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Realistic Images of Jesus

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Before reading this blog post, go do a Google search for images of Jesus. Take note of what you see, then come back here.

Images of Jesus Online

If your image search returned the same sort of images of Jesus that my image search returned, you probably saw a bunch of images of Jesus like this:

And then, of course, you have the weird and wacky images of Jesus…

And let us not forget the food appearance images of Jesus…

What I would like to see sometime is some realistic images of Jesus.

And no, Megyn Kelly, Jesus probably wasn’t white (or with blue eyes). Of course, He wasn’t black either. And whatever color His skin was, He didn’t glow.

Frankly, I have no idea what Jesus looked like, but even these images of Jesus are probably pretty far off the mark:

From Scripture, it seems to me that Jesus would not stand out in a crowd. He wouldn’t have a glow around his head, he wouldn’t be taller or cleaner than everyone else, His clothes wouldn’t be shining white. His face probably wasn’t perfectly clean or his teeth sparkling white. His eyes weren’t piercing or his complexion smooth.

I wish that artistic renderings of Jesus would make Him look more…. like the rest of us. Drab, boring, slightly unkept.

images of Jesus laughingThe thing that attracted people to Jesus was not His beauty, His eyes, His stature, His glowing clothes, or angelic halo. He had none of these things.

The thing that attracted people to Jesus was His love, acceptance, and forgiveness.

Do you want to know what Jesus looks like?

Images of Jesus in the World

He looks like you when you wash the dishes for your spouse, when you give up that television show to help your child with homework, when you take a plate of cookies to your neighbor, when you mow the lawn for the shut-in lady across the street, when you give food and water to the homeless downtown, when you give of your time and money to help anybody in need. When you do these things, you are the image of Jesus in the world today.

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Did Jesus Learn?

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I taught recently on Luke 2:40-52 and indicated in my message that Jesus learned the Scriptures and learned wisdom just like any human. Just as He grew physically, He also had to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual strength.

That Jesus learned seems pretty clear from verses like Luke 2:40 and 52 where it says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. You can see an old version of a sermon I taught on Luke 2:40-52 here.

Did Jesus learn Scripture from Jewish teachers?

I also pointed out in that message that when Jesus went to Jerusalem at the age of 12 with his parents, He went to the Temple and listened to what was being taught and asked questions (Luke 2:46). Finally, I mentioned Hebrews 5:8 which indicated that Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.

After the study concluded, I had several people challenge me on the idea that Jesus had to learn anything. They argued that since Jesus was God, He knew everything, even from birth, and so didn’t have to learn from His parents, from reading Scripture, or from anybody at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Such an idea shocked me. I have never heard such a thing before. Have you?

Did Jesus Learn?

I asked if Jesus knew how to speak all languages when He was an infant, and was told that yes, He did. He didn’t have to learn how to talk, but that He “hid” His ability until it was normal and natural for a child to speak. They said that His parents didn’t teach Him anything about the Scriptures and that He never had to attend school or a Jewish synagogue to learn how to read or to learn what the Scriptures said. Because He was God in the flesh, He just knew it.

When I pointed out that Luke 2:40 and 52 says that Jesus grew in wisdom, they said that this just meant that Jesus became known for His wisdom, as is indicated in Luke 2:47.

I told them that to me, this sounds a lot like the ancient Gnostic and Docetic heresies which taught that Jesus wasn’t fully human. After all, isn’t learning, growing, and developing in knowledge and wisdom a central element to being human?

If Jesus didn’t have to learn, then isn’t He just like some sort of divine Buddha child that falls out of heaven, who has all wisdom and knowledge from birth? If Jesus didn’t have to learn, then why did Jesus have to wait until He was 30 to begin His ministry? If Jesus didn’t have to learn, then how can He truly understand what it is like to be human?

At one point in our discussion, I said, “Well, it seems logical that if Jesus was fully human, then He had to learn.” Their response was, “I don’t use logic. I just use Scripture.” I just about broke out laughing. It seemed pretty obvious to me that logic was not being used. Ha! One guy also kept saying, “I don’t speculate about Scripture. I just believe what it says.” This is the old “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it” cliche which I wrote about a while back. People like to believe that they are just believing the Bible, but they don’t. I don’t either. We believe what we think the Bible teaches. Some of what we believe is truly what the Bible says, ans some of what we believe is a misunderstanding of what the Bible says. The trick is knowing which is which…

This group also strongly objected to the idea that Jesus might have attended a Jewish synagogue as He was growing up, and also later in life. I pointed out that Luke 4:16 pretty clearly indicates that Jesus had a tradition of attending the synagogue, which probably went back even into His childhood. They said, “Well, even if He did go, He didn’t go to learn anything. Even if you are right that Jesus had to learn, there was nothing He could learn from them.”

“From who?” I asked. “The Jews?”

“Right. Jesus wouldn’t learn anything from Jews.”

“…You do know Jesus was Jewish, right?” I asked.

They responded that they did know this, and we moved on to other topics, but it seemed to me that this was another one of those old mistakes (championed by Marcion who ended up discarding most of the Hebrew Scriptures) where some Christians try to separate Jesus and the apostles from anything Jewish. I believe that such a move causes us to misunderstand most of what Jesus, Paul, and Peter teach. But I digress….

I think Jesus did learn. I think learning is a major element of being human. I think that Scripture pretty clearly indicates that Jesus grew physically, mentally, and spiritually (Luke 2:40, 52). Note that something nearly identical is said of John the Baptist in Luke 1:80. So however a person understand Jesus’ learning (or lack of learning) in Luke 2:40, 52, this same idea must be applied to John in Luke 1:80.

But what do you think? Did Jesus learn? However you answer, what Scriptures and logical arguments would you use to defend your position? 

On a related note, here is a much harder question: If you think Jesus did have to learn, when do you think Jesus knew He was God incarnate? When do you think He realized He was the promised Messiah?

Below is a video where NT Wright addresses this question a bit, and for you scholarly types, here is an article he wrote on the topic: Did Jesus Know He was God? And for you super scholarly types, I recommend Wright’s book, Jesus and Victory of God.

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Does Jesus Credit His Good Works to Our Account?

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good worksIt is often taught that Jesus obeyed the law perfectly because we cannot. Then we are told that when we believe in Jesus for eternal life, He give us His righteousness. He has such an infinite supply of righteousness, that He can pour some of it into us so that we also become righteous.

We are told time and time again that by faith, the perfect righteousness of Jesus can be credited to our account.

I am certain that if you searched this blog, you would find that I have written something similar along these lines in numerous places in the past.

But I have recently begun to question the whole idea. There is just something about this “crediting to our account” that doesn’t sit well with me…

So please forgive me if I do a little theological rambling in this post. I am throwing this out there because I am wondering about it, and would like your input. I am not sharing what I believe… I am sharing what I think. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below!

The Ocean of Good Works from the Past

I recently taught Luke 3:7-14 again. In that passage, John the Baptist tells his Jewish audience to not say, “We have Abraham as our Father” (Luke 3:8). I taught that this was because of how the Jewish people understood themselves as the elect nation of God, as the chosen people of Israel. The idea was that God needed the people of Israel to accomplish His will in the world, and so God would never destroy the Hebrew people, because then He would be stuck.

I went on to argue that some branches of Judaism took this idea to an extreme, saying that some of the forefathers of Israel were such good people, that they had more “good works” than they needed, and so their good works could be credited to the account of later Hebrew people who came up short in personal righteousness. In other words, men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets had created this ocean of good works, or this storehouse of righteousness. And when any Jewish person sinned a little too much, God would cancel out that sin with a little bit of good works from the ocean of righteousness that came from the Israelite forefathers.

Some Christians today may scoff at this idea, but others might say, “Hey, that sounds eerily similar to what we believe and teach in our church!” In fact, one teaching among some Catholics have taught that certain Saints of the past have stored up such great masses of good works, that if we pray to them, or perform some sort of penance, then the Catholic church can “draw on” the good works of the saints of the past and credit them to certain people today.

This idea was one of the things that led Martin Luther to write his 95 Theses and nail them to the church door in Wittenburg. Certain Catholics were selling indulgences, whereby a person could donate a certain amount of money to the Catholic church, and in exchange, the church would credit some good works to that person to cover over their sin. This, of course, led to great abuse, and so Martin Luther wrote up his 95 Theses… and the rest is history.

Protestants  continue to scoff at the idea that giving certain amount of money, or saying certain prayers can credit to our account the righteous good works of any person in the past…. except that…. this is pretty close to exactly what we believe about Jesus.

The Good Works of Jesus Credited to Our Account?

While I don’t know if it is ever stated exactly this way, it sometimes seems that we teach that Jesus kept the law perfectly so that as the only perfect person, He could credit His righteousness to our account.

Doesn’t this sound similar to what was discussed above? That there is this ocean of good works that is available for withdrawals by people who have the proper access codes?

If this view is correct, then it seems that the only real difference between the various theologies is in the source of the ocean of good works. In some theological ideas, the ocean of good works comes from great men and women of the past, either the Israelite forefathers or the Christian saints, whereas in common “Evangelical” theology, the source of good works is Jesus Himself.

If this is the way it is, I don’t really have too much of a problem with it. Everything is centered on Jesus Christ, and all we have comes through Him.

But I just got to wondering….

What if the real issue isn’t good works at all?

What if the primary goal of Jesus was not to store up for us an ocean of good works for us to draw upon, to fill up what is lacking in our holiness, but rather, to show us once and for all that it is not about good works at all?

What if the point of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection was not to give us the “correct” ocean of good works to draw upon, but rather, to show us that God isn’t concerned about our amount of good works?

Let me approach the question another way.

All around the world and throughout time, humankind has thought that God (or the gods) is angry with us. We think we need to appease him (or them) by doing good works. So, for example, a child dies from sickness, and we think, “God is punishing me for something. I probably didn’t thank him enough for the good harvest last year. I need to make God happy again. What can I do? Maybe if I give him my cow, he won’t take my other children or burn my house down.”

This is the basis of ALL religion. Religion is an attempt by humanity to make things right with God. We think God is angry at us for some sort of failure, and if we do something good or heroic or sacrificial, God will be happy with us again. We are not always sure what ticked him off, but the priests and clerics are happy to make suggestions, and the priests and clerics are also happy to make suggestions on what will get us back into God’s good graces (Usually this requires giving things to the priests, which they call “Giving to God.” But I digress…)

You see, one of the central teachings of all religions is this idea that we need a certain level of good works to keep God happy, and if we don’t maintain this level of good works, we either have to start doing better, or obtain the good works from someone else (who does good works for us). If we fail, well, God will squash us like a bug. (Unless we are really wicked and evil, then we seem to get rich, famous, and powerful. But again, I digress…)

If Jesus came to teach that we do actually need good works to get God to love us, then Jesus is actually supporting the central idea of human religion. But over and over and over, Jesus seems to teach the exact opposite. Time and time again, Jesus attacks religion as being contrary to God and actually leading people away from God, into deeper bondage and darkness.

When Jesus came along, it seems that His central message was this: “You have completely misunderstood God! He loves you just as you are! He loves sinners. He forgives sinners. He is gracious and merciful toward sinners. You don’t need more good works or better good works to get on God’s good side; you are already on God’s good side! And I’m here to prove it to you!”

Could it be that our primary problem is not a lack of good works, but simply a failure to truly understand God’s infinite love?

I think so.

The reason God doesn’t want us to sin any  more is NOT because sin gets in the way of His love for us. It is not as if God is saying, “Darn! I really wanted to love you, but you just had that lustful thought, so now I am going to have to give you cancer. And if you keep it up, well, off to eternal suffering in hell with you! But I really wish you had been a better person so I could love you.”

I am sorry, but that view of God seems a bit…. sadistic. Doesn’t it?

I thin it was Anselm who said that God is so holy and takes sin so seriously, that if He told someone to turn right, and they turned left, God would be fully justified to send that disobedient person to hell for all eternity because they turned the wrong way.

Seriously?

Doesn’t this make God more like an egotistical, petulant bully who wants to get his own way no matter what, and when someone crosses him in the least little way, he is going to smack them down so hard they never think of doing it again?

It is no wonder that many people have trouble worshiping a God like this!

Thankfully, one of the reasons Jesus came was to show us that this is NOT what God is like! If Jesus is right, God is not a God of religion.

So…. I Don’t Need Good Works?

Ah…. now we are starting to ask the right questions. I firmly believe that if your theology does not lead you to ask this question, you have really bad theology. If you do not have a theology which causes people to say, “So…. I can just go sin all I want?” then your theology is not strong enough on grace, forgiveness, love, and mercy.

So here’s the thing about good works, grace, and God’s love.

Technically, yes, you can go sin all you want, and God will still love you. Sin and good works have nothing whatsoever to do with God’s love for us. He loves us infinitely and completely, no matter what. We don’t need more good works or better good works for God to love us.

But God does want us to stop sinning. It is true that God hates sin. But He doesn’t hate people. He doesn’t even hate sinners. He loves all people–even sinners.

The reason God (and Jesus) are concerned about sin, is not because sin will lessen God’s love for us. No, God is concerned about sin because He loves us! Sin, you see, has nothing to do with God’s love. Good works have nothing to do with getting back into God’s good graces.

No, the reason God hates sin is because of how much sin damages and harms His children. Sin hurts us! That is why He doesn’t want us to sin! That is why He warns us against sin and pleads with us to turn away from it.

Like any good parent, God love us so much that He does not want to see us get hurt, and nothing hurts us more than sin. Sin brings forth death. It leads to damaged relationships, broken lives, and ruined friendships. It leads to bankruptcy, addiction, and imprisonment. It can lead to bloodshed, horror, war, famine, pestilence, and disease. God loves us so much, He wants to deliver us from all these things, and one way He does this is by pleading with us to turn away from the path we are on, and walk with Him in a life of love, joy, and peace.

And the life of Jesus resembled what a life lived this way looks like. Jesus didn’t do what He did so that He could store up a big ocean of good works to make available to all people who believe in Him. No, Jesus did what He did to show us what God is truly like, and what humanity can also be truly like.

We don’t need more good works to make God love us, and if we have less good works, God will not love us less. The life and ministry of Jesus had nothing to do with His good works or our lack of them.

No, Jesus wanted to show us that God loves us completely, and that the reason God doesn’t want us to sin (especially not to sin religiously, which is how most Christians actually sin… but again, I digress), is because sin hurts us and as a loving Father, God does not want to see us get hurt.

So what do you think? Did Jesus create a big ocean of good works which believers can draw on? Or, as I have suggested above, maybe the life of Jesus had nothing whatsoever to do with good works at all.  Weigh in below!

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I Go Now to Prepare a Place for You?

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A reader sent in this question about Jesus’ statement in John 14:2, “I go now to prepare a place for you.” Here is the question:

If Jesus is all powerful, why does he say, “I go now to prepare a place for you”?

On a related note, I remember watching old movies when the white colonialist looks down on natives who believe their God will return and thinks they’re simple; but isn’t that what we are doing when we say Jesus will return?

Also, I’ve sometimes heard people say that the reason Jesus is waiting to return is because He wants to save more people, but if that is true, why doesn’t He just wait forever?

I started to look at these questions yesterday, and gave a broad-brush answer to the questions. This post will look in more detail at the statement of Jesus in John 14:2 where He says, “I go now to prepare a place for you.”

John 14:2 in Tradition

Upper room discourseJohn 14:2 is part of the Upper Room Discourse, and is usually understood to mean that Jesus is going to go back to heaven, where He will be at work to prepare mansions or dwelling places for the church, and when He is done, He will come back and take us to live with Him forever.

In fact, it is often taught (and I have taught it this way myself) that Jesus has in mind the Jewish wedding tradition where after a man and woman were betrothed to be married, the man would go off and build a home for his new bride.

The construction of this new home would take several months, or even up to a couple years, and the bride-to-be did not know exactly when the groom-to-be would be finished. Her only option was to wait and to be prepared.

When the man finished building his home, he would gather his friends and family and begin a wedding procession from his new home through town to his bride’s house. By the time they arrived, it would be a huge parade and party. The bride would go out to meet her husband, and they would return to his new house, where there would be a big Jewish wedding, full of food and festivities.

So it is often taught that when Jesus says, “I go now to prepare a place for you” this is what He had in mind. He is the Groom and the church is His Bride, and He has gone off to prepare a dwelling place for us, and we do not know how long it will take or when He will come for us, but we need to be ready and wait patiently. When he returns, He will take us to be with Him, and there will be a big party.

That is how John 14:2 is often read, interpreted, understood, and taught.

Honestly, I don’t have too much of an issue with this understanding of Jesus’ future return. I do think that Jesus will return physically in the future, and that since we do not know exactly when this will be, we need to be ready and wait patiently. Having said this, however, I do not think that this is what Jesus was referring to in John 14:2 when He said, “I go now to prepare a place for you.”

What did Jesus Mean when He said, “I go now to prepare a place for you”?

To understand what Jesus means when He says, “I go now to prepare a place for  you” we must look at the context. In the first half of John 14:2, Jesus says, “In My Father’s House are many mansions.”

Mansions is not the best translation of the word used here. It might be best translated as “dwelling places.” It is not exactly referring to buildings, but to rooms within a building.

Many people hear this, and think, “What? All I’m going to get in heaven is a room? What about the mansion I was promised?” Well… the truth is that Jesus is not promising to pass out mansions. Sorry! Of course, if you were only a follower of Jesus because you wanted to get a mansion, you probably were not following Him for the right reasons.

in my fathers house are many mansions

So okay, what does Jesus mean by “dwelling places?” Well, it is critical to understand first what Jesus means by “My Father’s House.” The Jews to whom Jesus was talking would have understood Him to be talking about the temple in Jerusalem. This is also how Jesus referred to the temple on occasion, as in when He cleansed the temple in John 2:16.

Furthermore, it is important to know that there were many rooms, or “dwelling places” in the Jerusalem temple (cf. 1 Kings 6:5-6; Jeremiah 35:1-4). From this, it seems that when Jesus says, “In My Father’s House are many dwelling places… and I go now to prepare a place for you,” He is saying that He is going to prepare a place for His disciples in the temple.

But why would He do that when He has prophesied that the temple is going to be destroyed? And why would the disciples want a room in the temple precincts? Those rooms were generally reserved for priests and temple servants. The disciples were not priests, and they already had families, jobs, and homes of their own.

Here we get into the New Testament teaching about how we as believers in Christ are the new temple (1 Corinthians 6:19), and how we are the new priesthood (1 Peter 2:9).

Though it would take time for His disciples to understand all this, Jesus was not talking about preparing a place for His followers in the temple on a hill in Jerusalem. No, Jesus was talking about preparing a whole new Temple and a whole new Priesthood. The true Father’s House was about to be revealed to the world, and Jesus was going to prepare it. Jesus was going to reveal it.

How, when, and where did Jesus do that? He did it on the cross, and through His death, burial, and resurrection.

When Jesus said, “I go now to prepare a place for you,” He was not talking about going to heaven so that at some future date He would return and bring us to be with Him. No, when Jesus said, “I go now to prepare a place for you,” He was talking about making a new temple, a new priesthood, and a new way of living as God’s family.

When Jesus said, “I go now to prepare a place for you,” He was talking about going to the cross.

Again, this fits with the entire context of the Upper Room Discourse. John has been telling them that He is going to suffer and die, and that they are going to deny and betray Him (John 13). The disciples are understandably upset about this, and so Jesus begins his Upper Room Discourse with some encouraging words: He is doing this for their benefit. He goes to prepare a place for them so that they can be with Him forever.

What does this Mean for Us as the Church?

What does this mean for us as the church? Does this mean that Jesus is not going to return? Of course not! He will return.

But here is the thing. In some sense, in and through the church, Jesus has already returned! He returns in us. We are the ongoing incarnation of Jesus Christ. We are His hands and feet the world. We are the Body of Christ on earth.

Yes, Jesus is still going to return physically at some point in the future, but between His resurrection and His future second coming, the church is to live and love others like Jesus did.

The world needs Jesus, and Jesus sent the church to be Himself to the world. So what happens to the world if the church just sits around and waits for Jesus to return?

Jesus went to the cross to prepare a place for us. His resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is His coming in Spirit and power into our lives, showing that the place for us has been finished. And where is our place? Not in heaven, sitting on a cloud, strumming a harp, enjoying eternal bliss. No, the place that Jesus prepared for us is right here on planet earth. This is our place. This is our home. This is our “mansion.”

I go now to prepare a place for you

Jesus, through His death, burial, and resurrection, creation a new people of God on earth to be the living temple of God, which is filled with the Spirit of God, so that all people on earth have unmediated access to God. Because of how Jesus made dwelling places for the church in the Father’s House, people no longer have to travel to a building on a hill in Jerusalem to meet with God. The temple of God is wherever the church is, because we are now the temple of God, and God’s dwelling place is with us and we with Him.

If you are a follower of Jesus, please understand that Jesus did not give us eternal life simply so we could wait around on earth until we die so we can finally be with God forever in heaven. No!

We are not waiting for Jesus to finish preparing some dwelling place in the sky so that when He is done, we can escape this sinful earth to be with Him forever. No, the dwelling place is already finished. He finished it through His death and resurrection. And since He rose from the dead, He received us to Himself so that we are in Him and He in us, and together, we go out to batter down the gates of hell, to set the captives free, and to proclaim liberty to the oppressed.

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Why is Jesus delaying His Return?

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A reader sent in this question about Jesus’ statement in John 14:2, “I go now to prepare a place for you.” The reader wants to know why Jesus is delaying His return. Here is the question:

If Jesus is all powerful, why does he say, “I go now to prepare a place for you”?

On a related note, I remember watching old movies when the white colonialist looks down on natives who believe their God will return and thinks they’re simple; but isn’t that what we are doing when we say Jesus will return?

Also, I’ve sometimes heard people say that the reason Jesus is waiting to return is because He wants to save more people, but if that is true, why doesn’t He just wait forever?

This is somewhat a multi-pronged question, which requires a multi-pronged answer. Not surprisingly, my answer will be… less than traditional. Also not surprisingly, I need two posts to answer these questions… This post will provide a general answer to the questions above, and tomorrow’s post will look at the statement of Jesus in John 14:2 in more detail.

Does Jesus Need Time to Prepare a Place for Us?

First, the reader is right to think it strange that Jesus requires time to go prepare a place for us. I have sometimes heard preachers say this: “It took God six days to create the universe; so far, Jesus has been preparing a place for us for 2000 years! Imagine what a place it will be!”

new heavens and new earthWell… that preaches…. but is it true? The person who sent in the question is right. Technically, if God is omnipotent, that is, if He is all-powerful, then He didn’t even need six days to form creation. He could have done so with a snap of his divine fingers. For reasons which I won’t get into here, God chose to form and fill creation through a much slower process than simply by snapping His fingers. I don’t care whether you think it was over six days or six-billion years, creation was not instantaneous.

So there is a reason God takes time to accomplish His will. And whether it takes six days or 2000 years, I don’t think we can say that the amount of the time which passes has any bearing whatsoever on the complexity or beauty of the work that God is doing. So we can’t say that the delay of Jesus to return is evidence that the place he is preparing for us will be exponentially better than the place we have now. I think it will be better, but not because of how much time it is taking… time has nothing to do with it.

So why is it taking so long for Jesus to return? I want to explain this statement in more detail (which I will do in tomorrow’s post), but let’s temporarily move on to the second and third questions sent in by the reader.

Will Jesus Really Return?

The reader asked about white colonialists looking down on natives who believed that their god would return, and asked how this is any different than the Christian belief that our God will return.

return of JesusI do admit, on the surface, it does seem rather strange, though I never made the connection with the colonialists. For me, the promised return of Jesus always reminded me of the prophesied return of King Arthur. You know… King Arthur and his knights of the round table. Did you know that there are predictions that King Arthur will come again? Most everybody scoffs at the idea, realizing that it is just part of the legend that surrounds the stories of King Arthur.

But this is how many non-Christians view the Christian belief that Jesus will come again. None of us think that King Arthur will come again, so why do we believe that Jesus will? The short answer is that unlike King Arthur, Jesus was God incarnate, and Jesus rose from the dead. This answer is not satisfactory to people who do not believe the Scriptural accounts about Jesus, and to them I recommend N. T. Wright’s book, The Resurrection of the Son of God and the book by Paul Eddy and Greg  Boyd, The Jesus Legend. Both of these books do a masterful job showing how the Gospel accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are historically reliable. No other explanation really makes sense.

And yet, I think it was wrong for the colonialists to look down on the people among whom they worked. I think that the natives were right in their belief that God would return, but only slightly wrong in the identity of this God. The colonialists should have affirmed and praised the people for their belief. The desire to reconnect with God and be restored into relationship with Him is a universal belief, and is something which God has placed in the hearts of all people.

Christians should almost never look down on the religious traditions and beliefs of other cultures, but should instead look for the ways which God has interwoven Himself into their traditions and beliefs, and then work to show how the longings of their hearts which are expressed in these traditions and beliefs are actually fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

But let’s move on to the third question…

Is Jesus Waiting for the Full Number of Gentiles to Come In?

Sometimes it is taught that the reason Jesus hasn’t returned is because He is waiting for the full number of Gentiles to come in. This idea comes from Romans 11:25, where Paul writes something along these lines.

return of JesusAgain, I have often heard it taught that there is this big heavenly scoreboard in heaven which is counting down toward zero, and every time a person believes in Jesus for eternal life, that countdown gets closer to zero. When it finally does reach zero, Jesus will return. When I have heard this preached, the audience is always told to go out and evangelize and witness to their friends and neighbors, because you never know if all of heaven and earth is just waiting on you to tell your neighbor about Jesus because they are the final Gentile to be brought in.

I am not going to say anything about this. I think this sort of teaching is manipulative and puts lots of people on guilt-trips, and causes people to think that the only thing that matters is preaching the gospel to our neighbors, and getting another notch on our evangelism belt (or dropping another number off the divine scoreboard), rather than actually getting to know our neighbors and love them like Jesus.

A proper understanding of what Paul is saying in Romans 11:25 would require a detailed study of Romans 9-11, something I am not going to tackle here. But suffice it to say for now, I don’t think it has anything to do with a divine scoreboard in heaven. Our evangelism efforts do not speed up or delay the return of Jesus Christ.

I think there is a great misunderstanding in the church about what it means for Jesus to return, and what it meant for Him to “go away” and much of this misunderstanding has led to great manipulation and spiritual abuse in the Christian church.

Once we properly understand what Jesus meant when He talked about going away to prepare a place for us, and what He meant when He said He would come again, I think we will see that our job as Christians right now is not just to sit at the bus station waiting for Jesus to come pick us up and deliver us from this sinful earth so we can go to the divine paradise club in heaven. That, I think, is a big lie… but we will look more at that tomorrow.

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