Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1) makes it clear that He is the ultimate winner in both the broadest and narrowest senses of the word. Verse 5 says that He “washed us from our sins in His own blood,” imagery that is captured poetically in William Cowper’s hymn “There Is a Fountain” (see Monday’s devotional and song). The word “washed” is translated “freed” in the New International Version and “released” in the fine New American Standard Version. In the “narrow” sense of personal salvation (as we touched upon yesterday), we have been released “from our sins.” Our release is from the prison of eternal punishment – and it is eternal, no matter what some so-called scholars suggest. In Matthew 25:46, Jesus said of unbelievers that “these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” Since “everlasting” and “eternal” translate the same Greek word, it is undeniable that both hell and heaven are unending. People who reject this clear teaching speculate that Jesus never actually said it, destroying the Word and demeaning the work of Jesus. The sacrificial death of our Savior rescued us from an eternity of suffering separation. We have been released.