Be Comforted, God sent Christ to Rescue Us
Galatians 1:4 "Who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age." (HCSB)
The first word of encouragement we see here is that Jesus gave Himself for our sins. We often struggle with guilt and shame for our sins which are many. We often struggle to do something to try to make the situation better; we will do more church activity simply because we want to feel better about the prevalence of a particular sin. Christian, Christ is not a half Savior who died on a half cross for half bad people! Christ is an all sufficient Savior who died on a full cross for all of your bad! He gave Himself for our sins!We will seek to deal with our sins by a great amount of sadness or even seek to make the amount of repentance we have to be the only hope in our sins. However, we see that God gave Christ for our sins; He did not give us repentance, sadness or good works and Christian activities for our sins but He gave Christ for our sins. Christ, who is the eternal delight and pleasure of His Father, who took on humanity in our place is what was given for our sins. Is there anything more valuable or compensating than Christ for our sins? Is the intensity of your sadness or the amount of good you do more valuable than Christ? The text tells us that God gave Christ for our sins! So when you are paralyzed by that sin remember that the blood of someone like Christ who is God is much more valuable, much more compelling and much more sufficient to give you comfort in the situation than anything else. Christ gave Himself for our sins so that we may allow the death of Christ—which is eternally satisfying to God—silence the condemnation of our sins.
Notice something else which is precious, it says He gave Himself for our sins. Christian, he did not give Himself for sin in general but He gave Himself for our sins. That means all your sins—not just some of them—have been covered in the infinitely valuable blood of Christ. It does not say that Christ gave Himself for your sins before you became a Christian it says He gave Himself for our sins, period! It does not say that Christ gave Himself for our sins which were less frequent or for our sins which were less severe but that He gave Himself for our sins. Christian, Christ is not a half Savior who died on a half cross for half bad people! Christ is an all sufficient Savior who died on a full cross for all of your bad! He gave Himself for our sins!
Oh, but it does not stop there! He gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age! From the perspective of Galatians, what is this evil age that Jesus rescues us out of? The great evil that Paul warned the Galatians about is that Jesus’s work on the cross plus human activity is needed for your salvation and your growth in the Christian life, that is the great evil here. The evil that Jesus has rescued us from is the insanity of thinking that our efforts can make God more pleased with us. God is fully pleased with us because of Christ’s obedient life and death in our place! The evil that Jesus has rescued us from is thinking that goodness exists in principles and moral commands and externals and not in Christ, Christ is our sanctification and redemption! The evil that we have been rescued from is thinking that we are defined by what we do and how much we perform rather than how well and how amazing Christ has performed for us. The evil that we have been rescued from is that we do not know and worship a God who loves us based upon anything we do but we are loved by a God who loves us solely on the basis of a righteous Jesus and a beautiful saving cross! We do not have to make God loving by loving Him, He is loving already! We have been rescued from a religion which says we are saved by grace and now we grow and live by works! We have been rescued, we have been rescued, we have been rescued from this evil Christ-less, gospel-less age!
