Trinity and Humanity

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Scripture: Acts 3:1-16

Summary:

What if our healing and wholeness do not finally depend on the strength of our faith, but on the gracious faithfulness of Jesus Christ for us?

Acts 3 brings us face-to-face with a man who had been lame from birth. Each day he was carried to the temple gate to beg. When Peter and John approached, he looked to them expecting what he had learned to expect. Perhaps a little silver or gold to help him make it through another day. But the Father had something far greater in mind. “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk,” Peter tells him. The man is raised to his feet, and suddenly the one who had to be carried is walking, leaping, and praising God.

In this deeply Gospel Centered Message, Pastor Timothy Brassell invites us to see this healing for what it truly is: not a display of Peter and John’s spiritual power, not the result of a technique or formula, and not even a testimony to the strength of this man’s faith. It is first and foremost a revelation of the grace of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.

Peter makes that clear when the astonished crowd turns its attention toward him and John: Why are you looking at us as though we made this man walk by our own power or godliness?

The apostles are not the healers. God is. And that matters because, as Pastor Tim emphasizes, healing is always an act of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not reluctant to heal while Jesus is compassionate. Jesus is not trying to persuade an unwilling Father to show mercy. And the Holy Spirit is not some impersonal power that can be summoned, manipulated, or controlled. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, united in being, love, purpose, and action. The compassion we encounter in Jesus is the compassion of His Father made known to us in the Son.

Perhaps, then, one of the deepest healings we need is a healed understanding of God Himself. Healing from the picture of a Father more stern than Jesus, from the idea that the Holy Spirit is merely a spiritual power source, and from the belief that God must somehow be persuaded by the right amount of faith before He will be gracious toward us. Jesus reveals something altogether different. Grace is not first something God gives us. Grace comes to us personally in Jesus Christ. The Father’s gracious Way is His Son. In Jesus, God has come into our broken humanity, taken our condition upon Himself, borne our suffering and sin, and brought our humanity through death into resurrection life and wholeness.

This is why the healing in Acts 3 cannot finally be separated from who Jesus Christ is and what He has accomplished for humanity. The physical healing of this man is a sign, a real participation now in the complete healing and wholeness toward which God is bringing His creation in Christ.

But Acts 3 also confronts another deeply rooted assumption about healing: What happens when our faith isn’t strong enough? The remarkable thing is that the man at the temple gate does not come demonstrating extraordinary faith. He does not even ask to be healed. He asks for money. As Pastor Tim emphasizes, he is simply trying to get through another day, and then he is surprised by grace. That takes us to the heart of the Gospel. Our ultimate hope does not rest in the strength with which we hold onto Jesus, but in the strength with which Jesus Christ holds onto us.

Thomas F. Torrance captured this beautifully when reflecting on holding his young daughter’s hand as she learned to walk: “She did not rely upon her feeble grasp of my hand but upon my strong grasp of her hand which enfolded her grasp of mine within it. That is surely how God’s faithfulness actualized in Jesus Christ has hold of our weak and faltering faith and holds it securely in his hand.” — Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p. 83

That image is especially striking alongside Acts 3. Here is a man who cannot walk, being raised to his feet by a grace that precedes his understanding and exceeds his expectations. And this is where Pastor Tim’s emphasis on the faith of Jesus Christ becomes so important. When our faith is weak, faltering, confused, or seemingly absent, the Good News is not that we must somehow manufacture enough faith to make God act. Jesus Christ has already lived the faithful human response to the Father on our behalf and in our humanity.

As Torrance puts it elsewhere: “We rely wholly upon the vicarious faith of Christ and not upon ourselves even in the act of faith.” — Thomas F. Torrance, The School of Faith, p. cix

That does not make our faith meaningless. It puts our faith in its proper place. Our faith participates in His. We trust because we have first been grasped by the faithful One. That is why there is no room here for magical remedies, spiritual manipulation, or so-called faith healers who suggest that healing can be obtained if we perform the right action, possess the right object, or generate sufficient faith.

God cannot be manipulated. But that is wonderfully liberating Good News, because the God who cannot be manipulated does not need to be manipulated. He is already gracious. He already has compassion upon our suffering. He knows our weakness and our need. The Father has acted decisively for our healing and wholeness in His Son, and the Holy Spirit is at work making real in us what Jesus has accomplished for us.

This does not mean every physical healing happens immediately. Some healing is progressive. Some we continue to await. Physical things may become channels through which God graciously blesses us, but the channel must never be confused with the Source. Healing remains grace from beginning to end. And so we wait, pray, receive medical care, walk with one another, and continue trusting, not because we have discovered a formula that guarantees the outcome we desire, but because we are coming to know Who our God is. The Father is for our healing and wholeness. The Son has taken our broken humanity into Himself. And the Holy Spirit is at work bringing us into participation in the life and wholeness accomplished in Jesus.

Reflective Moment

Where are you most aware of your need for healing and wholeness today? And beneath that question may be an even deeper one: What do you believe about the God from whom you are seeking healing?

Are you trying to convince Him to be gracious? Are you measuring His willingness by the strength of your faith? Are you afraid that your weakness or inability to believe strongly enough has placed you beyond His compassionate reach? Look again at Jesus.

In Him we see the Father’s heart toward us. In Him our humanity has been taken up, healed, reconciled, and brought home to the Father. And by the Holy Spirit, we are being brought more and more into participation in that healing and wholeness. Your weak grasp of Him is held within His strong grasp of you. Perhaps that is the invitation of Acts 3: receive the Good News, take the hand extended to you in grace, and, even while some healing remains unfinished, rise up and walk in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

Watch Pastor Timothy Brassell’s full message, and hear more about the Father’s gracious and compassionate heart, the faith of Jesus Christ for us, and the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing us into the healing and wholeness accomplished for us in Jesus Christ.