The Conquering Christ
She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus--God Saves--because he will save his people from their sins. Matt. 1:21, Message.
In spite of yesterday's reading, in one sense Jesus did act as a conquering king. He would "save his people from their sins." Here we must understand the word "sins" not only in terms of their guilt and penalty but also their power and consequences.
In other words, Jesus would not save people in their sins, but from them. A prominent function of Christ's ministry was to liberate His people from the imperialism of their personal sins, from the control of sin over their daily actions.
That liberation takes place at three levels. Frist, through His sinless life and His death on the cross, Jesus rescues His people from the penalty of sin. The Desire of Ages puts it nicely when it notes that "Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. 'With His stripes we are healed. " (p. 25).
Second, Jesus delivers His people, as we noted above, from the power of sin over their lives. And He provides them with the gift of the Holy Spirit to achieve that task.
Third, Jesus will eventually save His people from the presence of sin when He returns in the clouds of heaven to give them their eternal reward. All three of those "salvations" from sin are evident in the Gospels. Truly, Matthew's revolutionary Son of David/Messiah is a conquering king who will "save his people from their sins."
And His people includes you and me today. God not only wants to save me (each of us) from condemnation, but He desires to transform (Rom. 12:2) my life so that I might be more like Him day by day. There is power (the Greek is dynamis from which we get "dynamite" in English) in the gospel (Rom. 1:16) for me each and every day. Jesus wants each of us to take hold of that power right now.
Thank You, Father, for the gift of salvation through Jesus. Help me right now as I grasp Your saving power in a fuller way.
She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus--God Saves--because he will save his people from their sins. Matt. 1:21, Message.
In spite of yesterday's reading, in one sense Jesus did act as a conquering king. He would "save his people from their sins." Here we must understand the word "sins" not only in terms of their guilt and penalty but also their power and consequences.
In other words, Jesus would not save people in their sins, but from them. A prominent function of Christ's ministry was to liberate His people from the imperialism of their personal sins, from the control of sin over their daily actions.
That liberation takes place at three levels. Frist, through His sinless life and His death on the cross, Jesus rescues His people from the penalty of sin. The Desire of Ages puts it nicely when it notes that "Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. 'With His stripes we are healed. " (p. 25).
Second, Jesus delivers His people, as we noted above, from the power of sin over their lives. And He provides them with the gift of the Holy Spirit to achieve that task.
Third, Jesus will eventually save His people from the presence of sin when He returns in the clouds of heaven to give them their eternal reward. All three of those "salvations" from sin are evident in the Gospels. Truly, Matthew's revolutionary Son of David/Messiah is a conquering king who will "save his people from their sins."
And His people includes you and me today. God not only wants to save me (each of us) from condemnation, but He desires to transform (Rom. 12:2) my life so that I might be more like Him day by day. There is power (the Greek is dynamis from which we get "dynamite" in English) in the gospel (Rom. 1:16) for me each and every day. Jesus wants each of us to take hold of that power right now.
Thank You, Father, for the gift of salvation through Jesus. Help me right now as I grasp Your saving power in a fuller way.
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