Rescued

When I was a child, I went to church with my parents and attended Sunday school every week. By the time I turned fourteen, there were no other kids my age in the church. The Sunday school supervisor decided that, since he was short of teachers, I could take on a class. So I found myself teaching a class of ten and eleven-year-olds.

It was daunting, but I enjoyed finding ways to bring the old familiar Bible stories to life. Then Easter came along, and I became aware that I really had no idea how Jesus dying on a cross had anything to do with me or the children I was teaching. 'Jesus died to save sinners'. It said so in the prayer book. I'd heard it every week. But what did it mean?

I was in my early twenties before I found the answer. While reading a Christian book, I discovered that Jesus willingly took on himself the sins of the whole world. On the cross, he paid the penalty for our rebellion and indifference to God. My sins were included. And because my sin had already been judged and the penalty paid by God himself, in Jesus, I could be at peace with him. I didn't have to earn my way to heaven (a task which I had already learned was impossible). That discovery became a precious moment. Not only did I have an answer, I also had a Saviour, a Rescuer.

Since then I have learned that the Bible gives many different answers to my question, 'What does "Jesus died for sinners" mean?' Jesus was the ransom, paid to set us free from our slavery to sin. Jesus took our sins to the grave and left them there when he was raised to life. Jesus, being sinless, overcame the power which death held over sinners. Satan threw everything he had at Jesus, and lost, so that he no longer has any claim over us.

Jesus became the new representative of humankind, replacing the old representative, Adam. Jesus was the sacrificial lamb, the true sacrifice which the Old Testament sacrifices had only mirrored. Jesus, by his supreme example of love for people and obedience to God, draws us to himself. Jesus conveys to us the lengths to which God would go to save us from the consequence of our rebellion towards him.

The Bible writers used these and other examples, drawn from human experience, to explain how Jesus' death could save sinners. They are all helpful and true. And yet in the end, salvation is still something which is beyond our full comprehension. It is too marvellous for words. All that we can do is accept it from God with wonder and gratitude.

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

The grace

"May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Corinthians 13:14)

I once attended a church where the minister would bow his head and intone "The grace of our Lord..." when anyone walked in late, as if the service was about to end. His congregation soon learned to turn up on time! Sometimes the words do seem barely more than a pious version of "See you later".

Yet surely Paul didn't mindlessly scribble the words down as a way of ending his letter to the church in Corinth. He wanted the Corinthians to understand that his apparent harshness with them in his previous letter was not meant to bolster his weak authority, but to build them up and make them more Christ-like. He was deeply hurt by their attitude towards him, and the way they were comparing him to the more charismatic "super apostles".

He made no apology for having disciplined them, but he longed for them to demonstrate that they loved him as he loved them, by living as he had taught them. Rather than concluding simply with "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you", as he did in many of his other letters, he added an even greater blessing, one which we can all use.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: God doesn't offer us a life free from weakness and hardship, but grace to demonstrate His power in our lives. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (1 Cor 12:9). It is the same grace which took Jesus through the weakness of death on the cross to the power of the resurrection and victory over sin.

The love of God: In his previous letter Paul had tried to convince the Corinthian Christians that no matter how important the gifts of the Spirit are to the life of the church, they are useless without love (1 Cor. 13). Now he prays that they will experience the source of that love, God himself.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit: Twice in this letter, Paul refers to the Holy Spirit being given to us as a guarantee of our salvation and future resurrection (1 Cor 1:22, 5:5). To experience the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is to know the assurance of our place in God's kingdom. Our relationship to other Christians then becomes something more than just human fellowship. We are bound to each other by a bond stronger than common beliefs or even family relationship - the presence of the Holy Spirit within us.

What does it mean to trust God?

Trust is important in any relationship. But there are two levels of trust. The first involves our expectation that the other person will do us good rather than harm and will carry out what they say they will do. Over time we learn whether or not to believe the things they promise.

The second, deeper, level of trust involves our sense of safety when we are with them, and our willingness to reveal ourselves to them. We all long to be known deeply by someone. Yet life teaches us to be wary of exposing our real selves to anyone, in case they use that knowledge to harm us. It takes a great deal of trust to reveal our most intimate selves to another.

Our relationship with God involves both types of trust. As we step out tentatively in faith, we learn through experience that God will do what he has promised. He has our best interest in mind. Sometimes we go through painful experiences which seem to make no sense. Only in retrospect do we see how God was working for good. Such experiences help our tentative faith to grow into a deeper trust in God's goodness.

But trusting God also means trusting that he is safe to be with. It means being sure that if we approach him, he won't overwhelm us. If we reveal our true selves to him, he won't turn on us in anger, or disapproval, or scorn.

Almost the first thing we learn about God is that he knows our every thought, word and deed (Ps 139). That could be frightening to know. Yet our assurance as Christians rests on the fact that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Rom 8.1). God knows all there is to know about us, and yet he loves and accepts us.

But how well do we know this? I suspect that most of us cope with the idea of God knowing us intimately either by reducing God to something less than he really is, or by attempting to hide certain parts of ourselves from his gaze. The more we learn of the awesomeness of God, the less inclined we feel to be known by him. That is, until we really come to believe, with our hearts as well as our minds, that he is to be trusted. Being fully known by God then becomes a source of joy and strength rather than a fearful thing.

Image by Bob Marjawar from Pixabay  This article originally appeared on "One Candle", my former website. It may be copied (without alteration) for non-commercial use, but please acknowledge its source.