Christ can turn “are” into “were”
I think it quite fitting that the word platitude is compromised almost entirely of the word latitude, since many platitudes in the Christian life certainly take a great deal of latitude with the truth.
People often mean well, I do not question that. But words mean things, and often in attempting to send a good message we inadvertently send a wholly inaccurate one instead. Such is the case with the platitude “Jesus loves you just the way you are.”
There is no question that Jesus loves us, none whatsoever. John 3:16 still says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It is not the “Jesus loves you” part that contains the critical error; it is the “just the way you are” part.
Some years ago during a winter storm our entire family got the flu. And then, as if to prove the stupidity of another common platitude (“there’s nowhere to go from here but up”) things got worse. The power went out.
My wife’s parents live in the same county as we do. This is a blessing; I have awesome in laws. They told us to come to their house. We did so, and added our flu to theirs. My wife, by the way, was in the Biblical vernacular “great with child” at the time. We piled up on couches and pallets and commenced to coughing and wheezing and shivering the night away.
And then it happened; our young son threw up. Epic, Biblical proportion, Egypt-being-plagued level vomit. And my flu-laden wife, with a true mother’s heart, picked that boy up as he sobbed, took him to the bathroom, bathed him, soothed him, and brought him back a while later calm and clean.
She loved him laying there in his own vomit and filth. But she did not love him “just the way he was.” She loved him in spite of the way he was. She loved him enough to clean him up and make him the way he ought to be.
Perhaps the most beautiful word in Scripture is a four letter masterpiece of linguistics found in 1 Corinthians 6:11, the lovely word “were.” That verse says “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
Verses nine and ten give a laundry list of wickedness containing all manner of sexual sins, as well as worship sins, sins of addiction, sins of violence and injustice, and sins of attitudes. Read it, you will find it eye opening. If there was any perversion or wrong the Corinthians could have been involved in, they were. Commentator Albert Barnes called it “the most dissolute city of its times.” Corinth was the debauchery capital of the world.
Into that wickedness God sent the gospel by the hand of Paul the apostle. People began to get saved, and when they did, their lives and behavior totally changed. God loved them; He loved them enough to change them.
The saving gospel of Jesus Christ contains the greatest power on earth, the power to change “are” to “were.” There is literally no sin and no sinner beyond his power to radically, completely transform.
A former slave trader named John Newton understood this. After getting saved and being utterly changed from the most wicked of lives into a minister of the gospel, he penned some words you may recognize: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...”
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Mooresboro, N.C., a widely traveled evangelist, and author of several books, including a kid’s fiction book about the Battle of Chickamauga, “Broken Brotherhood.” He can be emailed at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.