The subject of the verses above is Saul, who would later be known as the apostle Paul. For a time he was the embodiment of Jesus’ warning that many would persecute and even kill His disciples and think that they were doing a favor for God. Saul thought he was keeping the law and thought he was helping God with His plan of sending a Messiah. But in rejecting the Messiah when He did come, Saul was no longer righteous before God. The risen Lord Himself had to come to reinstate Him.
You and I have also been blessed with reinstatement into the household of the Father through Christ’s resurrection. Actually, perhaps reinstatement isn’t the right word. Born in sin, we never had a seat at the Father’s table until the Holy Spirit brought us into the Father’s house at our baptism.
Though we still sin daily, Christ’s resurrection blesses us with the opportunity to remember our baptism and how our sins were washed away in Jesus’ blood. With the words of absolution comes reinstatement into the household of God.
God graciously provides us with examples of others being reinstated. Paul, the chief of sinners, was reinstated to be an apostle. Moses, the murderer, was reinstated to lead God’s people. Peter, who denied Christ hours before His death, was reinstated by the resurrected Christ to feed His lambs.
All these examples show that there is reinstatement for us as well. Let us not hide from God’s Word. Let us not worry about showing up to church and having people wonder, “Is this not he who . . . ?” Let us run to the Gospel of reinstatement through Christ confident that, no matter what we have done, Jesus died to wash it away. |
