April 2004 Meditation
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Tim. 1:15)
This month, Christians around the world will commemorate both the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as the text tells us, came into the world to save sinners. In the previous meditation, we considered how Christ Jesus, as the divinely appointed Substitute for sinners, endured His Father's wrath toward sin and payed the penalty for sin in full.
Had this, however, been the end of the story, we would have never known whether God was truly pleased with the sacrifice of His Son. In fact, had Jesus only died on the cross without ever becoming alive again on Easter morning, He truly would have died in vain and would not have accomplished the objective of saving sinners. But thanks be to God, this is not the end of the story! In two dramatic ways God demonstrated that He was fully satisfied with the bloody sacrifice of His beloved Son.
First, no sooner had Jesus died after having cried out victoriously that His work was finished, or a most remarkable thing happened in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. While the priests were engaged in the daily ritual of performing the evening sacrifice, the thick and heavy veil that separated the two chambers of the sanctuary, was rent in two from the top to the bottom by invisible hands. This meant nothing less than that the way into the presence of God had been opened! No doubt the priests witnessed this in stunned silence, for the inner chamber of the sanctuary, the symbolic dwelling place of God, had not been accessible for several thousand years. By way of the heavy veil that barred the way of entrance in His presence, God wanted to teach the people of Israel that because of sin they could not come into His presence.
However, now that Jesus had given Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin, God could freely rend this veil with His mighty hands to indicate that He was now willing and ready to receive sinners into His presence and to pardon their sins fully.
Yet God did more! He secondly and most importantly raised His Son from death on the Sunday following the Friday on which Jesus had died. This was God's ultimate stamp of approval upon what Christ Jesus had accomplished on the cross. The life He had forfeited as the Substitute of sinners, He now received again. Now that the penalty for sin had been paid in full, He could live again.
The wonderful truth, however, is that just as Jesus died on behalf of sinners, He also arose on behalf of sinners, thereby guaranteeing that all those sinners for whom He died would receive the gift of eternal life. And thus by His death and resurrection, Jesus accomplished exactly what sinners like you and me need to be saved: He paid the penalty for sin, conquered death and the grave, removed the separation between God and man, and merited the right to eternal life. The blessed result of all this is that sinners can now be saved, that is, they can be fully forgiven, be reconciled with God, and become the recipients of His love and favor.
Perhaps you ask, “How can such great blessings also be mine? What must I do to be saved?” The straightforward answer of the Bible is this: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” (Acts 16:31). Next month I will explain what exactly is meant by those words.
Pastor B. Elshout
