The problem with analogies is they only work so far. They’re useful as some kind of picture, but they can’t tell the whole story.

So when we talk about the “trust/healing” model of our relationship with God,  that’s fine. We all recognize that what God asks for is trust, so he can heal us. Concepts of healing are much better analogies for our sin problem than legal, “forensic” ones. But even here, we can get into trouble if we push the analogy too far.

Take one of Jesus’ famous analogies that he used to explain his mission: “I came to give my life a ransom for many.” An incredible affirmation of God’s tremendous generosity of giving of himself! But almost immediately we try and push the analogy. We ask about the ransom. We want to know that it consisted of. What was the currency? How was it paid? Who was paid the ransom? All these questions miss the point—Jesus is simply saying, “it cost a lot to save you.” He’s not talking about tricking the devil with a ransom payment that he couldn’t keep, or paying off God with some ransom “bribe,” or paying us a ransom (how would that make sense anyway?) No—the analogy is simply the cost to God of coming to save us, the giving of his life. There is no commercial transaction that involves other parties. That’s not what the analogy is trying to say.

Similarly with healing. That would imply that sin is a disease that we need to be healed from. That’s OK as far as it goes. But then people want to go further. Instead of appreciating the need to trust so that you can be healed, they want to know the mechanism. If we’re being healed, then God must be the doctor, right? And like doctors we know, he must be treating sin as a disease in a specific way, using particular medicines. So sin becomes a pathogen, some virus, a disease that is going to be fixed by some medical treatment. In this way sin becomes objectivized—it’s a something that can be seen under a microscope, or can be observed in some medical way. That means the treatment becomes objectivized too—there’s a specific antigen, vaccine, drug, whatever—that is used to fix the sin disease. And all this ends up a long way from the subjective relationship that’s supposed to be healed!

If sin is a disease, then we all know we get diseases that aren’t our fault—we catch illness accidentally. So instead of sin being something we think and do, it’s just an infection that needs treating. In just the same way as we describe sin as a stain or as dirt that needs to be washed away, sin is now a medical object that needs to be taken care of objectively. In fact you don’t even really need to know your doctor—just that he has the required ability to treat the disease you’ve got. You certainly don’t need to spend much time with your doctor, just follow the prescribed treatment. In the spiritual realm, then we might imagine some “imputed” righteousness being injected to make us perfect once more. But this takes us right back to the forensic metaphors we’ve already decided are less than helpful!

See how far we’ve come from thinking of sin as a broken relationship that needs to be restored! We need healing of our relationship to God, our attitude of mind, wanting to be with God and do what is right because it is right. Yes, we need healing—but you can’t see sin. You can see its effects in the mind maybe—damaged neural pathways or whatever—but those are the consequences, not sin itself. Sin is a way of thinking that is me centered. How do you treat that? It is to do with mental processes, attitudes of mind, desires that lead to actions. While we can talk about needing re-wiring, what is really needed is that restoring of the bond of love, that friendship with God.

Ah, another analogy—friendship. We all know that friendship isn’t a kind of object, or something that could be “imputed” to us. You don’t have “imputed” friends—you have people who choose to be in a loving relationship with you, and you with them. No doubt this analogy has limitations too. But in trying to understand how we relate to God, and what he does for us, let’s not accept any ideas that take us away from that foundational principle—that God wants to have a relationship of love and trust with each of us, and will do all he can to make that possible.

© Jonathan Gallagher