The following is an excerpt from Just Love, written by Wayne Jacobsen and Tobie van der Westhuizen:
The events at Jesus’s baptism and later at Pentecost opened the heavens so that this love could be given to all humanity. By God’s plan, Jesus became the “firstborn among many sons and daughters” (Romans 8:29). This gift was not the mere status of childhood, but a full adoption into his family.
If all of this sounds just too good to be true, consider that Jesus said it was so: “You loved Me before the foundation of the world . . . You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
The very same love.
Thus, we enter the Kingdom the same way Jesus did—as a beloved son or daughter! Embracing that belovedness is what it means to be saved.
When the Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism, the very nature of God was deposited into human flesh. Jesus was, in the words of the author to the Hebrews, “the exact imprint of [God’s] nature” (Hebrews 1:3). The reason for this is not that Jesus perfected the art of keeping the Law, but that God had deposited his own nature into Jesus.
Jesus had become a partaker of the divine nature—the perfect expression of love, manifesting itself as justice. He became an image bearer, carrier, and eventual distributor of that life, offering the same reality to us. The only way to do that is to receive the life-spirit of the Father.
The cross took God’s confession of love, proclaimed to his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, and offered it to the world of sinners, those traumatized by the darkness of living outside the love of the Father and committing unspeakable atrocities against one another in an attempt to overcome their emptiness. At the cross, God the Father, through Jesus the Son, gave his life to the world. Jesus did not die to satisfy what was lacking in God. He died so that the love of God could become God’s love in us, allowing us to share in his life and live by his love. The cross did not make God love us; rather, it put his love into us.
Humans struggle to wrap their minds around that. God’s love does not need to be earned! It is not a reciprocation of our love or service. Here’s how John described it: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God” (I John 4:7).
The only way humans can ever love others so as to fulfill justice is for God’s love to be in them. For God’s love to enter them, they must be born of God; that is, they must be born of the Spirit and become sons and daughters of God, sharing in his very nature. That’s why Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again—a spiritual rebirth inside his nature.
“What exactly should I believe in order to be saved?” We are now ready for the answer: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us” (I John 3:16). No amount of believing in God or the historical Jesus or doctrinal creeds can do any good if it does not also include a fundamental knowing that God the Father loves me. This is the fulfillment of his justice and this alone is salvation.
In regard to Just Love, I have friends of mine in both Germany and France who have written to me letting me know that their versions of Scripture already contain the word “justice” where our English versions use “righteousness.”
So, does this book hold any application for them?
If it were just about a linguistic change, the answer would be no. Tobie and I are aware that linguistically, this is an obvious problem in English. However, it is a more subtle problem in other languages. Since the Reformation, a distorted view of imputed righteousness has spread mostly through the English-speaking Protestant world, so that even non-English readers think of the concept of righteousness, even though their text already contains justice.
They just added the meaning of “uprightness” to their word for “justice”; thus, they have the same conceptual misunderstanding, even though they have retained the word for justice.
Here’s what Tobie wrote to someone who said the same problem exists in Afrikaans, where justice may be in their text, but still not in their hearts:
The unique meaning of the English word “righteousness” has crept into Protestant theology to such an extent that “justice” now has two meanings—a spiritual version that carries the definition of righteousness and a legal version that carries the definition of justice. So, the problem persists outside of English, but without the solution of replacing the word with an alternative that is uncontaminated and has always had a single meaning.
English readers of the Bible need a word-shift, the rest need a mind-shift.
Truth be told, we both need the mind-shift.
When you read Just Love, you will first notice the linguistic problem and how it distorted our view of the Gospel. But in the second part of the book, we show how Jesus writes his justice on our hearts with the pen of his love. By filling us with his love, light, and life, we won’t be able to live an ego-centric life in the world. Our awareness of others will rise to the awareness of ourselves, and we will not need to manipulate or exploit others to get what we desire from them. Instead, we will guard their hearts as much as we guard our own.
God’s desire was always to have just people on the earth, as he transforms us, so we become a fountain of his love to the people around us without even trying.
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And if you want to hear Tobie and talk about the book, you can do so here:
And, if you’ve already read Just Love, would you please consider writing a review of it at Amazon and/or Goodreads. I’m told the algorithms need that to help a book find its audience. I am grateful for those who already have
Just Love: How One Mistranslated Word Distorted the Gospeldebuted last week on Amazon to a very strong showing. Tobie and I are grateful to those who ordered the book and posted comments on the Amazon page to increase its visibility. Since we’re doing this on our own, “it takes a village” to help this book find its way into the world.
Just Love is not just an appeal to switch a word in our Bibles, but a guide to learning to live by God’s justice as the expression of our life in him. Jesus said that all of the law and the prophets would be fulfilled if we simply did “unto others as we’d have them do unto us.” Of course, we can’t do it in our own strength and wisdom; love has to shape us from the inside so that the love and life of the Father fill us and flow out of us. No longer needing to get others to fill that empty place in us, we will live more aware of others around us and see ways that we can be a blessing to them. That’s the heart of this book—transformed people demonstrating his kingdom in their everyday lives.
Both Tobie and I hope that this little book will spawn a wider conversation about being less focused on sin management and personal piety. Instead, we let love have its work in us and find ourselves living increasingly in God’s justness toward others around us. If you’d like to discuss this book with me, even if you haven’t read it yet, I’m going to be in a Zoom Room this Sunday morning, March 15, at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. You’re welcome to bring your questions and comments, even if you haven’t yet finished reading the book. If you want to join us, email me for a link.
And to carry this conversation on further, Tobie and I are also brainstorming about the possibility of putting together a wider Just Love Conversation somewhere in the heartland of the U.S. on the weekend of July 10-12, when he will be visiting. We want to explore the themes of that book with others who are as captivated by them as we are, and would invite people to drive or fly in to join us. We are asking God to give us wisdom about a place where there are some local folks who can help us with arrangements. We will be looking for a hotel and a gathering place, or something similar. If you’re interested in attending or want to help us put it together where you live, please let me know so we can see what God might put together.
Here’s the Foreword from our book, written by Brad Cummings, my friend and former podcast partner:
FOREWORD
What you hold in your hands can literally change your entire life if you embrace it. When Wayne first shared with me what Tobie had presented to him, that one of the most common words and foundational concepts, “righteousness,” does not appear in the Bible, my immediate response was, “Not so!” Dozens of verses came to mind that would refute such a claim.
I recognize the modern-day challenges of translating the Scriptures and how language and word meanings can change. As such, it is rather impossible for translators not to introduce some measure of interpretative bias into the text. But this one was a doozy!
Admittedly, I was skeptical at first. But, when he explained how “righteousness” as we commonly define and understand it should have been more accurately translated as “justice”—it’s as if I had been given a whole new Bible and a much better lens through which to see God, his heart for us, and how we were meant to walk with Jesus in this life. It is not enough for us to make a confessional declaration and look forward to heaven someday.
The themes of justice and love could not be more central to the Bible and are meant to be lived out. What Tobie and Wayne have discovered and articulated is nothing short of amazing. It marries the truth of Scripture with the heart and purpose of God in a breathtaking, transformative, and resounding way.
After examining what they laid out, I was stunned. “This changes everything!” was all I could think. “Thank you” is such an inadequate response to the gift of what these men have given.
It is like discovering treasure buried in a field— so valuable that it is worth selling everything you have to lay hold of it. This is not a radical departure from what we’ve known, but rather a satisfying synthesis of it, just shifted. It offers a much-needed reframing of what matters most.
Just Love is an invitation into the kind of life you’ve dreamed of, unlocking the true power of the Gospel, transforming us from the inside out. If you are tired of the religious ritual and empty confessions, promising much but delivering little, this book will help diagnose “why do we have so many converts who profess and confess to be Christians, yet if we are honest, so few deeply transformed lives?”
Thankfully, they do not stop there. As they share their respective journeys into the joy of our salvation, they not only unpack what it means to be “saved,” but also offer practical, tangible insights into how God works. Freeing and untwisting us from our selfish selves, he can win us into a place of greater trust, where our faith becomes so much more than just a hoped-for confession or declaration, but authentic, alive, and others-centered.
By being rooted and grounded in His love, we’re better able to both freely receive and release the river of God’s life and love. Just Love marks the trailhead for entering the most satisfying and life-giving journey of seeing God’s life being manifest in you. Your salvation is about to get an upgrade. Enjoy!
—Brad Cummings, co-author, publisher, and movie producer of The Shack
All my life, I have sought an authentic Gospel that does everything Jesus promised. It would rescue those perishing in the darkness of this age and invite even the simplest people into an intimate engagement with his Father that would lead them to life—here in this age and the age to come. Connecting with him would unravel the darkness that twists our world into pain and bondage and lead his people into the ever-increasing joy of knowing him and the freedom of being transformed by his love.
Seventeen months ago, I got an email from a stranger in South Africa that told me there was a significant flaw in our English translations of the Bible. Tobie van der Westhuizen had discovered that the Greek word translated as ‘righteousness’ for the past 500 years is actually the word for justice. Early translators had chosen a word in English that had no equivalent in Greek or Hebrew, and using it had led to a distortion of the Gospel Jesus would have preached, and Paul would have explained. Admittedly, I was skeptical at first, but the more I explored his research, I realized that he was on to something. That led to hours of conversations and eventually an idea for this book called Just Love: How One Mistranslated Word Distorted the Gospel.
We are excited to release this book on Tuesday for others to explore this with us. It may seem like a subtle shift at first, but he implications are profound. I haven’t been as excited about a book I’ve helped to write since The Shack. And honestly, this completes the message of He Loves Me, which I’ve often said is the most significant book I’ll ever write—until now! This is how God’s love not only flows to us, but through us to change the world we inhabit. I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally see this book in print.
In advance of that release, here is Chapter 1 of what I hope will help us see the power of a Living Gospel, which was not just meant to save us from hell, but also to transform us by the power of Christ to change the way we live and love in this age.
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Chapter 1
A MISSING PIECE
Buckle up—we are about to take you on a journey that has profoundly shifted our understanding of Scripture and, even more importantly, the trajectory of our spiritual lives. It just might for you, too.
What if you discovered that a mistranslated word in Scripture distorted its meaning for us today? And what if that one word was so significant that getting it right might alter not only the course of your life, but of Christianity itself?
We want to suggest to you that while the Reformation was a crucial step forward in freeing followers of Jesus from performance-based religion, the way it’s often misunderstood today may unintentionally obscure the best part of salvation—Jesus’s desire to transform us from within so we reflect his kingdom in this present age.
We reached these conclusions by very different routes. I (Wayne) arrived here relationally. More than thirty years ago, I encountered the Father’s love in a way that rewrote my spiritual story, especially after growing up in more legalistic environments. Tobie’s path was fueled by a hunger for authentic faith, guided by linguistic and theological insights that I had never considered.
When our lives intersected in late 2024, everything clicked. What Tobie shared explained how love had already been teaching me to live. Now I had Scriptural terminology for it. By resolving a mistranslation of a single English word in Scripture, I could finally see the map of the spiritual territory I’d wandered through for decades. The rich conversations that followed launched this collaboration—and ultimately this book.
If what we propose is true, it unifies Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, weaves salvation and the kingdom of God together, and clarifies what Jesus intended for our transformation. It doesn’t replace the Gospel I learned earlier—it completes it. Others throughout history have tried to call God’s people back to this simple, transformative reality, but the noise of cultural religion has often drowned out their voices.
So, we write in hopes that you’ll consider these things. Search the Scriptures to see if they hold up. If they do, you too can step into a fuller, more vibrant experience of the Gospel today.
When Something Doesn’t Add Up
Have you ever been in a situation where nothing seemed to make sense, only to learn later that it was because you didn’t have all the information?
I recently went through something similar in my marriage. Unbeknownst to either of us, my wife, Sara, had been sexually assaulted by family members between the ages of four and eight. Un- able to process her pain at such a young age—and having no one safe to confide in—her mind buried those memories deep within her. But in her fifties and sixties, a deep pain began to push its way to the surface. Erupting like a volcano, it manifested as complex PTSD and a deep self-loathing that pushed her toward suicidal thoughts. Unable to contain or explain her anguish to anyone, she hid it behind kindness and caretaking, fawning over everyone—including me—so no one would discover what a horrible person she thought herself to be.
During that time, our conversations made little sense to me. I sometimes thought she was being evasive, but my attempts to understand her only led to frustration for both of us. Caught in the torment of a trauma she did not remember, Sara said whatever she thought I needed to hear just to survive the moment. Eventually, the debilitating pain drove her to seek counseling, and she was told she must have been traumatized. Because she had no memories of her childhood abuse, the counselor wrongly concluded that she must be married to an abusive husband. She encouraged Sara to leave me, which she did while I was away on a twelve-day trip to the East Coast.
Imagine my shock when I got home to a letter sitting on the kitchen counter, saying that our marriage had been painful for her, and that she either had to take her life or leave me. Thankfully, she chose the latter, but the shock of her leaving devastated me. This wasn’t the woman I had been married to for forty-seven years. As far as I knew, our life had been wonderful, with minimal conflict. What was I missing?
It took five weeks and a change in counselors for us to find our way back to each other. That’s when Sara discovered that I had not been the source of her pain. The real “monster” came from a deep-seated trauma inflicted by her extended family decades earlier. I’ve since walked beside her as those memories have surfaced and as Jesus heals her heart and rewires her mind.
Discovering her childhood trauma was the missing piece we both needed. Once that came to light, we understood not only the pain she endured and why she coped with life the way she did, but also how even my most innocent actions could trigger her trauma. That insight is what we needed to walk into the future with increasing healing. Today, I get to stand by Sara as her husband, encourager, and confidant as she continues her courageous journey toward wholeness.
Over the past year, I’ve had a similar revelation in my theological journey. I have come across a missing piece in my understanding of salvation and the kingdom of God. Like discovering Sara’s trauma, this new insight illuminated not only my past and the struggles I’ve had with some aspects of Christianity, but it also gave me a renewed vision for what salvation was truly meant to be.
For years, I’ve wrestled with a troubling question: How could Christianity produce so many converts and so few deeply transformed lives? Too often, salvation is seen merely as a ticket to heaven, rather than the beginning of a new kind of life here. As a young pastor, I was discouraged by how many believers seemed to seek only the minimal commitment necessary to “stay saved.”
For two thousand years, we have been more preoccupied with fighting sin—and often each other—than learning to love our neighbors. Yet, Jesus said that the world would recognize us by our love. (John 13:34–35) Sadly, that’s not the testimony most people see. Dallas Willard described our approach to discipleship as the “Gospel of Sin Management”—a message that drives people to try harder, only to feel more shame when they fail. But that’s not the Gospel Jesus brought. It’s simply another form of the old performance-based religion he came to free us from.
What I’ve come to realize is this: There’s a vast difference between practicing a religion called Christianity and actually living in the life of Jesus. Somewhere along the way, I had missed a crucial piece of the Gospel.
*Tobie is a former pastor and holds a PhD in Higher Education. In addition to his work overseeing a private school in Bloemfontein, SA, he writes at JusticeofGod.com and answers questions on the Bible and spiritual matters at quora.com/profile/Tobie-28.
Love is not a commodity you can possess; it is a river of life, flowing from the Father in which he invites you to dwell.
It’s not just a doctrine to comfort the intellect, but a way of engaging God’s presence as you go about your day. Resting in his affection makes it easier for us to entertain his presence, and living in that flow of life will change you over time. Love will not only define how he engages you, but also how you treat others—all others, not just those who think as you do.
Those who seek to contain love in themselves will find that it will wither away like day-old manna. That’s why it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone—not because he needed a wife, per se—but because the love God poured into him needed a recipient to flow out to. God’s love is easy to preach or write about since nothing is truer in all the world than that God is love and that he deeply loves those he created. What I find troubling is that so many people who teach and write about love in the vertical sense are some of the worst practitioners when it comes to sharing that love with others. They treat others, even their own staff, with anger and impatience. They constantly push past other people to be noticed or to build a following. They can even ignore others being abused around them, because they only love certain types of people.
As you live in the love of the Father, you will notice that it cannot be apportioned out to people you like best. Love is love, and you can’t truly live in it without it changing you to be as aware of others as you are yourself. You don’t have to try to love; it becomes part of your being.
That’s why I’m so excited that this new book is finally finished. Just Love wasn’t even in my heart fifteen months ago. But through an intriguing email, I began a relationship with Tobie van der Westhuizen from South Africa, and out of that growing friendship, the idea for this book was born. His research into a mistaken translation in the Greek captured my heart because this was what love had been teaching me throughout the three previous decades. Now, I have biblical language to make sense of it and a better understanding of what Jesus accomplished to share his love with the world through people made just by their growing trust in him.
I’ve often said that He Loves Me is the most significant book I’ll ever write. If people only read one book of mine, that’s the one I would choose for them. It represents the most poignant shift in my spiritual journey—from trying to appease God so he would love me, to discovering that he already did. I didn’t have to wake up every day trying to be loved by God, but instead woke up as his beloved. That journey for me began over thirty years ago, and it continues to bear fruit in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I started. I want everyone to go on that journey.
However, in the last few years, when I would say it was the most significant book I’ll ever right, I’d feel a nudge inside saying, “So far.” I’d chuckle and dismiss it because I couldn’t think of anything on my radar screen of future writing that would come close. Now, I wonder where those words came from. Advanced readers of Just Love tell me that this is the most important book they’ve ever read, and I don’t disagree. While He Loves Me deals with our vertical connection to the Father through the Son, Just Love couldn’t be a more appropriate sequel. It is about how love flows through us to fulfill all that Jesus hoped for in demonstrating the glory of his kingdom amid the chaos of this age.
It is about God’s hope fulfilled in his justice, not by people performing better for him, but as the inevitable byproduct of people delighting in his love. How has Christendom missed this for so long? Because of an unfortunate mistranslation of a single word in the Scriptures took our focus off of God’s justice revealed in the world, and instead preoccupied us with sin management and personal piety. I can’t wait for you to read this book, not only how it will change your reading of Scripture to be more true to what the authors intended, but also because we outline this amazing process where love works out God’s life in us. This makes the connection between the Old Covenant law, salvation, transformation, and kingdom.
It has been an absolute delight to work with Tobie to coauthor this book, and I am excited to introduce you to him in this book and in future podcasts. I wholeheartedly embrace what he wrote in our dedication:
Whoever reads this book will soon realize it could not have been written by either of us alone. It is the shared witness of two lives who followed Christ on different continents for nearly a century between them. It reminds us that true community reaches beyond the limits of one mind or one lifetime. In these pages, two worlds merge—the world of reflection and the world of lived experience—and that meeting is no accident.
The publication date is March 3. In a few days, you’ll be able to pre-order the book on Amazon.com and have it delivered as soon as it drops. I’ll be sharing some of that content here in future blog posts, as well as the comments some of our advance readers made about this book.
Just Love completes beautifully what He Loves Me started over twenty-five years ago. I’m so glad this has come about, and can’t wait to hear what you think or take on some of your questions as you process this significant shift in our understanding of the work of salvation.
As Brad said in his endorsement above, the content of this book could really change everything.
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And a couple of announcements before I go.
We are updating our mailing list and have found a significant number that did not check “marketing permissions” when they signed up on our list. Yes, I know it’s crazy, but it’s a MailChimp issue. Even though you are signing up for a subscription to my blog or to The God Journey, you also need to check that box as their permission to send email on my behalf. I promise it wasn’t about including you in a lot of marketing emails. So, if you are not getting the email notices you signed up for, that may be why. Please go to your MailChimp account and update your preferences. (If you received this blog update in your email inbox, you’re all set.)
We are looking forward to what God might have in mind for this year. Of course, we’re open to being wrong, and he’s free to take us down whatever road will best serve him. So the most important part of this year may be something I don’t even see coming yet, like last year’s connection to the former 2x2s. With that in mind, here are a few of the things I’m excited about from my vantage point today:
First, we have a new book trailer for It’s Time: Letters to the Bride at the End of the Age, a book that I love discussing with people, as God shapes our hearts to be reflections of his glory in an ever-darkening world. Here it is.
If you’ve read the book and resonated with its message, feel free to share this video on your social media or in emails or texts with friends. Include a sentence or two about your own experience with the book. I am grateful for how this book is finding its way into the world and for those who help share its message.
Second, tomorrow, my latest book, Just Love, is going to the copyeditor and will hopefully be available later this winter. Written with Tobie van der Westhuizen from South Africa, this book offers a view of the Gospel that I wish I’d been taught when I was younger. By mistranslating a simple word in the Bible, our early translators distorted the Gospel by emphasizing personal piety over Jesus’s invitation to love others the way we are loved by him. The effects of that have been profound, and getting it right would change everything about how we see God and learn to live with him. We’ll have more on this soon.
Third, though I haven’t done much traveling in the last four years to walk with my wife through her trauma recovery, she is doing so much better now. That opens the door to take advantage of some of the opportunities Jesus is bringing my way. There will be three chances to hang out early this year if you’re near any of these locations:
Twin Cities, Minnesota – in late March or April. The date is still to be determined.
Finally, this past December, I was invited to a Zoom conversation with 2x2ers from all over the world. For those who would like to see it, that conversation was recorded and is available for online viewing: When the Ground Shifts Beneath Your Faith.
Just Love:
Chapter 1
