A VICARIOUS SAVIOUR

Matt. 27:41-42

Morning Meditation 12/16/14

Matthew 27:41-42, "Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him."

Paul said "the Jews seek after a sign." This request is in keeping with what Paul said. 1Cor. 1:22 says, "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:" So the Jews were saying that for Christ to come down off that cross alive and well would be enough of a sign for them to accept Jesus as their Messiah. The only problem with that is that Jesus had already did miracles that no one could duplicate or deny their reality. He had raised Lazarus from the dead along with two others in the New Testament. He had cleansed the leper, restored sight to the blind, caused deaf ears to hear, walked on the water, calmed a storm tossed sea, cast demons our of the possessed and restored him to his home. On and on I could go but those who require a sign are unbelievers and they don't even believe what they see if it contradicts what they believe. They are just wicked rebellious sinners who justify themselves in their unbelief.

JESUS IS A VICARIOUS SAVIOUR

The title vicar means someone who supplies the place of another; hence, speaking of Christ being a "vicarious Saviour"refers to the fact that He was a Substitute for those who believe in Him when He died upon the cross. 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." The words, "For he hath made him to be sin for us" must have a meaning. The word vicarious is the nearest word that explains the word He did for us on the cross.

Jesus became sin for us. Becoming sin for us required Him stand in the place of the most vile of all sinners, and as His holy nature was clothed with our sin, He was the most vulgar and hideous of all things as He hung on that cross. This must have been in His holy mind when He shed those great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. For Jesus to have His heavenly Father look on Him with that look of a Judge upon a guilty man was horrible. There was the feeling of guilt though He had never been guilty. There was the feeling of condemnation though He had never done anything to be condemned for. There was the feeling of the judgment being pronounced when there was no way out of paying the penalty of sin even though He was guilty of none.

Since Jesus was our vicarious Saviour, His silence was His guilty plea. There was nothing for Him to do except stand there and feel all the pain that the sinner will feel when righteously judged by a God who has no choice but to say, "GUILTY!!!" This not a staged play. This is not something that Jesus is playing out so that at the end we discover that He did this suffering so that we will always know how serious the sins were from which we were delivered. No. Jesus actually suffered the full force of sins penalty and took on Him the very dregs from the cup of God's wrath. There is absolutely nothing in God's Judgment that would get off lighter that the punishment that Jesus is taking for us. One can pick out the chief of sinners and Jesus was made sin for that man. Then as you continue to look you find those with a smaller amount of sin and those with larger amounts of sin and the Lord Jesus accumulates all of them together and they are placed upon Him and He steps in the shoes of all those sinners and suffers for all their sins. He does this whether they ever come to claim what He did for them or not. He is still their Vicarious Saviour until the very end.

My friend God loves you. He loves you enough to pray for your sins even though you man never claim the forgiveness He offers for their sins. He is the Vicarious Saviour for the sins of all mankind. If you do not go to heaven a forgiven sinner cleansed by the blood of Jesus, it will not be the fault of God's only begotten Son. He came to save you at the eleventh hour. He has pleaded his case with you from His intercessory throne there waiting for you to make a move. You will never in this lifetime ever find a more compassionate Saviour. He is truely your Saviour and mine. I have felt the burden of sin lifted. It removes a heavy load. It gives wings to the soul and it flies through the heavens shouting I am free, I am free."

JESUS WAS VICARIOUS IN HIS FAITH

We have just noted that Jesus is a vicarious Saviour. He stands in for us to pay the penalty of our sins. He does this as a vicarious Saviour.

Jesus is also vicarious as to our faith. We are saved by faith. But our faith is flawed. We are so weakened to sin by our old sin nature that even our faith is flawed.

Let's look at two Scriptures that bring this out.. Both of them are in the Book of Galatians.