For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.| 2 Peter 1:16–21
On Sunday, we looked at Mark 12:35-38, where Jesus challenges the people with a question about the phrase: ‘Son of David.’ With this, Jesus is making sure that they do not take one part of the Messiah and use it to paper over the rest. What this ends up doing is creating a distortion of who our Savior is. By constructing an image based on the parts that we most easily connect with, we end up making an idol: a god in our own image.
I was thinking about this as I was reading a few articles about Christianity, one which stressed the atonement and justification; one which was focused on God’s restoration and sanctification.
In the first, our sinful separation from God was highlighted and Jesus was described as the solution to this spiritual detachment. How we should live was defined by the grace that God gives.
In the second, the brokenness of God’s perfect creation was highlighted and Jesus was described as the power by which all will be healed and brought back into balance. The atonement was defined in a pragmatic way, as that which would help this process along.
Reading the two, I felt like the two authors were talking past one another, making their own points without considering the position the other presents (which is easy to do when you are writing an article rather than having a conversation). I also felt like they both had a lot to offer one another. Both of their positions had a part that was built out of Scripture (this was their area of strength), while also having an area where they filled in the blanks with their own logic. While they wrote as if they were at odds with one another, they were actually describing different sides of the same beautiful gem. While they may not be able to rectify their differences, they don’t need to. Scripture brings these seeming contradictions together in paradox.
As a pastor, I get a lot of questions from people that are trying to bring together these parts of Jesus’ character that seem to be at odds with one another. I love it. It provides a chance to dig into what the Bible says and to grow our understanding of Jesus (I say our, because these conversations help me to see aspects that I had not before). I know that for every question I am asked, there are a dozen that are not. I know that people are struggling with parts of who Jesus is and what He says, some to the point of just giving up on Christianity altogether.
My encouragement (whether you have simplified Jesus, struggle with Him, or are somewhere else) is: keep seeking. Specifically, keep going to the Bible and letting it define the Savior. There are a lot of things that you can believe about Jesus if you have a cursory understanding of His revealed Word, but the Bible tends to correct these errors. As it gives you layer after layer of complexity, it refuses to let us settle into an easy relationship with our Savior. It keeps showing us that He is not who we think He should be or how we would make Him.
In this, His otherness becomes this wonderful reminder that He is not just different from us, but He is above us. When we can’t understand Him, we can also imagine that He has answers to the things of life that we cannot solve. In this, His holiness becomes a comfort. It is only in a Savior that is nothing like us that we can be both sinful and redeemed; broken but assured of restoration. It is only with the Messiah that we have that salvation is possible.