Matthew 1:18-25
This is my first passage studied using last week's sermon guidelines.
First I read the passage over. Then I read it aloud. It seemed to be just a narrative of the mental and emotional state of Mary and Joseph in the days leading up to Jesus' birth. Then I started to read the passage in various other versions. They all seemed about the same. I read 16 different versions until I came to the Wycliffe New Testament. All of a sudden his translation of verse 21 leaped out at me!
"And she shall bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall make his people safe from their sins."
Whoa!! "...make His people safe from their sins." What was Wycliffe thinking? Every translation except his had used the word "save." This seems significant to me in light of my underlying question:
What does this passage tell me about God?
I'm looking for a picture that matches the Christian and biblical rhetoric that God is loving. And my context is--in the Bible stories is He actually loving? Or are we supposed to accept His actions as loving and then redefine love so that it matches His ways?
For example, He opens the earth and it swallows up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Okay, is that loving, and if so in what way? I doubt it would be considered so if I had that power and used it on my enemy, would it?
That discussion is for another day, but my fundamental question for each passage will be, what am I really learning about God from these words? Is Wycliffe thinking something different, therefore using a different word than all the other translators, or is it just a coincidental difference?
Also, remember that his is the oldest translation I have available. Since none who followed him kept "safe" did they believe his translation was erroneous? Were they correcting an inaccuracy?
The discussion arises because Christians universally agree that what Jesus came to do was to legally release us from punishment for our evil by His death. He saves us from suffering God's wrath by suffering under it in our stead.
From there it is easy to posit that coming to "...save His people from their sins" means protecting them from punishment that must be meted out in order for God's claim of justice to continue to be valid. Even though the sinner escapes punishment, God's justice lives on in the death of Jesus.
It seems much harder to fit your thinking to that picture if you say He came to "...make his people safe from their sins." Christians don't normally fear sin all that much. At church you can hear whole sermons exhorting you to fear God (see post re: May 14 sermon), but there's rarely a mention of the consequences and destructiveness of sin. In fact we don't want to have to fear sin. Besides, who wants to be made safe from their sins? That sounds suspiciously like sin will not be part of my future. That'd be no fun! Why give up what I love when I'm "once saved, always saved?"
The thing is; which picture of God is more loving? A god who allows us to sin, but through Jesus' death, bears our punishment? Or a God Who sends Jesus, not to reap the consequences of our actions, but to make sin something we're safe from? Something that no longer controls us? (We must talk more about if and how He did this.)
For are we not under domination of a fallen nature that we want removed? The God Who restores my power to live as I choose, if He's out there, would be an awesome God, no? I don't like having to say, "What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise" (Romans 7:15. The Message). I believe the God Who frees me from sin's control is truly the loving God; not the one who removes punishment, but not sin from my life.
Jesus did not waste time coming here to change nothing. We are not allowed to continue in our self-destructive, delusional state. Jesus didn't come to take punishment we deserve so that we're free to remain sinners. He came to make us safe from our sins! He came to give back our freedom to be God-like. He came to remove sin's domination, and restore our ability to be who we choose to be.
Hurrah for Wycliffe!! All translators following him may have thought he got it wrong here, but his translation sure makes God look good. I believe he got it right.
First I read the passage over. Then I read it aloud. It seemed to be just a narrative of the mental and emotional state of Mary and Joseph in the days leading up to Jesus' birth. Then I started to read the passage in various other versions. They all seemed about the same. I read 16 different versions until I came to the Wycliffe New Testament. All of a sudden his translation of verse 21 leaped out at me!
"And she shall bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall make his people safe from their sins."
Whoa!! "...make His people safe from their sins." What was Wycliffe thinking? Every translation except his had used the word "save." This seems significant to me in light of my underlying question:
What does this passage tell me about God?
I'm looking for a picture that matches the Christian and biblical rhetoric that God is loving. And my context is--in the Bible stories is He actually loving? Or are we supposed to accept His actions as loving and then redefine love so that it matches His ways?
For example, He opens the earth and it swallows up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Okay, is that loving, and if so in what way? I doubt it would be considered so if I had that power and used it on my enemy, would it?
That discussion is for another day, but my fundamental question for each passage will be, what am I really learning about God from these words? Is Wycliffe thinking something different, therefore using a different word than all the other translators, or is it just a coincidental difference?
Also, remember that his is the oldest translation I have available. Since none who followed him kept "safe" did they believe his translation was erroneous? Were they correcting an inaccuracy?
The discussion arises because Christians universally agree that what Jesus came to do was to legally release us from punishment for our evil by His death. He saves us from suffering God's wrath by suffering under it in our stead.
From there it is easy to posit that coming to "...save His people from their sins" means protecting them from punishment that must be meted out in order for God's claim of justice to continue to be valid. Even though the sinner escapes punishment, God's justice lives on in the death of Jesus.
It seems much harder to fit your thinking to that picture if you say He came to "...make his people safe from their sins." Christians don't normally fear sin all that much. At church you can hear whole sermons exhorting you to fear God (see post re: May 14 sermon), but there's rarely a mention of the consequences and destructiveness of sin. In fact we don't want to have to fear sin. Besides, who wants to be made safe from their sins? That sounds suspiciously like sin will not be part of my future. That'd be no fun! Why give up what I love when I'm "once saved, always saved?"
The thing is; which picture of God is more loving? A god who allows us to sin, but through Jesus' death, bears our punishment? Or a God Who sends Jesus, not to reap the consequences of our actions, but to make sin something we're safe from? Something that no longer controls us? (We must talk more about if and how He did this.)
For are we not under domination of a fallen nature that we want removed? The God Who restores my power to live as I choose, if He's out there, would be an awesome God, no? I don't like having to say, "What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise" (Romans 7:15. The Message). I believe the God Who frees me from sin's control is truly the loving God; not the one who removes punishment, but not sin from my life.
Jesus did not waste time coming here to change nothing. We are not allowed to continue in our self-destructive, delusional state. Jesus didn't come to take punishment we deserve so that we're free to remain sinners. He came to make us safe from our sins! He came to give back our freedom to be God-like. He came to remove sin's domination, and restore our ability to be who we choose to be.
Hurrah for Wycliffe!! All translators following him may have thought he got it wrong here, but his translation sure makes God look good. I believe he got it right.
posted by Al Weber at
12:12 AM
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