In medicine, there is always striving for progress. Our understanding now is incomparable to illness beliefs 2000, 500, even 100 years ago. In fact, vast changes have occurred over just 20 years. We are always discovering new disease markers, imaging techniques and sophisticated treatment. Evolving public health campaigns, NICE guidance and hospital protocols help us apply the knowledge we already have to treating efficiently. Academic knowledge and practice is becoming more and more complex, with the physician and barber-surgeon divide widening to encompass a myriad of fields and specialities that do not understand each other.
Christianity is different. While medical knowledge is about discovery by human endeavour, knowledge of salvation and our need for it is by revelation from God. While medicine progresses, Christianity looks back again and again to what is already revealed in the bible. It is not a process of evolution, but reformation; no new treatment is needed, instead the same Truth needs to be applied to every new generation. Rather than being increasingly complex, the complexity of the bible has unity, all focusing in on to one main message, summed up in 1 Timothy 1:15: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Let’s break it down:
Diagnosis: ‘Sinners.’ We are ungodly in our actions, our words and our desires; we are all spiritually dead. None of us can please God or make ourselves right before him, and face his just judgement. We must accept this diagnosis, for "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17). If we do not admit we are sick, we cannot go to the doctor for help.
Treatment: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world.’ The Son of God is not only our doctor, but he himself is the treatment. In becoming a human and dying for us, Jesus took our sin and gave us his life: his holiness, his righteousness. For us it is free at the point of delivery; all that is required is to believe. The cost to God is unfathomable.
Prognosis: ‘To save’. Life. Eternal life. Jesus promises that he will not lose any that His Father has given him; all who believe in Him will be raised at the last day (John 6:39). We will be with and enjoy Him and the Father forever. 2000 years ago, whilst medicine was trying to balance the four humours and appease statues of gods, all we needed to know about the worst human pathology was made known. Although there is 100% prevalence and 100% mortality, the cure rate is also 100% for all who come for treatment to the Great Physician.
James Marshall
Christianity is different. While medical knowledge is about discovery by human endeavour, knowledge of salvation and our need for it is by revelation from God. While medicine progresses, Christianity looks back again and again to what is already revealed in the bible. It is not a process of evolution, but reformation; no new treatment is needed, instead the same Truth needs to be applied to every new generation. Rather than being increasingly complex, the complexity of the bible has unity, all focusing in on to one main message, summed up in 1 Timothy 1:15: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Let’s break it down:
Diagnosis: ‘Sinners.’ We are ungodly in our actions, our words and our desires; we are all spiritually dead. None of us can please God or make ourselves right before him, and face his just judgement. We must accept this diagnosis, for "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17). If we do not admit we are sick, we cannot go to the doctor for help.
Treatment: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world.’ The Son of God is not only our doctor, but he himself is the treatment. In becoming a human and dying for us, Jesus took our sin and gave us his life: his holiness, his righteousness. For us it is free at the point of delivery; all that is required is to believe. The cost to God is unfathomable.
Prognosis: ‘To save’. Life. Eternal life. Jesus promises that he will not lose any that His Father has given him; all who believe in Him will be raised at the last day (John 6:39). We will be with and enjoy Him and the Father forever. 2000 years ago, whilst medicine was trying to balance the four humours and appease statues of gods, all we needed to know about the worst human pathology was made known. Although there is 100% prevalence and 100% mortality, the cure rate is also 100% for all who come for treatment to the Great Physician.
James Marshall