We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
When Jesus Questioned the Father
Image by Bilal Kamoon via Flickr
Though the sinless Son of God had perfect faith, we find him asking God the Father to alter the plan to redeem the world through his sacrifice—if it is “possible” (Matt. 26:42). As the nightmare of experiencing the sin and God-forsakenness of the world was encroaching upon him, Jesus was obviously, and understandably struggling. So, even though this plan had been predestined for ages by the Trinity, Jesus desperately asked for an alternative.
Of course, there was no other alternative in this instance. Jesus had to suffer. And though it caused him to sweat drops of blood, Jesus willingly submitted to the Father’s will. Yet the very fact that Jesus tried to influence the Father to change the plan (and sweat blood in the process) demonstrates that his perfect faith and obedience didn’t mean he never struggled and never tried to push back on God’s plan, just as Moses and so many other heroes of the faith had done before.
So, whether your struggle is with doubt, confusion, the challenge of accepting God’s will, or any other matter, the fact that you have the struggle does not indicate that you lack faith. To the contrary, your faith is strong to the degree that you are willing to honestly embrace your struggle.
Yet the example of Jesus struggling in Gethsemane pales in significance compared to the way he struggled on the cross. In the moment when the Son of God, for the first time in eternity, experienced separation from the Father as he bore the sin of the world, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Though the plan that involved this sacrifice had been settled within the Trinity for ages, it seems that in this singularly hellish moment Jesus had become foggy about it. And so the Son of God questioned the Father: “Why?”
If one believes that a person’s faith is as strong as they are certain and free of doubt, they have no choice but to accept that Jesus’s faith faltered at this crucial moment, which would imply that Jesus sinned at this crucial moment. This is impossible, however, for it conflicts with both Scripture and the uniform conviction of the historic orthodox church. Faith and doubt are not antithetical. A perfect faith need not be one that is free of doubt. What a perfect faith needs to be is first and foremost authentic, which is precisely what Jesus demonstrated when he cried out.
Had Jesus instead managed to suppress his sincere bewilderment to preserve a more pious appearance, then he would have demonstrated a defective faith. For while an unquestioning crucified Messiah would certainly have appeared more pious and would have more closely conformed to what we might have expected a sinless Messiah to look like, it would have demonstrated a less-honest relationship with the Father for Jesus to refrain from expressing the full horror of what he was experiencing.
—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 93-94, 97
Category: General
Tags: Doubt, Faith, Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus
Topics: Faith & Doubt
Related Reading
Why a “Christocentric” View of God is Inadequate: God’s Self-Portrait, Part 5
I’m currently working through a series of blogs that will flesh out the theology of the ReKnew Manifesto, and I’m starting with our picture of God, since it is the foundation of everything else. So far I’ve established that Jesus is the one true portrait of God (See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4).…
Was Jesus Fully Human and Fully God?
The New Testament is very clear that Jesus was a full human being. He had to grow in wisdom (Lk 2:52) and learn obedience by going through trials, just like every other human being (Heb. 5:8). He grew hungry and tired, like the rest of us. He experienced the same range of emotions as the…
The Benefit of the Doubt
In my last two posts (here and here) I’ve given five arguments against the common way Evangelical Christians tend to think about faith. More specifically, I’m calling into question the assumption that a person’s faith is as strong as they are free of doubt. I’ll conclude this line of questioning today by offering four other…
Was Jesus Violent in the Temple?
Many adopt the attitude depicted in the picture above, saying that Jesus used violence when he cleansed the temple. But Jesus’ stance on nonviolence is clear not only from how he responded to threatening enemies at the end of his life; it’s also strongly emphasized his teachings. We need to understand what Jesus was up…
Part Three of Greg’s Interview with David D. Flowers
Here’s the final interview that Greg did with David D. Flowers in which he discusses his upcoming book Benefit of the Doubt: Dismantling the Idol of Certainty. Check it out! From the interview: Faith in Scripture isn’t about striving for certainty: it’s about being willing to commit to a course of action — to a way…
What Does it Mean to be “Holy”?
Image by much0 via Flickr People today frequently associate the word “holy” with a list “do’s” and “don’ts” that “godly” people are supposed to adhere to. The concept of “holiness” in the Bible, however, is not primary about behavior. It rather refers to something that is unique and set apart from more common things. God is…