Before He was born, it was announced that Jesus was to be our saviour (Matthew 1:21). Thank God for that! We didn’t need a new teacher or even a new rule maker, we needed a saviour.
So how did Jesus save us?
He saved us by leaving heaven, becoming our substitute and pouring out His saving blood for us. He alone is our hope.
The gospel is history … His story. He is centre stage. The gospel is the story of the One who came, lived, died, was buried and rose again from the dead! We are now, justified, (declared not guilty), not by doing something, but by receiving, by faith, that which He has already done.
It was God Himself, who in the strength of His own compassion, left His eternal throne and came down to become one of us. He came down to our sorrow, heartache, pain, and sin until at last He became our wounded and slaughtered substitute at the cross. (Mark 10:33-34). He alone is our hope.
Has the Christ event become personal to you? Have you, by faith, received His saving work for yourself?
He descended and came alongside us. He didn’t stand in heaven and say, “Come up here.” No indeed, in grace He came down to seek and to save that which was lost.
Just to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance (2 Peter 3:1), all religions boil down to one of two words, ‘Do’ or ‘Done’. In fact, there are only two religions in the world and one of them is, strictly speaking, an un-religion. Here are the two,
(1) The religion that tells you that to get to heaven you must do something … you must, for example, take the sacraments, go on pilgrimages, say prayers at set times, don’t eat meat, etc, etc. They are the religions of DO! In fact, all religions, when it comes to this business of getting to Heaven, are primarily the same. They all have their lists of what we should do.
Considering this, it is no big deal when someone converts from one religion to another. When a Roman Catholic, for example, converts to Hinduism (or vice versa), all that has happened is that they have exchanged one set of ‘Do’s’ for another.
2) Then we have the great un-religion, Gospel Christianity. This tells us that there is nothing we can do to improve our position before God. However, it informs us that everything required from us, by God, has already been done, by our substitute the Lord Jesus. He alone is our hope.
Because of the doing, dying and rising again of the Lord Jesus, God is reconciled, justice is satisfied, our sin has been atoned for. In addition, our Saviour has taken our judgment; our condemnation has been canceled, the curse of the broken Law has been blotted out, the gates of hell have been closed, the gates of heaven have been opened and the guilty conscience The Wednesday Word, September 17, 2022: Jesus … He Alone Is Our Hope healed. Hallelujah, what an amazingly wonderful saviour. He alone is our hope.
The gospel informs us that we are not given eternal life as a reward for what we do. It tells us that we are in no way saved, kept or secured by our works! We are saved entirely by grace; kept by grace and secured by grace. Our salvation is a matter of grace from beginning to end! The Lord Jesus came down from heaven, went to the cross and poured out His precious blood for us. He alone is our hope.
Are you still trying to earn acceptance and favour with God through your performance? It’s easy to slip back into that death trap. I fall for it almost every day. However, it is only as we grow in our understanding of the grace which has baptized us with love and mercy that we are liberated to serve, love and obey our Saviour and God.
“When He, from His lofty throne, Stooped to do and die, Everything was fully done; Hearken to His cry!
“It is finished!” Yes, indeed!
Finished every jot.
Sinner, this is all you need; Tell me is it not?
Weary, working, burdened one, Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing; all was done Long, long ago.
Till to Jesus’ work you cling By a simple faith, “Doing” is a deadly thing— “Doing” ends in death.
Cast your deadly “doing” down— Down at Jesus’ feet; Stand in Him, in Him alone, Gloriously complete. “
And that’s the Gospel Truth!