical expectations or, as in most of the Bible, no medical care is involved.
The fact that Christians believe unanimously in spiritual salvation but only occasionally in divine healing offers us an opportunity to ask ourselves these scandalous questions: “If the only parts of the gospel that I believe are the ones that cannot be verified, am I really believing? Or is my “faith” just religious hopefulness? Is it possible that I’m walking in disbelief in spite of my intentions? Is widespread disbelief among Christians what Jesus suspected when he asked, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8)
If you want to know whether or not it’s God’s will to heal you, look at Jesus in the gospels. He did only what he saw his father doing (John 5:19):
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:23)
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick (Matthew 8:16 & Luke 4:40).
Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. (Matthew 15:30)
Jesus never told a sick person to learn to live with an illness, nor did he ever say that God wanted to teach the person a lesson through the sickness. He never used his prayer from the Garden of Gethsemane, “If it be your will,” when confronting sickness. He healed all who came to him. Even in his home town where there was so little faith, “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them” (Mark 6:4-6).
Because God’s will to see us healed is crystal clear, we must ask why it’s so easily disputed and discounted? Among the reasons are the following:
we pray and remain sick
we pay more attention to feelings than scripture
we let our experience define our theology
we ignore the gospels and instead listen to sermons and teachings that promote disbelief
Instead of focusing on these deterrents, we do well to focus on Jesus’ unabated habit of healing. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Peter cut of the servant’s ear, Jesus healed it (Luke 22:49-51). It was the eve of his crucifixion and he still healed. Who are we following, after all? Our feelings? Our experience? Our institutions? Or the Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever? (Hebrews 13:8)
In the past, I distinguished between divine and medical healing. That snobbery made me ungrateful for all the healing that occurs daily through good medicine. God loves to have people help people. That is the fabric of our existence. Most healing will be medical. But not all, particularly the many conditions medicine cannot cure—or where the cure is almost as bad as the illness.
As I write this, I’m aware of faithful Christians with chronic conditions, including blindness and polio—and I’d venture that these people are in many ways closer to God than I am. My concern is not to explain away our experience but to focus on what God revealed through Jesus. Then we are at least waging our war against disease on solid ground.
One way to find that solid ground is to recognize that healing and salvation overlap considerably, even semantically. Once we see that the same words are used to describe both physical healing and spiritual redemption, we have greater assurance that God’s will is comprehensive: good, perfect, and acceptable (Romans 12:1-2).
Three words in Greek are used to refer to both healing and salvation: sozo/σώζω, therapeuo/θεραπεύω, and iaomai/ἰάομαι (Three New Testament Words for Healing). Each of these words is used in the New Testament, and each refers to both physical healing and spiritual salvation. The Gospel (incarnated in Jesus) reveals that the whole person is under the purview of God’s love, with the result no hair is too short for him to number, nor life too poor for him to care. On more than one occasion, Jesus healed and forgave the person, making the person whole physically and admonishing the person to sin no more. Let us learn, then, to think of the divine touch as complete, sufficient for all our needs.
We all know that spiritual healing, being eternal, is the most important transformation any of us can (and should) undergo. If I have everything this life can offer—health, friends, and family—but am riddled with guilt and shame, these things mean little. But if I’m a new person, a person adopted by God and endowed with the righteousness of Jesus—I’m forever fine. This life may be painfully lacking but when we sow our earthly bodies to the grave, we can await our restoration, some way, some how, as forever healthy children of God.
Although physical healing is less important in the long run, we will see it promised or even stated as a fact in many scriptures, especially when we are aware that many times spiritual redemption and physical healing are both suggested in a promise.
Sometimes a New Testament writer will interpret the Old Testament in a way we would not suspect. It happens in Matthew’s gospel, where the writer insists that the healing is physical. After word got out that Jesus could heal people and deliver them from demons, Jesus was flooded with requests:
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“He took up our infirmities
and bore our diseases.”
The words “infirmities” and “diseases” are Matthew’s interpretation. In Isaiah 53:4 itself, you find words such as griefs, sorrows, pain, and suffering. But Matthew insists that the scourging and crucifixion somehow allowed Jesus to take up and carry physical illness. This overlap between physical and spiritual healing is of course perfectly consistent with the Greek words that refer to both kinds of healing.
The classical passage on how to pray in faith occurs in Mark 11:24. The fact that Jesus begins with “whatever you ask” implies that physical healing is included.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24)
In believing that we have received something before we experience it, we are moving from hope to faith. It would be hard to over-stress the difference between following Mark 11:24 and our feelings (which turn us quickly into quivering beggars when we are seriously ill).
If you are distressed, physically or emotionally, think about this: God knew before you asked what you would ask. God knows the exact solution. God says “yes” before the “yes” is visible. And God cares about your health just as he cares about your spirit.
This is the original April 22, 2024 version of the post (17 minutes), in the author’s voice (more improvisational, far less organized):
Publishing Info This post was first published on: April 22, 2024 at 15:00. Revised Apr 24, 2025. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change in order to bring current posts to the top of the directory.
Under differing circumstances, we exercise both hope and faith, just as we benefit from both promises and facts, as they are explained below. For none of these terms is it “either/or” but “both—and.” However, I emphasize faith in the following because it has been misrepresented as hope by so many preachers, a misunderstanding reinforced by our emotions.
I am neither a Greek scholar nor a grammarian, but I am aware, as my readers are or will soon be, that “tense” matters when it comes to faith in Jesus. By “tense” I mean the way verbs may point to past, present, and future events (I ran yesterday, I run or am running today, and I will run tomorrow).
When we pay attention to the past tense in the Bible, we see that God is already aware of our needs before we pray. We also see that much of what we pray for has already been provided by Jesus. The past tense redirects our attention from ourselves and our circumstances to God’s awareness and provision. Faith does not involve us reminding God of his promises. Rather, faith reminds us of God’s preparation. We are the one’s getting up to speed and not the reverse.
Note the past tense in the following passage, one of the most concise and profound teachings on prayer in the Bible.[1]
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24)
Who, in fact, would have guessed that the key to faith is to believe you have already received what you are about to ask for? Yes, we are instructed to believe that we have already received whatever we ask for and then we shall have it.[2]
Many of us have read this verse all our lives and have not caught its meaning. Its meaning, however, points directly to the one to whom we are praying: the eternal creator who knows everything and stands outside of time. If you are not praying to this being, you are probably praying to someone created in your own image, most likely a “god” who is occasionally forgetful and sometimes indifferent.
We often pray as though God is a hopefully caring individual who will assist us if we can just get his attention, and this, frankly, indicates we are already living in disbelief. It’s essential to believe in the present that God both understands and has provided for this moment’s needs. He knows before we ask what we have need of (Matthew 6:8). For that reason, Jesus says, we should not keep repeating our prayers. We do not “remind” God of anything. We remind ourselves that God has already numbered the hairs on our head and knows what we need (Luke 12:6-7). We never make God aware of our needs. We wake up to his constant awareness. As we trust that God already knows and cares, we are living in faith.
What do we do in the mean time—the time between trusting we have and actually experiencing it? We are to be thankful and to act on our faith. Thanksgiving can take many forms, especially songs and statements of gratitude and relief. Tears and laughter, too, express gratitude.
To act on our faith is to make decisions based on the answer to prayer. Remember how often Jesus told people to do something to receive their healing: stand up, pick up, go to this pool. Note, also, how each of those things simply would not happen unless the person were healed. Jesus never said, “stop taking your meds” (which anyone can do, healed or sick). One of the safest responses to faith is to look for ways to help other people, being like Peter’s mother who, after being healed (we have no idea how she felt), rose to wait on Jesus (Matthew 8:14-15)
The next passage reveals that not only does God know our needs before we mention them, but that God knew our needs before time itself began. Grace is nothing to be begged for or worked for, but only to be recognized and received.
He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Timothy 1:9-10)
We may not understand all that it means for grace to be given to us before the beginning of time. I do not. It assures us that we have been in God’s mind long before we had minds of our own.
We must live in terms of the past—in terms of what Jesus has already provided. Paying attention to how God has provided in the past what we need in the present stirs our faith. Faith looks at things unseen, not at things that are seen. It opens our minds to the God for whom nothing is impossible, the God who resists the proud but who reveals himself to the humble, to those who come to him with the trust of children. As we yield to faith, we are able to hear for ourselves what Jesus said to the blind men: “According to your faith let it be done to you…” (Matthew 9:29).
Past Facts and Present Promises
The present and the past are not separate for the eternal God. We live in time, but God does not. When we pray to the one who already knows everything, we are addressing the real God, wholly unlike ourselves in respect to time. What we experience today, God already knew about. What God did in the past may have full consequences for us today, especially when we rely on those consequences.
Speaking in strictly human terms we can, I think, agree that the past seems stable, while the present may be daunting, and the future remains uncertain.
If the present is difficult (such as with ill health, bad circumstances, or demoralization), we will find more consolation in learning that something for our benefit has been done in the past than we will in finding something may be done for our benefit in the future. It is my wish that the readers of this post will walk away with increased confidence that our Father has already foreseen and addressed the majority of their needs in the past. This revelation will result in peace for the believer who will be free to respond with thanksgiving instead of with worry.
Both hope and faith are important, each having a different role in our lives. Usually, hope looks to the future, while faith accepts in the present that we have what we need even though we do not see it. Also related to time, promises refer to future events (I will marry you), while facts refer to past accomplishments (I married you).
While promises are valuable, facts are often ignored. Think of our redemption as it is explained in Romans: we have died with Christ (fact), we have been forgiven (fact), we are dead to the law (fact), the spirit of life has set us free from sin and death (fact), we are more than conquerors (fact), and nothing can separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus (fact). To pray for any of these things is to pray in vain. Pray instead that the eyes of our heart may be opened to see these things, to accept them, and to be thankful for them.
Most of us feel comfortable with promises. Promises and hopes for the future come to us naturally. We grow up with caregivers who make promises, and if a caregiver is both trustworthy and capable, we can hope for its fulfillment. Similarly when the scriptures provide a promise such as “no good thing will God withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11), we are right at home. We put our hope in the promise for future fulfillment and assume we will receive its fulfillment so long as we walk uprightly.
But we are less used to hearing a divine fact about a past accomplishment and accepting it as being done. For this difficulty there are at least two reasons.
First, the facts to which I’m referring are not obvious to natural observation. These must be revealed in the scriptures and by the Holy Spirit. This is why Paul prayed that believers would have a spirit of revelation and, I assume, why Jesus said “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Jesus taught that only by revelation could we know the true God: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do” ( Ephesians 1:18, Matthew 11:15, 25-26).
The second reason we think in terms of God responding in the future instead of the past is that we have been misled by poor sermons. Much that consists of hope is passed off as faith. Much that is already accomplished as a fact is misrepresented as a promise for the future. Fuzzy preaching leads to fuddled minds. Instead of resting on divine facts we are treading water by thinking only in terms of an uncertain future. The history of the Christian church includes a theology of disbelief that must be replaced by a theology of faith if we are to experience a kingdom that comes not in word only but also in power (1 Thessalonians 1:4-5).
It’s fine to hope for fulfillment in the future—and some things, such as one’s wedding date or our new, heavenly bodies, are reserved for the future and are proper objects of hope. Other things—indeed many of our greatest needs—have already been known by God, addressed by God, and accomplished by Jesus. To use a crude analogy, the check is not in the mail, it has been deposited before we knew we needed the money and awaits only for us to draw upon the account.
In short, when we pray, we are not called to beg that God makes an exception, we are called to agree that God is our provider. Prayer is closer to praise than we often realize.
If you are indifferent to what I’m pointing out, please know that the difference is immense. Trusting what God already knows, what God already intends, and what Jesus already accomplished delivers us from a life of fretful worry to a life of peace and joy. We may not instantly experience much, but the knowledge that the matter is in hands greater than ours creates trust. I’ve found peace and resolution by assuming a gift from God is mine, even when it isn’t visible or sensible.
Assurance without tangible evidence may be considered the foundation of faith, which, as we learn in Hebrews 11:1 is “the substance [in the present] of things hoped for [in the future], the evidence [in the present] of things not [yet] seen.” The litmus test of prayer is whether, when we are done expressing it, we walk away with assurance that it’s being taken care of or whether we feel it all remains up to us to accomplish. We may have to remind ourselves that we’ve been heard; we never need wonder whether or not our Father has listened.
This assurance comes by being convinced that we know God’s will, that it is good, perfect, and acceptable, that it is for our welfare and not our destruction, and that it is full of grace and mercy. We must rid ourselves of institutional disbelief—teachings and practices that reduce God to a lesser being. Among the worst examples, God is an inexplicable being that prefers to teach through sickness rather than healing, through punishment rather than forgiveness. Other institutional disbelief portrays God as a weak, memory challenged being who requires many reminders in order to act—if indeed this God acts at all. We are taught to keep confessing sins that are already, once and forever, forgiven—which is one example of how disbelief puts us right under the law again. If the good news is anything, it is good and, yes, even at this late date, it is still news.
Once you are keyed into the importance of the past tense as a gateway to faith, you find it throughout the gospel.
The great scripture that is so often quoted as to become a mere jingle to our ears epitomizes the role of the past tense for conveying divine truth: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Note that the deed has been done in the past; we need not pray it happens nor can we make it happen: “he gave his one and only son….” Note, also, that we who live in the present can believe in this son: “whoever believes in him….” And, finally, observe that the effect of this past deed believed in the present will result in future effects for they “shall…have eternal life.”
Another wonderful scripture highlights the role of tense:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
(Romans 5:6-9)
The “right time” is the historical past, about 33 A.D. This is followed by the literary (or eternal) present, “God demonstrates his own love.” And, again, “While we were still sinners,” refers to the past in two respects. First, the author, Paul the Apostle, was alive and sinning (by his own confession) when Christ died for him. Second, those who were born after the crucifixion (that’s us) discover that, while we may be still sinning in the present, Christ already died for us in the past. As a result, whether a person lives in the first or twenty-first century, “we have now been justified” (past perfect tense—to indicate that one event happened before another in the past).
In a final example, the apostle Peter applies the past tense to the majestic prophecy of Isaiah 53:
“‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed'” (I Peter 2:24, quoting Isaiah 53:5. Peter changes Isaiah’s text from “by his wounds we are healed” to “by his wounds you have been healed—past perfect tense. Either the present “are” or the past “were” denote some kind of healing has taken place. Peter’s use of the past tense “were” reminds us that what was done in the past had real effects in the past. Before we were born, the drama of our rebirth into Christ had been transacted.[3]
More can be said for living by faith in what God has already achieved and accomplished. Not only does it put us in tune with God. It also makes our part in the process perfectly clear. We are recipients. We cannot brag about things someone else achieved, especially if they achieved it in the past, most especially before we were born. We can only be grateful. When we realize that the vast majority of our needs have already been met by Christ—through his sufferings and his resurrection—we have nothing to boast about, to anxiously work for, to fear concerning, or to earn. We are already home:
It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 1:30-31, NIV)
God has already placed us in Christ. We are neither waiting to gain entrance to God’s presence nor to be near Jesus. We are there, feel it or not. We are not waiting for Jesus to give us wisdom, righteousness, holiness (sanctification), or redemption. We now have them by virtue of already being in Christ. All we need are the eyes to continually see this and the heart to insist on it when this life tells us we are on the outside, far away from Christ.
Consequently, three attitudes should inform our prayers.
When we have a need, remember that God already knows about the need and has provided a remedy, although we have not yet received it.
When we feel we need to become a better person, know that we are already identified with Christ in his death, resurrection, and ascension. The true us cannot be closer to God than we are right now. Living this out in our old bodies may be difficult, but the difficulty is to trust we are exactly who we should be in all the ways that count most.
Let us be thankful that the true God both knows and provides for us before we ask.
Footnotes
[1] The teaching on prayer here is crystal clear. The cursing of the fig tree is puzzling to most of us who see Jesus as constructive and the fig tree as innocent (it was out of season according to the passage in Mark 11). Without pretending to know why Jesus did it, I can only point out that the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple occur on the same day, an extremely emotional one that demonstrates both the misuse of the temple and the impending death of Jesus, who, like the fig tree, would die prematurely.
[2] The past tense in Mark 11:24 is undeniable. The Greek text reads πιστεύετε ὅτι ἐλάβετε καὶ ἔσται. “ἐλάβετε” is the aorist (past perfect) of “λαμβάνω” (to take or receive). The New International captures the tense (believe that you have received it, and it will be yours), as does the New American Standard (believe that you have received them, and they will be [granted] you), as does the Revised Standard version (believe that you have received it, and it will be yours). Some translations hedge slightly, such as King James (believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them). “Ye receive” is present tense. Perhaps the translators could not believe the past tense was intended. The verse, however, retains its meaning that the believing comes before the receiving and that is the most important point.
[3] The word “healed” can refer to physical or spiritual healing, and spiritual healing can refer to emotional healing or spiritual rebirth. It’s all wonderful, but is confusing for us who see healing limited to physical and emotional events. Peter’s reference to sin attaches his meaning to spiritual rebirth. However, as I write in another post (Two Sides of the Same Loving Coin: Healing and Salvation), Matthew quotes the previous verse in Isaiah, applying it to physical healing.
We discover that time is and is not important in Christ: it’s extremely important because everything has to be worked out, experienced, achieved. Jesus had to suffer on a specific day under the authority of Pontius Pilate. Yet the intentions, the obedience, the supernatural power were expressed “since the foundation of the world” (Hebrews 4:3).
This is the original April 22, 2024 version of the post (17 minutes), which, in its overenthusiastic way, included what is now a separate post on healing and forgiveness:
Publishing Info This post was first published on: April 22, 2024 at 15:00. Revised Apr 23, 2025. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change in order to bring current posts to the top of the directory.
I had met Kirk for breakfast. I liked him. We met on a water taxi from Belize to an island, Caye Caulker. We were now having breakfast at Amor y Cafe. Kirk is younger than I but still feeling the weight of his sixth decade of life. He observed that aging is not enjoyable. I concurred wholeheartedly, for that was the reason I had come to this island: to swim and hopefully regain some of my health.
Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child
It is a verse I have been “claiming” in an approximate way, hoping that I have many good years ahead of me.
To this, Kirk quickly and confidently rejoined, “Ah, yes. The Millennium!”
I knew exactly what he meant: Christ would return someday, Satan would be imprisoned, and earth would be well for a thousand years. During that time, we will experience a wealth of miracles, all the healing imaginable.
If we had been keeping score, Kirk would get a point for allowing the statement about the hundred-year-old child to be true (even literally) and at the same time entirely futuristic. I’d get a point afterward for writing that the statement is hyperbolic. Whether someone lives to be a hundred this year or in the Millennium, there’s something rhetorical and exaggerative about calling that person “a child.” Similarly, if someone dies at, say, 95 years, calling that person “accursed” (as Isaiah 65 soon states) is equally hyperbolic. The obvious point of Isaiah 65 is that things will, at an unspecified time and under unspecified conditions, get incredibly better for people.
Enough of Isaiah 65 for now, beautiful as the vision is. Enough of Kirk, too—only because he had to leave the island the next day and I never questioned him further about his beliefs.
But the conversation we started at the cafe continued a debate within me. On one hand, I am one who believes miracles are for today. On the other hand, I looked at the advantages of those who believe miracles are for the Millennium.
I see miracles, especially healings, as part of our daily bread, the sort of thing Jesus illustrated while on earth, the thing the disciples illustrated after Jesus ascended, and the thing occasionally experienced, sometimes in crowds, sometimes alone, by people across the ages.
The other school, sometimes called dispensationalism, sees the one miracle of being born again as the miracle we can both count on and help manifest in our lifetime. Salvation, period. The physical miracles can wait until the Millennium.
Unlike Millennial thinkers, I cannot wait passively. If miracles, especially of healing, were needed and delivered to the people in Jesus’ Palestine, they are equally needed today. Yes, medicine does much, but medicine doesn’t come close to curing many, many ailments. Look at the disease stricken world and realize the need is greater than ever. The reason, I think, people join the Millennial school, is because they don’t understand why divine healings are so rare. When I am pressed for why miracles occur so rarely (few people I know have documentable divine healings), I think of the one thing for which Jesus criticized his disciples most frequently: disbelief.
If Peter had enough faith to get out of a boat and take a few steps on stormy water, began to sink, cried for help from Jesus, and was met by, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”—if that, then why in the world are we satisfied with our level of faith? Most of us are still sitting in the boat. Many of of us cry out for help. Few of us even imagine walking on water or doing anything that suggests that a great reality undergirds us.
I bring up disbelief because it was a problem among the disciples and is surely a problem among most modern “believers.” There is no condemnation in admitting one has disbelief, just as there’s no condemnation in admitting one has a past. We all need to start somewhere. The question isn’t, “Where did we start?” but “Where are we headed?”
Faith has little to do with with our will power and much more to do with what we are listening to. To become absorbed in the teachings of Jesus, including the prophetic voices of, say, Isaiah, is to be on the path to faith. Learning to see what is real for God (read Romans 8 for a sample) is learning to doubt our experiences and instead trust in the good news.
In conclusion, on one hand, I like the tidiness of Millennial thinking. The plan is to appreciate the miracle of being reconciled to God. Not only do we appreciate the one miracle but we also propagate it. We have churches that teach the gospel. We are all able to share in one capacity or another the gospel. Those who believe, start a new life with Jesus and our Father. Those that don’t may later. Someday we will die and experience much, much more. It’s beautiful.
It is beautiful! And I need to appreciate this vision. Of course the standard way of sharing the gospel needs constant tweaking. After all, it’s often preached to the choir. But beneath the cliches and rote understandings lie treasures that cannot be measured and shouldn’t be missed. Being born spiritually means never being alone again. It means always being in Christ, always being loved by God. It dwarfs about any other experience imaginable.
On the other hand (of my internal debate) I love the hope of the early gospel, the message that Jesus lives in us, that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I love the promises that whatever we ask in his name, we shall receive so that our joy may be full. And I love the occasional testimonies of those who were so ill that nothing could be done until the Spirit of God miraculously healed them. More than health, they gained a better knowledge of Jesus than otherwise possible.
So I do think I gained more appreciation of the purely spiritual salvation message that Kirk got me thinking about.
It in no way dislodged my appreciation of the physically miraculous.
I pay attention to all the stories of healing in the Bible, closely, as though I’m reading the news. Even when I’m not healed (and at the moment I’m imagining a divine touch), I’m coming closer and closer to learning God’s will. Just because things happen frequently in this world doesn’t mean God wills them. And just because things don’t happen, doesn’t mean God doesn’t will them. God’s will is revealed in Jesus, and it is expressed wherever there is faith and obedience. God’s will is wholesome, meaning God wants us whole, body, mind, and spirit. It will not be realized completely in this life—we all see through a darkly lighted mirror. But there’s not a bit of confusion of how Jesus treated sickness, never turning anyone away, always healing, always delivering.
Call me little faith, and I’m encouraged! If a little faith untangles God’s will from all the evil that happens, a little more faith will brings us in touch with the “God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not”—yes, the God who enabled geriatric Abraham and Sarah to give birth to a son (Romans 4:17).
What is a genuine miracle for the purpose of this post? The short answer is that it is one that I find convincing because (1) it is beneficial and (2) cannot be more easily explained as a natural occurrence.
The longer answer (but not dreadfully long) goes like this. On one hand, every thing is a miracle. But as soon as we admit that, the term loses its usefulness. Perhaps it’s better to say everything is a gift and some gifts are miraculous.
A physician’s report that says an individual recovered in spite of medical predictions would be bonafide in my mind, whether or not we knew that someone had prayed for that healing. Missing a flight or a ride that happened to culminate in an accident might be a miracle. Finding oneself in an airport and receiving a call from one’s grandmother warning one not to board the flight that did culminate in an accident would be an even more convincing example of divine intervention.
You get the idea: the less probable and the more helpful an otherwise difficult-to-explain event is, the more likely it is to be a miracle.
As a reminder, we believe in Jesus because his Father has revealed him to us (Matthew 16:16-18). That revelation—that conviction that Jesus is the Christ—is less tangible but more reliable than a reported miracle.
Even so, miracles that reveal the love and kindness of God deserve our attention. Frequently in the New Testament, they serve two purposes at the same time, to help the individual and to reveal the goodness and power of God (John 9:1-6).
In my experience, Christians talk about miracles and even imagine miracles far more often than they experience them. What counts as miracles here are experiences that cannot be more easily accounted for as coincidences or instances of random luck. Bonafide miracles in this context result from the Spirit of God somehow moving in this physical world to make a much-needed change.
So, if you will, in the comments below, please share any bonafide miracles you’ve witnessed. Please be as honest as you can. When I was in high school I told a friend my van had miraculously started running well. She told her dad. He was a skeptic. I stood my ground. The truth is, I didn’t mention that I had replaced a spark plug. This was something I didn’t even think about in my zeal. If I could go back in time, I’d simply thank God for the ability to put a new plug in my car and leave the miraculous out of the picture.
If I see a need to edit your comment, I’ll send you an email letting you know the reasons (for clarity and integrity). Let’s start with one of the few documented miracles in my life. There are many events that I think are divinely guided but they do not make compelling stories to outsiders.
Listen to previous version, recorded Sept. 30, 2023 (9 minutes, 45 seconds), author’s voice
Certain evangelicals contrast grace and truth because they think grace is only mercy and truth is an updated version of the law.
The apostles John and Paul, however, teach that Grace is Jesus living through us, and Truth is the revelation of Jesus living through us.
Life and death distinctions for the follower of Jesus:
The fundamental definition for this post (and for life): the law makes us conscious of sin, while grace makes us conscious of the gift of Jesus’ redemption (forgiveness and deliverance… both being free gifts received by faith)
The Gospel of John clearly and happily differentiates between “law” and “truth”
When John writes, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ,” John makes it explicit: the law shows us we need grace because we always eventually fail to keep the law, and truth reveals to us that Jesus is the giver of grace
Christians, and perhaps especially evangelicals, being nervous about “cheap grace” (i.e. license to sin), redefine truth as the law (i.e. a moral standard)—and this redefinition essentially ends the truth about Jesus
This dilution of truth as merely a moral standard undermines the gospel badly
Truth reveals the complete redemption Jesus gives us through himself, forever freeing us from the law, which, by comparison, is just a shadow of the reality of trusting in Christ
Truth shifts all the emphasis toward the success and sufficiency of Jesus and away from our futile efforts at self-improvement
I do not know how widespread the grace-truth misunderstanding is among evangelicals.[1] I do know two of the largest and, for many good reasons, most popular, evangelical churches in the Denver area have propagated a serious misreading of the Gospel of John’s “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1).
Little is more beautiful to me than that scripture. It replaces the bad news (the law) with the good news (grace and truth).
Before contrasting the bad news with the good, I present an example of the muddled version that some evangelicals circulate. If it doesn’t seem muddled at first, it might appear so when we look at the way the Gospel of John uses the word “truth.”
And this is the question we are asking in this series: is it this or is it that?
For instance, when we hear two words like grace and truth, we cannot help but place them on a pendulum: is God more about grace or more about truth? But of course the answer to that question is “yes,” and as Christians we’re called to a double major. In other words, you don’t just get to swing the pendulum to the side of grace, because then you lower the standard of truth. And in the same way, you don’t get to swing the pendulum to the side of truth because then you crush people in the process by refusing to give them the same grace that you’re also going to need.
Similarly, we hear the following from Ben Foote (perhaps my favorite speaker at Flatirons Community Church) in an otherwise engaging sermon on May 1, 2022:
You’re trying to earn, earn, earn a passing grade from Principal Jesus. There are a ton of us, myself included, who we were sold the Principal Jesus in our churches growing up. He is all truth and he is no grace.
….
So yes, Jesus is grace. But when he is all grace and no truth, you get another cheap, superstore version of Jesus. This one is called “get-out-of-jail-free Jesus.[2]
Both quotations rely on a false dichotomy between grace and truth, a cardinal error. And then they inadvertently suggest believers need their version of truth, which has been reduced to a moral standard (another name for the law). And this conflation is the very thing that outraged the apostle Paul, who said of those who muddle grace and law: “I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!”
From other sermons, I know Doug and Ben understand grace better than their false dichotomy between grace and truth suggests…so let’s put the castration tools away. But language is important, so I must persist in the analysis.
From Doug we hear that grace is balanced by truth. This reduces grace to mercy (i.e. forgiveness) and reduces truth to the law (i.e. rigor). From Ben we hear that truth makes us perform harder, which is exactly what the law does, and if you don’t believe me, read Romans 7, the apostolic statement on the law. Far from making us work harder, the truth sets us free because the truth is the truth of redemption. Ben also refers to getting a Jesus who is all grace but no truth, which is impossible if we are referring to divine grace. As with Doug, the false dichotomy reduces grace to mercy (get out of jail free), and truth to law (don’t abuse mercy).
Beneath the false dichotomy of grace or truth lurks the pernicious and perpetual bad news that humans need to try to be better. This emphasis on human effort is something the apostle Paul never recommends. In addition to distorting the meaning of “truth,” this line of thinking ignores the power of grace to fulfill the moral law in us, and this ignorance has kept Christians both unhappy and powerless for millennia.
The bad news: the law (the moral demands that Paul calls “the strength of sin”) rightly shows humans how they should live, even demands it, but in no way assists. The result? Sin increases. The more the person tries, the more the person relies on his or her self—the very self that was never intended to operate in isolation and independence from the loving provision of God.
Religion, including much of Christianity, groans beneath the joyless weight of the law. To the moral (and sometimes immoral) demands of religion, the person seems to rise to the occasion only to be blindsided by pride, or the person sinks to failure only to be depressed by guilt. Pride in one’s success, of course, leads to judging others. Failure, of course, makes one resolve to try harder next time, putting the person on a treadmill of anxiety, fear, and disappointment.
The good news: grace and truth. They are a pair not a polarity. They are two sides of the same coin, not two coins one must flip, as if to say, “Today do I follow grace or do I follow truth?” They are an and, not a but, a true identity not a false dichotomy.
“Grace” refers to the divine aid to do and be what we in our own strength and moral makeup could never achieve. By grace, we are healed, delivered, adopted, and righteous. Grace is divine life assisting us and can never “lower the standard of truth” as was suggested in the Red Rocks sermon.
“Truth,” as in Jesus’ “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14), is a revelation of Jesus, of his descent into hell and his exaltation at God’s right hand. Truth leads to revelations about our being in Christ, seated in Christ, animated by Christ. It’s the truth that provides the grace.
This truth that is infinitely superior to the law occurs again when Jesus says we must “worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4). He is juxtaposing “truth” with “the law”—one law says worship in Jerusalem, another law says worship on the mountain, but truth says worship in the spirit.
Truth, then, is the means to grace and the way to spirit. The more of Jesus’ truth we receive, the more grace we receive. The more of Jesus’ truth we receive, the more our worship is spiritual, not forced and fleshly. And it is faith, as always, that makes these things real to us.
So where do certain evangelicals go wrong? First they define grace as mercy (i.e. forgiveness). Then they worry that people will use forgiveness as a kind of fire insurance that gives them license to sin. To correct that, they redefine truth as… yes, you may have guessed it, the law. The license provided by grace-misunderstood-as-mercy is held in check by truth-redefined-as-law, browbeating us to behave correctly.
It’s amazing how historically the church in general and also in this case in particular resists full-fledged grace, which by definition includes freedom from the law. It’s amazing how the law keeps getting invited to enter through the back door. We simply cannot trust Jesus but instead want to replace him with our efforts and obedience.
Grace understood through the truth in Jesus establishes us in a new life. We are dead to sin (crucified with Christ), dead to the law (crucified with Christ), and alive to righteousness (risen, with Christ, and sitting in him in heavenly places). We are new people—new creations—and are motivated by the love of God working in our hearts, comforted by our Father in heaven. Sin, Paul says, will not be our master, because we are not under law but under grace. Note that Paul does not say the law will keep us from sin. On the contrary, whether we call it the law or truth, if it demands our compliance instead of promising our deliverance, it is the law and it will never give us the life that the grace and truth that comes through Jesus will give us.
How do we know we’ve moved away from the law and into grace and truth? We know it from the road signs that say we are on the right path: peace, love, and joy. I see the signs increasingly. When I used to confuse truth with law, I used to see only my struggling self.
____Footnotes for “Grace and Truth”____
[1] Apparently, one the sources of this evangelical confusion is this book: The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance (2003). When one reads “balance” one is close to hearing that we have two elements that, if not kept in check, will tip the scale unfairly to one side or the other. Thus people think they must balance grace and the law (or truth, the new Evangelical name for the law), while in reality, they must die to the law altogether in order to walk in truth. The good news offers no balance, but instead promises a new identity that leaves behind the fallen, old, natural humanity and its insufficient remedies.
The description of the book, at it appears on amazon.com, reads: “Grace without truth deceives people, and ceases to be grace. Truth without grace crushes people, and ceases to be truth. Alcorn shows the reader how to show the world Jesus — offering grace instead of the world’s apathy and tolerance, offering truth instead of the world’s relativism and deception.” The “crush” of course echoes the sermon from Red Rocks that I cite. And the statement that truth counters “relativism” strongly insists that the author is using grace as a moral standard (i.e. as the law). If this second distinction isn’t clear to a reader, I strongly suggest reading the Book of Romans, particularly chapters 6 and 7.
[2] There’s a bit of irony in Ben’s sermon. He is earnestly railing against the abuse of mercy (which he calls grace) and legalism (which he calls truth), yet earlier in the sermon he makes a strong pitch against being against things (“Because it’s easy to be against something” [28:30]). If he followed his own good advice, he’d stop focusing on the downside of bad-faith Christianity and focus instead on the gospel of grace: we have been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, and risen with Christ, seated in heavenly places. Perhaps this gospel is not practical enough to be appreciated by the majority of the members—but how will they ever appreciate it if they don’t see it elevated to its proper place?
Publishing Info First published Sept. 30, 2023. Last revision: June. 10, 2024.
Vaccination against disease involves getting a small dose of something infectious with the result that one’s immune system gains the upper hand against the infection, eradicating it (smallpox) or nearly so (polio).
Vaccination against the best news involves getting just enough news to underrate and ignore it—or getting such a mangled presentation of the news as to reject it.
The best news is the news about Jesus. In Greek it’s called εὐαγγέλιον (good messenger or gospel), but as a reminder of its significance, I occasionally refer to it as the best news.
In brief, the best news involves the following: Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate around A.D 33, was buried, but rose from the dead and returned to his Father in heaven, sending his Spirit to us on earth, so that by faith we can share his life forever.
Non-Christians can be vaccinated against this gospel—and often are. Surprisingly, Christians, too, can be vaccinated against the very faith they claim—and this is a seriously bad vaccination.
How to Vaccinate an Unbeliever
Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. (from Matthew 13:18-19)
In Jesus’ parable, some people reject the gospel out of hand because they do not understand it. Too little understanding vaccinates them against believing—often for the rest of life. It happens this way: as they age, they later encounter the good news in various forms. However, first impressions being lasting ones, they (honestly) think to themselves: “Oh, that. I decided long ago that it wasn’t for me.”
When this happens, only something sensational or catastrophic—or both—will awaken them to the value of the best news. A divorce, an arrest, an addiction, an affliction, the death of a loved one, or the growing realization that one’s life is meaningless—such events may awaken a person’s faith.
A miracle can reverse the course of one’s vaccinated life, leading the person to earnestly look for Jesus. It may consist of experiences such as a physical healing, the exposure to a person of faith whose love and integrity cannot be ignored, or discovering that the words of the Bible suddenly make sense in a way they previously did not.
How to Vaccinate a Believer
The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil. . . . (from Matthew 13:20-23)
A believer becomes vaccinated against the gospel by a lack of perseverance.
Difficulties, persecutions, disappointments, listening uncritically to skeptics and higher criticism, finding oneself in the clutches of a vice—all or any of these can dissuade one from believing. When things don’t always line up—and when does everything line up in this world?—we all tend to capitulate. Either the promises in the gospel don’t come true, or shiny things in the visible world start seeming much more interesting than seeking God. Material goods, social status, handsome and beautiful people, intellectual superiority—these and others may swarm into one’s life, rendering the initial enthusiasm and its attendant beliefs insignificant.
The lynchpin to getting a full vaccination is finally to stop reading or listening to the gospel altogether. Instead, listen to interpretations of it, particularly skeptical ones. Better, listen exclusively to alternate explanations of the meaning of life, including the one that dismisses as unimportant the meaning of life.
Allow me to grant the possibility that one’s previous commitment to the gospel may have been a genuine mistake. Assume that what I call “perseverance” increasingly becomes a gross denial of reality as one matures. This could be the case, and I’ve considered it a possibility in my own life. One element that keeps me believing in spite of this possibility is found within the gospels themselves. Repeatedly, Jesus warns against being bamboozled out of one’s faith. The parable of the sower quoted above is one example. Another comes from Luke 21:34-36:
Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
The Gospel of Matthew, similarly, has several reminders for believers to be vigilant, to “watch” both that one is not deceived by a false prophet or that one is not spiritually asleep at the return of Jesus.
I urge all of us: don’t miss the the true gospel. This is the one that Paul said comes not only in word but also in power. If Jesus told his disciples they were of little faith, so much more are we prone to mistaking a knowledge of Jesus for faith in him. It behooves us to humble ourselves and ask God to teach us how to live in power as well as in word.
It might take time and the discomfort of the unknown, but once the eyes of our heart are enlightened, then we will be free from being referred to as a people whose lips are near to God but whose hearts are far away.
Publishing Info This post was first published on: May 29, 2024. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change in order to bring current posts to the top of the directory.
Listen to the Feb 12, 2024 version of the post (3 minutes), author’s voice
First, here’s how Christians (and others) often define sin, righteousness, and judgment. The definitions are like those found in an English dictionary, but in no way do they capture the message Jesus brought:
Sin: Anything that is imperfect—and that’s a truckload of activities and attitudes,
Righteousness: The opposite of the above, (i.e. everything that’s perfect)—another truckload of things to do and be concerned about, and,
Judgment: The consequence of yielding to sin or slacking off on righteousness.
Note two things. First, the definitions make us and our failures the centerpiece—we are the agents of sin and righteousness, just as we are the recipients of justice. Second, as the following quotation from John shows, they are not how Jesus defined the terms. As always, his definitions deserve the final say, for in them is freedom and peace, not worry and fear.
His definitions should confuse us the first time we think about them. If we are not taken aback, we are not awake:
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate [i.e. Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. (John 16:7-11)
Notice the departure from our habitual self-oriented thinking. His message involves no moral bookkeeping, finger pointing, or punishment for us. Instead, we find Jesus giving exclusive attention his identity as the true savior and to the “ruler of the world” as the ultimate foe. We are witnesses and recipients only, which is another way of saying we are put in our rightful place. Here’s the definitions Jesus provides:
Sin: Disbelief in Jesus—the one sin that rules them all,
Righteousness: To see Jesus is to see true righteousness, and now that he is no longer visible, only the Spirit can reveal that righteousness to us, and,
Judgment: Not against us, but against the “ruler of this world” (i.e. Satan)—who stands condemned.
How should we respond to this? Many ways, no doubt, but the obvious is to admit any disbelief, admire his righteousness (which he offers to give us by faith), and rejoice that the truly sinister force behind our wayward actions stands condemned.
Publishing Info This post was first published on: Feb 12, 2024 at 12:01. Revised: July 19, 2024. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change in order to bring current posts to the top of the directory.
If you pay attention to Christian descriptions of God, they are quite varied and, frankly, at times disheartening. You may think, “If that’s what God is like, I’ll pass, please.” Whenever I’m confronted with a description of a violent/cruel/merciless God, I ask myself, “What would Jesus do?” or “Would Jesus do that?” In other words, Jesus is my touchstone for the true nature of his Father, the gold standard for divinity.
This post assumes that Jesus is the clearest representation of God’s character that we will ever have. Jesus himself says in the gospel of John: “I do only those things that I see my Father do” (John 5:19) and “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Finally, Hebrews 1:1-3 states that, unlike the prophets, Jesus was the exact representation of God. And it states this in contrast to the prophets: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
Can things be made any more clear? Hardly! No one will argue with that until they get to the corollary.
Here’s the corollary: the portrayal of Jesus in the New Testament often overrides and corrects representations of God, usually in the Old Testament but perhaps occasionally in the New Testament. If you are a fundamentalist, you were likely taught (or commanded) to take every scripture as being equally inspired by God. No progressive revelations of God allowed. So, when I demonstrate that Jesus sets the record straight, you must do acrobatics mentally, textually, and historically to explain how it’s all equally accurate stuff.
One evidence that Jesus came to set the record straight occurs in a string of statements in Matthew 5 (the Sermon on the Mount). We hear him say repeatedly, “You have heard that it was said,” followed by a quote from the Old Testament, and finally followed by “But I say to you….” And there he is, modifying the ancient scripture. This is how he came to “fulfill” “the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 5:17). Yes, the old statements stand, but they stand as pillars to hold up the clearer truth that Jesus brings. There are more ways to murder than by shedding blood, more ways to commit adultery than by sleeping with someone, fewer reasons to get a divorce than Moses allowed. Jesus makes it clear that what he has to say eclipses and surpasses many statements in the Old Testament.
At this, some of you will say that Jesus didn’t override the Old Testament, but only reinterpreted it. That’s not unreasonable.
A more abstract, yet more compelling argument contrasts the way Jesus behaves with the ways God is often reputed to have behaved in the Old Testament (as well as in the present, according to many Christians).
What do we find when we compare how Jesus treats people to the way traditional theology assumes God treats people? Here we find once again that Jesus presents a less violent, more merciful image. Jesus was fine with—and at times apparently enjoyed—spending time with sinners (tax collectors, sex workers, a thief on the nearby cross). True, he had a tough time with preachers and Bible scholars (pharisees and scribes). But none of his treatment of anyone approaches the violence and retribution often attributed to God. Many people allow ancient images of God to override the example Jesus relentlessly gives.
When we read the Old Testament with Jesus as our standard, we no longer need to juggle competing images of God. If the alleged behavior of God is the very thing Jesus came to save us from…then admit the representation is inaccurate. Here are some representations of God that, judged by the morality undergirding both the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ life, are bad business:
People of Babylon, you are sentenced to be destroyed.
Happy is the person who pays you back
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the person who grabs your babies
and smashes them against the rocks. (Psalm 137:8-9)
This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ (I Samuel 15:2-3)
Many, if not most, Christians will come up with justifications for both these passages. They were necessary for one reason or another. For example, the existing cultures were so rotten that they were going to infect the entire human race. Hypothetically, perhaps. But I cannot imagine Jesus doing any of those things (at all). Either the Father and the Son have a division of labor (I, the Father, destroy life, while you, the Son, repair it), or the ancient scriptures were colored by a projection of human violence onto God. Jesus never mentioned a division of labor, but instead said, “I do only those things that I see my Father do” (John 5:19).
If I’m doing violence to your interpretation of scripture, it may be because many interpretations are unjust by doing violence to the character of God. Such interpretations relegate Jesus and his Father to a long lineage of pagan gods who are vindictive and violent. The violence is on the human side. The cross shows that. I plead with you, brothers and sisters, let Jesus be your guide to how you view God. Do not let your theory of scripture mar the purity of God. Never forget that Jesus is the exact representation of God. He’s the final word and must have the final word. Everything will be better because we’ll have a better image of God!
Publishing Info This post was first published on: Jan 12, 2024 at 18:36. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change, just as it might change in order to bring current posts to the top (or bottom) of the directory.
I was thinking about all the things Jesus told his followers to do. Me? I don’t do many of those things. Am I ok? Are you? Go through this checklist to the key at the bottom and see for yourself.
I’ll start the checkpoints with the less stressful and move up to the harder sayings (at least for me). In the end, it will feel like a trick checklist. But that’s because it is. By design it echos the paradoxical nature of grace: in our weakness God’s strength is made perfect (2 Cor. 12:9).
The Checklist
thisis anonymous & none of your choices is saved anywhere. Refresh the page to start over (don’t you wish life were that easy?)
How Do You Check Out?
Careful, here! If what follows were always accepted by all Christians, we may never have had the Reformation, including the bloody history that led up to and away from it. So you might find yourself disagreeing with what I offer. That’s ok. This checklist is to make us think, not to define us.
Click here for the evaluation key
The key for #1-8 is that most of us will have had to put down “Often, even Almost Often” or “Never or Almost Never” for several if not all of them.
If you have “Always” on most or all of them, I want to interview you!
Rarely do I give away what I am wearing and rarely do I lend to strangers (#7)—we know from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus meant strangers. Frankly, I’ve never plucked out an eye literally and rarely figuratively (#8).
All of these pronouncements from Jesus are quite important, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are on his checklist (nor that he has one). Nor nor does it mean that they were spoken with the expectation that his listeners would painfully eek them out with all the self-righteousness they could muster. We saw what happened when Peter tried that.
Watchman Nee—among others—assures us that the reason Jesus could raise such a high bar was because he believed so fully in his ability to live his life through us by our faith.
Here are the final two checkpoints:
When we get to #9 and #10, faith kicks in. Believe that Jesus already offered his life to you so he could live through you, and you are on the road. You can admit to him that you need help with everything. It’s his ability and not yours that makes the good news good. My wish is that we would all be able to put “Often, even Oftener than Not” for #9 and #10.
If the checklist has any value, it is to remind us to rely on Jesus, to learn to be quiet and trusting, to give thanks in all things, to make our requests known to our Father, to cast all our cares on him, knowing that he cares for us.
Publishing Info This post was first published on: June 3, 2024. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change, just as it might change in order to bring current posts to the top (or bottom) of the directory.
Assume you can have only one account at the Bank of Morality. You can have the account in your name or in the name of Jesus, as a co-signer. You choose how you will be identified.
The account in your name would go something like this: sometimes you’d have a positive balance of moral assets, sometimes negative. When positive, you’d feel pretty good about yourself. You might even look down on others who were in the negative. You would undergo stress at times, fearing you’d somehow compromise. When you did begin to lose your ground, your stress and anxiety would increase considerably. If you lost too much ground, you’d suffer insufferable guilt—and that’s too much guilt to be sure.
The account in Jesus’ name would go something like this: everything you need would have been paid for (note the past tense). His account offers no pride for being righteous, nor guilt for past sins. It is his account, not yours or mine. We are purely beneficiaries. Receiving the gift of a completely new identity is a humbling thing. It is also a peaceful, joyful, loving thing.
Need forgiveness? Done, first from before time in the heart of God and later in history made unforgettable while Jesus was on the cross. Need redemption? Already done. Need better behavior (also called sanctification)? It’s yours! Really? Yes, the Account Holder has already lived a perfect life and will live it again, in you, step by step as you trust him. The entire account is yours by faith. Faith or trust is the only thing you are asked to contribute and even that’s a gift! No room for boasting, plenty of room for gratitude.
One can piece all these things together easily by reading the letters of Paul and others in the New Testament. But one statement from Paul says it all: “But it is due to God that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (I Corinthians 1:30). In Jesus’ account there can never be a negative balance. It’s all too good to be true in this world, but it is standard fare for the kingdom of God.
What, then, are the downsides of signing on to the account of Jesus? First downside: it’s invisible. Being invisible, it takes faith, something many of us discount in favor of our feelings. One will never have faith without listening to the revealed words of God and allowing the Spirit of God to reveal their meaning. This happens to me over time, not over night. Second downside: there’s no boasting, no pride. Any sense of one’s importance must be replaced by one’s sense of being loved. No more judging others, no more taking credit for one’s successes—everything shifts to relying on Jesus’ accomplishment. When, on the cross, he said, “It is finished”—he meant it in the broadest sense. The redemption of humanity was finished.
The upside of the second downside is that when pride and boasting are ruled out, guilt and fear also disappear. One is defined no longer by one’s track record but by the success Jesus possesses as a redeemer.
Which will it be, this day and every day? Are we so significant that we somehow are too bad or too weak for Jesus to save? Must we open an independent account just in case he fails or in case he needs assistance?
God forbid.
God bids us to be redeemed not redeemers. Let’s trade in our worry and anxiety for gratitude and thanksgiving. Close that independent account, you, fellow beneficiary of the life of Jesus!
Publishing Info This post was first published on: Dec 6, 2023 at 16:48. If this article is significantly updated, the publication date beneath the title may change, just as it might change in order to bring current posts to the top (or bottom) of the directory.