“He was pierced for our transgressions, 

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.”

Isaiah 53:5

Ours is a costly atonement. Isaiah’s prophecy about the Suffering Servant tells us as much. The piercing and crushing of Jesus’ body on the cross is reflected well in Isaiah’s descriptions. By his wounds indeed we find our healing.

What demanded such a terrible and awful sacrifice from the Son of God? Of course it is because of sin. But these days, we toss the word “sin” about in a careless, casual way. It means nothing to us sometimes to guard the little foxes that spoil the vineyard. A few white lies to throw a traffic policeman off, some trivial half-truths, half-lies to smooth troubled waters over … what do they matter at the end of the day? What’s a minor traffic rule disregarded and dismissed compared to the inconvenience of a summons and fine?  What’s a little embellishment of a story to spice some gossip up?

But it was “sin”, precisely the things we take so lightly, that pierced Christ’s body, that crushed his life, and that wounded him. Peace and healing are the objects in view, desired because it is exactly these “little” transgressions that estrange us from God. In fact, they are not little at all. If we trace them back to their roots, we find in our deepest and perhaps darkest selves the rebellion and hatred of law and order that reflect our rebellion and hatred of God’s moral absolutes in life.

There is no getting around it. What we call our lack of discipline is really our lack of appreciation for the orderliness and uprightness that God desires of us. “Straight and true” are still descriptions of the person whose character knows no crookedness and no hiddenness. His “yea” is a “yea” and his “nay” a “nay”. If we do not see sin in terms of crookedness and waywardness of character, thoughts and spiritual perspective, we will not very likely think that our little transgressions require change at all.

We are afflicted with a peculiar spiritual virus as humans. In these days of viral pandemics, it is not difficult to understand how a simple, commonplace virus like the influenza virus, for instance, spreads and mutates, so that a seasonal cough and cold turns into a pandemic affecting thousands of people all over the world. Sin is the same.

What we deem “little” or small and insignificant in what is wrong with ourselves may well turn out to be the first few symptoms of something more serious and insidious. If patterns of behaviour repeat themselves time and again in predictable but increasingly destructive ways, we can no longer say that our problem is only “seasonal” sin. Our sinful virus has mutated. We are escalating into more and more sinful ways and motivations. In truth, our hearts are unclean.

In the most subterranean ways, our sins reach deep into the recesses of our beings that require the blood of the covenant to cleanse us completely. So hidden are these deep and evil motivations that if it were not for the light of the Spirit, we would not even acknowledge them for what they are. Our affliction sounds like a tedious and tiresome virus that makes us ill for a while. But it was for this purpose that Christ died for us. Sin masks itself in different ways. Most usually, it covers its own ugliness and deep-seatedness in our hearts by mimicking a seasonal or occasional lapse in our character.

But if we were honest, we would admit that we know better. We know the thick-knotted roots that are sunk deep into our persons. We know the waywardness of our hearts, and the resentment we express at the discipline of the Lord. We do not recognise his yoke, nor do we find his burden light. While we mouth praises to him, in fact, our hearts have strayed far from him.

For such a terrible affliction, there is only one cure possible. Christ had to be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, wounded that we might be healed. His blood that was shed had, in effect, to soak right through to the stubborn and rebellious layers of our inner being till it reached the very core of sin: our enthroned Self. Only then would his healing effect its power; only then would we find ourselves forgiven and restored to fellowship with the Father.

No wonder such a sacrifice was needed. If we were less peurile and shallow in our spirituality, we might be a little more attentive to the ways we betray over and over again the still-rebellious root at the core of our being, and allow God’s Son to deal with it once and for all.

The next time we break a speed limit, we would do well to have a spiritual check to make sure that the roots of bitterness, anger, malice and sin have well and truly been yanked out from our innards!

The hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. —Matthew 13:15

Jesus’ teaching methods have always been the subject of much praise. His engaging way of telling stories with a sting in the tail (tale), ie. his parables, is much admired and emulated. We say that the clarity and sharpness of his point gets across so well when couched in the form of a story taken from the most ordinary things of ordinary life. This is what a good teacher does. So good is Jesus at illustrative teaching that he is often regarded as the Master Teacher … the teacher par excellence.

Yet Jesus himself said that his parables were meant to puzzle people, not enlighten them (Matt. 13.11b). These stories were entertaining, yet their truth would escape those who were not among his disciples (v. 13). And even his own disciples needed coaching to understand just what the stories were really about.

But–to hide truth from people? Is it conceivable that the Truth-giver whose very person reflected and revealed the Person of God should take the trouble of incarnation to hide truth from people?

Verse 11 makes it clear that the truth is perceived and understood by those who both hear and believe (the disciples). But to those whose hearts are hardened, the “secrets of the kingdom of heaven” are not given to them. Jesus told parables to all his listeners, but it was only to his disciples that these parables were explained (vv. 18-23).

Ironically, it was the religious leaders who were blind and deaf to the truths that Jesus was expounding. For all intents and purposes, they had already rejected the Christ in their hearts. No wonder they could not hear his words or see the truths he was presenting to them. Indeed, here were people who had not known his ways, but their hearts were always going astray from him. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6. 9,10 in verse 15, saying to the effect that the same state of heart that afflicted the hardened hearers of Isaiah’s time was found precisely in the calloused hearts of Jesus’ time.

The lack of spiritual comprehension among, particularly, the religious leaders, was occasioned by their calloused or hardened hearts (v. 15). Their blindness and deafness were because they themselves had “closed their eyes” and stopped up their ears. Thus there is an aspect of judgment in Jesus telling parables. Like Pharaoh of old, God himself had hardened the hearts of those who, by their free choice, had decided to disbelieve him. This judicial action meant that these hard hearts rejected God, and God, in turn, hardened their hearts yet more in his rejection of them. He “gave them over” to their sins … (cf. Rom. 1.24). Since these leaders “who have not known my ways” (Hebrews 3.10) have turned from God’s enlightenment, God would give them no further light concerning himself or his ways. In fact, so severe and thorough is his judgment of their rejection of his ways that, as Jesus says, “even what [they have] will be taken away from [them]” (Matt. 13.12). And that, Jesus continues, is why he speaks to them in parables (v. 13).

“Understanding” is key to this passage. These calloused hearts heard and saw the same things as the believers did, yet they neither heard nor saw with understanding. The response of the will made the difference whether or not an individual was blessed. In Matthew 13.16, Jesus confirms that his disciples, in contrast to the religious leaders, are blessed, precisely because “your eyes … see,” and “your ears … hear.”

Many times, we see and hear without truly seeing and hearing either. The key word for us is still “understanding”. Many today claim that God’s ways are too high for us to achieve or comprehend. Thus he is always the God who is beyond human understanding and comprehension. His ways are peculiar, because they are not our ways … and his mind is too hidden for us to know.

In a real sense, all this is true. God is indeed beyond our small and limited human scope. We cannot see or understand him in his fullness. In fact, what is the “fullness” of God if he is illimited? There is no end to him!

In another sense, though, it is not true that we cannot understand him. For this reason, Jesus came. The divine self-disclosure that began with our ancestors in the faith was truly revealed in the Son who came as the perfect imago dei. We cannot claim that God has not taken the trouble to reveal and explain himself to even our petty comprehension. The fact is, he has.

If we still claim that his ways are totally dark and incomprehensible to us, there is just one option left to explain the hidden darkness we sense. Parables are for the deaf and blind. Are we then the ones to whom God says, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (v. 13)? Are his ways peculiar and strange to us because our hearts are always going astray? Parables are for the deaf and blind.

Are we the ones for whom Jesus intended his parabolic tales?

⁷ He made known his ways to Moses,  his deeds to the people of Israel

Psalm 103.7

Growing up a Christian within a charismatic setting, I had seen a great deal of emphasis placed on God’s power and wonders. Indeed, my school and college friends and I talked a lot about them. We were seekers of God, young persons who desired to know the Lord in ever deeper ways. Yet, I was always aware that there were many aspects of God that I did not understand. Though I sought to understand him, more often than not, I was puzzled and intrigued by the God who was near, yet seemed so far away. 

Psalm 103 is better known for other well-loved verses, like verses 3-5. Yet it was verse 7 that has stayed with me, much like an anchor for the soul. The point of the verse is simply what it says: God made known his ways to Moses, and he showed his awesome deeds to Israel. What is so remarkable about the obvious?

The answer, of course, lies in the two direct objects identified, and what it was they “knew”. We could restate verse 7 in this way:

Moses knew God’s ways

Israel knew God’s deeds

How did the two, Moses and Israel, end? What were the results of the verb, “to know” that was associated with them?

Moses, to whom God “made known” (revealed) his ways, came to “know” and understand the Lord’s character in increasingly deeper ways. After the incident of the golden calf, Moses interceded for Israel on the mountain. He also asked for a greater revelation of God (Exodus 33.13) and was granted a wonderful and special favor: he saw the Lord (vv. 21-23). When God disclosed himself to Moses, he caused Moses to understand two things: “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name …” (v. 19). God’s attributes and his character were revealed in his glory and in his name.

Moses had yearned to know the person of this God, and came wonderfully to an intimate friendship with him that few have ever experienced. He knew God’s ways in that he understood the heart and mind of this great Friend; he knew intimately the compassionate and gracious character of the Lord. God had wooed him into both a friendship as well as a lifelong calling in the early scene of the burning bush (Ex. 3). God did two things then: he called Moses by name, and he introduced himself by revealing his own name (v. 14).

Much later, in chapter 33, God reveals much more of himself to Moses, whom he also says he knows by name (v. 17). This was a growing and deepening friendship between God and man that was precious and delightful. God had looked for a friend to bless, and in the generosity of his divine nature, had drawn one man to himself that he might be the witness of the glory of the Lord, and the recipient of his divine affections.

So deep was God’s love for Moses that when he died, God buried him in Moab. Where his grave was, no one knew. In life as in death, God claimed Moses for himself, and gave him a title that signified how much Moses meant to him. He was called “the servant of the Lord” (Deut. 34.5) and until Christ’s incarnation, “no prophet [had] arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face …” (v. 10). Like Abraham, Moses was God’s friend. Like Abraham, he spoke to God as with a friend.

What about Israel to whom God “made known his deeds”? Israel had indeed known God’s many miracles: they had experienced the parting of the Red Sea, eaten heavenly manna, drunk bitter waters turned sweet … and so on. But the fact was, though they knew God’s deeds (and these were great and powerful demonstrations), they did not know God. Hebrews 3.10, which quotes from Psalm 95, tells us what was at the heart of Israel’s attitude toward God: “Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.”

There is nothing more tragic or pathetic than to find people who have been Christians for a long time who “have not known [God’s] ways.” These are people who have experienced God’s power and touch, who have enjoyed his bounty and blessings, who continue to faithfully ask that he should bless and favor them … but who have not known his ways, or character, or person. When they were wooed by God to enter into a relationship with him, they failed to understand that he was calling them to a growing friendship. When he beset them with trials and problems, they failed to see that it was his way of pulling them toward himself.

The irony is that, like Israel, God has in fact revealed his ways to us in the giving of his oracles: the Law (OT) and in the Word and Christ. The blindness of those whose hearts are always going astray is that we keep missing the obvious thing in front of our noses!

There are too many such Christians today, who know God’s acts, but feel that he is a distant and incomprehensible God. They are left unable to understand him, or his words, and as a result, survive on very little in their spiritual lives. Indeed, God’s ways seem too high for them to achieve. Their sights are fixed on life lived “under the sun.” And yet, the warning God gave to ancient Israel and the struggling Hebrew Christians of the New Testament is the same warning he delivers us today: “They shall never enter my rest” (Hebrews 3.11).

To the friends of God is promised this rest from restlessness, this peace that arises from the understanding of his great compassions. Moses rested in the everlasting arms that held him. He chose the one thing that to him, was of inestimable worth: to know the Lord himself. Israel was satisfied with what God provided and gave them.

It is probably too fine a thing to split between God’s ways and his acts. In any case, Moses knew both. But it is still interesting to note that Israel only knew God’s deeds …