So Jesus answered and said to
them, ’Have faith in God’.
(Mark 11:22)
On the
surface, this reads like a fairly simple, straight-forward piece of advice, no?
However, it is most certainly not simple, nor straight-forward. To
understand why, let’s take a peek at the familiar context.
En route
to Jerusalem to face the greatest test of the ages, Jesus, with His usual
entourage, became hungry, saw a fig tree and approached to see if there might
be fruit to satisfy His hunger. There were only leaves on the tree – no fruit
as it was not the fig-bearing season. So what did Jesus do?
Jesus
did what he customarily did. He did exactly what He ‘saw’, in His
spirit, what Father God ‘was doing’. Basis?
Then
Jesus answered and said to them, ’Most assuredly, I say to you, the
Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for
whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner’. (John 5:19)
And what
was the Father doing? He was seizing a teachable moment - a perfect opportunity to teach yet
another pivotal lesson to Jesus’ disciples – one they really needed to
learn well (through meditation and practice) for the serious trials ahead. You
see, all along, Jesus had chided His disciples about their lack of or little faith, prompted them to have more faith, and even compared their
‘little faith’ to the GREAT faith of two Gentiles! (How embarrassing!) Still, the disciples had
apparently not gotten the message. Neither had they absorbed several
messages Jesus had shared with them on the details of His pending arrest,
trial, death and resurrection.
Slow?
Thick-headed? Don’t
be too quick to judge that of which we, today, are still guilty!
So as
this happened so close to the time of Jesus’ death, Father God seemingly needed a
much more dramatic way to convey and drive-the-point-home about the
disciples’ need to develop the spiritual muscle of their faith. Thus, in
accordance with John 5:19, He likely painted in Jesus’ imagination a picture
of cursing a fruit tree to the point that it would wither and die. Jesus immediately acted
on this picture!
Dramatic?
Indeed! Did it drive-the-point-home?
The next day, when
Peter exclaimed the cursed fig tree had withered, Jesus seized this teachable
moment to drive the point home. Ignoring any direct reference to the
tree, He quickly:
· a. Identified
the real issue at hand, namely, ‘Have faith in God!’
· b. Explained
how to accomplish this command, namely:
1. Say something! – trusting/believing
it will manifest
2. Pray for something! – trusting/believing
God will answer
3. Forgive! – trusting/believing
forgiveness unblocks Heaven’s com-links and supply lines
But what’s
the real link or connection here between ‘having faith in God’, and having the
manifestation of what you say or pray for? In our day, ‘having faith in God’
has been watered down considerably to mean ‘believe God exists, is good, is
faithful to His Word promises’, etc. Was Jesus referring to this,
or possibly to much more? The answer is ‘…to much, so MUCH MORE!’ Here’s
how.
Modern
linguistics sciences are revealing many significant insights and issues related
to how the base English text of the Bible (King James Version) was translated
over 400 years ago. One (among many) of such insights narrows the focus of the
above text to one small word, namely, the preposition, ‘in’, as in ‘Have
faith in God.’ Recent, more accurate translations
reveal the correct preposition is ‘of’, as in ’Have the faith of
God!’ This may accurately be understood as saying, ‘Have
the God-kind of faith!’ or ‘Use/apply faith just like God
does, in Whose image we are created.’ (See: Ye Are gods (Series))
Here are
four recent Bible translations that more accurately convey how Jesus drove His
point home in Mark 11:22:
1. Young’s literal Translation
And
Jesus answering saith to them, ‘Have faith of God’
2. Complete Jewish Bible
He
responded, ‘Have the kind of trust that comes from God!’
3. Donau-Rheims 1899 American
Edition
And
Jesus answering, saith to them: ‘Have the faith of God.’
4. The Message
Jesus
was matter-of-fact: ‘Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it.’
The small prepositional detour from the literal text, makes a big difference, both in
terms of meaning, perception, and how one might approach the steps above.
Similarly,
note the apparent conflict between Psalm 82:6 and John
10:34 (‘…I said, ‘You are gods…’), on one hand, and Psalm
8:5 (‘…You made him [man] a little lower than the angels…’).
A more accurate translation of Psalm 8:5 is ‘…For You have made him but a
little lower than God, Elohim.’ (In Biblegateway.com, see the Amplified Bible,
Voice, Young Literal Translation, and versions of the Bible.) The most logical conclusion is
that God, through Jesus (per Hebrews 1) made man in His personal image, in His class – the
God-class, if you will), not below angels or the angel-class; and
He expects/commands us to think, speak, and act just
like Him.
Ok, so
how exactly does God act? What are the most evident characteristics of His
actions?
1. Loving – which signifies grace,
kindness, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.
2. Speaking – into physical existence the
things He desires, i.e., speaking of things that do not yet exist in our physical realm,
as though they do exist, and thus they be-come or manifest.
Completing
the circle back to Mark 11:22 above, THIS is the
apparent message Jesus was seeking to drive home from the lesson of the fig
tree:
Love and speak like God, because
you are created as gods on/in the Earth!
We were
created to be Earth-gods, mirroring Father God-in-Heaven. You know the story –
sin got in the way and satan temporarily became the god of this world. (2
Corinthians 4:4) But hallelujah, take courage, satan's lease on planet Earth is
about to …EXPIRE!
Jesus has re-claimed the title
deed to planet Earth!
His title deed is ‘The Scroll’ with 7 seals, referred to in Revelation 5:9.
Guess what? Already, 4 of the scroll's seals have been opened!
For more on this, see: Revelation (Series of series).
