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June 8, 2024
Can We Trust the Bible?
June 10, 2024Many people look upon God with fear; they think of Him as severe and unforgiving. The devil has led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice – one who is a severe judge, a harsh, exacting creditor. Satan pictured the Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men, that He may visit judgements upon them.
It was to remove this dark shadow, by revealing to the world the infinite love of God, that Jesus came to live among men.
The Son of God came from heaven to make manifest the Father. The Bible says, ‘No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known’ (John 1:18), and ‘no one knows the Father except the Son’ (Matthew 11:27).
When one of the disciples made the request, ‘Show us the Father’, Jesus answered, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?’ (John 14:9).
In describing His earthly mission, Jesus said,
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18).
This was His work.
Jesus' work
Jesus went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by Satan. There were whole villages where there was not a moan of sickness in any house, for He had passed through them and healed all their sick.
Love, mercy, and compassion were revealed in every act of His life; His heart went out in tender sympathy to the children of men. He took man’s nature, that He might reach man’s wants. The poorest and humblest were not afraid to approach Him. Even little children were drawn to Him.
His life was one of self-denial and thoughtful care for others. Every soul was precious in His eyes. While He ever bore Himself with divine dignity, He bowed with the tenderest regard to every member of the family of God. In all men He saw fallen souls whom it was His mission to save.
Such is the character of Christ as revealed in His life. This is the character of God.
It was to redeem us that Jesus lived and suffered and died. God permitted His beloved Son, full of grace and truth, to come from a world of indescribable glory, to a world marred and blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow of death and the curse. He permitted Him to leave the bosom of His love, the adoration of the angels, to suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death.
Behold Him upon the cross!
The spotless Son of God took upon Himself the burden of sin. But this great sacrifice was not made in order to create in the Father’s heart a love for man, not to make Him willing to save. No, no!
‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son’ (John 3:16).
The Father loves us, not because of the great propitiation, but He provided the propitiation because He loves us. Christ was the medium through which He could pour out His infinite love upon a fallen world. ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself’
(2 Corinthians 5:19).
None but the Son of God could accomplish our redemption. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it manifest. Nothing less than the infinite sacrifice made by Christ on behalf of fallen man could express the Father’s love to lost humanity.
God gave Him not only to live among men, to bear their sins, and die their sacrifice. He gave Him to the fallen race. Christ was to identify Himself with the interests and needs of humanity. He who was one with God has linked Himself with the children of men by ties that are never to be broken.
Not ashamed to call us brothers
Jesus is ‘not ashamed to call them brethren’ (Hebrews 2:11); He is our Sacrifice, our Advocate, our Brother, bearing our human form before the Father’s throne, and through eternal ages one with the race He has redeemed – the Son of man.
The price paid for our redemption, the infinite sacrifice of our heavenly Father in giving His Son to die for us, should give us exalted conceptions of what we may become through Christ.
The apostle John beheld the Father’s love toward the perishing race, and was filled with adoration and reverence: ‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God’ (1 John 3:1). What a value this places upon man!
Through transgression the sons of man become subjects of Satan. Through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ the sons of Adam may become the sons of God. Connecting with Christ we become worthy of the name ‘sons of God’.
Such love is without a parallel. Children of the heavenly King! Precious promise! Theme for the most profound meditation! The matchless love of God for a world that did not love Him!
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