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Jesus as Savior My Strength and My Redeemer Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my
heart, be acceptable Tim Alexander In the days of Moses, when giving the details of the construction of the tabernacle, God set the value of each man’s life. Each man twenty years of age or over was to pay half a shekel as “a ransom for his soul” unto the LORD. Rich and poor alike, all men paid half a shekel “to make an atonement” for their souls (Exodus 30:11-16). To our minds it may seem that each man’s life would be worth much more than the few cents represented by this price, but God was establishing a principle. God was demonstrating two things: First, that the value of one man’s life is equivalent to that of another man’s life. Second, that atonement with God can be achieved by paying that price which corresponds to the value of one life. Centuries later, in Jesus’ day, tribute collectors were employed to encourage the payment of this same temple tax. In Matthew 17:24, as Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of this tax approached Peter in the street and asked him, “Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?” (NASB) Peter, with characteristic haste, answered, “Yes.” Had Peter looked to Jesus before responding, his reply might have been different. Upon entering the house, Jesus, having perceived Peter’s interaction with the tax collectors, anticipated the matter in Peter’s heart. “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?” When Peter said, “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt” (verses 25,26, NASB). Jesus was saying, “If the children of the king are free and if God really were the King of this temple, I would be exempt from this tax because I am God’s son.” By this beautifully simple demonstration, Jesus was clearly saying that he himself, the Son of God, did not need to pay a ransom for his own soul. Jesus was sinless and had no need to make atonement for himself with God. Nevertheless, Jesus continued and said to Peter, “lest we should offend them,” take the coin you will find in the mouth of a fish you will catch and pay the temple tax for me and for thee. Jesus was signifying that he, with his sinless life, would voluntarily pay what he did not owe for those who did owe what they could not pay. It was a subtle yet striking foreshadow of the great ransom price spoken of in 1 Timothy 2:5,6: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” The Greek word rendered ransom is antilutron, which means a redemption price whose value corresponds to that which it is purchasing. Jesus was offering his perfect human life to pay for Adam’s no-longer-perfect human life. When Adam sinned, he lost not only his own human life, but also the lives of all of his children; therefore, when Jesus paid this ransom price, he bought not only Adam’s human life, but also the lives of all of Adam’s children. At Calvary, Jesus therefore bought the lives of the whole human race. In Hebrews 2:16, Paul tells us it was essential that Jesus be a human man to pay the ransom. “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” And in Hebrews 10:4,5, we see that God specifically prepared Jesus a human body for the purpose of coming to earth and paying the ransom price because the typical sacrifices of the Old Testament were merely pictures. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he [Jesus] cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou [God] wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” And that perfect human body, Jesus’ perfect human life, is what constituted the corresponding price for Adam and all of Adam’s race. Jesus and Barabbas On the last day of Jesus’ human life, standing before Pilate, Jesus uttered few words; yet still, his message was clear and evident. In front of the governor in a place that implied justice, Jesus stood quietly with the calm dignity and serenity that distinguishes a perfect man. Pilate, according to his custom, offered to release the prisoner Jesus to them coincident with the Passover time, but the people chose the murderer Barabbas instead. As this transaction was carried out, what began as a convenient attempt by Pilate to appease an angry crowd ended up as an enduring portrait of the ransom work of Jesus Christ. Barabbas’ name means “Son of the Father.” Jesus was a perfect son of his father, God. The only other originally perfect human son of the father, God, was Adam. So by the act of the innocent Jesus going into the prison house (death), the guilty Barabbas (Adam) was released from that same prison house. Throughout his life, Jesus spoke like no other man ever had, with authority, with power and with grace; and here we see a beautiful example of just such “speech,” even though Jesus uttered almost no words at all. A Sword Piercing Mary’s Soul A few hours later, at Calvary, as Jesus hung on the cross, Mary, his mother, stood by, witnessing an event that no mother ever should have to see, her own son dying in agony. That cross, as it stood atop the hill of Golgotha, evoked the image of the hilt of a large sword piercing the earth; and Mary’s mind may well have been taken back to the words of the devout prophet Simeon when he said: “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also” (Luke 2:35). Those fearful words certainly came to pass, and Mary’s heart was broken, surrounded and enveloped by nearly inhuman grief. As that impossible sorrow descended upon Jesus’ mother’s heart, a parallel sorrowfulness settled in upon Jesus’ Father’s heart also. God keenly felt the pain of watching his only begotten son being sacrificed for the life of the world. God was fulfilling the picture that he asked faithful Abraham to illustrate thousands of years before in the sacrifice of his son Isaac. As complete and universal as Jesus’ ransom sacrifice was, it is still only half his work as the Redeemer. The whole purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was to reconcile all mankind to their creator, God. The first part of Jesus’ redemptive work was the ransom, but the final part of this grand work will be the restitution of all things. A Restorative Work To accomplish such a great restorative work for the whole world of mankind, Jesus, during his human life, was carefully prepared by God. God allowed Jesus’ discipline and loyalty to be proven by suffering. The apostle Paul wrote: “Though he [Jesus] were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Jesus was being prepared to be a high priest for all the people, a high priest who would recognize and identify with the difficulty the world would encounter trying to learn righteousness. Paul also tells us: “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus, while on earth, was observing firsthand the frailty of sinful human life, our weaknesses, our fragile nature, our failing. This firsthand experience is what qualifies him to fulfill the final part of his role as Redeemer. Jesus was being trained to be exactly the kind of counselor and guide the world of mankind will need while walking up the highway of holiness after their resurrection. Isaiah promises there will be a highway that will lead toward a condition of human holiness and that, though a man may be “unclean” as he begins his journey on this highway, he will gradually become clean as he passes “over” it (Isaiah 35:8). This promise of restitution of all things is the main message and the fundamental fulfillment of all the promises God gave from the beginning of recorded history. Acts 3:21 describes the “restitution of all things” as something “which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Every one of the holy prophets suffered greatly to deliver God’s message; and the message they faithfully delivered is that the whole world of mankind, everyone who has ever died because of Adam’s sin, will be raised to life again and given the opportunity to learn righteousness. This will occur in an environment where disobedience will not be allowed, and justice and mercy and humility will be appreciated and rewarded by a mediator whose skill and loving interest will encourage each of God’s human children on toward a condition of perfect human life on earth. In Isaiah we read: “When thy [God’s] judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). That is truly a beautiful promise. The judgment day for the world will not be a time of blanket condemnation, but will be a time when the whole world will be instructed in righteousness and will learn to live in harmony with the perfect will of their Creator, God. All of this is possible only through the work of the Great Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Healing a Demoniac Mark 9:17-27 describes a wonderful miracle related to our subject. From a young age, a man’s son, whom he loved, had been possessed by a demon. The brokenhearted father brought his son to Jesus to be cured, because the disciples could not cast out this demon. The father told Jesus that the demon had, time after time, tormented the boy, casting him into water or into fire to destroy him. The father was heartsick. Even when the boy was brought to Jesus, the demon cast the boy down to the ground, wallowing and foaming. Every tender heart was crushed, witnessing this tragedy. Every ounce of human kindness longed for a time when the boy would be freed from this terrible curse, but only Jesus could do it. With desire in his heart to help the father, and with compassion in his heart to restore the child, Jesus offered the only solution, which was faith in him. Jesus commanded the demon to leave the child, saying, “Come out of him and enter no more into him.” As the demon departed, he cruelly extracted every last shred of suffering he could from the boy. When the demon was finally gone, the boy was left, lying on the ground, “as one dead.” When even the spectators were confident that the poor boy was actually dead, Jesus “took him by the hand, and lifted him up,” and the boy arose and was reunited with his father. This miracle is a striking picture of the work of Jesus as the Redeemer. The boy illustrates the world of mankind which, like Adam, was born healthy and only later came under the curse of the demon, Satan. Like the boy, the world of mankind will be nearly destroyed by Satan’s attempts, first by water and then by fire, a fitting illustration of the end of the first and second dispensations. Jesus not only commanded Satan to come out of the human race, but also will forever prevent him from re-entering their lives. Like the boy, the human race will be left almost completely lifeless; Jesus, the Redeemer will lift the whole race by their hands, restore them to a standing position, and present them back to their father, God. What a beautiful picture this is of the redemptive work of Jesus. From the very beginning when the Logos said, “Here am I, send me,” to the very end when tears are wiped away from all eyes, Jesus will have remained the faithful servant of God, the Redeemer of the world of mankind. Because of that great work, every one of us can eagerly look forward to the time when “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). |