A Study in Contrasts
Contrast is one of the most effective methods of definition. Try to imagine being able to understand darkness apart from light, evil apart from goodness, hunger apart from satisfaction, sickness apart from health, or sorrow apart from joy. Therefore, contrast is a technique frequently used by both visual and literary artists to bring out those features of their subject that they especially want us to notice. In Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Henry VIII, think of the way the rich, elaborately textured ornamentation of the royal robes contrasts with the bare, flat background. In his portrait of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci achieves a similar effect in the opposite manner, as the simple folds of her garment contrast with the rich and complex tapestry of the landscape behind her. So also in his account of the Sanhedrin Trial, St. Luke uses the same technique of contrast to highlight an important idea in his portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. They blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” And they were saying many other things against him, blaspheming him. And when day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribe., And they led him away to their council, and they said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” So they all said, “Are you the Son of God, then?” And he said to them, “You say that I am.” And they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips” (Luke 22:63-71, ESV).
Appearance and Reality
The contrast is that between Appearance and Reality. Experience teaches us that they often do not coincide. The clouds that look like solid mountains from a distance dissolve into mist when we enter them. A stick half submerged in water looks bent for all the world—but it is really still straight. And the world sure looks flat from here; but it did not look that way at all to Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin gazing back from the Moon.
So it is in the trial of Christ by the Sanhedrin. The appearance—what you would have seen with the outward eyes if you had been in the gallery—was not very inspiring. The prisoner not only looks weak and helpless, but rather undignified, inglorious, pitiful. He even looks guilty. After all, why else would he refuse to answer the questions put to him? We all know what people assume when someone takes the Fifth Amendment. And all that “You will see the Son of Man” stuff sounds like whistling in the dark. I doubt any of us would have been able to see through that appearance to the reality.
And what was the reality? From now on, the Son of Man—a rather splendid character from the Book of Daniel of whom no one would have been reminded looking at this scene—will be sitting at the right hand of Power (a euphemism for the right hand of God). This disheveled, pitiful looking object of mockery was the Word that was with God and was God, the Light of the World which enlightens every man. Look! There he stands. He looks nothing like any of that. Can you not trust your own eyes? Apparently not.
Was this prisoner weak? Surely he was in his human nature, which was all your eyes could see at the moment. But was that the whole story? Tell that to the demons who screamed in terror at his approach, the lame who are still walking and the blind who are seeing even now, the widow of Nain whose son rose up out of his funeral shroud, or the moneychangers who were helpless to prevent the overturning of their tables in the face of his wrath. Tell it to the disciples, who just a few pages ago were asking, “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey him?” (Oh, by the way, where are those disciples? Hiding. Why? Because they were still at this point men of little faith.)
Was the prisoner inglorious? It surely looks that way now. But he had not seemed so on the Mount of Transfiguration. Was he guilty? Guilty of being a false Messiah? Not according to the Voice of God, which at both his Baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration had proclaimed him “My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Nor according to John the Baptist, who had called him “The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” But try to see any of that here! What are you going to believe?
Sight and Faith
Now, none of the things we have just rehearsed were, as Paul says in Acts 26:26, “done in a corner.” So for the disciples, what they seemed to be seeing at this moment vanquished even their own memories. That is a clue that what we see with the outward eye here must be less than the whole story. What we have a chance to see with the mind, then, might suggest a very useful definition of faith. How do you tell the difference between Appearance and Reality? By faith: faith in the Word of God. The disciples were defeated by appearance because of their little faith; the Sanhedrin were deceived by appearance because of their lack of faith. How then does this help us understand what faith is?
Well, how do you know that the stick half submerged in the water is really still straight, despite its appearance? Two things tell you so. First, you remember that it was straight before you stuck it in the water. And, second, this memory is strengthened if you know something about the laws of optics, the different way the light rays are bent by passing through the thicker medium of water as compared to air. Based on the conjunction of these two factors, you have confidence in sticking (ahem) to your belief in the straightness of the stick in spite of its currently crooked appearance. Do you see? Experience interpreted by Doctrine is the foundation of Knowledge. Experience—you remember the stick is straight—plus Doctrine—you understand based on the laws of optics why it looks crooked—constitute your knowledge of the stick’s straightness. So what is faith? Faith is the ability to stick to your well-grounded knowledge of the stick’s straightness when what you see at the moment seems to contradict it.
The situation at Jesus’ first trial is no different. Experience—the disciples’ (or the elders’) memories of Jesus’ mighty works—plus Doctrine—their understanding of Old-Testament theology as often explained by Jesus—should have allowed them to see the fullness of what was really happening at the Sanhedrin Trial as opposed to only what their eyes seemed to be presenting them. Thus, like us looking at the stick in the water, they should have walked by faith and not by sight. Why didn’t they? Why do we ourselves have no trouble having faith in the straightness of the stick (and it really is faith, because to sight the stick looks bent) but often allow ourselves to be plagued by doubts when, say, God’s promises seem to be delayed, or we see the righteous suffer? Well, because there is a lot more at stake in what we see when we are looking at those things or at Jesus’ trial than there is in a dumb stick of wood. But it may help to realize that the stakes really do not change what faith is or how it works.
Faith is the ability to trust what you know on good grounds to be true over what you seem to see for the moment. C. S. Lewis reached a similar definition by a different route in Mere Christianity: Faith is “the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.”1 Faith sticks to the truth, despite everything that appearance or mood can do to render us unfaithful.
Faith then is not belief we have without evidence, still less belief contrary to evidence. People may well lack or fail to demand good grounds for what they believe, but that is their problem; it is not the essence of faith! In Scripture, faith is never opposed to or contrasted with knowledge. Never. How could it be, when the disciples had accepted Jesus as their Messiah based on their experience as interpreted by their understanding of biblical doctrine? Just as we have. Faith is not opposed to knowledge, but to sight. Faith is the ability to trust in what you know on good grounds to be true over what you seem to see for the moment. Faith is not the opposite of knowledge or of evidence. Faith is being faithful to what we know. Faith is believing, against sight, that the weak and pitiful man you can see in front of the Sanhedrin is also the powerful and glorious Son of God. It is believing that the stick in the water is still straight.
Conclusion
Do you begin to see what it means to exercise faith? Faith is not “naming it and claiming it” (or, perhaps more accurately, “blabbing it and grabbing it”). It is not a belief we have in the absence of evidence or reason. Faith is a very specific response to God’s Word, based on God’s character, focused on God’s Son, and enabled by God’s Spirit, whereby we contradict sight by affirming that the stick is still straight. And when you see that, and when you see the majesty and grace and faithfulness of the One in whom we trust, you truly understand that faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
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