According to Dr. Kenneth Bailey, Jesus them re-defines repentance to mean "accepting being found." That is...it's not our faith that saves but Jesus' faithfulness that save. This lines-up with how and why Martin Luther changed scripture.

Written By Keith Brown

Martin Luther changed Scripture

Open a bible, and likely it has Martin Luther's fingerprints. His bible translation freed the common man then, but now, in some cases, it imprisons. In the 1500's, it was Luther who was willing to die to proclaim that it is faith alone that saves, not the church. At the time, the church sold indulgences, selling redemption from purgatory and hell itself for alms. From John Tetzel's sermon in 1517, "Don't you hear the voices of your dead parents and other relatives crying out, 'Have mercy on us, for we suffer great punishment and pain. From this, you could release us with a few alms....We have created you, fed you, cared for you and left you our goods. Why do you treat us so cruelly and leave us to suffer in the flames, when it only takes a little to save us?'" It was Luther who risked his life to challenge Tetzel and the church and translate the bible for the common person. Yet if Luther were alive today, he would likely provide an updated translation removing his earlier version's emphasis on our faith to save and restoring it with Jesus' faithfulness to save. Prior to Luther, earlier versions of the New Testament emphasized Jesus' faithfulness, not our faith that saves. For example, prior to Luther Romans 3:22 read, "This righteousness from God through the faithfulness of Messiah Jesus..." And here's Luther's translation, "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ..." So in this brief study, we hope to provide a clearer picture of what Jesus' faithfulness looks like so that we can better understand our role of faith and its first cousin repentance.

Now some 500 years later, while in 6th grade at a Presbyterian church camp (a denomination born of Luther's reformation), a few hundred kids packed into a cobbled-together movie theater to see a "come to Jesus" film. Though much of the movie has faded in memory, one scene is etched in my brain some 35 years later. A "non-believing" jeweler, while displaying fine pearls to a lady customer, inexplicably vomits volumes of blood on his glass jewelry case. Under the glass case, a camera zooms in on the jeweler’s bloody face. The terrifying shriek of the lady confirms the jeweler's horrible death. After this shriek, the movie ends, the screen goes white, and a young enthusiastic camp counselor appears offering a personal relationship with Jesus. The point was not lost on the hundreds of kids who were climbing over themselves to respond to the altar call. And although the counselor probably did justice to the topic of sin and grace that summer night, we frightened campers simply needed to avoid a similar fate of this hapless jeweler's bloody death and eternal suffering and get back to the friends and fun of daily swimming and strawberry-shortcake Popsicles.

The church camp’s approach could be seen as manipulative. However, in looking back on my history with camp counselors, pastors, and church members alike, my overall experience has been largely positive and genuine. If it's our proclamation of faith which saves from eternal hell then most any and all tactics are beneficial that evoke personal faith. It's the YouTube generation, however, who questions whether God is all loving--or, for that matter, whether he exists at all. From their perspective, it's pretty easy to see that God doesn't offer unconditional love but a love based the precondition of personal faith. The Greek word for faith, pistis, generally translates to trust. So would you trust (have faith in) God who is willing to eternally torture you if you don't trust him? In this context, trust (faith) would likely be replaced with fear or anger, anger being the response of choice on YouTube.

However is this emphasis on personal faith biblical? In Luke 15, Jesus paints a picture of what Jesus' saving faithfulness looks like. So if we can get a better picture of Jesus' faithfulness then we can better answer what role our faith plays in salvation. Further, to see this picture more clearly, we'll look back earlier than Luther’s translation. For this purpose, there is no better guide than Dr. Kenneth Bailey. He was born the son of missionaries and lived in the Middle East for over 40 years. He became a world famous scholar specializing in Middle Eastern culture and original bible translations. One of his findings, having lived a lifetime in the Middle East, is that the cultural difference today (between the Middle East and the west) are greater than the 2,000 years that separate us from Jesus' time.

Saving Faithfulness, the Lost Sheep

The early church used the symbol of a shepherd carrying its lost sheep, not the cross, to identify with Christianity. Now some 2,000 years later, the cross hangs around the necks of rock stars and nuns alike. So although the Christian symbol has thrived, the reason for the cross--why Jesus needed to die--has mostly been lost. The lost sheep can help us, in part; re-capture an understanding of Jesus' mission.

A sheep, when it realizes that it's lost, becomes terrified. All it can do is bleat, cry out. It's so terrified, that even when the shepherd has found it and when he calls out to it in his familiar voice, the sheep can't move. It must be picked-up and carried home. A sheep, in the Middle East, would weigh between 45 and 75 pounds. Further, the entire process of finding and restoring a sheep was often a two-to-three day task. No easy task! Years ago, my little white Lhasa Apso and much larger chocolate lab found their way outside. When it was discovered that they were gone, a family search party was formed. Moving out in concentric circles on foot and in a car, we shouted out for our lost dogs. About an hour later, joy replaced our fear seeing both were safe. Yet in spite of this joy, it was mildly annoying seeing these two idiot dogs oblivious to the concern and effort that they had caused us. Both dogs were more interested in continuing to swim in the muddy farm pond than to return safely home. Had, instead, a two-to-three day day expedition been required to restore these dogs, resentment, at best, would remove any vestige of joy.

Yet it's precisely joy that Jesus refers, "he calls to his friends, saying 'rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost...'" Oddly the next sentence states, "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents..." Repents?... Unexpectedly repentance is the theme. But even more vexing what did the sheep do that resembles repentance? We find this same theme in the second related parable. After the woman finds her the lost coin, we see again, "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents..." This too begs the same question, what did the coin do that resembles repentance? Not surprising, in the third related parable, this same theme is present, so what did the sons do that resemble repentance?

Where’s the Turning Point in the Prodigal Son?

With only a casual reading of the prodigal son parable, the broken relationship is missed. When the prodigal asks for his inheritance prior to his father’s death, the expected Middle Eastern response would be for the father to slap his son with an open backhand. Even the son's words, "Give me..." lacks the proper address of father. The prodigal was not asking for his father's blessing or for some financial help for his trip. He wanted it all, and he wanted it now. Imagine going to your father saying, "Give me my inheritance now. I want you to liquidate your holdings: your bank account, your house, your 401k savings, and your pension. All the resources that you'll need for your future and stability in the community, I'll need now." Yet shockingly, we are told the father's response was that he divided his life (bios). Notice that the text translates that the father divided his life, not that he divided his property, which speaks to the devastating effect on the father. So with his portion of the family estate, the prodigal quickly headed to the far country.

In the far country, having exhausted his money and in the midst of a famine, the prodigal finds himself starving. Then we are told, "he came to himself," and other translations say "he came to his senses". To this, we say to ourselves, "Yes! This is the turning point." In Rocky II, when his wife had slipped into a comma after giving birth to his son, Rocky couldn't concentrate on his upcoming boxing match. Each day, hour after hour, rather than working-out, Rocky held his wife's hand, prayed for her, and read to her while she lay non-responsive. Then with the fight just days away, his wife opens her eyes and she says to Rocky, “I want you to do something for me.” With the audience on the edge of their seats, Adrienne whispers in his ear, “I want you to WIN.” Yes! Here is the turning point. In Rocky fashion, he drinks the raw eggs, catches the chicken, and against all odds wins his boxing match. Here too, the prodigal has now come to his senses. He will surely face hardships but he will inevitably win. Sure enough, by the end of the story, his riches are restored and there's a happy ending. But is this how it really happened? Jesus' original audience would not have seen this as the turning-point. And for the first thousand years after, the universal Arabic translation was not that “he had come to his senses” but rather that the prodigal "returned to himself (nepash)" or "that he would depend on himself."

The prodigal remembers where to get bread. "And he would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything. ‘But here I am dying of hunger, and how many of my father's craftsmen have bread enough and bread to spare.’" In the prodigal's planned speech he will say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you and am not now worthy to be called your son. Fashion out of me a craftsman." In the Jewish culture, not unlike our own, repentance requires confession of wrong (sin), making restitution, and commitment to not sin again. Yet it's his starvation that prompts this confession, not his desire to reconcile with the father. Isn't this a universal experience? What initially prompts us to pray again is some felt need--the pain, the disease, the financial hardship, the bad relationship. In the midst of a horrific lightning storm, Martin Luther cried save me God, and I'll become a monk. In each case, the felt need prompted the prayer, not the desire for God himself.

Rejection Experienced

As the prodigal nears his village, he would likely experience fear. Any Jewish person who left his village and lost his money while among foreigners would face, as was the custom, the qetsatsah, an Aramaic word meaning “cutting off.” (We know that the prodigal is returning from being among foreigners because a Jewish village would not have pigs, animals deplorable to the Jews.) In the qetsatsah ceremony, a clay pot of burnt beans would be broken at the prodigal’s feet symbolizing that he is permanently cutoff from the community. Ironically earlier in the parable, the prodigal had cut himself off from the village but now he will be cut off by the villagers. What makes this particularly frightful for the prodigal is his recent, similar experience of being cut off in the far country where he was left to starve. We can picture what food deprivation does to the body but also consider what social deprivation does to the soul. We know that the prodigal doesn’t have any deep friendships because a stalwart friend would have shared his limited bread with him, “but no one gave him anything.” Had he stayed in the far country he’d face starvation alone while others huddled with their family's support. Now he would need to traverse the long dirt road to his father's house exhausted and mostly naked with onlooking villagers.

Saving Faithfulness of the Father, the Prodigal Son

"And while he [the prodigal] was still at a great distance, his father saw him," the text says. Remember this is not the scene of a happy reunion, where the son had sent picturesque Greek islands post cards pining, "Wishing you were here Dad." No, this is the scene where the father's deep wounds would be picked open again. It would become quickly evident that the prodigal was not thinking of his daddy, he was thinking of his belly. The father would remember how earlier the prodigal was not deterred from his plan in spite of how the father sacrificially divided his life (bios) for him. He would remember how he bore the family shame in the village as the foolish father who wouldn't practice tough-love. So what was the father's response? The text continues, "...and he [the father] had compassion and ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him." In the Middle Eastern culture, it’s undignified for the father to do anything other than walk. Yet here the father is neither walking nor jogging, he’s running, the Greek word trekho. So here we clearly see the father hasn’t let his heart to turn bitter. His supple heart allows him to joyfully run to his son.

The prodigal, who had been oblivious to his father's pain when he first left the village, now, having suffered himself, sees his father's costly demonstration of unexpected love. The prodigal then utters, "I'm not worthy to be called your son," not as part of his plan but as an expression of his experience. The prodigal's plan had only addressed his physical hunger. But here in the presence of his daddy's smiling face, his soul is fed. And in this moment, he realizes what he hadn't even considered, and would perhaps say something like, "It's my father's love that I cherish even more than the bread that I now crave. And for the first time, I see how much I've wounded him. Yet, in spite of my callousness, he has not turned bitter against me but he has continued to love me." The New Testament calls this transformational moment repentance, Metanoia in the Greek.

New Testament Repentance

You may have the urge to correct, “No, “repentance” means turning from sin. It’s a clear three step process: confess the sin, make amends, and promise to not sin again.” However, the New Testament authors themselves had access to the Old Testament Hebrew word shub which has this connotation of “turning from sin and returning to God.” Although shub was used over 1,000 times in the Old Testament, the New Testament authors chose the word metanoia for repentance, not shub. This word, metanoia, most often translates to "change of mind" and would, in our culture, roughly translate to a paradigm shift. So with this definition of repentance in mind, we can better see the prodigal's repentance in relation to the father's saving faithfulness. In the first two related parables, it's clear who does the saving: it's the shepherd with his two to three day task of finding and carrying the sheep to restoration, and it's the lady with her diligent search to restore the inanimate but precious coin. So too in the third parable, we see a similar saving action by the father. And with an all human cast, we see a living example of metanoia. So now we’re in a better position to answer the question, how did the prodigal repent? Dr. Bailey offers that the prodigal's repentance, and for that matter repentance in general, is “accepting being found.” This description fits well with the father's saving actions--running, kissing, and restoring. Then having experienced the father's costly demonstration of unexpected love, the prodigal changes his mind, he experiences a paradigm shift. So with metanoia in mind, why wouldn't the prodigal's repentance in the far country have worked?

Pay-It-Back Repentance

Had the father not run to the prodigal, the prodigal's pay-it-back repentance would not have resulted in reconciliation with his father but instead resulted in his becoming like his older brother. When the older brother hears that the father had restored the prodigal, he became angry and said to his father, "I have been working like a slave for you, and I never disobeyed your commandments, yet you never gave me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends." In short, he's saying, IT'S NOT FAIR! To help us better understand what the father does next, it helps to better understand the first broken relationship. "When Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, it was not just [their] disobedience that brought death to the world, but the fruit from this tree. Satan tempted Eve with the fruit because the source of his power is rooted in that tree. After eating, they were forced to measure themselves by the good and evil which they now understood," say Rick Joyner in his book There were two Trees in the Garden. So the older brother, as a result of measuring the good and bad within himself and that of his brother, declares it's not fair and becomes angry and refuses to join the banquet. So too, had the prodigal been able to follow through with his plan to work as a hired worker and pay back the money, he would not have seen or understood his father's love. By measuring himself, he would feel that he is slowly making up the deficit. And all the while, he would be focused on his efforts weighing the good and bad in himself. And at some point, he would feel that he had earned his father’s love yet would not see that he is the reason for the broken relationship.

Jesus’ Faithfulness to the Strong

And just as the prodigal needed a costly demonstration of unexpected love, the older brother needed too this transformational love. The father understood that fear was rooted under the older brother's anger. In verse 26 the older son had summoned, pros-kaleo, the youth to demand information about the returning prodigal. In verse 28, we expect the father to likewise "summon" his older son, to demand an explanation for his public rudeness. Instead, in direct contrast to the son's approach, the father goes out to try to reconcile. Rather than in a hierarchical relationship, the father calls the son to "stand alongside [him]," para-kaleo, and look at the world from his perspective. "Beloved son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." The father addresses him as "beloved son." Previously the older son had failed to use any title for his father, thereby insulting him. Yet the father responds with "beloved son." The word huios (son) appears eight times in the parable but here the text has teknon, “my beloved boy.” It's this same word that Mary and Joseph used for Jesus when they thought he was lost (but was actually at the temple.) So once more the anger of the father is reprocessed into grace at great cost. The father understands the "lostness" of the older son with the same perceptiveness that he exhibited in dealing with the prodigal. The father knows that the older son is concerned for his "rights." Thus he continues, "...you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." Very gently the father reminds the older son that he has provided for all his son's needs all his life. And he very gently reminds the older son that he has been serving himself with all of his hard work, because the rest of the estate is already his. He also assures the older son that he will not now take away the older son's share and give it to his younger brother, “for all that is mine is yours." The father further explains, "...to celebrate and rejoice was necessary, for this your brother was dead and has come to life, he was lost and has been found."

Even to this day, our focus on Jesus' saving faithfulness of sinners distracts us from seeing Jesus’ love for the grumbling Pharisees. Jesus told these three inter-related parables (the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost sons) in defense of the Pharisees’ complaint why he ate with sinners and tax collectors. In the Middle East, to invite one to share a meal is to invite that person in to close relationship. In particular, for Jesus to eat with the tax collectors was treasonous. The tax collectors were politically hated as a corrupt extension of the Roman government. In the lost sons, the Pharisees are represented by the older son. Remember that the father goes out into the courtyard to reconcile with the older son addressing him as teknon, “my beloved boy.” But you may scoff, Jesus hated the Pharisees. However, as each of Jesus' interactions are analyzed, a theme emerges that Jesus would courageously challenge the strong (the Pharisees) and would gently restore the weak (the sinners). So in challenging the strong, it's neither surprising that Jesus was martyred nor shocking that Martin Luther's life was at risk.

Role of an Individual’s Faith

Now with a picture of Jesus’ saving faithfulness in mind, what’s the role of an individuals’ faith? During Jesus earthly ministry, Jesus often affirmed an individual's faith. The word faith appears over 1,000 times in the New Testament so it's not surprising that his disciples pleaded for Jesus to increase their faith. In this situation, one would expect Jesus to respond with delight with something like, "May it be as you have asked." Rather, he responds by saying that with even the smallest faith (the size of a mustard seed) one can cast a mountain into the sea. It may appear that Jesus is belittling the disciples’ lack of faith; however, he is simply putting a person's faith into context. So too the Apostle Paul put faith in context when he said three things will remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. So if faith is the seed then love is the water. Water makes the seed grow. Nothing in the seed itself makes it grow.

An illustration my help clarify this picture. As a new father, I took to heart the responsibility of training my boy from an early age. Bedtimes were to be strictly observed. At the appointed time, unaided by Super Nanny, I would order little Alex to his bedroom. His pleas for milk, a bed time story, or anything, fell on deaf ears. And if he persisted, I would threaten his most terrifying punishment, "I'll turn-out the lights young man." And when the lights were turned-off, it sounded much like someone buried alive. Even his banging and scratching were met with silence. Now fast forward 10 years, in part remorseful for earlier mistakes, my approach turned to the other extreme, with my youngest, Kelsey. Bedtime was defined by her, not the clock. At the appointed bedtime, milk flowed like honey and bedtime stories were measured in volumes, not chapters. Only a gorged and passed-out Kelsey denoted a successful bedtime.

With this consistent, hyper-vigilant care of Kelsey, it’s not too surprising that when I would hold out my arm for Kelsey to sit on, she would hold her hands high in the air and, with reckless abandon, throw her whole body backwards as she would swing-back-and-forth in gleeful delight. Even when she had grown to a point where my feeble arm could no longer support her, she would say, "I trust you dad, let me swing again." Now consider my son’s experience with me. Would he trust me to hold him when he was four? No, I don’t think so. My point is that my kid’s trust (faith) is a function of my character, not a result of their decision. It was my faithfulness to Kelsey that allowed her to fully trust me. She saw swinging on my arm as one more opportunity to enjoy life by joylessly letting go. And in contrast, it was my lack of faithfulness that created Alex’s fear and anger which prevented him from letting go.

Perceptively, you may question, if the prodigal’s father was so faithful, why is the older brother so angry? Isn’t the older brother’s anger a reflection of the father’s lack of faithfulness? It’s not surprising that Jesus said to the adults that they need to become like children. There is something inherently trusting in a child. Combine a trusting child with a faithful father, and faith can be created in a petri dish. Introduce into this petri dish an adult’s free will, the curse of knowledge (that we spoke about earlier), and a fallen world and the petri dish will experience cross-contamination. There is only one thing can purify this contamination. And now you can hopefully answer what this one thing is. It’s Jesus’ costly demonstration of unexpected love: it’s his life; it’s his cross that purifies the petri dish.

Life after the Banquet

Metanoia, "change of mind" is initially caused by a transformational encounter with the Spirit of God. Bailey calls this "accepting being found." It is here that the seed of faith is planted. And as we said earlier, if faith is the seed, love is the water. And water makes the seed grow. So if this transformational moment plants the seed, what of the rest of life? In the case of the prodigal, indeed his restoration is transformational. Yet the day after the banquet, he will face many of the same challenges he did prior to his departure to the far country. But keep in mind, two things have dramatically changed: one, he knows what it is to experience rejection and face death and, two, with those experience fresh in mind, he was able to see his father’s unconditional love for him. So with these grounding experiences, the seed of faith can grow as he continues to experience his father's love and as he himself practices love. Many see, in error, that the practicing of love is a prerequisite for receiving God's love. But this is not possible because it's the father's love that provides the fuel for the son to practice this love himself.

An illustration may help. My friend is considering divorcing her husband of 19 years. Her chief malady is loneliness. None would dispute her point seeing that her successful husband is often returning home late with little to give. And my friend is equally drained raising their two precious children. As any outside observer would confirm, marital intimacy, in this Darwinian dog-eat-dog world, is an endangered species. Tragically, no matter what she decides, there will be a lot of suffering. It's inevitable. In James Cameron's movie Titanic, Jack Dawson has found the love of his life, Rose, en rout to America. But tragically, after an iceberg slices the hull, the Titanic will stay afloat for only two or three more hours. The limited time is in full awareness as the icy water floods floor-after-floor pushing them into a series of life threatening situations. Momentarily, it appears promising that Jack and Rose will both survive and live happily ever after. Yet once they are both in the icy water, experiencing hypothermia, it's clear to Jack that there is only room for one person on a piece of floating debris. Jack seamlessly acts to secure Rose comforting her and imploring her to survive as he slips into fatal hypothermic shock. Eighty years later, Jack's costly demonstration of unexpected love continues to transform Rose. Her radiant blue eyes belie her wrinkled, 100 year old body. As the movie draws to a close, with a slow thoughtful gait with the priceless "heart of the sea diamond" in hand, Rose climbs the back-railing of the ship at the Titanic's last location. She then releases the diamond into the ocean. As it slowly sparkles and spirals out of sight, a warm smile covers Rose’s face.

Youth blinds us to the limited time we have. But somewhere on the journey, the ticking clock sounds loudly in one's head. And it becomes clearer that one can't hold on to life it must be spent: spent protecting itself; spent giving it away. In the prodigal son parable, the original text says the son became alive--not alive again but alive for the first time. It was the costly demonstration of unexpected love that created life in the prodigal. Love creates life--even where there wasn’t any.

Open Ending

In closing, the prodigal son parable is missing the final stanza. In typical Hebrew inverted-step-parallelism, the missing stanza is for the listener to complete. Will the father’s efforts to reconcile with the older brother result in him joining the banquet? Or will he remain in the courtyard? As Jesus made his way to Jerusalem, some finished the parable by crucifying the author of the parable. Yet even to this, Jesus’ faithfulness remained intact saying as he hung on the cross, “Forgive them Father, they do not know what they do.”

Video - Dr. Ken Bailey