The gospel: the heart of the hands

It has been anciently said that the heart is in the hands. What did the ancients mean by this? Well, if we truly reflect on everything our hands touch, everything our fingers do, everything our hands hold, or do not hold, they tell a great deal about our heart.

Now, I have been reflecting on the hands of Jesus Christ. Before God became flesh, God’s hands were invisible. Jesus Christ had eternal hands before His hands became flesh.

“So I will stretch out My hand…” (Exodus 3:20).

It was the hand of the LORD God, the invisible Son, that delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. And likewise, throughout the Bible, we can see this invisible hand always working to save His people. If there was one person who really knew the hand of the Lord, it was the man who was after His own heart, the notorious psalmist, David.

“O God, lift up Your hands” 10:12

“Show Your marvelous loving-kindness by Your right hand” 17:7

“Your right hand has held me up” 18:35

“Your right hand is full of righteousness” 48:10

David saw something about the hand of God, and specifically the right hand of God. I think it’s not a coincidence that the majority of the human race is also right-hand dominant (don’t feel “left” out, lefties!). Let us remember that who sits at the Father’s right hand is His Son. Jesus Christ is the right hand of the Father. Jesus, the Son of God, was there at the Father’s right hand before the worlds were framed, before Christ spoke life into existence. And we see this right hand of God always reaching down to save.

But those invisible omnipotent hands became flesh. The right hand of God now has two hands, a right and a left, the Man Jesus Christ. These hands did many things. They touched leapers, an infectious skin disease, and they healed the spine of a woman who was bent towards the ground. They saved Peter from drowning, they touched the scroll of Isaiah, they fed over 5,000 people, they turned water into wine, they rebuked sickness, they touched the eyes of the blind, and His hands prayed. Do you not see a picture of the heart of Jesus Christ in what His hands did?

Think about your hands, what do they do? What are all the things they touch? The things they hold? Or what do they not touch? Or what do they not do? Think about it, it was the hand that grabbed the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is the human hands that have done such terrible things, habitually do sinful things, and continuously want to reach out for the forbidden fruits of this world.

But, Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, saw to it that He would lay down His perfect hands for our sinful hands, and not only does He lay down His life because of your sinful hands, He has the power to resurrect new hands.

Jesus Christ’s hands never left anyone the same who was truly touched by them, and it is the same with those holy hands that were nailed to the cross. Yes, Jesus is taking the punishment. Jesus is taking the nails. Jesus is ending the power of mankind’s sinful hands. He is destroying the fallen hands of Adam with death.

“Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed” (Luke 5:13).

When Jesus was bearing His cross after severe blood loss from the floggings, believe me, He was willing to use His hands to do His Father’s will. God’s hands holding a cross were exactly what needing to take place to stop your sinful hands. Jesus Christ willingly gave up His hands to be nailed to a cross because He knew He had hands to save the world. Eventually, those hands nailed to the cross were drained of their blood. The sacrifice needed was fulfilled, and the hands of Jesus Christ achieved what no hand could ever achieve. The hands of Jesus Christ completed a work that no man can add to, or take away from.

And even though those hands stopped moving, they stopped working, they lost their life. Jesus Christ, placed in the tomb for three days, meant that those hands, for the first time, did nothing (that is because there was nothing left for them to do!). But, all of a sudden, on the third day, those hands started to move again, those hands became resurrected! Glorified!

“Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands… Do not be unbelieving, but believing” (John 20:27).

The gospel is not that you are merely being touched by crucified hands only, but you are also being touched by hands that are alive from the dead, hands that are immortal. This is what Jesus Christ does for us: He gives us a new spirit, a new heart, and, in turn, new hands. So, let God change your hands by the hands of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who has finished it. The nail prints are still in His hands today! Only there is no blood in them, because His hands no longer need blood to live; He is the resurrection and the life.

Perhaps, we need to, like Thomas,

Look at His hands.