The Doctor's Strong Words

The role of a doctor may be the most revealing image in thinking about God and sin. What a doctor does for me physically - guide me toward health - God does for me spiritually. I am learning to view sins not as an arbitrary list of rules drawn up by a cranky Judge but rather as a list of dangers that must be avoided at all costs - for our own sakes...
Sin represents a grave danger to my spiritual, and perhaps my physical, health. The more I see my sins in this light, the more I understand God's strong words against them. I find myself gazing into the grieving eyes of a Doctor whose patients are destroying themselves. As Jesus said, applying the doctor image to Himself, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

- Phillip Yancey