By Melanie J. Knox, Page Editor

As I Wish

“Can He still feel the nails…?”

No.

“Can He hear the crowd cry crucify…?”

No.

“Am I causing Him pain …?

No, no, no.

I love to sing. Sometimes, I get in the “zone” and get wrapped up in the melody of the song. “Can He still feel the nails” has a beautiful melody, but the words send shivers up my spine. Bad shivers.

Think for a minute about where this song puts Jesus. This is not a risen Savior who has triumphed over Satan and living in glory at the right hand of God.

Instead, the Jesus in this song is living in constant torment, with the sins of the world being constantly driven into his hands and feet. He might be in heaven, but his life is full of pain because you just can’t seem to live a perfect life.

What happened to victory in Jesus? What happened to abounding grace and forgiveness that cover any multitude of sins? Why do we insist that our Lord and Savior is still suffering on the cross?

By believing that Jesus still feels the nails and hears the screaming crowds each and every time you, or anyone else in the world, sins, we have taken away his power completely. We are assuming that daily he is crucified because we are such screw-ups.

The point of the song is to bring about guilt, and therefore bring about repentance. After all, Jesus was crucified because of the horrible sins you and I have committed. Guilt and repentance can both be good things that bring about life changes, but let’s not leave off the end of the story. The cross, the pain, the humiliation and the agony … that’s not the end.

Freedom is the end of the story. Christ is free, and he has set us free.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Eph. 2:4-6

We serve a Lord who is alive! Is your picture of Jesus still of a man, head bowed in shame, dripping with sweat, blood and tears on a cross? No! He is in the heavenly places with the Lord and all the saints.

Could he feel the nails? Absolutely. Can he still feel the nails? Absolutely not.