Does Jesus Still Have His Scars?
May 06, 2008
I think it’s time to wrap up our little series on suffering, pain, and God. I think the way to wrap it up is to think about what God will one day do with suffering and pain. It is certainly not enough to simply say that Jesus endured greater suffering than us and that He will walk with us in our own suffering. Rather, if God is truly just then He will one day do something definitive about the brokenness which plagues His world and His people. Revelation 21.4 sums this up nicely with words of great hope and comfort: “He [God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” There it is, a beautiful picture of God Himself taking all the past pain, suffering, angst, brokenness, sin, rebellion, betrayal, death, tears, disease, and decay, and wiping it away. In fact, it is only because God will stand face to face with you and wipe away your tears that the following verse is so powerful, “Behold, I am making all things new!” There is a day of reckoning coming from which darkness cannot flee because the power of God will destroy it; there is a day coming which will mark newness for all things and perfection of justice over the face of the earth, and it can only be done by the assertive majesty of God Himself.
Now, my real question here comes from my recent reading at the end of the Gospels about Jesus’ resurrection. When reports spread that Jesus had been bodily raised from the dead, one disciple in particular, Thomas, says “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe (thus the name “Doubting Thomas, John 20.25).” Well, Jesus actually shows up to let Thomas do exactly that. He says to him, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side (John 20.27).” So, if what I said in the first paragraph about God making everything new is true, then why does Jesus’ new body, which is the model of what ours will be (Philippians 3.20), retain these brutal scars of suffering? Didn’t God make them new? Didn’t God heal? Didn’t God wipe away those tears? Why does Jesus still bear these scars in His new body?
The answer I believe is that of course God has healed, but the scars are not simply forgotten as though Jesus had never previously lived; instead, they are redeemed. Jesus’ scars now are the marks of redemption; Jesus’ scars are now the mark of reconciliation; Jesus’ scars are now the mark of forgiveness, atonement, love, peace, joy, and intercession. He has not forgotten that He has suffered; rather He remembers in His suffering the great act of salvation He achieved. God has vindicated Him and wiped away his pain, but the suffering He experienced in the past only makes the glory He experiences in the present all the more sweet. For us, I definitely believe God will give us completely new, healed, disease-free bodies (see I Corinthians 15.42-57), but I believe he will do it in such a way that the new life we experience with Him for eternity will be all the sweeter and more enjoyable because of (not in spite of) the suffering we experienced temporarily here.
One pastor compared this to a dream he had where his whole family was brutally murdered. When he awoke, having experienced that horrendous grief and loss, he found that his already deep love and enjoyment of his family was still further deepened and became still more enjoyable because of the temporary suffering. So it will be for us. In an almost unimaginable way, God will turn our marks of suffering and pain into beautiful testimonies of majestic redemption. Eternal life will be infinitely better because we will eternally worship the God who will do these marvelous things. Are you looking forward to the story God will write with your pain?
The following is my email response toMike regarding a few questions he had:
My intuition is that He will based on a few observations. 1. Phil. 3.20 and I Cor. 15 use Jesus' resurrection body as the precursor to ours, and Paul promises us the joy of receiving a body like His. 2. Jesus' scars are different than ours in that they are the marks of His atoning work and they bear eternal significance for our redemption. 3. In Rev. 4-5 Jesus is worshipped and declared worthy b/c He was slain. One of the enduring attributes that distinguish His glory above all others is His substitutionary death. In those chapters, it is the fact that Christ was slain (before the foundation of the world in Rev. 13.8) which is part of His eternal praise, thus it will never be forgotten but will be part of our worship and adoration of Him forever and ever. Having said that, we don't have any ultimate conclusions, but I surmise it from those points.
I think the tension in which God and Jesus live right now, as it relates to the already and not yet, is at least 3-fold. 1. The last time Jesus was on earth He was mocked, beaten, spit upon, and killed, and though His Kingdom be inaugurated it is not yet full b/c He does not yet experience the full joy of being bowed to and praised by all of humanity. This is promised to Him in Phil. 2.10-11. 2. The earth is still subject to frustration (Romans 8.20). He is the one who subjected it and all His creation awaits the revealing of the sons of God, thus living in tension (Romans 8 even remarks that the Spirit is groaning with us as we wait). 3. On a related note, God's glory does not yet cover the world as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2.14), and so God waits in tension for the fullness of His majesty to be revealed in the world. Many subpoints could be added there and there are probably other main points as well, those are just what came immediately to mind.
As far as your comments about Daniel, I totally agree and think I will amend my comments to make it more clear. The point I was trying to make was that we will get new glorified bodies that are not subject to decay. I don't believe there will be blindness, crippling, sickness, etc. My point, I guess, would be that I think little Daniel will actually experience MORE joy in the new heavens b/c of the binding and suffering he experienced here. I think His ability to run without pain will be more enjoyable than mine b/c He's experienced a depth of suffering which I probably never will. Maybe an illustration would be someone who thought he would be a parapalegic for life regaining feeling and beginning to walk again. He would probably never take another step in his life that didn't involve gratitude and enjoyment whereas the rest of us take it for granted.