Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Matthew 15:21-28 (NIV)

I recently came across an interpretation of this passge (Matthew 15:21-28) which troubles me due to what it proclaims about Jesus. It is not an uncommon one as I have heard it a number of times. The interpretation concerned can be summed up as teaching the following ideas:

~ that there is no reason for Jesus to have the woman plead repeatedly with Him for her daughter’s healing
~ that this passage shows Jesus gaining a new insight into the inclusiveness of God, and thereby into his own role in showing that inclusion to others
~ that in growing up, Jesus had absorbed some of his cultural milieu and is acting out of that, acting without actually thinking it through completely
~ that it is the gentile woman with whom he is speaking who opens his mind to this new insight of inclusion
~ that he then realizes what she says is true, that being there is an abundance of God’s goodness for everyone, including non-Jews and other foreigners, who also qualify for a share in it
~ that Jesus is being taught an important lesson, and is humble enough to be taught, thus his greatness
~ that his subsequent healing of the woman’s daughter comes about due to his new commitment to this new insight

This interpretation does not present me with the same image of Jesus as taught to me by the rest of Scripture, nor is it, in my view, in tune with the Apostolic faith handed down the ages by the church fathers, confirmed by church councils in the early centuries of Christian history.

My reasons for this conclusion follow.

The Biblical evidence is compelling in its claim that Jesus is the Son of God - God incarnate.
We are told that He is the image of the invisible God ~ Colossians 1:15. He claims for Himself “I and the Father are one” ~ John 10:30.
The Nicene Creed states this as “being of one substance with the Father”.

Jesus was also born fully human - of flesh and blood - and subject to the same temptations and tribulations as all humankind but not giving in to them ~ Matthew 4:1-11. While being fully human, He remains of one substance with the Father (God), and somehow these two states are held in tension in the one person of Jesus Christ. He is considered the perfect human.

This may be hard to get one’s head around, but that is the conclusion reached by many great minds who have weighed the evidence and can see no better alternative. The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) proclaimed that there was “no confusion, no change, no division, no separation” undergone by Christ’s two natures within Him; they are united in Him yet also distinct from one another. That statement has remained the traditional and orthodox belief of those who accept the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

So back to the story of the Canaanite woman…

The interpretation that troubles me holds that there is no reason for Jesus to have the woman plead with Him for her daughter’s healing. But this view ignores the greater context in which this event occurred, and the knowledge that we have of God’s overall plan that involved Jesus.

In the very first place, the Jews were God’s chosen people, those through whom He would recover the situation brought about by mankind’s fall from grace when man disobeyed God and went his own way - which is what we all do. Not to go into the details right here, Jesus was to be the One who would bring redemption - first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles and all the rest of us up through the ages. The Canaanite woman was not a Jew, and thus her situation was not first call for Him. He tells her “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” and that is very clearly recorded so is certainly no mystery. This is the background to understanding the conversation between them.

It is important to realize that the Gospels are, beside an account of the “Good News”, a record of how Jesus taught His disciples. They had to learn God’s plan for His people, and the order and means by which it would come about. At that stage Jesus had not yet become the sacrifice that brought to fruition the plan of redemption. His work was among the Jews… until later. It was not until after His resurrection, and His appearance to Saul (the Apostle Paul) on the road to Damascus, that His work would be extended when Paul was appointed the Apostle to the Gentiles, and after the coming of the Holy Spirit that the disciples would begin their evangelistic missions.

But the woman persisted and kept calling upon Jesus. As her cries became more urgent, her faith grew with it. She had recognized Him, and she called Him her Lord. She humbled herself, acknowledging her own unworthiness in relation to Him. This is an essential part of the equation - we are not worthy on our own account, but only by His grace do we receive. Not of our own doing, but by He who shall have the glory.

This seemingly small matter of humility, the requirement that the woman persist in faith, must not be overlooked. Her answers were humble, made more so through her interaction with Jesus, and gave evidence of her great faith. Jesus commented thus, and as a result, He healed her daughter.

The interpretation ignores that point. It claims there is no reason for initially denying the woman’s request. However, I see four reasons - the three already mentioned (His purpose in relation to God’s plan, growing her faith, seeking her humility for God’s glory) plus another lesson for the disciples, that of refusing to act simply for the sake of expediency, for getting the woman off their backs so to speak. This was a teaching moment not to be missed.

And now the crunch! The interpretation claims that Jesus had absorbed some of his cultural milieu and is acting out of that, acting without actually thinking it through completely. It claims that Jesus is being taught an important lesson by the Gentile woman.

What does this say about who Jesus is? Jesus has become so human in this view that His perfect nature is now compromised such that He has become flawed like the rest of us. This interpretation has Jesus, the Son of God, succumbing to the cultural conditioning of the day, not thinking something through completely, thus making an error of judgement and requiring to be taught by us instead. What kind of Jesus is that? This comes dangerously close to the “kenosis theory” heresy.

The Kenosis theory states that Jesus gave up (emptied himself of) some of His divine attributes (omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence) while He was a man here on earth. It states that Christ did this voluntarily so that He could function as a man in order to fulfil the work of redemption. This view was first introduced in the late 1800s in Germany with Gottfried Thomasius (1802-75), a Lutheran theologian. The Kenosis theory is a dangerous doctrine because, if it were true, then it would mean that Jesus was not fully divine. And if Jesus was not fully divine, then His atoning work would not be sufficient to atone for the sins of the world. This would bring down the whole plan of redemption and Christianity would be gutted, made another worthless religious belief. If God stopped being God for one instant, the infinite suddenly stops being infinite, the immutable undergoes a mutation, and the universe comes to an end. Jesus certainly emptied Himself of something, as the Apostle Paul tells us (Philippians 2:6-9), but rather than that being His divine attributes, it was His divine perogatives - His glory and His privileges.

The correct doctrine is that of the Hypostatic Union which states that Jesus is both fully God and fully man (Col. 2:9) and did not give up any divine attributes as a man on earth. He was not “God changed into a man”, nor some mixture of God and man, nor was He man made divine. Jesus was able to see into the hearts of men and discern with great accuracy. He knew those who encountered Him before they even opened their mouths. He made no error of judgement and His perception did not need correction. This doctrinal statement from the Council of Chalcedon has not been rebutted by any Protestant reformer and is accepted universally within mainstream Christianity. It remains the understanding of Biblical truth.

In summary, this interpretation sounds revisionist, the product of liberal theology, were Jesus is being made more human than He is a member of the Godhead. He is being reconstructed to be more believable to those who suffer from disbelief. The intention may be to assist us to identify with Him, but in doing that, Scripture is being redefined to accommodate a lack of faith - and also a lack of knowledge of God. The temptation to worship Christ’s human nature is one of the most subtle and deceptive forms of idolatry. In this interpretation there is a neglect of context, both the immediate one whereby the disciples are being taught and the woman is attended to spiritually, and the over-reaching one whereby God’s plan of redemption is revealed. There is a bending of Scripture to satisfy another agenda altogether - the fashionable notion of “inclusiveness” which is actually contrary to what this event is about.

What saddens me greatly (about this skewed interpretation that I found) is that I have come across it now a number of times, and I don’t think it is at all helpful in teaching us the truth about Jesus.