The Word That Shows and the Word That Washes
On Jonathan A. Linebaugh’s “The Well That Washes What It Shows.”
A version of this article originally appeared on 1517.
If anecdotal data is to be believed, and I have no reason to believe that it shouldn’t be, then the most pressing need in the church today is biblical literacy. Actual data corroborates this supposition, with twenty percent of evangelicals agreeing with the statement that “modern science disproves the Bible,” and another twenty-three percent affirming that Scripture “contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.” Confronted with a book that is comprised of over sixty smaller books that introduce countless characters, customs, and places over the course of vast swaths of ancient history that seem even more foreign than that, it’s no wonder that the modern churchgoer feels daunted by the Bible to the point of setting it aside. Though no one’s likely to admit that they’re setting it aside for good, there’s a reason why the majority of New Year’s Resolutions among Christians always involve more consistent Bible reading. Each year, believers consent to embark on a new quest to understand Scripture, only to be derailed right around the time they flip the page to Leviticus or Numbers. The deluge of laws, locations, and regulations exacerbates the gap between the reader and what’s on the page, leaving the student of the Word at a loss, searching for answers yet again.
It’s into this predicament that the learned scholar, historian, and theologian Jonathan A. Linebaugh speaks with his new book, The Well That Washes What It Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture.1 Linebaugh’s expertise in explaining both the historical and theological contexts of Scripture, especially the epistles of Paul, shines as he introduces the Word of God to clergy and laity alike, offering each a compact, albeit clarifying, method for understanding its divine intent. The ministry of the Word isn’t one of moralistic enhancement, ethical enrichment, or behavioral modification. As well-intended as many of these outcomes are, the purpose and function of the Word is deeper, more elemental. Rather than resort to it as some sort of ladder by which and through which one’s religious scruples are either affirmed or sharpened, Linebaugh suggests that God’s Word is “a well that shows, surfacing and honestly seeing the weariness, pain, confusion, and fear of life.”2 And yet, that’s only the half of it, since the mirror-like water of this well not only exposes our need, but also washes us from head to toe in righteousness.
In that regard, Linebaugh’s title is his thesis, one to which he frequently resorts and more than adequately enlarges upon. Like the refrain of your favorite song that never wears out despite being put on endless repeat, “the well that washes what it shows” captures the essence of Linebaugh’s project, which, theologically speaking, aims to give the paradigmatic law-gospel hermeneutic a colloquial and visual language. This, to be sure, is downstream of the grammar of Scripture, which wounds and heals, breaks down and builds up, and kills and makes alive (1 Sam. 2:6; Jer. 1:10; Hosea 6:1). To read the words that have been “breathed out by God” isn’t akin to reading a historical textbook or ecclesiastical tome (2 Tim. 3:16). Rather, it’s a living and active invitation to receive the devastating diagnosis of sin and need, and to be given the only hope of deliverance from that sin and need through the crucified and risen Lord (Heb. 1:1–2; 4:12). “Holy Scripture,” Linebaugh succinctly says, “is God speaking and revealing God to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.”3
Accordingly, the Bible is no mere static deposit of doctrine; it’s a dynamic encounter with the God who gives his very self, in the person of his Son, to deliver and redeem those who are in need (Gal. 1:4). This concurs with the construal of Scripture that crescendoed during the Protestant movement of the 1500s, which compellingly concluded that the Word wasn’t merely preserved to tell the church about Christ, but to actually give Christ to the church. The tenor of biblical investigation, as well as proclamation, is a word that does what it says to those reading or listening in and through the person of Jesus. “God’s word,” writes Linebaugh, “both uncovers and understands suffering and need even as it wipes away every tear, forgives, and forever loves.”4 Thus, the shape of Scripture is decidedly Christological, an assertion that is less a composite of human ingenuity and more a confession of God’s redemptive activity in space and time. At the center of the Word, therefore, is the one who is the embodied finality of our reconciliation with God the Father.
Throughout, Linebaugh traces the contours of this divine activity as it is revealed in Scripture. It is a noteworthy feat that he has managed to survey the biblical corpus so clearly and concisely without digressing or losing the thread that ties it all together. The Well That Washes What It Shows is divvied up into four sections, covering the shadow and substance of God’s reconciliatory work in the Old and New Testaments, respectively, before giving a closer examination of this message within Pauline epistles in part three and offering a word to ministers who are responsible for proclaiming this message in part four. Regardless of context, whether ancient Israel, first-century Galilee, or twenty-first-century America, Christian hope hinges on one decisive question — namely, which is stronger, disobedience and death or God’s grace and promise? When asked by patriarchs, prophets, and preachers alike, the divine response is the same: where sin increases, grace abounds all the more. After all, as Linebaugh puts it, “the God who, into the darkness, said, ‘Let there be light,’ is also and always the God who, at the site of barrenness and death, says, ‘Let there be life.’”5
Readers hoping for pragmatic guidance may wish for more exegetical scaffolding, but the appeal of The Well That Washes What It Shows is its refusal to devolve into a hermeneutical handbook. As the subtitle makes clear, this isn’t a method so much as it is an invitation. Through words that are poetic but never prosaic, Linebaugh demonstrates that reading Scripture ought not to leave us dismayed, since the defeated and demoralized are shown what the Scriptures are eager to reveal: the cross. It’s there that we see the apotheosis of sin and need subsumed by the battered and bruised Word who took on flesh for us. As the Father’s “steadfast love and faithfulness” converge in the Crucified One (Ps. 85:10), the nail-scarred hands serve as signposts to the well that show us what our sins are owed even as they bleed out the life-giving flow that washes us whiter than snow. And in this ministry of cleansing, Linebaugh gestures to the one whose blood “speaks a better word” (Heb. 12:24) — not one of law only, but of law and gospel; not one of death alone, but of death and resurrection. Thus, at this well that runs red with blood, sinners are given consolation, confidence, and a chorus to sing throughout eternity in the gift of God’s own Son.
The title, as Linebaugh explains in the introduction, is owed to a line from George Herbert’s “Holy Scripture I.”
Jonathan A. Linebaugh, The Well That Washes What It Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2025), 1–2.
Linebaugh, 10.
Linebaugh, 170.
Linebaugh, 26.