Category: identity

Like Son, Like Father: Jesus Reveals the True Nature of God

Disclaimer

This post is written for those who struggle with conflicting images of God. My entire web site, “Faith in Jesus,” offers sanctuary to those who struggle to iron out contradictions that Christianity has unfortunately maintained. Some of these contradictions are unavoidable, unfolding in history as a result of the necessary development of the Jewish people. Others arise as a result of institutionalized disbelief. These should be dismissed whenever possible. By keeping Jesus at the center of our thinking and our hearts, we can sail safely toward a life of grace that may irritate religious people but will continue to give faith, hope, and love to those who persevere.

Invisible Father and Visible Son

The conventional statement, like father, like son, is particularly true with Jesus. We could discover the Son by studying the Father. However, God exists outside of time and outside of our senses. The Old Testament prophets offered insights to God’s nature, but only incrementally. In order to know the Father well, we must know the Son. Once we do that, we discover that “God is love” (I John 4:8). The revelation is not that God has love, but that God is love. We are reminded that God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13). We hear that God loves his enemies, causing his sun to rise on the evil and the good, sending rain to the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:44-45). May we never forget these unqualified attributes. When the apostle James writes, “Mercy triumphs over judgement,” he expresses the very heart of God.

The title, “Like Son, Like Father,” reminds us that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). Put differently, it assumes that “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). The perfect reliance of Jesus on his Father enables him to say, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus does only what his Father does, and he says only what his Father tells him to say. To see Jesus is to have the clearest possible knowledge of what God is truly like.

A More Christlike God

In short, when we make Jesus our final authority on the nature of God, we discover a more Christlike God.[1] The advantage to giving the final say to the representation that Jesus provides is that we are forever set free from the illusory dichotomy between the judgmental Father and the merciful Son. On the contrary. We learn that the Son judges rightly and the Father pardons passionately—quite contrary to the common misunderstanding of the mission of the Son and the disposition of the Father.

Yes, Jesus came to judge—but not people. He says to his adversaries, the religious leaders of his day: “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set” (John 5:45). Jesus came to judge the true enemies of the Kingdom of heaven, not flesh and blood. He came to judge the “accuser of the brothers,” also known as Satan. In John he says, “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out” (John 12:31). Later in John he says that he has judged and condemned the ruler of this world (again, referring to Satan, John 16:11).

Like Jesus, the Father has always been merciful and forgiving. The Psalms and Isaiah resound with examples. In one of David’s Psalms, written about 1,000 years before Jesus was born, we read,

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.(Psalm 103:11-13)

The distance between east and west expresses the complete forgiveness conferred on God’s people. In Isaiah, written about 500 years before Christ, we hear the glorious commitment that God forgives sins for his own sake:

“I, even I, am he who blots out
    your transgressions, for my own sake,
    and remembers your sins no more(Isaiah 43:25).

Note that nothing in these scriptures suggests that the forgiveness must wait until the Messiah appears.

The love and kindness ascribed to God in the Old Testament are made even more clear through the appearance of Jesus. We hear in Hebrews that God spoke in the past through the prophets but now “has spoken to us by his Son.” And then the scripture emphasizes just how closely Jesus represents his Father: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:1-3). Jesus, here, is the gold standard of a true knowledge of God’s character. His life and his teachings are the standard by which we measure every assertion about him or his Father. It is the standard that provides a more Christlike theology for us, helping us respectfully but deliberately discount attitudes that have been attributed to God that are truly not Christlike.

And what does that standard—that exact representation of the Father—express? Whatever was offered by the Father on a case-by-case basis in the Old Testament is now offered for all, unambiguously and undeniably through the Son: “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matthew 9:6). The irony being that, whereas the Jewish leaders associated forgiveness with the Father but not with the Son, many Christians associate forgiveness with Jesus and not with the Father. Both groups underestimate both the will and the ability of the Godhead to offer forgiveness to all who would accept it.

The End of Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Anyone can apply the gold standard of Christ to his or her Bible readings, Christian books, and sermons. I offer only one application: as a correction to what is sometimes called the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement—the teaching that God was either so angry or so just (or both) that he had to punish someone before fully forgiving sinners.

Before proceeding, it’s helpful to remember C S Lewis’s comment on theories of atonement: 

The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work. (Mere Christianity)

Not only does the comment place the most importance on the work of Christ instead of on the understanding of believers, but it also notes that there are other theories of atonement in addition to the one I’m compelled to hold up to the gold standard.

To many who are schooled in Evangelical settings, it may come as a surprise that the penal theory is not as self-evident as they may think. Such competing theories include seeing Jesus’ death as a ransom that purchased humanity back from Satanic enslavement.[2] Another theory sees Jesus’ death as a way of remaking (or recapitulating) the universe by re-experiencing the life of Adam but without sin.[3] Neither of these theories requires a Father who must punish someone. Both argue that it was important that Jesus die while his death had nothing to do with placating his Father’s anger and/or satisfying his Father’s justice.

What is called the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement or penal substitution is held by many Evangelicals and many other Protestants. I used to subscribe to it. I did so vigorously at times. For those trying to explain in a few sentences the importance of Jesus’ death, it is very convenient. It clinches the argument that people must believe in Jesus to be saved. After all, if he’s the one upon whom God poured all his wrath, it seems a foregone conclusion that he’s the only one who could save us. But there came a time when respecting God’s character struck me as far more important than convenience.

Later in life, I became convinced that primitive societies practiced human sacrifice under the delusion that they were pleasing a god while in reality they were creating a god that justified their scapegoating practice (Crucified: Who Sacrifices Jesus for Whom?). After several years of internal debates on the subject, the life and character Jesus won the day and became the way I understood the crucifixion.

The following definition of penal substitution is provided by a Protestant church but in no way is unique:

This is the belief that Christ paid the penalty (hence, penal) as a substitute (hence, substitutionary) for sinners.  He died in our place.  The penalty stems from God being angry with sin and sinners.  His moral character demands that His anger be quenched in the punishment of sin.  The substitutionary idea comes forward in the Old Testament sacrificial system where God’s people present animals as sacrifices to appease His wrath.  The sacrifices finally find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).  Jesus was offered up to appease God.  The result is that God’s wrath is fully satisfied in Jesus and turned away from those who believe.[4]

While this definition focuses on God’s anger, other definitions focus on God’s justice. Of course, we trust that God is both angry with those who deliberately injure others and is concerned with justice. The problem is not with such generalizations but with the dark turn they take. Anger becomes bloodthirsty and justice no longer justifies and rescues but instead accuses and punishes. Whether angry or extremely just, such a divinity requires some sort of sacrifice prior to extending forgiveness.

What concerns me is perhaps not with academics who might make many fine distinctions on the meaning of “God the Father’s wrath.”[5] Rather it is with how the character of God emerges in church sermons, Christian discussions about salvation, and, worse, attempts at evangelizing.I can (and do) say Jesus is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world without suggesting that God has found the perfect victim to punish. Others, though, quote the same verse and explain that God is so holy that he cannot be in the presence of sin. His justice, they argue, requires a death. That sacrificial interpretation means he cannot be in the presence of sinners. In order to save them, he must punish his perfect Son to expiate his holy wrath, making God able afterwards to be at peace with and forgiving toward sinners.

As I said, there are many nuances one could add to this penal theory. One stubborn element that cannot be nuanced away is that God must punish someone by death. Another element is that the truly horrible suffering caused by sin (think of the holocaust or other genocides) makes God so angry that the anger must destroy the sin. Unfortunately, it cannot destroy the sin without also destroying the sinner, unless it destroys the sin in God’s Son. In addition, it is not only the Hitlers, Stalins and other extremists who must be destroyed but the entire human race because everyone is to some extent soiled by sin. Finally, in one of its worse forms, penal substitution runs something like this: God loves us so much that he gets so angry when we hurt ourselves that he must do something drastic to separate us from our sin, leading to killing his Son. This is tantamount to me being so alarmed that my six-year old son has picked up a rattle snake that I inadvertently kill his brother while destroying the snake. As distorted as this sounds, the logic leaks through various statements Christians make, even while they may (and often do) add, “But of course, God is love.”[6]

When we look at Jesus—the exact representation of his Father—we find he had no problem whatsoever enjoying the company of sinners (outside of the ones who wanted to kill him). He freely forgave those who sought his mercy. He didn’t have to sacrifice anyone or anything to express this forgiveness. It was in his nature to forgive. He even forgave those who were killing him, even before they admitted they were wrong.

By allowing Jesus to define his Father for us, we know the too-holy-and-too-angry-to-forgive theory is wrong. If the Son of God, bound up in human flesh, never hesitated to seek out sinners, how much more does the purely spiritual and impervious Father seek them? From the beginning of scriptures, God has been close to the humble and the broken-hearted. He is just like his Son. He resists the proud and welcomes the humble, including the children. He says, with Jesus, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” How do we know he says it? Because Jesus explained to his disciples, “whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (John 12:50).

Why then did Jesus die and what did that death accomplish? Of course none of us knows the answer in full. We certainly are invited to speculate as long as we don’t demonize the Father. Instead of thinking that God is so holy he cannot be in the presence of sinners, it’s more likely that sinners cannot be at peace in the presence of God. It’s our fear, not his impatience or wrath, that separates us. This is what we see in Peter, writ small, when he encounters Jesus. No sooner than Jesus provides a miraculous catch of fish than Peter exclaims, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). So much more would a sinner shun the presence of the Father in all his power and glory. While Jesus is the lamb slain before the beginning of the world, he had to perform that sacrifice in space and time to make clear to all peoples, powers, and principalities the depth of the love and forgiveness of our Father.

We read in Isaiah 53 that the sufferings of Jesus addressed our sicknesses and our sins. One can read these passages in quite contrary ways. On one hand, as penal atonement would have it, the Father needed humans to suffer sickness and sin unless he could find another being to do the suffering. On the other hand, as non-punitive redemption would have it, Jesus took not God’s punishment but Satan’s punishment off the shoulders of the human race, bore sickness and sin to the point of death and thereby liberated from their grip all who believe in him. We read in Romans 6 and 2 Corinthians 5 that when Jesus died, we died with him. The problem was never with God’s ability to love us or to forgive us. The problem was that humanity was a poisoned race—ill by an instinctive absence of faith in God—and that race needed to be ended. Jesus was the only vehicle through which humanity could both be put to death and raised in him as a new race. He was the last Adam and a new man (1 Corinthians 15:45-48).

We don’t worship a God who designs a punishment that is worse than the crime, nor do we bow down to an angry being who needs to vent anger before showing us kindness. We worship the Lord Jesus who did the truly tough work that only he could do. A human, a divinely begotten Son, who followed his Father from the crib to the grave. He took Adam’s race to the cross in order to bequeath upon humanity a new identity. We do well to appreciate that achievement.

§ Footnotes §

[1] The heading is taken from Bradley Jersak’s book, A More Christlike God: a More Beautiful Gospel (2015, Plain Truth Ministries). This book focuses on the suffering of Christ as a key to understanding God as one who allows himself to suffer as a means of loving his creation back to himself, as my review of it states.

[2] See these two scriptures for starters: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45) and “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). “Ransom theory of atonement” in Wikipedia provides a good summary of the theory and some objections lodged against it.

[3] “Recapitulation theory of atonement” in Wikipedia, again, provides a good summary of the theory, along with copious citations. Interestingly, both the ransom and the recapitulation theories came long before the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

[4] The quotation is from a Canadian Trinity Bible Church.

For comparison, here’s a paragraph from the current Wikipedia article on the topic:

The penal substitution theory teaches that Jesus suffered the penalty due, according to God the Father's wrath for humanity's sins. The St Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology states the definition as, “Jesus satisfies the righteousness of God by suffering the penalty for sin in our place, that we might participate in his righteousness”, while recognising that there is a wide range of views within that definition. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_substitution)

[5] For example, N.T. Wright’s version. It states that the problem is not with the penal-substitutionary aspect but with the narrative that assigns erroneous motivation to the Father. The link to the video is cued up to the beginning of his response:

It's not that the idea of penal substitution is wrong, it's that if you put it in the wrong narrative, you actually mess it up. You falsify it and the way I say it is that we have Platonized our eschatology—that is we've thought in terms of our souls going to heaven. Therefore, we have moralized our anthropology—instead of thinking in terms of the human vocation to be God's image bearers in his world, we've simply seen being human as God setting us a moral examination which we all fail. And therefore, we have paganized our soteriology, because it's in the ancient pagan world that you find gods who are cross with somebody and so demand that somebody else gets killed. . . . 

So what you've got in the New Testament instead is not about how does my soul get to heaven even though I'm sinful. It's about how will God come and dwell with us even though we are sinful. And that's the question to which the tabernacle in the wilderness and its whole attendant Levitical ceremonies in the book of Leviticus . . . they are the initial answer to that that God wants to come and dwell in the midst of his people even though they're sinful. And that the blood of the sacrifices is nothing to do with those animals being killed as a punishment in place of the worshippers. But it's the release of the blood which then acts as the cleansing agent because the blood is the life and God has given this life because what's keeping God and humans apart is death. (~21 in the talk, "Is Penal Substitution Biblical? NT Wright Responds")

One may have to read Wright’s book to follow all the lines of his argument, but it’s clear that, in stating, “we have paganized our soteriology,” he eschews the pagan imagination of a god who is so angry or so just that he demands that somebody get killed.

[6] Those interested in the debate may appreciate “Monster God Debate” between Brian Zahnd and Michael Brown. Zahnd rejects the penal substitutionary atonement theory, as do I. Brown celebrates the theory, leaning more heavily on Old Testament scriptures and a more fundamentalist hermeneutic.

The comments below the video exhibit the variety of attitudes and values that attend the support and renunciation of the penal theory. One popular comment states, “I grew up in a Christian home, went to Christian schools my whole life, I have a degree in Biblical Studies, and yet watching this I feel like I have only just heard the Gospel. What Brian Zahnd is saying about God is breaking my heart in the most awesome way.” A contrasting comment states, “God is Amazing in his vast ability to love us although he is also a God of wrath and justice (the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah). We have all wronged him by breaking his laws and Justly deserve his wrath. And yet he is merciful through the payment of Jesus on the cross to give us a way back to him. (If we receive it) And we show him love in return by our gratitude and obedience. God is Good! Amazing Grace! Amazing love!” Those two comments alone show the significant divide in atonement theories, suggesting once again the wisdom of Lewis’ statement that the one point of agreement is that the death of Jesus “does work”—something to always keep in mind.

The Great Grace Divide

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What I am about to describe changed the course of Western history and, consequently, the history of the world. If the controversy had not been settled as it was, I would not be writing this post, nor would you be reading anything like it (even if you are Jewish).

Soon after Jesus rose from the dead, his followers received the Holy Spirit and began to spread the news as quickly as possible, often with signs and wonders accompanying their message. However, they preached exclusively to Jews and proselytes to Judaism. It took over five years before they wholeheartedly included non-Jewish audiences. It took about nine more years to understand the extent to which the gospel was intended for the whole world—and what that meant for gaining God’s acceptance.[1]

The text of Acts 10-15 tells the story of how the early church came to see the fullness of God’s grace expressed in Jesus. This watershed period settled two related controversies that affect our lives today. Neither controversy was settled easily, nor peacefully.

First, the apostles concluded that the good news about Jesus was for the whole world, not just for the Jews. The apostles and their Jewish countrymen had been taught for hundreds of years to remain separate from non-Jews, also known as Gentiles. Religion, culture, race, and nationality all depended on this separation. Seemingly suddenly, those who followed Jesus were asked to share their faith with everyone. To many (or most) Jews, this was unforgivably scandalous.

Second, this period in the early church galvanized the replacement of the law with grace. It shifted the emphasis from what humans can do for God to what God has done for humans. It established the complete salvation achieved by Jesus, who was made the wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption of all who believed (1 Corinthians 1:30).

The reason the inclusion of all humans came about “seemingly suddenly” is because it was always waiting in the wings. As early as Genesis 3, we get a glimpse of Jesus redeeming not only Jews, but the human race:

“And I will make enemies
Of you and the woman,
And of your offspring and her Descendant;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

This early reference to some kind of messiah (Descendant) preceded the formation of the Jewish people, addressing instead the known human race. As Christians understand it, Eve’s descendant, Jesus, would bruise the head of Satan, although Satan would bruise his feet—a memorable image of the suffering and the meaning of the crucifixion.

Later in the book of Genesis, Abraham is called to be the father of not only Jews, but of many nations. He is told by God, that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). Nevertheless, for hundreds of years, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represented the beginnings of the Jewish people. Only later, in the early church, did “all peoples” gain acceptance as a literal promise.

Many other Old Testament prophecies point to a messiah who would not only redeem the Jews, but also would redeem the rest of the world. One of these in the book of Isaiah states,

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
    to restore the tribes of Jacob
    and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
    that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

Christians interpret “you” as Jesus the servant (the same servant vividly described in Isaiah 53).[2] This servant is endowed with power not only to help the Jews but to be a light for the Gentiles.[3]

When Jesus arrived in Galilee about 600 years later, he, too, pointed to the breadth of the kingdom of heaven. He indicated the universality of his mission many ways. One of them involved praising the faith of certain believers.

During his recorded ministry, he praised the faith of only two individuals, both Gentiles. One was the Roman centurion, who understood that creation must obey its master, just as soldiers obey their commander (Matthew 8:5 – 10). The other was the Canaanite woman, who, after Jesus recited the usual bias against Gentiles, insisted that Jesus nevertheless had something to give to her (Matthew 15:21 – 28).

Even after the resurrection of Jesus, though, none of the apostles shared the news with Gentiles. The Jews had been taught to remain separate from Gentiles, and the early believers in Jesus, rightly considering themselves Jews, practiced their faith as a Jewish sect. All along, they may have seen the gospel was intended for the world, but their traditions, culture, nation, and even their holiness forbade them from reaching out to the Gentile world. Only around 37 AD did this change, years after the resurrection.

The change began when Peter was praying on a rooftop and had the same vision three times in a row. He saw many unclean animals and was told by God to kill and eat them. He declared he had never eaten an unclean animal. God declared that he should never call “unclean” what God had called “clean.” This change in dietary commandments could have confused Peter except that immediately after the vision, he was visited by three Gentiles who had been miraculously guided to the house where he was staying. He accepted their invitation to go to their master’s home, as they told him, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say” (Acts 10:22).

Arriving at their house, Peter told them that although traditionally it was wrong for him to enter the house of a Gentile, he now saw (in light of his vision) that “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” He shared that through the name of Jesus all people could be forgiven. As he spoke, the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentile listeners in a visible manner and they were soon baptized in water (Acts 10:27-48).

The story is beautifully consistent with both the prophecies about the light of the world and about the hesitation that hindered the early believers concerning Gentiles. It tilted the scales in favor of every human being invited to believe in Christ. But as this timeline shows, it took years for the significance of Cornelius to become fully accepted.

  • 30-33 AD
    • Christ rises from the dead
  • 37-39 AD
    • Peter shares the gospel with Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48)
    • Word gets out that Peter visited Gentiles. The rigidly Jewish believers, who are called “circumcised believers,” criticize Peter for visiting Cornelius. In response, Peter goes to Jerusalem to explain the vision and the encounter with Cornelius. “When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life'” (Acts 11:18).
    • During this time, Paul goes to Jerusalem to make sure the apostles agree with his gospel (Galatians 2:1-10). The apostles agree that Paul is on track and that his message is primarily for the Gentiles.
  • 41-42 AD
    • Antioch promotes the gospel for all (Acts 11)
    • Acts 11:19-21 speaks for itself:
      “Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.”
       
      Notice the role that Cyrene in Libya and the island Cyprus play: these were popular havens for Jews who lived outside of Israel, including Simon, the Cyrene, who helped carry Jesus’ cross. Perhaps the combination of being Jews yet not being in Israel allowed Cyrenians and Cypriots to see the universality of the gospel more easily.
       
      At any rate, when the Jewish believers in Jerusalem heard about the preaching to the Gentiles, they sent another person from Cyrene, Barnabas, to check up on the activity. Barnabas, a man full of the Holy Spirit, saw what the grace of God was doing, and encouraged the conversions, so that many Gentiles were converted (Acts 11:23-24).
  • 46-49 AD
    • Paul and Barnabas journey through Gentile lands, preaching first to available Jews and then to the Gentiles. All is going well (outside of Paul being frequently persecuted by the Jews).
       
      However, some followers of Jesus referred to as Judaizers, come to Antioch. They have a strong belief in the importance of converting Gentiles to Judaism, insisting that the Gentiles get circumcised, the act of circumcision being the most obvious (and painful) sign of converting to Judaism. While Paul saw social advantages to circumcision (Acts 16:3), he was no doubt outraged on the insistence that, “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1-5).
       
      Around this time (~47 AD), Peter himself visits Antioch.[4] He and Paul’s missionary partner Barnabas had been eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. Unfortunately, when the Judaizers who follow the apostle James show up, both Peter and Barnabas capitulate and separate themselves from the Gentiles. Whether because they forgot their own convictions or because they became more interested in looking good in the eyes of people rather than the eyes of God, Peter and Barnabas fell off the grace wagon.
       
      Paul not only rebukes them publicly, but also succeeds in leading the Gentile controversy toward its glorious end.
       
      The apostles in Jerusalem convene to issue a final decision. Peter recounts his experience with Cornelius, which in itself provided a full justification for Gentiles (who received the Holy Spirit without changing a thing in their lifestyles). James himself refers to Peter’s experience with Cornelius and urges the apostles to admit that Gentiles are justified in God’s sight by faith in Jesus alone and never need to become Jews.
       
      The only recommendation to Gentiles is that they avoid common pagan worship practices. They should refrain from eating “food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood” (spoken in Acts 15:20, written in a letter according to Acts 15:29). The rest of behavior should be governed by love, which is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:8, Galatians 5:14).

The verdict on Who Can Belong To God is unanimous. Quoting Peter when he met with Cornelius: “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right” (Acts 10:34). The apostles of Jesus came to agreement that the good news is truly good for Jews and Gentiles alike. Each can keep their traditions with respect to each other.

The verdict on What Parts of God’s Law Make Us Righteous is unanimous. Quoting Paul, in his rebuke to Peter:

We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16)

Paul mentions the reprimand of Peter to stress the seductive power of religion to substitute human effort for faith. Later in the same letter to the Galatians he summarizes the point with a crystal clear statement that is unfortunately not always understood: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). The misunderstood phrase is “yoke of slavery” which automatically sends modern readers into thoughts about drug, sex, or money addiction. Bad as those states may be, the yoke of slavery to which Paul refers is worse: the slavery is to the strength of all sin, the impossible task of pleasing God by one’s behavior…in short, the law.

It’s worth noting that it was years after Peter’s visit to Cornelius when Peter momentarily capitulated, believing that being Jewish and acting accordingly made one a little bit more righteous. We are wrong to think this episode highlights a particular weakness in Peter’s character. The reliable Barnabas also capitulated. Instead, the episode demonstrates how deeply attached humans are to trying to be better by following rules. It shows how even those who might be considered superstars in the early church found the pull of legalistic righteousness almost inescapable. If it could happen to them, it is happening to us more frequently.

Today, the pull of legalism remains strong. Christian sermons overemphasize behavior and neglect the unqualified acceptance of God through Jesus. They might teach unmerited forgiveness, but they usually add some kind of qualifier, such as, “but you must also become disciples,” or “but we must balance forgiveness with obedience,” or some other truly undermining qualifier. What they should add is what Paul stresses, that “Nothing can ever make you more righteous than you are right now through faith in Jesus alone.” Things as helpful as keeping the Sabbath, avoiding cigarettes or wine, tithing, attending church, or reading the Bible are offered as substitutes for luxuriating in the grace of God which demonstrates plainly both God’s character and Jesus’ gift…the stuff heaven is made of.

The grace divide is clearly defined. Do one thing to obtain righteousness and you have made Jesus’ death count for nothing. Whether it is circumcision or circumscribing this or that pleasure, anything done to justify ourselves nullifies the grace of God. We can have God’s righteousness as a gift or we can work for our own unachievable righteousness—but we cannot have both. There has been only one obedient act that reconciles us to God, the one act that makes Jesus our wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30).

§ Footnotes §

[1] These three sources agree on the approximate timeline in the Books of Acts. This post follows the first source closely:

[2] The servant songs are passages in Isaiah that describe (what Christians recognize as) Jesus. They prophesy some of his most significant moments in great detail:

[3] Concerning dates, both the prophecies of Genesis and those of Isaiah were composed about the same time (800-600 BC). The difference is that Genesis was looking backward about a thousand years, while Isaiah was addressing contemporaries. The dating of scriptures is always controversial, which is why I provide a time span.

[4] Concerning this date, see A Timeline of Paul’s Ministry in Galatians and Acts.

Publishing Info
This post was first published on: November 26, 2025. 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.

Grammatical Tense Brings Good News from Jesus

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What’s So Important about Tense and Language?

Under differing circumstances, we exercise both hope and faith. Hope looks to the future; faith to the unseen present. Here, I emphasize faith because it has been misrepresented as hope by so many preachers, a misunderstanding reinforced by our emotions. On the emotional level, nearly everyone finds solace in the thought that things may get better in the future. Discomfort arises when we are to trust that we already have what we are not yet able to see or feel. One purpose of this post is to help us become comfortable with the invisible, intangible provision of God.

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). Or, to use a Bible verse: “God delivered us (past tense) from so great a death, and does deliver us (present tense); in whom we trust that He will still deliver us (future tense)” (2 Corinthians 1:10)

Let me begin with a pedestrian example. Assume a 12-year-old daughter who loved to ride her bicycle could no longer ride it as a result of a flat tire. It would be encouraging for her to hear her father later that evening say, “I will fix your tire soon” (speaking in the future tense). It would be even better if, instead, he said, “I saw your bicycle when I got home and repaired the tire” (speaking in the past tense). The “fix your tire soon” would inspire hope, even though some distraction might arise to prevent the father from following through. The past tense “repaired the tire” would inspire faith. The girl could relax and be thankful that the problem had already been known and resolved by her father.

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 would have guessed that the key to faith is to believe you have already received what you are about to ask for? Yet as Mark recites it, 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. However, its meaning 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 received” and actually experiencing it? Two things stand out in the gospels and elsewhere: be thankful and act on our faith.

Gratitude, especially when we are distressed, may not be automatic. It may require studying the goodness of God and the life of Jesus before we are able to thank God from our heart. It does no good to pretend anything when it comes to prayer, so it’s better to spend time renewing our minds by reading the scriptures than by mouthing words of thankfulness while our hearts remain troubled. In quietness and trust shall be our strength. Let’s stay in that place.

In quietness and trust, you have prayed for something you are sure is God’s will (such as for wisdom, for physical healing, or for the means to provide for yourself and your dependents). You followed Mark 11:24 and believe you have received what you are praying for. Yet you do not see what you have prayed for. This is where we often revert to walking by sight and living in doubt. But you remain focused on the goodness and foresight of our Father in Heaven. You persevere and assume God has set the answer to prayer in motion. Because you prayed according to his will, you are thankful that he has said “yes, so be it.” You thank God for the thing you prayed for because you are trusting it is yours. When worries arise, you retrace the steps of faith (hearing, believing, confessing) and thank God again. Your focus is on God’s focus, not on your feelings which ebb and flow as they will.

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 your bed, stretch out your hand…. Typically those things simply would not happen unless the person were healed. A paralytic wouldn’t think of standing up and walking, just as someone with a thoroughly withered hand would not attempt to stretch it out (Mark 2:1-12, Mark 3:1 – 5).

This need to act has been misunderstood by some who are better at acting daringly than quietly trusting. Jesus never said, “stop taking your meds,” which anyone can do, healed or sick, at times to their or their children’s detriment. The point is to be open to attempting things that presuppose either a healing or the path to healing, never trying to force God’s hand, which simply isn’t how things work.

Examples of acting on faith abound in the scriptures, including these examples:

  • Naaman dipped himself into the Jordan River seven times and was cured of leprosy (2 Kings 5),
  • The paralytic stood up, picked up his mat, and walked away (Mark 2).
  • The man with the shriveled hand extended it fully (Mark 3:1 – 5).
  • The man who was lame from birth got up and walked upon Peter’s command (Acts 3:1-10).

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:

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)

This passage takes the past tense to the extreme (“before the beginning of time”). It does so to reveal that our greatest need—to have his life inside us—has been given before we even existed. The statement assures us that we have been in God’s mind long before we had minds of our own. As we know, grace is nothing to be begged for or worked for, but only to be recognized and received. That’s why it’s called grace, coming from χάρις (charis), meaning favor or gift. It’s the last thing you want to try to deserve, because it was the first thing God chose to share with us through Jesus, even before time.

Paying attention to how God has provided in the past stirs our faith. We are no longer relying on what we see in the present. We rely on what we hear about the past. We learn to think of God as truly eternal, a Father who considered everything involved in creation before he created. He is a being for whom nothing is impossible, a being who can only be accessed by faith. Because God has always existed, cared, and provided, any inspired communication from him cannot help but involve the past tense.

Although faith is uncomfortable for those of us who rely solely on our senses, it is ultimately the most reliable way to live. Most will 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. This revelation will result in peace for the believer who can respond with thanksgiving instead of with worry.

Christians often talk about promises. They are indeed valuable, and they always refer to the future. Facts are sometimes ignored. They, too are valuable, and they often refer to the past. It’s often the facts that stir up our faith.

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.

The grammar of the past tense serves to remind us of the eternal nature of God. In spite of copious divine facts, we often remain resistant, finding it much easier to worry in the present that to rest in the knowledge that God has already addressed our needs. 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 wisdom and revelation. Similarly, 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). Let us shed our pride and, like little children, admit to our Father that we do not understand.

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. They often emphasize the importance of hope at the expense of faith. They may stipulate that if something is God’s will, it will happen. True, but that is largely a matter of hope: I hope it’s God’s will and I hope it will happen. There’s a generous place for hope in such things as the second coming of Christ or the resurrection of our bodies from the dead. But in many circles, the place for faith is overlooked. We are told that faith comes by hearing the word of God. We must hear the word of God, with all it’s emphasis on the past tense, if we are to experience now what God has already provided.

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. 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.

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 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 loving 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. Both the present “are” or the past perfect “have been” assures us of healing. But Peter’s use of the past tense “have been healed” reminds us that what was done in the past has real effects in the present. Before we were born, the drama of our rebirth into Christ had been transacted.

Finally, not only does faith put us in tune with God, it also makes our part in the process perfectly clear. We are truly recipients. We have nothing to brag or feel superior about. One cannot brag about things someone else achieved, especially if someone else 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.

This recognition that we are already recipients of a great gift is what Paul’s opening statement to the Corinthian believers makes clear:

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.

  1. No matter what you are praying for, God already knows the need and the solution. Your prayer is permission for God to involve his good, perfect, and acceptable will.
  2. No matter how much guilt or futility you experience, by faith God has put you in Christ, who shares his wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption with you. That is the real you. 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.
  3. No matter how ungrateful we feel, that feeling itself stands as a reminder that we have forgotten what God has already given us, whether it’s our new life in Christ or that thing we have prayed for.

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  • No matter what you are praying for, God already knows the need and the solution. Your prayer is permission for God to involve his good, perfect, and acceptable will.
  • No matter how much guilt or futility you experience, by faith God has put you in Christ, who shares his wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption with you. That is the real you. 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.
  • No matter how ungrateful we feel, that feeling itself stands as a reminder that we have forgotten what God has already given us, whether it’s our new life in Christ or that thing we have prayed for.

Footnotes

[1] This teaching occurs after Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died. 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.

 

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.

Healing and Salvation: Sides of the Same Coin


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 often inseparable. There are many scriptures where the same words can be translated either as “healed” or “saved.” Long before “faith healers” or “Pentecostals” existed, physical healing was revealed to be the will of God.

In fact an argument can be made that in the Old Testament, belief in an afterlife was less relevant and less pervasive than belief in the physical welfare of God’s people who were promised “none of these diseases” if they remained faithful. The Jewish community was divided on the the question of the afterlife, when Jesus appeared in Galilee. At the same time, many Jewish leaders apparently thought healing acceptable, but only as long as it did not occur on the Sabbath. In the face of all this ambivalence, Jesus wholeheartedly believed in the afterlife and in physical healing (any day of the week).

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. As you may have guessed, this post is about supernatural healing—healing that cannot be accounted for by natural explanations. I am not, though, discounting other healings. We all see our bodies healing themselves, often as medical care helps heal them. These healings should be received as gifts from God, just as should all sunshine, groceries, friends, and pets.

Most healing will be medical, even as supernatural healings increase. It is one purpose of humanity for people to help each other, in many things including the practice of medicine. But not all diseases and conditions can be or are healed by medicine, and for these the supernatural becomes vital.

The fact that Christians believe unanimously in spiritual salvation but only occasionally in divine healing should make us wonder what has happened since the early church. It gives 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 Gethsemanee, “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 Gethsemanee, 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)

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 am I. 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.

Modern languages and practices have drawn a fairly sharp line between physical healing and spiritual salvation. You go to the doctor for one and go to the alter for the other. This kind of thinking is tidy but it also hinders faith in divine healing.

Ancient Hebrew and Greek, the main languages of the Bible, combine physical and spiritual healing. That means that the language of the Bible may be referring to physical healing more often than we realize, just as Jesus practiced physical healing more than many recognize. 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 that 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, freeing the person emotionally, and enlightening the person spiritually. 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 well off, even if I have not received my healing. This life may be painfully lacking, but when we sow our earthly bodies to the grave, we can await our eventual restoration 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, even in ways that might distress a Biblical scholar. Apparently, apostolic authority trumps tradition. 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.”

(Matthew 8:16 – 17)

The words “infirmities” and “diseases” are Matthew’s interpretation. In Isaiah 53:4 itself, you find words that refer to the emotions, specifically griefs and sorrows. But Matthew insists that the scourging and crucifixion allowed Jesus to take up and carry physical illness. This overlap between physical and spiritual healing is of course consistent with the Greek words that refer to both kinds of healing.

How are we to take hold of the physical healing so strongly promised in the Bible and so clearly demonstrated in the life of Jesus? The answers may be many and the results few, but one thing remains clear, that true faith is the key. The sooner we believe God wants us healed, the sooner we can trust God for the healing.

The classical passage on how to pray in faith occurs in the gospel of Mark:

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24)

The fact that Jesus begins with “whatever you ask” implies that physical healing is included. It may come naturally or supernaturally. In believing that we have received something before we experience it, we are moving from hope to faith. The bridge between faith and our feelings involves admitting our feelings and adding, “Nevertheless, not my feelings but your will be done.”

God cares about your health just as he cares about your spirit. He allowed his apostles to freely use words that refer at the same time to physical and spiritual healing (σώζω, θεραπεύω, and ἰάομαι). Only the context determines the intended use, and the New Testament provides plenty of examples of both kind of healing. Matthew reads healing into the passage of Isaiah, stressing its importance.

The message we get from the scriptures differs from what we get from many pulpits and most of our experiences. God wants us healed. As John writes to his friend Gaius, may we all think accordingly: “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well” (3 John 1:2).

 

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. The word “Gethsemanee” uses an accent so the help the voice software.

Jesus is Neither Yours nor Mine

Listen to the post (5 minutes, 22 seconds)

Anyone who has given Jesus more than a moment’s thought has a personal version of Jesus in his or her mind.

To some, he’s a literal king, to some an ideology (socialist, Marxist, fascist, you name it), to some an avenger who came as a lamb the first time but will return as an angry lion the next. He may be a friend, and some tame him to “my buddy,” the offspring of “the man upstairs.” At the other extreme, he is in his glorified state beyond description, beyond language—one before whom a person can only be filled with awe and silence (a safer extreme). In my early faith, he was a supernatural counter-culture rebel who would both give meaning to my life and remove meaning from the establishment, including the versions of him that churches had fixed beneath their stained glass and steeples.

The sneakiest version is the one assumed by the fundamentalist to be perfectly accurate and adequate. By fundamentalist, I refer to a person who equates literalism with truth and thinks he or she has an unmediated, direct knowledge of the real Jesus, a version infallible and unquestionable. Once one is sure one is right, there’s no need to look further. It’s hard to discuss matters with this person. For years I had a hard time discussing matters with myself.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with constructing a version of Jesus in our minds. It is unavoidable, being the way the human mind works. We are always and only constructing a knowledge of others from a mixture of facts, fallacies, reasoning, feelings, experiences, and imagery. Because the process is both universal and fallible, most good novels depict a main character as being disabused of assumptions about one’s world and its population. If it is hard to admit we are wrong about others, it’s often harder to admit we are wrong about ourselves. As a friend of mine quotes Lord Jim: “it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.”

Misconstructions of others and ourselves can be comical, irritating, inconvenient, or fatal (think of Othello). Misconstruction of Jesus, or, rather, stubborn adherence to our misconstruction, may be disastrous.

How disastrous? The Sermon on the Mount provides an extreme example. It is extreme because the image of Jesus is held by someone who seems to know better, someone whose experience comes replete with signs and wonders:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

We are not told how the evildoers perceived Jesus. They certainly had whatever it takes to prophesy, drive out demons, and perform miracles. On on hand, these are the will of Jesus’ Father, clearly. So something else went awry.

Perhaps the evildoers were living double lives, doing the right thing by day and then indulging in pride or carnality by night. In that case, they saw Jesus as someone impressed by the supernatural without consideration of character. Perhaps they simply followed supernatural fireworks and were devoid of love (as in St. Paul’s, if I have not love, I am nothing). In that case, they saw Jesus as a divine stuntman, not understanding in the least his Father’s motivation—and his cooperation—behind his coming to earth.

If my life has meant anything down these lines, it has meant year after year of having assumptions and presumptions pressed out of me, reducing me to the person I’ve always been: partial, clumsy, pretentious, and needy. In turn, more than ever, I see Jesus has more capable, wise, enigmatic, and deserving of my attention than ever. Let me add trustworthy, quite in contrast to myself.

He is the head of body (the real church), the first-born from the dead, the visible image of the invisible God, the source of all mercy, truth, and grace, the one who is no person’s fool and yet seems always willing to lower himself to those who find themselves lowly.

 

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This post was first published on: Apr 30, 2023 at 15:56. 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.