Baby Steps

Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, "Truly You are the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33).

Previously (Matthew 8:27) when Jesus was with the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee and a storm arose, He rebuked the wind and waves and the storm immediately stopped. The response of the disciples was, Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?

Here they respond to the same type of miracle by saying (literally), Truly God’s Son You are. There is no definite article ‘the’ in the Greek, so they essentially said, “Truly You are ‘a’ Son of God. It was the same declaration made by the centurion when an earthquake hit when Jesus died on the cross (Matthew 27:54), Truly this was God’s Son. Again, the absence of the definite article reveals that the centurion believed Jesus to be a son of God among many sons of God.

In a short period of time the disciples (or at least Peter) came to the full realization of who Jesus truly was. (Matthew 16:16) You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Here the definite articles are present in the Greek, meaning that at least Peter understood that Jesus was ‘the’ Christ (the one and only), ‘the’ Son (the one and only) of ‘the’ living God (the one and only). Peter had made that declaration earlier (John 6:68-69) Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believer and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

The point is, divine revelation is almost always progressive. As human beings with a finite (limited) mind to understand things, God knows He cannot ‘open the floodgates’ of divine knowledge to us. We would never grasp it. We understand that. Early education begins with the fundamentals and progresses to advanced knowledge and understanding. Even then some people fail to grasp the higher disciplines of mathematics, science, technology, etc.

The tragedy here is that all but one disciple did advance. Judas Iscariot never came to the realization of who Jesus truly was - or at least he didn’t appreciate Him. Even churches can fail to grasp the Word of truth and press on to maturity. (1 Corinthians 3:1-3) And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

But for most of us who are committed followers of Jesus Christ, we understand spiritual baby steps. We appreciate that through the work of the Holy Spirit we are not what we use to be, and we’re not what we’re going to be, but thank God for who we are today in Christ Jesus.

“Thank You, Lord, for Your patience in leading us to be less like ourselves and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ moment by moment and day by day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Pastor