The Great Physician Came to Heal
There was a point in my Bible studying, somewhere in my early twenties, that I realized something that seemed very odd to me. When you look at the time period of the divided kingdoms of Israel a majority of the prophets during that period were almost exclusively prophets to the Northern Kingdom, what some may call the “bad kingdom.” Included in that number are Amos, Hosea, Jonah, Elisha, and perhaps the most revered of all prophets in the Bible, Elijah.
This sparked a question in me. If the Northern Kingdom had consistently bad kings, and consistently worshiped other gods, and turned away from God, and even were eventually punished severely with Assyrian Captivity… why then did God send prophets to people who did the wrong things, and didn’t worship correctly?
Before I come to how I answer this question, I feel I need to spend a little bit of time to consider why I even came to this question. In the church, we will emphasize obedience to God as paramount to gaining his favor. We will sometimes quote verses such as when Jesus told his disciples: “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), or “this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3), and instead of using these verses as a guide for our own walk with Christ, we will use them to condemn others. I hope I am being clear here; if you’ve never used these verses or others in the ways I’m about to describe, then I am glad you haven’t fallen into the same pitfalls that I have. I’m going to go ahead and use the first person for this part, because at an earlier time in my life I have done these things. I would look at others who were doing something wrong according to the Bible, whatever it might be, big or small, it didn’t matter, only that they weren’t following God’s commands. And I would use a verse like 1 John 5:3 to make myself feel better by saying to myself, “they obviously don’t have the love of God, because if they did, they’d be doing x, y, and z.” I think, from that thought, it is really easy to see someone then begin to think and pray like the Pharisee in one of Jesus’ parables: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers…” (Luke 18:11).
Clearly, this is not what Jesus wanted us to do with his words, to use them seeking to “justify ourselves” (cf. Luke 10:29). Instead, Jesus explains to flabbergasted Pharisees as to why he ate with tax collectors and sinners with the statement that, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). I want you to consider that last part a bit. Do you consider yourself “righteous”? Then Jesus hasn’t come for you. Why? Because Jesus didn’t come to earth to hand out high-fives to everyone who got everything right, but to seek and save the lost. Do we realize we are lost?
Sometimes within the safe confines of a church, surrounded by decent and moral people, singing spiritual songs, and listening to Bible lessons filled with sound doctrine, we can deceive ourselves into believing we are not lost without Jesus. We do all of these great things, but we somehow lose Jesus in our hearts amidst all the good things we do as a church. We begin to believe in our own righteousness, rather than in the righteousness of the One who saved us. Jesus says as much of the Ephesian church, after listing all the good works they were doing, they however “abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4). It is the sort of attitude exemplified by the older brother of the prodigal son, who after his father has thrown this big party for the return of the wayward son complains, “Look these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends” (Luke 15:29). Notice even how the older brother words his devotion to his father: “I never disobeyed your command.” Is that true? Never? How did he come to this belief, and why did he think that his relatively better obedience made him better than his brother?
And this brings me back to my original question: Why did God send so many prophets to the Northern Kingdom which did not obey him? Because God loved them. Because a physician goes to those who are sick. Because a good shepherd knows which sheep are his.
Let us consider this in our own lives. God does not love us because we are so good and obedient. God loved us first, “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8), and “we love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This is an important distinction to make. Let us not become inflated with our own feelings of self-righteousness, but use the love God has shown to us to in turn love our neighbors as God has loved us.
