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WHAT A SAVIOR! #15
A LOCK ON THE SUPER BOWL
I don’t know what kind of movie it would have made
for Mel Gibson, but picture the moment. Right in the middle of that bloody,
R-rated scourging scene in The Passion of the Christ, where the violent,
flesh-ripping blows are coming down for a solid ten minutes, what if Jesus
had suddenly straightened up, flung off His shackles, screamed a flood
of curses at His tormenters – in fact, maybe killed them with His bare
hands or even just a divine laser glance – and walked away from the carnage?
Or the night before in Gethsemane, when Lucifer came after Jesus with
his entire arsenal of evil, what if Christ had succumbed to that temptation?
What if, in a fit of retaliatory rage, He had snapped: “It’s not worth
it. This ungrateful world can just spin out of My universe and go to hell.
I’m leaving.” Obviously, a sinning Savior could not BE our Savior . .
. and all would have been lost.
Yesterday we began to address the question – the unresolved issue – of
the nature of Jesus Christ. Many believers contend that Jesus had an impeccable
character, that He simply could not sin. Oh, Satan did attack Him: the
Bible makes that perfectly clear. The priests and Pharisees provoked and
tested and prodded and “tempted” Him on many occasions, trying to trip
Him up. But it’s suggested that Jesus – being fully God – was absolutely
impervious to the temptations that beset and bedevil you and me.
Many other Bible students – and my own Adventist fellowship has largely
taken this stance – firmly believe, on the other hand, that while Jesus
never did sin, not once, He did have the capacity to sin. It was possible.
He was a man, “born of woman,” and had the freedom of choice necessary
to fall and fail. There was a great risk taken at Calvary; on that Thursday
evening in Gethsemane, everything in this universe truly hung in the balance.
With such weighty issues before us, it might seem almost sacrilegious
to talk about football and a quarterback named Broadway Joe, but some
of you old-timers might remember clear back to Super Bowl III, where the
underdog New York Jets in the fledgling AFC were slated to take on the
heavily favored Colts. Hardly anybody was willing to bet against Baltimore,
and Joe Namath was tired of getting heckled about it. Just three days
before Super Sunday, a rival fan said just one too many teasing remarks
about how the Jets better pack some propellers and parachutes because
they were going to go down in flames in the fourth quarter. And Broadway
Joe turned to the heckler and said through gritted teeth: “We’re going
to win that game. I GUARANTEE IT.” Seventy-two hours later, he lived up
to that promise as his Jets upended Baltimore 16-7.
But let me ask this question. What if Namath had been asked to back up
those words with a ten-million-dollar wager? Would he have “guaranteed”
victory then? Or let’s up the ante. What if some terrorists had been holding
Joe’s family hostage? Lose the game . . . and they die. What if everything
he owned – house, cars, possessions – was at stake? What if the freedom
of the United States of America rested on the Jets winning that Sunday
contest? Would Joe Namath have been as willing to say: “I guarantee it”?
There’s a verse I absolutely love, found in the first chapter of Matthew.
An angel comes to a confused young boyfriend named Joseph and says to
him:
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary
home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Ghost.
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus,
because HE WILL save His people from their sins.”
Now, that statement is made a good 33 years before
the Thursday night in Gethsemane. It’s made 33 years before the Cross;
many of the Roman soldiers who drove the nails into Jesus’ hands might
not even have been born yet. Pontius Pilate was probably a kid running
around playing with his pet dog and his pals. Thirty-three years of just
plain LIFE loomed before an innocent baby, then a little boy, then a teenager,
then a young adult man named Jesus of Nazareth. Right now He’s just a
few tiny cells gestating in the womb of this frightened teenager named
Mary. And yet the angel is already saying: “Jesus will succeed. He WILL
save the world. He WILL defeat Lucifer at the Cross.”
In fact, you can scrap the idea that this prediction came 33 years before
the Super Bowl of salvation. Let me share a verse from I Peter 1, where
we find God declaring victory even earlier than that. Here it is:
“You know,” Peter writes, “that it was not with perishable
things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way
of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious
blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Now, here’s the Joe
Namath statement for the ages: “He was chosen [or foreordained] BEFORE
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, but was revealed in these last times for your
sake.”
The prophet Isaiah writes with humble eyes of vision
seven long centuries before the scenes at Bethlehem, and announces in
chapter 53 that Jesus would be “pierced for our transgressions. . . .
By His wounds WE ARE HEALED.” There’s no possibility here of failure,
of Jesus succumbing, of the salvation plan being thwarted by God’s ancient
enemy.
And friend, whatever side you might take on this issue of the impeccable
nature of Jesus, we can rejoice that God’s Word confidently states – before,
during, and after – that Jesus Christ simply would not fail. He was not
going to sin. Satan was not going to triumph over Him to a single degree.
I mentioned how Jesus Himself told His followers that Satan “had nothing
in Him.” No foothold, no possibility of success. He told His followers,
without any expression of doubts, that He was going to rise up from the
grave. That they would see Him coming in future triumph in the clouds
of heaven. That He was going to be seated in victory on a throne next
to the Father’s. And not once does He add a caveat: “That’s only if I
get through the upcoming Calvary weekend. That’s only if I endure. That’s
only if I make all the right choices when Lucifer comes calling.”
I think we all accept and understand that God Himself – our heavenly Father
– absolutely cannot sin. No way. The book of James says so explicitly
in chapter 1:
“God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.”
Does this lead, by implication, to the conclusion that
Jesus as well, being fully divine as the Son of God even while here on
earth, could not sin? Christians who believe Jesus was impeccable point
to the Bible principle of immutability, meaning that Jesus doesn’t change.
He was impeccable in heaven before the Incarnation; He is certainly impeccable
now as He reigns in triumph. But was He impeccable for those 33 years
while here on earth? Again, sincere Christians disagree – without dividing,
we hope – on that difficult question! But we can certainly thank God that
heaven’s eternal kingdom is secure and always has been. The prophetic
Word, the sure Word of Scripture, declares with ringing power that Jesus
was going to come, conquer Satan, conquer sin, conquer death, conquer
the grave . . . and join us to Himself in glorious victory. Those are
the things we can KNOW – and perhaps that is enough.
One thing I have certainly learned, friend, in my few brief years of ministry
and service, is this: we have to stand together in praising God for sending
us Jesus. Whatever you believe on this issue of Jesus’ nature, the reality
is that Jesus did not lose at Calvary. He did not fall to Satan’s blandishments.
You and I will not be saved by the nature of Jesus, but by the sacrifice
of Jesus, which was validated by the victory of Jesus.
I’ve been around the world, and I’ve served in churches, where people
loved to discuss these questions. But sometimes the discussions turned
into debates, and almost into drawn swords. And that should never be.
It is a mystery to fallen sinners like us how Jesus could be a Man, with
flesh and hunger and appetites, and then never sin. You and I sin; Jesus
did not. How? He relied fully on His Father in a way that we don’t ever
seem to match. I don’t really understand it all. But I ACCEPT it all –
because that’s my only hope and salvation.
In the meantime, let’s proclaim His name. Let’s announce His victory.
One of these days, you know, we’ll sit in rapture at His feet . . . and
of course, then, you and I will experience the quiet thrill and security
of being impeccable and redeemed as well. Then we can ask Him all of our
hard questions, and smile when we were right, and blush (more likely)
at the many things where we were wrong, where “eye hath not seen, and
ear hath not heard.”
That’s going to be a wonderful time, won’t it? And you know what? I GUARANTEE
IT.
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