Week 10 - Reading the Bible in a Year & Gerhard's Sacred Meditations

The Gravitron 3000 and the Gospel

The Gravitron 3000 and the Gospel

This week, I want to give you a big picture view of what God’s working through Israel and the church. I do want to mention, the Israel I am talking about is the Israel from the Bible that was a nation and later a kingdom. I am not talking about the modern nation-state of Israel.

A helpful visual is to think of is the Gravitron 3000 (here’s a video) which was a frequent carnival ride in my hometown each summer. You would go inside of this spaceship looking thing and lean against the wall that had a crawler that could go up and down. As the Gravitron spins, centrifugal force presses you against the wall and you start to slide up. You can lay yourself sideways or even upside down and you are stuck there until the ride slows down.

Israel is God’s servant. God’s desire is that through Israel, all the nations would come to know Him. Israel was to be like the wall of the Gravitron only that not only would Israel would keep you from spinning away from God but would actually bring you in toward Him. They were to be a centripetal force in the world. Their worship and their righteousness was to attract the world to worship God.

And this was effective to a limited extent. There were proselytes who became Jewish in the Exodus and after. Many Egyptians went up with Israel (Exodus 12:38). Ruth was from Moab and the Ethiopian Eunuch in the New Testament are a few well known examples.

This purpose of Israel as a people was not fully accomplished, however. Israel, as we have seen and will see more, fails as God’s servant. Isaiah will later show us that Israel has disqualified itself from being God’s servant because of its lack of faith. So, God will bring forth His Servant who would not fail because he is faithful. He would be a Suffering Servant who would Himself draw the world to God.

Once Jesus comes, dies, rises, and ascends, then the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to empower the preaching of God’s Word and the church is sent out. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is centrifugal. It flings the church into the far corners of the world to proclaim the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins.

This Week’s Readings

3/6 - Numbers 26-27

3/7 - Numbers 28-30

3/8 - Numbers 31-32

3/9 - Numbers 33-34

3/10 - Numbers 35-36

3/11 - Deuteronomy 1-2

3/12 - Deuteronomy 3-4

MEDITATION X

OUR RECONCILIATION WITH GOD

Christ Hath Paid my Debt of Sin

TRULY, Christ hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (Is. 53:4). O Lord Jesus, the eternal punishment which we deserve for our sins Thou hast transferred to Thyself; the weight of iniquity which would have sunk us down to hell Thou hast taken upon Thyself. Thou wast wounded for our transgressions; Thou wast bruised for our iniquities; with Thy stripes we are healed; and the Lord hath laid upon Thee the iniquities of us all (Is. 53:5, 6). Wonderful, indeed, is the exchange Thou dost make; our sins Thou takest upon Thyself, and Thy righteousness Thou dost impute to us; the death due us for our transgressions Thou dost Thyself suffer, and in turn dost bestow eternal life upon us. Therefore I can no longer doubt Thy grace or despair on account of my sins. The very worst that was in us Thou hast taken upon Thyself, how then wilt Thou despise our body and soul, the very best that is in us and the work of Thine own hands? “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10). Holy indeed must he be whose sins have been blotted out and taken away. “Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven; blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity” (Ps. 32:1, 2). How can the Lord impute our iniquities to us after He hath once imputed them to another? For the sins of the people He hath smitten His dearly-beloved Son; therefore by His knowledge shall he justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities (Is. 53:12). How shall He justify His people? Give ear, O my soul, and listen! He will justify them by His knowledge, that is by a saving acknowledgment of the divine mercy and grace in Christ, and a firm apprehension thereof through faith. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Thy Son, Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). And again, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9). Faith moreover lays hold of the satisfaction of Christ; for He hath borne their iniquities, and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Is. 53:11, 12). Few righteous souls indeed would He have had, had He not so mercifully received sinners. Few righteous souls wouldst Thou now have, O Jesus, if Thou didst not so graciously forgive the sins of the unrighteous. How, therefore, will Christ, in the dreadful day of judgment, pass sentence upon the penitent for their sins, when He hath already taken them upon Himself? How will He condemn the guilty sinner when He Himself hath been made sin for him (2 Cor. 5:21)? Will He judge those whom He calls His own friends? Will He judge those for whom He hath interceded? Will He judge those for whom He hath died?

Take courage, O my soul, and forget thy sins, because thy Lord hath forgotten them (Is. 43:25). Whom dost thou fear as the avenger of thy sins but the Lord? And yet He Himself hath rendered satisfaction for thy sins. Now if any one else had offered a ransom for my sins, I could not but be in doubt as to whether my righteous Judge would be willing to accept such a satisfaction. If a mere man or an angel had made an atonement for me, it would still be doubtful whether the ransom offered for my redemption were sufficient. But now there is absolutely no room for doubt. How could He refuse the ransom which Himself hath offered? How could the satisfaction possibly be insufficient, when made by God Himself?

Why art thou still disquieted, O my soul? “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth” (Ps. 25:10). “Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and upright are Thy judgments” (Ps. 119:137). Why then art thou disquieted, O my soul? Let the mercy of the Lord cheer thee; let the divine justice encourage thee. For what if God is just? Yet He certainly will not demand a double satisfaction for the sins of a single person. He hath already smitten His Son for our sins, how can He then smite us His servants for the same sins? How can He inflict upon us the punishment which He hath already visited upon His Son for our sins? The truth of the Lord endureth forever (Ps. 117:2). “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he may turn from his way and live” (Ez. 33:2), says our God. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), is our Saviour’s gracious word. Shall we charge the Lord with a lie, or try to render His mercy of no effect by the weight of our sins? To charge God with a lie and to deny His mercy is one of the greatest sins we can commit; from which it appears that Judas committed a greater sin in despairing of God’s mercy, than did the Jews in crucifying Christ.

Yea, rather, where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded (Rom. 5:20). And His grace infinitely outweighs my sins; for sin is man’s act, grace is God’s; sin is temporal, but the grace of our God is from everlasting to everlasting. For my sins complete satisfaction hath been rendered; by Christ’s death the grace of God hath been restored to me and established eternally; and to it I flee for refuge, with devout and earnest supplication.

Johann Gerhard, Gerhard’s Sacred Meditations, trans. C. W. Heisler (Philadelphia, PA: Lutheran Publication Society, 1896).