“And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” Mark 15:39
As I continue on in this journey of learning a new language for the Lord, I am never far removed from the tremendous importance of the tense of a verb. If I had a nickel for every time a Spanish sentence slipped out of my mouth containing the wrong tense of the verb I was using, I’d be sailing to Bali later today on my own yacht. You see it just won’t do to answer the question of “what did you do yesterday” with “I will be going to the park.” The simple error in tense confuses the person in front of you so profoundly that your sentence is rewarded with a look similar to that of a dog shifting its head to the side when it encounters an unknown sound. A canine-like look from my Mexican friends that I am sadly, all too familiar with. But in Mark chapter 15 we find a tense used that speaks volumes louder than it was ever intended. As the crucifixion was consuming the last drops of life from Jesus’ human body, the sky went dark for three hours, a violent earthquake shook the land, and the temple veil was torn in two from top to bottom. And as a result of these tremendous signs, one of the closest eyewitnesses to the cross could only interpret the events he was seeing as true, real, and miraculous. And as a result, the Roman soldier at the foot of the cross uttered these amazing words, “truly this man was the Son of God!” Yet it is here we see the centurion claim possibly the biggest misuses of a tense in all of God’s Word. You see, it’s not Jesus was the Son of God, it’s Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus Christ defies all human logic, all human understanding, and all human reasoning. It was true when He was born, it was true when He taught, it was true when He performed miracles, it was true when He died upon the cross, and it is still true today. His cruxifiction was the brutal and harsh proof that the world simply could not understand and accept Him and the message He brought. But you see, the glory of the good news of Jesus Christ was what happened after. Jesus didn’t stay on the cross. He didn’t stay in the tomb. Jesus rose from the dead three days later to defeat the darkness and death of all human sin forever. You see here is where the tense of a single verb holds eternal impact. Jesus was not the Son of God, Jesus is the Son of God. A fact that can truly be grasped only as one moves beyond human reasoning and logic and moves into the rare air of great faith.
For so many in this world today the story of Jesus stops on the cross. Their spiritual investment in Jesus stops at the exact same place as that Roman soldier who stood at the foot of the cross. It stops at an intellectual recognition that Jesus was a figure in the Bible, was a good man, was a good teacher, and was killed on a cross. But you see, the biggest difference between a believer and follower of Jesus Christ and those that merely intellectually process Jesus, is what is done with the tense of that one verb in your heart. For me personally, Jesus is the Son of God, He is alive today, and He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, even in this moment, interceding for all those that call Him Lord.
I pray today that if Jesus is a “was” to you in your heart, that the Word of God and His Holy Spirit can open your heart to a place that conjugates that verb very differently. I pray that you can seek and find the truth, and as a result, it will set you free to seeing Jesus as He truly is. Alive, in control, and on His throne.
Bendiciones ~ Dan
“Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Romans 8:34
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32a
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