Friday, June 12, 2015
2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
BLESSED IN CHRIST JESUS
If someone sends someone else to do a job, and that person doesn't do it, then you might as well not have sent anyone. Had the Father sent His Son into the world, only to have His Son leave the salvation of sinners incomplete, then the Son might just as well have stayed in heaven.
Christ did not come into the world so that He could hang out with sinners. He wasn't on vacation or on a fact-finding mission. He knew the facts. Without a Savior, sinful man would, without exception, be lost to eternal punishment. Even as the specific work of the Father is creation and preservation, Christ Jesus' specific work is the redemption of sinners. The Father and the Spirit also are involved in this work, but it is Christ Jesus who carried out the work necessary to accomplish our redemption. He paid the price necessary to buy us back from sin and punishment. He "loved us and gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2).
So it is that our Savior assures us that, "My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34). Willingly, Christ "made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:7f). In His life and His death, Christ Jesus was doing the will of His Father and accomplishing our redemption. He kept the Law in our place throughout His life. And, in His death, He paid not only for original sin, but for every single time that we have transgressed, or ever will transgress, the Law of God.
Having died on the cross, Christ made the full payment for the sins of all people. The work was finished. The apostle tells us that, "If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). But, when Christ said to His Father, "I have finished the work which You have given Me to do" (John 17:4), He meant it. For the apostle continues, "But now Christ is risen from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:20). When Jesus cried out that His work was finished, sin had, in fact, been paid for. God and man were reconciled, so that there is now peace between God and man in Christ Jesus. Christ came to live and die among us so that God would be with us, that we might actually become the children of God through faith in Christ.
