One of the many characters of God is that He is Yeshua, the “God who saves”. Indeed, throughout the bible we are told that “vengeance is the Lord’s” (Romans 12:19) or that “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 3:8). Two of the most prominent voices in the bible that incarnate that concept of salvation belonging to the Lord bear the same name: Joshua and Jesus. I don’t know if you knew this but both Joshua and Jesus mean Yeshua, that is the “God who saves” or the “Lord is my salvation”. It is in the translation that these names are spelled differently but at their root, they are the same. Both of these men personified the salvation of the Lord through their lives. From their lives, God was making a clear point to His people that He is the God who saves, He is the God who delivers, He is the God who rescues. I believe, if God felt the need to remind His people of who He is, it means this character of God is usually overlooked or not believed. God is a God of rescue, He is the real Avenger and He wants His people to know and believe this. So today, I want to remind us of this character of God that is often taken for granted, not believed enough and quite frankly rejected. I want to encourage us to see God for who He truly is as He displays Himself in the word.
Many theologians have said that the bible is a collection of love letters who display the rescue mission of God towards His rebelling people. In that simple recap, did you notice the main action that God does? Yes, He rescues. God takes His rescuer name so seriously that He says to wait for Him. No one can help Him in this rescue mission because it is beyond everyone. In Isaiah 63, the Lord says “I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so my own arm worked salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me” (Isaiah 63:5), and again in Romans we read “there is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). This goes to show that no one could help God and no one was present to do so. This reminds me of the passage from the book of Revelation, where John weeps deeply because no one is found worthy of breaking the seal and opening the scroll (Revelation 5:4). I have always been intrigued by that because, John is having a vision, he does not know much about the situation he is seeing happening before his eyes but he knows that not having someone to break the seal and open the scroll is detrimental to world, hence his weeping. And who is then found worthy to break the seal and open the scroll? The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David who is the Lamb of God, which is Jesus. From these examples, we see that salvation indeed belongs to God and God alone. I believe that just like His glory, this is not something God shares with anyone that is why we are meant to always give God the glory for the things He has done. Salvation is not something that man can do, it is all God’s work. We are simply witnesses/spectators and sometimes in His mercy He makes us participators. I personally love the passion with which God comes to save His people. I love the zeal that He uses. He often speaks in exclusive terms when He talks about the salvation He is bringing in the earth to His people if they would wait for Him. For example, “since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4) or “who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in greatness of his strength” (Isaiah 63:4) or even “I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no saviour. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed – I, and not some foreign god among you” (Isaiah 43:11-12). We need to recognize that we are powerless and instead run to the Lord who saves because He delights to save.
However, as wonderful as this salvation of the Lord is, it has a time frame. There is a day when this salvation will not be available anymore. As it says in the bible, “today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah” (Psalm 95:8). Or the “kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). These passages help us understand that now is the time of salvation because later will be the time of judgement. When judgement is here there is no more salvation that the Lord can operate to rescue anyone. This is a sobering thought and it begs us to come to the Lord while there is still time. We often say “tomorrow is not promised” and that is the truth. It is certainly not promised that salvation will be available for you tomorrow that is why the bible presses this matter and urgently says “today is the day of salvation”. In other words, if you are alive today and you have not experienced the salvation of the Lord, you need not look elsewhere, run to Him because His salvation is available. In my previous post, I mentioned how salvation is deeper than our understanding that Jesus took away our sins on the cross and gave us new life in Him. It is a complete turnaround that Jesus offers us, the salvation of Christ is complete now and forever and it touches all aspects of our lives. That is why we become new creatures when we come to Christ. You might not think you need salvation and as a matter of fact you would even ask, salvation from what? Truly, every man born into this world is in need of salvation. We were born into sin, which means we have been separated from birth from God because of the sin Adam – the first man committed in the Garden of Eden. This shows itself in our habits, in our attitudes that are filled with lies, covetousness, envy, maliciousness, murder, jealousy, pornography, adultery, abortion, anger, fits of rage, indulgence, gluttony, etc. Surely you can find yourself in that list and it is not even an exhaustive one! Because of such sinful habits we cause hurt, we pollute what was given to us, we just make a mess. Unfortunately, such attitudes and the hurt that stems from those are first an offense to God who is Holy, Holy, Holy. Whenever we sin, God is the first person we offend not the person towards whom we have sinned (Psalm 51:4). Because He is a Holy God and a just God that does not leave the guilty unpunished, we stand condemned before Him. But God in His mercy, knew that we were powerless in that sin; He knew that we could not save ourselves so He stepped in, took the punishment we deserved by sending His son Jesus to die on the cross on our behalf so that we might receive a new life and have the power to dominate the sin that so easily entangled us. God provided a salvation that no one had ever heard of before and in a manner no one could ever fathom. He made it possible for us to experience communion with Him like it was in the Garden of Eden, He made it possible for us to know Him just like we are known by Him. Now we host the living God in our bodies so we must be holy. Praise His Holy Name!
In closing, God’s ways are not our ways and we need to train our minds to rely on His salvation rather than on ours. We must train our minds to not lean on our own understanding but rather on His word by acknowledging Him in all of our ways all the days of our lives. This is not easy but it is a daily exercise to which He gives grace to carry on. Let us learn to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mark 12:17) and that includes recognizing that salvation belongs to our God (Revelation 7:10).
A Word Aptly Spoken 