Category Archives: Worship Songs

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and the Downplaying of Political Oppression

December 18, 2022 David Sloan Leave a comment

One change between early Christianity and modern Christianity is that we spiritualize everything today. Consider the difference between how we sing a verse of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and the way it was chanted in the early centuries:

Ancient version: “O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples, before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: come and deliver us, and delay no longer.”

Modern version: “O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny; from depths of hell thy people save, and give them victory over the grave.”

Notice how the original “O Antiphons” addressed kings and the need for deliverance from political oppression, but the newer hymn addresses “Satan’s tyranny” and the need for deliverance from death. I have highlighted in previous posts how modern Christianity makes the latter need central, when more immediate needs are addressed in both the Gospels and Paul’s letters. Some of this is because we aren’t oppressed by kings anymore, and so the biblical language is less striking to us than our modern gospel tellings, which we find biblical verses (often taken out of context) to support. But we should also be aware of ways in which we who have wealth today (most people in developed nations) are more in the position of kings than in the position of the peoples crying out for help. If we don’t feel the oppression, we might just be in the position of the oppressor.

Last Christmas I had the pleasure of reading Richard Horsley’s book The Liberation of Christmas, where he notes how much of American wealth is generated by oppressive policies that funnel wealth to America while benefiting from labor performed in oppressed countries. We Americans are more in the position of Egypt than of Israel or of Rome than of Galilee. And so it is natural for us to rewrite the Christmas story, to downplay the interest in political oppression, and to spiritualize things. Consider another verse from “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”:

Modern version: “O come, thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home. Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

The verse is about going to heaven rather than hell when you die. (Or is it when Emmanuel comes? Modern Christian chronology has trouble fitting the biblical evidence together.) Now consider the ancient version, which is again about political oppression:

Ancient version: “O Key of David and scepter of the House of Israel, you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open. Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

It is easy to see how the modern translator took this to be about deliverance from death, since the verse can be read as a reference to the gates of Hades, especially given the language of “the shadow of death.” But we should look at this verse more closely.

The first half of this verse quotes Revelation 3:7: “These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.” [All Bible quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.] In Revelation this addresses Jewish Christians who have been shut out of the synagogue, and Jesus says, “I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name” (3:8). The words are addressed to the oppressed and excluded, who are about to experience “the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth” (3:10). They will be “kept” through the trial, just as they “kept” Jesus’ word (3:8).

The last line of this verse quotes from Luke 1:79, where Zechariah says that John the Baptist “will go before the Lord to prepare his ways” (1:76) and then the messiah will come “from on high” (1:78) “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (1:79). This verse itself picks up the language of Psalm 107:10-16 (“Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons…. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart.”) The older version of “O Antiphons” recognizes that Luke 1:79 is language of being released from prison, and so the verse goes, “Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Release of prisoners is a central idea in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus’ first sermon is about release of captives (Luke 4:16-30). He chooses Isaiah 61 as his base text: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” that is the Jubilee year when all who are poor and oppressed have their fortunes restored. Jesus also bases the Beatitudes and Woes (Luke 6:20-26) on Isaiah 61 and makes his fulfillment of Isaiah 61 the central evidence that he is the Coming One (Luke 7:22), that is, the rightful king (Luke 19:38), who delivers the needy (Psalm 72:1-4) .

The Christmas story in Luke 1-2 highlights ways in which Israel has been oppressed and is in need of deliverance. Luke 1:16-17 quotes Malachi in this regard. Luke 1:32-33, 35 speaks of Israel having a king again from David’s line with a never-ending kingdom. Mary’s Magnificat speaks of rulers being brought down from their thrones and the poor and hungry being cared for (1:46-56). Zechariah’s Benedictus speaks of a savior who would save Israel from its enemies (1:68-79). Luke 2:1-5 sets the birth of Jesus in the context of Roman oppression, referencing a census that had led to political revolt. Luke 2:25 speaks of “the consolation of Israel,” a reference to the political liberation prophesied in Isaiah 40:1. Luke 2:32 speaks of the return of glory to Israel in the midst of the nations. Luke 2:34 speaks of “the falling and the rising of many in Israel.” Luke 2:38 notes that people “were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

In other words, the early Christians were concerned about Roman oppression of Israel and the redemption of Israel. Prisoners would be set free. Kings would be toppled. The hungry would be fed. The Christmas story is about deliverance from political oppressors. As Jesus announces at the beginning of his Sermon on the Plain, “Blessed are you who are poor, … blessed are you who are hungry now, … blessed are you who weep now” (Luke 6:20-21). The Gospel is about the exalted being humbled and the humble being exalted (Luke 14:11; 18:14). In early Christianity, the rich gave up their positions of power (Luke 19:1-10; Acts 2:45; 4:32-37), and the poor were cared for (Acts 4:34-35). The God of Israel became the God of the nations (Rev 11:15), so that people all over the world worshiped Yahweh.

These are the themes Luke associated with the Christmas story. The old “O Antiphons,” on which the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is based, captured some of these themes. As the hymn developed, we gradually abandoned the political ramifications of Christmas and made the whole message about what happens when you die.

This Christmas let’s remember the reason for the season: that “the hungry [might be] filled with good things” (Luke 1:53), that oppressed peoples “would be saved from [their] enemies” (1:71, 73), that we would “give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” (1:79).

There have been times when we have remembered this. We see it in the 19^th century hymn “O Holy Night,” where an abolitionist translator wrote: “Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease.” Or even more recently, in the 1984 Christmas song, “Do They Know Its Christmas,” with its clear message:

Spare a thought this yuletide for the deprived.
If the table was turned would you survive?
Here’s to them underneath that burning sun.
You ain’t gotta feel guilt, just selfless,
Give a little help to the helpless.
Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?
Feed the world.
Feed the world.
Feed the world.
Feed the world.
Feed the world.
Let them know it’s Christmastime again.

The true way to put Christ back in Christmas is to feed the hungry, to set the oppressed free, to meet the needs of others. Let us make that our focus. Merry Christmas!

Rethinking Bible Verses in Context, Worship Songs

Did Jesus Experience the Father’s Wrath?

May 17, 2021 David Sloan 2 Comments

One of my favorite songs is “In Christ Alone” by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. When I was a worship leader this is one of the songs I chose most frequently, because it draws the worshiper into the depths of God’s love and the power of his salvation in a way that few other songs can. I have been singing this song for twenty years, and it still brings me to tears. The song is very rich in theology, but there is one line that I always change because it expresses a popular idea that is unbiblical. In the second verse we find the words, “Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” The idea here is that for God to be holy, he must express wrath against sin, but because God is merciful he delayed that wrath until Jesus took all these sins upon himself and then God poured out his wrath on his Son, and so “the wrath of God was satisfied.” This is a very popular way of understanding why Jesus had to die, but is it biblical?

The Wrath of God in Scripture

To be sure, there are plenty of verses that speak of God’s wrath, including 1 Thessalonians 1:10, where Paul says Jesus “delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess 1:10), but neither this verse nor any other says that this deliverance happened because God placed his wrath on Jesus instead. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 God’s wrath is not satisfied; it is still coming! Paul is speaking here of the second coming of Jesus, when “sudden destruction will come upon [the disobedient] as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1 Thess 5:3). Jesus delivers us from this wrath not by taking it upon himself but by transforming us into “children of light, children of day. … For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thess 5:5, 9-10). It is only popular theology that causes us to think that God transferred that wrath from us to his Son. What Paul says here is that by becoming “awake” or by becoming “children of day” we are delivered from the coming wrath. Elsewhere Paul speaks of Christians as objects of mercy rather than objects of wrath (Romans 9:22-23). We receive “eternal life,” whereas those who reject the truth receive “wrath and fury” (Romans 2:7-8). According to John the Baptist, those who get baptized “flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7//Luke 3:7). In none of these passages is that wrath transferred to the Son. The wrath simply is not experienced because we have changed from being self-seeking to being righteous.

This is explained most clearly in Ephesians 2:1-7 :

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Nowhere does this say that the way God did this is by turning his wrath toward his Son. This is something we simply assume. But if we look at the text more closely, we see something quite different: though we were “by nature children of wrath” (2:3), this is not what God felt toward us. Verses 4-5 say, “Because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses.” God did not feel wrath toward us, but “great love”! Our nature may have been “children of wrath,” but God viewed us differently, even while we “dead in our trespasses,” that is, before Jesus died on the cross. There was no transfer of wrath onto his Son. There was love for us and love for his Son, and so God delivered us from our spiritual death just as he delivered his Son from his physical death.

The Father’s Role in the Crucifixion

In fact, not only is the idea that God transfers his wrath to his Son never taught in Scripture, but it goes against the way Scripture repeatedly speaks of the Father’s role in the cross. Not once is the cross described as a place where God punishes his Son. In fact, crucifixion was not a divine punishment; it was a Roman punishment for those rebelling against the empire. The Romans, or rather “the rulers of this age,” crucified Jesus, not understanding what God planned to do with this (1 Cor 2:6-10). God allowed Jesus to die so that Jesus could defeat Death (see my post on Death as mythical creature in the Bible), not so that God could punish Jesus. Whenever we read about the Father’s role in the crucifixion, it is one of handing Jesus over rather than punishing:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Rom 3:23-25)
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:31-32)
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 Jn 4:10)

In every passage, God’s role was to give up his Son, not to punish him. Likewise, Jesus describes his own death not as an opportunity for God to take out his wrath, but as a “ransom” (Matt 20:28//Mark 10:45), that is, a payment by God to redeem us from the enemy. We do not see God’s wrath in any of the passages that speak about the cross; instead we repeatedly see God’s love for us and for his Son.

Sometimes people will read wrath into the term “propitiation” in Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10, but the word simply refers to the removal of any barriers to the relationship, not to how they are removed. These passages allude to the sacrificial system, so Jesus should clearly be understood as a sacrifice, but here again our misunderstanding of the Jewish sacrificial system causes us to wrongly import the idea of wrath here. Sacrifices in the Jewish world were not substitutes. If you were guilty of a sin for which the punishment in the Torah is death (murder, adultery, rape, bestiality, striking your parents, witchcraft, etc.), you could not say, “I’m sorry. Here is a lamb to die in my place.” That’s not how sacrifices worked. There was no substitute for a human being who deserved death. The idea that sacrifices were substitutes emerged only recently from those who wanted to read their unbiblical understanding of Jesus’ death back into the Old Testament sacrificial system. Biblically, sacrifices were an offering of something valuable in order to restore one’s relationship with God, and they were offered only for the sins where the punishment was not death.

“The Wages of Sin Is Death”

But doesn’t Paul say, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), meaning that death should be the punishment for every sin? Paul is speaking here of human mortality as a product of sin, a discussion he began in the previous chapter:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. [Rom 5:12-19]

It’s not that Jesus was being punished by God for our sins. We read Paul too individualistically here. He is speaking of a corporate issue. Humanity (as a whole) had sinned, and so humanity was experiencing its just desserts – mortality. Romans 5 emphasizes not the fact that Jesus had died, but the fact that Jesus had committed an “act of righteousness” or “obedience” that was more powerful than Adam’s act of disobedience. “For the wages of sin is death” (i.e., human mortality is the result of our sinfulness), “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nowhere here does Paul express the idea that Jesus had to pay those wages for us. Instead, chapter 6 lays out a different path:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [Rom 6:1-4]

It is not that Jesus paid the wages for us, but that we died to sin and can now experience the gift of life. “Our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing” (Rom 6:6). “For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Rom 6:7). In light of Paul’s larger discussion, Romans 6:23 is not about Jesus paying our wages, but about us having put sin to death:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Rom 6:20-23]

This well-known verse reads very differently when we see it as the conclusion of the preceding verses. Death is the wages you previously received as sinners, “but now that you have been set free from sin,” life is what you receive thanks to the work of Jesus.

Without the Shedding of Blood, There Is No Forgiveness of Sins

Other verses are sometimes also mistaken to imply that God punished Jesus. For example, Hebrews 9:22 says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins,” but the fuller context reveals that the author of Hebrews is not connecting this shedding of blood with punishment:

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. … And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. [Heb 9:13-14, 17-22]

The shedding of blood is not about punishing the animal, but about providing blood, which has the power to “purify.” Jesus’ death was absolutely critical for our salvation, but it was not because God needed to punish someone. It was because Jesus’ blood was the offering God made to restore our relationship to him.

Conclusion

Over the course of Christian history our ideas have changed. The earliest Christians understood Jesus’ death as a ransom. This view prevailed for the first thousand years of the church. In the eleventh century, Anselm introduced the (very medieval) idea that humanity owed God a debt of honor and that Jesus “satisfied” this debt by becoming a man and honoring God in the greatest way possible. In the sixteenth century, John Calvin modified the idea to suggest that a righteous God would have wrath toward sinful humanity and so Jesus satisfied God’s wrath. From this came many of our songs and teachings that emphasized the cross as satisfaction of God’s wrath. But the idea is not in the Bible, unless we start importing unbiblical ideas into the verses mentioned above.

N.T. Wright notes that our theology of the atonement tends to twist John 3:16 as if to make it say, “God so hated the world, that he killed his only Son.” John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 and 8:31-32 and Ephesians 2:1-7 and 1 John 4:10 and many other verses make it clear: God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. He did not hate the world or have a wrath toward us that needed to be satisfied, and he did not punish his Son. He offered his Son to gain the world, and then he redeemed his Son from death. And on that cross, as Jesus died, the love of God was magnified!

Sometimes we need to course-correct our theology and our songs to bring them back in line with the Bible. Sometimes we need to read the Bible more carefully to see where we are importing ideas that aren’t actually expressed in the text and that go against what the text is saying. This is one of those places.

Rethinking Bible Verses in Context, The Gospels, Worship Songs

Wouldn’t Any Shepherd Leave the Ninety-Nine?

March 1, 2021 David Sloan Leave a comment

As modern (or postmodern) Westerners, we often misread passages of the Bible. This is not surprising; it is hard to read a text written in a vastly different language from a different time and a different culture and make sense of it. God knows this and is patient with us. He also calls us to study and to get better at reading this ancient, inspired text. The benefits of doing so are tremendous and sometimes the cost of not doing so is great. This is true with regard to the parable of the lost sheep.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Jesus tells three parables in a row: the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7), the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10), and the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). The reason for telling these parables is given in verses 1-2:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” [Luke 15:1-2, NIV]

The Pharisees and the scribes had a problem with Jesus’s acceptance of sinners. This should give us a hint off-the-bat that these parables are about the way we view sinners. And yet we tend to view them as a commentary on God’s love. Consider the song “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury:

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God;
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the 99;
And I couldn’t earn it,
I don’t deserve it, still You give yourself away;
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.

We often sing about how undeserving the sinner is of God’s love, but the problem is that in doing so, we make Luke 15 say the opposite of what it says! It was the Pharisees that saw sinners as unworthy of God’s love. Jesus was opposing that view! Consider Jesus’ opening question:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? [Luke 15:4, NIV]

Modern readers who have never cared for sheep might not know what a shepherd would do if one sheep disappears. Would he stay with the 99 so as not to lose another or would he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one. Jesus expected his hearers to know: any shepherd is going to go find that sheep!

We know this not just because shepherds will attest to it, but also because of the way Jesus asks the question. We see rhetorical questions formatted in exactly the same way throughout the Gospel of Luke:

Which of you if a friend comes at midnight would say, “Don’t bother me. I cannot get up and give you anything” (Luke 11:5-8). In a world where hospitality is highly valued, everyone knows the answer: none of us would do that. In the same way, God’s not going to do that regarding our prayers.
What father among you if his son asks for a fish or an egg would give him a serpent or a scorpion (Luke 11:11-12)? Even today we know the answer: none of us would do that. In the same way the Father is going to give us what we need (Luke 11:13).
Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life (Luke 12:25)? None of us. Then don’t be anxious (Luke 12:26).
Which of you has a son or an ox fall in a well on the Sabbath and says, “I can’t do anything about it; it’s the Sabbath” (Luke 14:5). No one would do that. In the same way, it is right for Jesus to free a man from bondage on the Sabbath.
Which of you would start building a tower without first determining if he has the ability to complete it (Luke 14:28-30), or what king would go to war without first determining if he has the power to win the battle (Luke 14:31-32)? No one would. In the same way, don’t approach discipleship without counting the cost.
Which of you who has a servant plowing or taking care of the sheep then serves the servant dinner (Luke 17:7-10)? No one. In the same way we as God’s servants shouldn’t think that God is suddenly indebted to us.

In each of these examples, the answer is clear (or at least it would have been to the original audience): none of us would do that, and the implication is that we shouldn’t expect God to be like that. These rhetorical questions work because everyone knows that Jesus is giving absurd scenarios. It is the same with the parable of the sheep:

Which of you having 100 sheep would choose not to go after one that is lost? None of us, Jesus. None of us would let even one slip away.

The point is that every shepherd values the lost sheep. In fact, we could say that the one sheep is suddenly of more value to the shepherd than the ninety-nine that have no need of being found. This is made clear in the next two verses:

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ [Luke 15:5-6, NIV]

This is not surprising at all. It is not about God’s love in particular. It is about what every shepherd would do. Every shepherd is relieved and overjoyed to find a lost sheep. So is God:

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. [Luke 15:7, NIV]

The message is clear. Don’t you value what you have lost? So sinners are of great value to God!

The parable of the lost coin makes the same point:

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ [Luke 15:8-10, NIV]

These are not surprising activities. No one says, “Well that coin doesn’t deserve to be found!” Deserving or earning is not the question. The question is one of value. A sheep and a coin (valued at a day’s wages) have value! And in the same way, a lost soul has value to God. This is the point of these parables. These parables do not imply that the sheep and the coin are undeserving, nor do they imply that God’s love for sinners is surprising.

The third parable makes the point again, and this time introduces another character, the older brother, representing the Pharisees and scribes who cannot see the occasion as worth celebrating. The father who has lost a son knows that the son’s return is worth celebrating, because the son has value. If the older brother cannot see that, the older brother is not thinking rightly about the situation, much as the Pharisees are not thinking rightly about the value of sinners.

To recap: God’s love for sinners should not be surprising to us. It surprised the Pharisees, but only because they undervalued human beings. Jesus told three parables to help everyone realize that God feels about lost human beings the way we feel about important things we have lost. To make the parable of the lost sheep about the recklessness of God’s love is to misunderstand not only the parable, but the value of human beings.

Popular Theology Today

So why do we gravitate toward the Pharisaic view? Probably for the same reason the Pharisees did. It starts with two seemingly noble desires: (1) to magnify God’s love and (2) to humble ourselves. These desires, wrongly applied, lead us to a bad theology and a bad anthropology, and in the end we feel like we have glorified God, when in reality we have misrepresented him and denigrated his creation.

The Bible is clear that humanity was created in the image of God and therefore has inherent value. This image has been marred by sin, but it is still there, and so is the value that comes with it. It is simply not true to say that there was nothing of value within us before we were saved. We had the image of God. It is simply not true to say, “I am just a sinner saved by grace.” We were never just sinners; we have always also been image-bearers and the object of God’s affection. What does Jesus say about the way God feels about sinners? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16, NIV).

Why? Why did God love the world? Because it is his creation! Why does any of us love our rebellious sons and daughters? It comes naturally. Even when we have been hurt by those we love, there is still a warm place in our hearts for them. Again, just as the shepherd values the lost sheep and the woman values the lost coin and the father values the lost son, so God really, truly values humanity!

But what is the harm in having an overly humble view of our past selves? Simply this: we will extend that view to others who are where we were. But it is the view of the Pharisees, not the view of Jesus.

Sure, we can combat it with a theology of a God who loves sinners despite their worthlessness, but does that help us to love our neighbors as ourselves? It might help us share a message about Jesus with them or even to treat them as we would want to be treated, but does it help us to truly love and appreciate them the way Jesus loved and appreciated sinners?

Look at the way Jesus loves the sinful woman who wets his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair and kisses them (Luke 7:36-50). Everyone else thinks the worst of her actions. Jesus sees her actions in a positive light because he values her! Look at how Jesus is “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). It is easy to be a witness to sinners; much harder to be a friend. Look at how Jesus is able to be entertained by a tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). Or how he sees a crippled woman as a “daughter of Abraham” long overdue for healing (Luke 13:10-17). The examples go on and on. Jesus didn’t just selflessly love people; he valued them.

So What?

So what does this mean for us? I think we need to make some adjustments. I come from a Calvinist background, and many years ago I would have spoken of the “total depravity” of humans apart from Jesus. Reading Scripture helped me to shed this worldview. But even Christians who do not identify as Calvinist are taught that there was nothing in us deserving God’s love. We need to replace that narrative with one in which no one is totally depraved, no one is “just a sinner,” everyone has value as an image-bearer, and the lost among us have a special value to God. That value is not just a kinetic energy that gets activated only when God changes the person. That value is already there. God looks at the sinner and loves who that sinner is apart from whether or not that sinner will get saved. We should do the same.

Changing our view of humanity in this way will produce two results:

People will no longer be projects. When we think of people as unworthy of God’s love, we have trouble valuing them, and they can easily become projects. I am trying to lead so-and-so to Jesus, and that is the only value I see in them. If instead we see value in sinners, we will love them and appreciate them for who they are, just as Jesus loved and appreciated the sinners he encountered. Our ministry to them will become a two-way street as we learn from them and receive blessings from them while sharing what we have to offer.
We will no longer be crippled by low self-esteem. Many Christians have a healthy self-esteem, but those who don’t are hindered all the more by their theology. They see their true self as the one that walked in sin, and they long to be freed from themselves, which is something God will never do. They struggle to see the image of God in themselves, even though it was there long before they came to know Jesus. They hate themselves and don’t believe that God really loved who they were even while they were in rebellion against God. Singing, “I couldn’t earn it; I don’t deserve it,” is not helping them. Singing about a “wretch like me” is not helping them. If we replace our Pharisaic view of humanity with Jesus’ view of humanity, we will love who God made us to be when he knitted us in the womb, and we will love who God made others to be even while they are lost.

If you feel like you are merely a saved sinner, a wretch, or a person having no value, know that this is not what God thinks! This is the Pharisees’ view. Jesus has always felt differently, and so he naturally left the ninety-nine behind to find you. He swept the house and searched carefully until he found you. He ran to greet you while you were still at a distance. Even for the God who can create whatever he needs, something was lacking as long as you were lost. God genuinely longed for you, and when you were found there was much rejoicing in heaven (Luke 15:7, 10)! This is the message of the parable. It’s not that you don’t deserve this; it is that you were worth seeking after and celebrating!

David B. Sloan