A placebo is anything that seems to be a real medical treatment but isn’t. It could be a pill, a shot, or any other type of fake treatment. What all placebos have in common is that they do not contain an active substance meant to affect health. They have no therapeutic effect but are sometimes used as a control in testing new drugs or are designed merely to calm and appease someone’s desire for treatment.
Although there is no chemical reason for placebo treatment to be effective there is seemingly irrefutable evidence that these counterfeits do produce some positive results. The cause of this improvement cannot be placed on the substance itself, but on the human body’s incredible ability to heal itself. A disease that the human body is incapable of improving will never be affected by a placebo.
The Real Disease
Sin is a disease that has spread throughout the world and through the ages. It’s a disease that if left untreated leads only to pain, hopelessness, and eventual death. The body has no ability to cure this disease on its own. There have been many attempts, but none successful. That means that no placebo will do the trick. It is a problem that requires the real thing. Real faith in the real Jesus saves, nothing else does. The problem is that people have settled for a false treatment of their own creation. They pacify their desperate need for a savior with a counterfeit solution. Many in our culture accept a placebo version of Christianity that has no real power and provides no real answers.
Acts 16:30-31 “What must I do to be saved?” So they said,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved”
Placebos seem innocent enough. A sugar pill causes no real harm, but a counterfeit treatment will do more harm than good if it pacifies the patient with a false solution rather than leave them searching for the true cure. This is doubly true in the spiritual realm. Placebo Christianity can only placate, it can never cure.
The Religious Placebo
The Bible has a lot to say about what real faith entails. This is because there are so many false variations out there intent on pacifying us with a false version of Christianity that has been created by our culture or our own minds, not the word of God. People feel secure because of the religious games that they play. They alleviate their guilty conscience by saying the right words. They appease the unshakeable knowledge that something is not right by trying to fulfill religious obligations.
We know that going to church doesn’t save us. No amount of service or tithing to the church fixes anything. Nothing that we do on our own power provides any kind of salvation. But how often do you allow those things to be seen as the solution when it is only acting as a placebo in your life? But sin isn’t cured by the placebo of adherence to an empty and lifeless religion, it is only cured by Christ.
The Real Medicine
Why is it that we are prone to turn to placebos when Christ is readily holding out the real thing? Placebos are pleasant and agreeable. They are usually low cost and painless. Medicine can be costly, hard to swallow, and accompanied by all kinds of difficult side effects. Real faith, that can cost you everything. It will undoubtedly have side effects that come along with it. There will be trials, persecution, hard work, and discipline. The fact is if there are no side effects, it’s likely you haven’t taken the real treatment. The only treatment that provides a real cure is prescribed by Gods word and it comes with guaranteed side effects such as love (John 13:35) obedience (John 14:15) good works (James 2:17)
Placebos are cheap and easy but they don’t work. The danger with placebos is that they can look like the real thing. So much so that we trick ourselves into settling for a “cure” that is no cure at all. Don’t settle for anything less than the real thing.