The desire to live – to stay alive – is hardwired into the human brain. Even those who have experienced a lot of suffering and problems in life will still strive to stay alive. The desire to live is also seen in another way. Since the beginning of recorded history, we see evidence for the quest for immortality. The pyramids, tombs, and golden coffins of the ancient Egyptians and many other cultures bear striking witness to these peoples’ attempts to maintain their existence after death. Ancient stories such as the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh also focus on the heroic quest of individuals to find eternal life – the same quest still followed today by much modern medical, genetic, and cryogenic research.
But the story always ends in the same way. Eternal life is sought in many ways, but always lies beyond the grasp of humanity. The Bible clearly indicates that this is because humans have been looking in all the wrong places and do not naturally grasp how immortality could be gained. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “but it has now been revealed through … Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).
This fact underscores something else the Bible is adamant about – that immortality and eternal life is not something we can get, it is something that we can only begiven. We see this mistake in the biblical story of the young man who approached Jesus saying “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16, emphases added here and below).
The apostle Paul speaks to this truth when he writes to the Christians in Rome “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23) and “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7). Notice that Paul is clear that we do not have eternal life – it is something that must be granted to us.
Paul is just as explicit in writing to the Corinthians “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).
So, the Bible is clear that this gift of immortality is not something we can earn, rather it is the result of the undeserved grace of God that he bestows on us. Nevertheless, that does not mean that there is nothing we must do in order for God to choose to give the gift. We are not granted eternal life automatically simply because we want it and God desires to give it to us – as Jesus himself confirmed: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:40). Here we see the primary prerequisite to receiving the gift – faith in the Son of God.
Paul wrote about another prerequisite “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7). This is not a teaching of gaining immortality through works – Paul is perfectly clear that we are not saved through our own deeds (Ephesians 2:8-9; etc.). But he acknowledges that doing good is the outward fruit that proves we have inwardly turned to God and accepted his will in our lives. That is a truth as old as the Old Testament proverb “In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality” (Proverbs 12:28). We do not earn eternal life, but God will not give it to those who do not show they have accepted his will in their lives.
It is then, and only then, that humans will find the eternal life they so deeply desire. Not because we have earned it, or get it in some way through our own efforts, but – as the apostle John wrote – because “this is what he promised us – eternal life” (1 John 2:25).
“All you need is love, love, love is all you need, love is all you need …” – The Beatles.
It may have been a smash hit in its day, but the Beatles’ 1967 song “All you need is love” is not exactly good theology! When we think of the biblical importance of love, many scriptures come to mind – ranging from “God so loved the world …” (John 3:16) to the apostle Paul’s great summary statement in 1 Corinthians 13:13 – “now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love, of course, is of supreme importance because it is perhaps the central defining characteristic of the nature of God himself – “God is love” (1 John 4:7) – so its centrality in the Christian faith cannot be argued.
But does the supreme importance of love mean that love is all the Christian needs? Many actually think this and go about their lives thinking that as long as they have love, they are “good Christians.” The Bible, however, shows that this is not really true at all. To imagine God as only as God of love is to limit his nature and to entirely miss the fact that the God of love is also, for example, the God of Justice (Isaiah 30:18, Psalm 33:4-6, Isaiah 61:8; etc.) as well as light or truth ( 1 John 1:5; etc.) and many other things. When we remember this, we can better understand what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Philippian church:
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11).
Paul had already told these Christians he knew they had love (verse 8), but then he emphasized the knowledge they needed. The word “knowledge” that Paul uses in this passage is not gnôsis which connotes simply “knowing” but epignôsis, which is used in the New Testament to connote full discernment and spiritual knowledge. Paul echoes the need for this kind of knowledge that guides love in his letter to the Colossians:
“we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9-10).
These two passages both show that we need to grow in the knowledge of God and his will if we are to please him and bear the fruit of good works based in love. It is perfectly possible to have love in our lives – to be sincere, dedicated, loving – and still wrong. We can love mistakenly or unwisely and as Paul and many other biblical writers show, our love should be coupled with the spiritual knowledge that guides us in seeing how, when and where to show love.
If we were to believe the advertising of this world (especially around Valentine’s Day), we would believe that all a relationship needs is love (and perhaps expensive gifts to “demonstrate” that love). But any married couple can confirm that a healthy and strong relationship needs far more than just love. Our relationship with God is no different. We cannot be truly “one” with God by simply having love that we “demonstrate” through sacrifices, gifts, or other works. The Old Testament prophetic books are full of statements to this effect, and the principle is clear in the New Testament also.
When the Bible tells us that “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:5) it shows that we must come to know – and know deeply – how to love. Saying “all you need is love” is like saying “all you need is air.” Of course we need air, and of course we need love, but they are not the only things we need. As the apostle Peter summarized, we must “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). We must have love, but to be effective Christians we must always remember that love is not all we need.
“Doubting Thomas.” There is no doubt about it, most Christians regard him as something of a failure. The apostle who said he would not believe in Christ’s resurrection until he had seen him with his own eyes and touched him with his own hand (and who later got the opportunity to do so, of course), has become synonymous with those who do not believe.
Even those of us who believe faith should involve the head as well as the heart have not embraced Thomas as the poster-disciple of reasonable faith, but why is this – why do we doubt Thomas? Looking at the story – which is found in chapter 20 of the Gospel of John – is instructive:
“Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:24-29).
Although the account is often repeated as an example of unbelief, there is really nothing in it to say that Christ chastised Thomas in any way. We should remember that doubt had marked the response of all the disciples from the very first reports of the resurrection. Although Mary Magdalene, who had gone to the tomb and found it empty, reported this to Peter and John (John 20:2), apparently even John himself did not believe the resurrection had occurred till he saw evidence with his own eyes: “Finally the other disciple [John], who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed” (John 20:8).
More importantly, John tells us that all of the disciples – except Thomas who was not present – were given the opportunity to see Christ, and at that time “he showed them his hands and side” (John 20:19). Luke adds further details, and tells us that when Christ appeared to them at that time:
“They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet” (Luke 24:37-39).
So every one of the disciples had opportunity not only to see the resurrected Christ, but also to see the marks of his wounds. This helps us to understand Thomas’ specific mention of wanting to see the same things, but we can hardly judge Thomas as a doubter of the resurrection any more than the other disciples who thought they saw a ghost and had to be given the opportunity of visible evidence before accepting the resurrection as fact. When Jesus did appear to Thomas and the others later, he did not chide Thomas as “you of little faith” in the way he had so often rebuked the disciples when they beheld the miracles of his ministry; he simply gave Thomas the same opportunity to see him that the other apostles had already been given. We should realize that Jesus’ words: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”(John 20:29) were given for us, not for Thomas.
We should also not forget the importance of the aspect of belief based on seeing for all of the apostles. In his great sermon of Acts 2, Peter himself stressed that the proof of the resurrection was that all the apostles were witnesses – they had seen Christ with their own eyes (Acts 2:32) – and there is no indication to think any of them would have believed if they had not seen him.
Finally, we might well remember that when Thomas did see Christ he exclaimed “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28) and that Thomas is the only person recorded in the Gospels to make this confession and to actually call Jesus “God.”
Tradition tells us that after seeing the resurrected Christ, Thomas’ firm belief led him to do extensive and powerful works in preaching the Gospel until his faithful martyrdom as far to the east as India. He was never called “Doubting Thomas” in the early Church, and the Scriptures clearly indicate that, along with the other original apostles, he will have an honored position in the Kingdom of God (Revelation 21:14). Thomas’ belief, once he established it, was a full and powerful faith – and there is no reason to doubt that.
Two of the Gospel writers – Matthew and Mark – record that near his death Jesus called out with what might seem to be a strange statement:
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 ESV).
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34 ESV).
While Matthew records Jesus’ words in Hebrew, Mark records them in Aramaic (the language in which they were probably uttered); but the words are almost identical, and the meaning is the same.
These words have long been interpreted as showing that at that point in time Jesus symbolically bore the sins of the whole world and that God – who cannot look at evil (Habakkuk 1:13) – turned away from his Son who was left in near-despairing isolation. Because sin cuts off from God, the argument is made, and Jesus at that moment represented all sinners – so God totally cut himself off from his perfect Son because of our sins.
But is that what those terrible words really signify? Did God really turn away from his only Son who had lived a life of perfect obedience – obedience all the way to death itself (Philippians 2:8)? Although that may possibly be the case, we do not have a scripture saying that. And how do we mesh that concept with the fact that it was because God loved sinners so much that he sent his Son to die for them (John 3:16)? Or the fact that God looks on and deals personally with every sinner he calls, and that we have it on scriptural authority that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ”? (Romans 8:38-39).
There is another – and far more positive – way to understand those troubling words of Jesus. Jewish rabbis have long utilized the principle of referring to a scriptural passage by means of a few of its words, knowing that their hearers would mentally supply the rest of the passage. This method of teaching and reference (called in Hebrew remez, meaning “a hint”) was certainly used in Jesus’ time and we see him employing it frequently. For example, in Matthew 21:15 when the children of Jerusalem shouted praises in his honor and the priests and teachers of the law became indignant, Jesus responded by quoting only a few words from Psalm 8:2: “From the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise.” But the religious leaders would have fully realized that the rest of that psalm states the enemies of God would be silenced by children’s praises.
We see Jesus using this technique so often that when we turn to his words spoken on the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we can see that this is almost certainly what Jesus was doing. The words Jesus uttered are the opening words of Psalm 22 – the great messianic psalm that foretells even the smallest details of the Messiah’s death. Every biblically literate Jew present at the crucifixion would have been reminded of the prophecies made in that psalm – the insults of the mocking crowd (vss. 6-8), the dying thirst of God’s servant (vs. 15), the “dogs”/gentiles (vs. 16) who pierced his hands and feet (vs. 16), the casting of lots for his garments (vs. 18) – simply by the “hint” of Jesus quoting the psalm’s opening verse.
We should remember, too, that these words were the only ones we are told Jesus spoke “with a loud voice” (this fact is recorded by both Matthew and Mark) on the Cross. These were the words – few though they were – that Jesus spoke in his agony to all present – and those present would have likely recognized the intent of the small remez that referenced the whole of the psalm from which it was taken. Seen this way, we realize that Jesus’ words “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” were his last great teaching. These words were an abbreviated reference to Psalm 22– the final proof he offered that he was, indeed, the One who was prophesied.
Understanding Jesus’ words in this way – as a remez of Psalm 22 – is not to argue that sin cuts us off from God, but to suggest that we should not presume that this is why Jesus uttered these words. We should perhaps temper that concept with a fuller understanding of God’s love – that God always loves us as his children despite our sins – which means that God still loved his Son at that awful time of his shouldering of our sins. Jesus himself told his disciples shortly before his crucifixion: “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me” (John 16: 32-33). In fact, the very psalm that Jesus quoted contains, near its end, not words of his rejection as he suffered, but words that Jesus knew he could trust completely: “He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Psalm 22:24).
So, if we consistently apply all of Psalm 22 to Jesus’ crucifixion, we can realize that as he hung on the cross, his Father did not reject him and had not “hidden his face from him.” The Father loved Jesus till his last breath. As a result, the words spoken by Jesus as his end neared – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – were words addressed probably not to God but quoted for our benefit as a summary of the prophecies Jesus was fulfilling in laying down his life for us.
Interestingly, the Lord’s Supper was not always kept in the way we may be familiar with today. Nowadays many people celebrate the memorial of the Last Supper and Jesus’ death with small, identical wafers of bread, and small measured portions or sips of wine for all the participants. But things were not always that way.
In the New Testament, we find that the apostle Paul reprimanded the church at Corinth for the way in which they celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Apparently, people took their own food and drink to the event – the rich taking much, and the poor very little. As Paul wrote: “when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk” (1 Corinthians 11:20-21). Paul tells the church they must eat together and indicates that restrained amounts should be available for all (verse 33).
This was the regulated form which became practice in the remembrance of the Last Supper that is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in many denominations today. But although we may remember this New Testament story, another change that we may not be aware of has occurred through time relative to the Last Supper.
Although we may be conscious of the abundance that many people enjoy in the developed world today compared to many other areas, we may not be as aware of the abundance so many have in today’s world compared to what was available in the past. Fascinating but little publicized research conducted several years ago at Cornell University throws light on the abundance which many of us take for granted.
In a careful study published as “The Largest Last Supper: Depictions of Food Portions and Plate Size Increased Over the Millennium,” researchers Brian and Craig Wansink analyzed the amount of food depicted in fifty-two paintings of “The Last Supper” produced over the last thousand years. Each painting was analyzed in order to ascertain the content of the meals depicted, and changes which occurred over time in the size of portions in the paintings. Cleverly, the sizes of the loaves of bread, the main food dishes, and the plates were all compared to the average size of the heads shown in the paintings in order to gain a benchmark reference of size. A computerized CAD-CAM program was used to allow selected parts of the paintings to be scanned, then compared in order to get accurate size comparisons to calculate the food portion sizes with more precision.
As the researchers suspected, the number and size of the food portions in these paintings increased dramatically over time. From AD 1000 to the present, the amount of the food depicted in the paintings increased by 69%, and the size of the depicted plates increased correspondingly by some 65%. This is certainly not a matter of chance, the researchers say. There is no question that the amount of food available to people in much of the Western world has grown dramatically over the hundreds of years covered by the study and this is reflected in artistic representations. What was first shown as a simple meal has grown in artistic interpretations to more recent depictions of the Last Supper which suggest almost feast-like proportions compared to earlier paintings.
Today, many of us enjoy much greater abundance than our ancestors, as well as those less fortunate than us in other parts of today’s world. Representations of the Last Supper can remind us that we have much to be thankful for physically, as well as spiritually. Paul himself reminds us of this when he refers to the cup of the Lord’s Supper as “the cup of thanksgiving” (1 Corinthians 10:16) – something we can, and should, appreciate physically as well as spiritually.
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