The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

 

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

 

Jesus as Healer, Sin as Disease, Part Three:  Mt.8:16 – 17

 

8:16 When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.  17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.’

 

God loves you, and He will always love you. 

I can say that now.  But I wasn't always sure I could.  Why not? Because of my views about what Jesus did on the cross. 

Many Christians in the West have heard of the courtroom analogy that says, ‘God is the judge.  We are on trial for sin.  God finds us guilty of the death sentence.  But Jesus steps in to take the punishment in our place.  So God satisfied His own sense of justice and love by substituting Himself in for us.’  That comes from the idea called ‘penal substitution.’  In this idea, Jesus takes on the legal penalty that God had aimed at me; he is my substitute; hence the name ‘penal substitution.’  This made some sense to me, but it left me with nagging questions:  Why didn’t Jesus go to the cross at age five?  Why does Jesus seem significant only as a stand-in, a victim?  What was the significance of his life?  Does Jesus deal with the source of human evil inside my human nature, or just the consequences of God’s anger at my evil actions?  Did Jesus pay the price for my parents and friends who don’t know him?  How much of God’s wrath did He take?  Does Jesus want to construct in my heart a motivation for obeying him that sounds like my parents’ reasoning:  ‘Don’t you know how much I sacrificed for you’?  However nicely that’s said, I feel like there is a psychological maneuver of debt obligation being used there.

This is a big debate in some circles.  Suffice to say, I’ve changed my view of what Jesus did, from ‘penal substitution’ to ‘physical redemption.’  Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah 53:4 here is one reason I changed my mind. What’s Jesus doing in Matthew 8?  He’s healing people of diseases.  Isaiah was speaking of a ‘Suffering Servant’ taking away Israel’s infirmities and diseases.  What diseases?  The disease of a corruption within human nature.  Notice that Isaiah was not speaking of the Suffering Servant taking away Israel’s punishment for her own actions.  Israel was already being punished for her actions through the Babylonian Exile (e.g. Isa.40:1).  So the Servant was participating in Israel’s suffering, not deflecting it.  And Matthew applies the prophecy of Isaiah – and Jesus himself – in a framework that is not legal but physical, and about healing diseases.    

We are touching an understanding held by the earliest Christians (Irenaeus, Athanasius, etc.), the entire Eastern Orthodox Church to this day, and some Catholics and Protestants.  Let me explain:

 

The framework is…

Legal/Judicial

Medical/Ontological

Human sin is…

Wrong actions

Wrong condition

Jesus dealt with human sin…

At his death only

In himself, throughout his whole life

God’s wrath is directed at…

Our personhood

The corruption in our human nature

God’s wrath went from…to…?

God to God, or

Father to Son

(upon Jesus’ personhood)

Jesus’ divine nature onto

Jesus’ fallen human nature

(within Jesus’ personhood)

Jesus is the…

Victim

Victor

God changes…

His mind

Jesus’ humanity, then ours

God gives us…

Forgiveness

New humanity, renewed image of God

Our reconciliation with God is…

In God’s mind

In Jesus’ physical body

Jesus saves us from our…

Punishment

Evil

Jesus addresses social injustice…

In our sanctification

At our conversion

In Isaiah 53, the Servant suffers

Instead of Israel

With Israel, to get through it ahead of them

 

In the penal substitution framework, God’s wrath has to be understood in a way that targets people for hell on legal grounds, because the wrath of God as the offended lawgiver needs to be satisfied.  Hell must therefore be conceived of as a gigantic prison system, where people want to get out, but God keeps them in.  But then you get into the question:  What wrath is left over for people in hell?  If God has some wrath left over for people for hell, that might mean that God poured out only part of His wrath on Jesus at the cross, reserving the rest of His wrath for the unsaved in hell.  This would mean that Jesus did not actually die for all people, but only for those God elected or predestined.  This is the idea of limited atonement, which limits God’s love and brings into question verses like these:  ‘He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world.’ (1 John 2:2).  ‘False teachers were…denying the Master who bought them.’ (2 Peter 2:1).  ‘The living God… is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.’  (1 Timothy 4:10).  ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.’ (Titus 2:11)  ‘God our Savior…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’  (1 Timothy 2:3 – 4)  ‘The Lord is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.’  (2 Peter 3:9)  ‘Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked…rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?...For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies.  Therefore, repent and live.’  (Ezekiel 18:23, 32 – 33)  Advocates of limited atonement explain these Scriptures as pertaining only to those God saves.

Some, trying to better honor the Scriptures above, say that ‘Christ’s atonement is sufficient for all but efficient for some.’  This is called ‘unlimited atonement.’  In other words, they say that God did pour out all His wrath on Jesus at the cross.  But why then does everyone not benefit from Jesus’ legal absorption of the punishment due each person?  The explanation is either human free will or the selective activity of the Holy Spirit.  The question therefore arises again:  If God pours out all His wrath on Jesus at the cross, then what wrath is left over for people in hell?  Why then does God send anyone to hell at all?  Does God pour out wrath again on people in hell?  Does He then pour out His wrath twice?  This creates a double accounting problem.  Human free will does not really solve the double accounting problem, and as a result, a few drift into universalism (the idea that everyone will be saved because God exhausts His wrath).  If, however, the answer ultimately comes down to the selective activity of the Holy Spirit to save some and not others, then we have created a new problem:  Why would Jesus die for all, only to have the Holy Spirit apply his work to only some?  This divides the members of the Trinity one way or another.  Is the Holy Spirit truly joined with Jesus Christ?  Is God the Spirit truly joined with God the Son?  Which reflects the mind of God the Father? 

Another difficulty I have with the legal framework is that in it, Jesus’ death saves us only from our punishment, thereby changing God’s posture towards us, but not our underlying diseased human nature.  His role while on earth, in the legal framework, was to achieve our forgiveness from punishment, which in my opinion only explains some Scriptures, and creates the logical problems above.

Furthermore, if we limit the work of Christ (limited atonement) or the work of the Spirit (limited application) in any way, then we cannot say, ‘God cares about all human evil.’  Has God so arranged the mechanics of salvation so that He intends to only save some of humanity (the elect)?  If so, then this makes it hard for us to say to any particular non-Christian, ‘God loves you,’ because of the uncertainty injected into the theology.  Regarding any particular person, I might want that person’s salvation more than God does, which is hard to imagine but becomes a logical possibility.  Correspondingly, does God only want to undo some human evil?  If so, then it becomes disingenuous for a Christian who subscribes to the legal framework to claim that God wants to undo, heal, and transform all human evil, injustice, and brokenness at its very source:  within each and every person.  The theology simply does not support it.  Therefore, my basic contention is that the legal framework actually makes God complicit in human evil.  For this theory posits that at the heart of Christian theology – the atonement – God is solving a problem in some people only, rather than a problem in all people.  Regarding social justice, I might want healing for the world more than God does, which is equally hard to imagine but becomes a logical possibility.

So, the penal substitution theory prevents me from saying, ‘God loves you and He’ll always love you.’  Instead of that, I’d have to say, ‘God might love you, but I don’t know.  And whatever the reality is about that, His offer isn’t good after you die.’

The starting difficulty I have with the legal framework is that in it, God’s wrath is directed against our personhood.  However, in Scripture, God’s wrath is directed at our sinfulness and the corruption in our human nature (Rom.1:18; 6:6), but not against our personhood.  God loves us as human persons.  In the ontological framework, which uses a medical metaphor, God’s wrath burns fiercely against the corruption in our nature, like how a surgeon burns with wrath against the cancer in the bodies of those he loves.  This is one reason why I think Matthew 8 – 10 is so important:  The ten miracles of healing that Jesus does by his word – paralleling the original ten declarations of God by His word in the Genesis 1 creation – reflect the spiritual healing Jesus achieves on our behalf, first in his own person, and then secondarily as he offers the Spirit of his new humanity with us.  Matthew is communicating his understanding that Jesus is transforming, restoring, and healing us to be his new humanity. 

God has always been for humanity, desiring to draw us up and elevate us into Himself and the intimate relation between the Father and the Son, in the Spirit.  Because of humanity’s fall, He has also been, in His wrath, against the corruption in our nature because, by this internal pollution, we set ourselves against the purpose for which God created us:  union with Himself. 

From there, with the problem defined more precisely, the solution can be seen more precisely in Scripture, too.  Jesus took corrupted human nature to himself.  Imagine your hand entering into a glove that had a life of its own determined to resist you.  That was what it was like for him.  I have already explored this in the baptism and wilderness experience of Jesus (Mt.3:13 – 4:11).  Throughout Jesus’ life, God’s wrath passed from Jesus’ divine nature to his human nature, to force his human nature into obedience with divine love and the divine purpose.  This is why Paul says, ‘He condemned sin in the flesh’ of Jesus (Rom.8:3).  Within the person of Jesus was holy violence (of a sort) as the corruption in human nature was being put to death and forced to repent.  But it was not a violence that fell upon the person of Jesus, but within his person in his holy struggle.  Yet it was also God’s supreme act of divine love to reconcile corrupted human nature back to Himself.  Jesus took on the substance which had rebellion in itself, and through his human choices, forced it to yield to the Father every moment in the power of the Spirit.  Jesus preserves the dignity of human free will and renews the image of God within humanity in his own person.  Especially in his death, Jesus was not the victim but the victor over the sinful infection.  This is why Hebrews 10:1 – 22 emphasizes Jesus as a sacrifice, not appeasing or averting a punishment from God, but cleansing human nature of sin in his own body, which I will explore in my reflections on Matthew 9:1 – 13.  That is at the core of the physical redemption understanding of Jesus.

When we commit our lives to Jesus, we are acknowledging that we need him.  We need him to come into us by his Spirit and share his victory over the infection and corruption of sin within us.  He puts our ‘old self’ to death as Paul says in Romans 6:6.  God’s progressive victory against each person’s sinfulness unfolds in each person’s active relationship with Jesus by his Spirit as we struggle against our own self-centeredness in partnership with him.  Then it is consummated at Jesus’ return when he will grant us renewed physical bodies like his own resurrection body.  Jesus deals with a problem internal to us, not internal to God.  Therefore, God’s wrath is an aspect of His love, and works in the service of His love, both in Christ and in us.  God’s ultimate healing of human beings will be to resurrect them into the same kinds of resurrection bodies that Jesus possesses now, where our physical mortality and struggle with sin will be done away with forever.

What about hell?  Is not hell the wrath of God?  Yes, but only in the sense that it is also and fundamentally the love of God.  In the ontological framework, hell is not God’s prison system where people are kept against their will, but a state of being whereby those who have rejected Jesus willingly and willfully continue rejecting Jesus.  From Jesus’ standpoint, he is speaking truth to them about their need for healing, and continues to love them, for that is his nature, and he cannot and will not leave them alone.  He continues to express his rejection of their corrupted natures, for that is his wrath.  Yet it is also his love.  He continues to sustain them in existence and call out to them to be fully united with him, to yield up their very natures to him, for in his love he can do no other.   But because they experience God as a hated and jealous competitor who constantly calls out to them to yield up their self-definitions, ambitions, pride, and resistance, they experience God’s love as sheer torment.  They have identified themselves with the corrupted nature, and experience God’s rejection of the corruption as a rejection of their very selves.  Hence, they can only experience his love with utter loathing and bitterness, and with ever increasing feeling.  In this case, hell is the wrath of God against their corrupted human nature, yes, but this does not change the fact that, on a more profound level, hell is the love of God for them as persons.1 

Jesus offers both transformation and forgiveness to all, and the Spirit offers his achievement to us and in us.  There is no limit to that offer.  There is no ‘other side’ of God that is uncaring and arbitrary.  God aligns all of who He is in transformative, healing love towards each and every person.  God loves each person.  In a corresponding way, God is aligned against all human evil – every last poisonous drop – and is committed to undoing it.  These are some reasons why I prefer the ontological framework and the medical metaphor:  sin is a disease; God condemns it because He loves us; and God acquired a human body in the person of Jesus to defeat the disease in our nature and give us back a new, cleansed, healed, and transformed human nature; God therefore cares about this world and not just the next one; His way of opposing human evil and healing humanity is by bringing people to Jesus. 

                ‘He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.’  Now it makes perfect sense why Matthew quotes Isaiah 53 in the context of Jesus’ ten miracles of healing.  Isaiah was saying that the Suffering Servant, the Messiah, would join Israel in experiencing the punishment of their sins.  Not for his own sins did he endure this, but for Israel’s and for the world’s, as Isaiah stressed.  He would also undergo exile at the hands of the Gentiles, with Israel and on their behalf.  He did not actually avert God’s punishment of Israel’s sins.  He goes straight into it, embraces it, and, as he resolves the fundamental problem of human nature, receives God’s judgment of death on humanity’s behalf, to emerge on the other side with cleansed, resurrection life in himself, to offer himself back to us.  He took our deepest infirmity and carried away our most debilitating disease.  Praise God.  That is how He loves us.  That’s what you can tell your friends:  God loves you, and He will always love you.


 

[1] This understanding of hell, while less common among Catholics and Protestants, is nevertheless biblically and historically grounded and attested by great Christian theologians.  It comes from the patristic Trinitarian foundations of writers like Athanasius, and is found explicitly in Gregory of Nyssa and Isaac the Syrian, continues through the entire Eastern Orthodox communion through today, and has been recovered by Protestants like Karl Barth, C.S. Lewis, T.F. Torrance, and Donald Bloesch, along with Catholics like Hans Urs Von Balthazar.  The American Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart is an eloquent exponent of this tradition.  Hence, this is a systematic Trinitarian theology that is Patristic, Orthodox, and Reformational.  I prefer the physical redemption atonement theory to the penal substitution atonement theory.