Topic: Salvation Printer Friendly
Author: Illustration Exchange
ILLUSTRATION
Nothing is complete without Jesus. He is the “Author” and the “Completer,” the “Beginning” and the “End” (Hebrews 12:2, Revelation 22:13). Everything exists because of Him, and everything is missing something without Him; and not just missing something, but the central thing; the thing that supplies true meaning and purpose to all things.
That’s what the Bible means when it says of Jesus, “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen (Romans 11:36).
This applies to everything, the animate and the inanimate alike. Take for example the Old Testament Law. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). In other words, the OT Law is incomplete, it’s missing something without Jesus.
Sometimes when Jesus is missing it’s more evident than at other times. Take for example Exodus 31:15, where we read, “You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day must be a Sabbath day of complete rest, a holy day dedicated to the LORD. Anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.”
“Relax or die!” Isn’t that what God is saying here? We tend to focus on the long list of things the Law commands us to do, but what about the command to rest from all of our doing? It’s hard to say which of the two we fail at most miserably, our doing or our resting.
Nevertheless, “Anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death,” seems like a gross and bizarre overreaction on God’s part. In what universe does this punishment fit this crime? It makes sense that doing the wrong things should be a crime, but should failing to do nothing be a punishable offense? And so severly punished?
Clearly, there’s something missing.
APPLICATION
“Relax or die!” makes no sense without Jesus; with Jesus, it makes perfect sense.
That’s because Jesus IS the Sabbath rest we all so desperately need! By fulfilling all of the commands of the Law and by offering His perfect life as a sacrifice for our sins, Jesus became our Sabbath rest.
