(continuation of
Meditation 110)
“God put into effect a different plan to save us...” (Romans
8:3*)
We finished our last meditation with the following questions:
-- If God’s Law of love is holy, perfect, eternal and unchangeable, and
I am unable to fulfil its requirements because of my sinfulness, how could I
ever escape God’s anger and judgment?
-- How could I ever get right with God?
-- Could God compromise His own Law to save me?
Here we arrive at the heart of the Gospel message and the stakes are
high! We read in Meditation 110 that God’s Law of love is holy, perfect,
eternal and unchangeable, but what about God Himself?
The Holy Scriptures speak a lot about God’s character. Here are some
examples:
God is love:
In Exodus we read how
God revealed Himself to Moses (ca. 13th century B.C.), saying: “I
am the LORD, I am the LORD, the merciful and gracious God. I am I am slow to
anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6*)
King David (10th
century BC) repeats these words of God’s self-revelation to Moses in Psalm
86:15*: “You, O Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to get angry, full
of unfailing love and truth.” (Psalm 86:15*)
The prophet Jonah (8th
century B.C.) reproaches God for
being merciful to the repenting town of Nineveh, thereby quoting the words of God's self-revelation to Moses. He complains: “Didn't I say
before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to
Tarshish! I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get
angry and filled with unfailing love. I knew how easily you could cancel
your plans for destroying these people.” (Jonah 4:2*)
The prophet Joel
(probably 6th century B.C.) urges God’s people to repent. He also quotes
the words of God to Moses: “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to
the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding
in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” (Joel 2:13*)
In a prayer of national confession after returning from 70 years of
captivity in Babylon (5th century B.C.), the people of Israel
acknowledged what God had revealed about Himself to Moses: “You are a God of
forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and full of
unfailing love and mercy.” (Nehemiah 9:17*)
The evangelist John points to God’s love when he writes: “God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in
him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16*)
The apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: “God showed his
great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still
sinners.” (Romans 5:8*)
The apostle John explains to us: “This is real love. It is not that
we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to
take away our sins.” (1 John 4:10*)
God is holy:
When the Bible speaks of God’s holiness, it wants to describe His divine
and perfect love, grace, His mercy, purity and righteousness in contrast to our
unholy and sinful human condition. It is His holiness that characterises Him as God.
After the liberation from bondage in Egypt (ca. 13th century
B.C.), God revealed Himself to His people Israel as the holy God: “I, the
LORD, am the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God. You
must therefore be holy because I am holy. (Leviticus 11:45*)
The Palms of Asaph (10th century B.C.) praise God's actions,
saying: “O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as
you?” (Psalm 77:13*)
The prophet Isaiah (8th century B.C.) proclaims: “The LORD
Almighty is exalted by his justice. The holiness of God is displayed by his
righteousness.” (Isaiah 5:16*)
God points to His own divine character when He says by mouth of the prophet Hosea (8th
century B.C.) to His people Israel: “I am God and not a mere mortal. I am the
Holy One living among you...” (Hosea 11:9*)
Regarding God’
holiness, the prophet Habakkuk (7th century B.C.) acknowledges: “Your
eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” (Habakkuk
1:13**)
The apostle Peter writes to the Christian community in some regions of
modern Turkey: “You must be holy in everything you do, just as God-- who
chose you to be his children-- is holy. For he himself has said, "You must
be holy because I am holy (see Leviticus 11:45*).” (1 Peter 1:15-16*)
God is righteous:
King David proclaims: “The LORD is righteous, and he
loves justice.” (Psalm 11:7*)
Daniel, a Jewish statesman in the court of Babylon (6th
century B.C.), confesses in a prominent prayer of penitence: “The LORD did
not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the LORD our God is
righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him.” (Daniel
9:14**)
Ezra was probably a kind of Secretary of State for Jewish affairs in the
Persian kingdom (5th century B.C.). He prayed to the Lord another
well-known prayer of penitence: “O LORD, God of Israel, you are
righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our
guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.” (Ezra
9:15**)
It is clear from these quotations and many other biblical passages that
God is love and He is righteous and holy. That means practically that
He loves us dearly and wants to save us from our sins and from His righteous judgment following
our disobedience to His Law of love. Yet, how could He ever save us without
compromising His own righteousness and holiness, and His righteous and holy Law?
He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except
that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin's control over us by giving his Son as
a sacrifice for our sins. ( Romans 8:3*)
The answer we find in the fact that God is a Triune God! Sinful man
cannot save humanity from its own sinfulness, but God can! That’s why God the
Father sent His own divine and sinless Son into our sinful world to die as a
guilt offering, taking upon Himself the sin, the blame, the punishment and the
judgment of our entire humanity.
The apostle Paul explains
this to the Christians in the Greek town of Philippi: “Though he (Jesus
Christ) was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself
nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And
in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's
death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-11*)
Paul shows that Jesus, in His life and death, obeyed and
fulfilled God’s righteous and holy Law completely! Therefore, “Christ has
accomplished the whole purpose of the Law. All who believe in him are made
right with God.” (Romans 10:4*)
The apostle Peter says it in this way: “Christ died for sins once for
all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (1 Peter 3:18**)
This is the
greatest display of love in human history and the heart of the Gospel message:
our Triune God sacrifices Himself to save humanity from its sinful disobedience
to His holy Law and from His righteous anger and judgment.
To be truly saved from our sinfulness and God’s righteous judgment, He ‘only’
asks us to trust and believe Him when He says that the death of Jesus, His divine Son, is enough to reconcile
us completely and eternally with Himself! There is nothing more we need to do!
(to be continued)
Translations: * New Living Translation; ** New International
Version
For more on ‘salvation’ see Meditations 19 to 26.
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