Someone Cares

The LORD said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Ex 3:7,8) While living in Egypt, all Abraham’s children were born into slavery. Everyone today is also born as a slave. Even believers sometimes do not feel that God is concerned about their life. We must never allow this idea to become real in us. The entire Old Testament is about a promise to send the Savior from heaven to become flesh and blood. God’s only son will now spend eternity as the God-man because someone is concerned about us.


All slaves have in their future is grinding labor and then death. Having a savior rescue them is only a dream. When a savior delivers people from slavery it is a two-part mission. The first part of the mission takes force to break the chains. The second is complicated and difficult but the people must be taught how to live a righteous life in their freedom. (A life that is not righteous always leads back into slavery) The Almighty did not kill all the Egyptians but instead caused them to give the people their freedom. God also did not kill the Devil but instead has a plan to force him to give believers their freedom. Not only does He love us enough to give us freedom but enough to do it in a proper and difficult method.

In His justice, the Lord did not arbitrarily free humans from their sin against our Creator. God allowed his son to come to earth and give up His life on a cruel cross as a sacrifice. This paid, in full, the price for the redemption of believers. This enables a righteous and honorable God to manifest wrath against all sin but turns wrath away from sinners who avail themselves of the Savior. Some people do not seem to realize they have a need for salvation. Others have corrupted themselves until they have lost any desire to be righteous. However, this plan allows any human being to repent if they want to be reconciled with their Creator. God loves us so much that his plan allows our simple faith in the substitute that He has provided.

Let’s look back at the atonement (to make amends) ceremony given to Moses for the people. …Then he is to cast lots for the two goats… Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the LORD and sacrifice (shed its blood) it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat. (Lev 16:7-10) In a way, the animal that was killed represented the breaking of our chains of sin and the animal that was given its freedom represented our living a righteous life. When we are baptized, the preacher lowers us saying to die with Christ but then raises us up saying we must live a new (righteous) life. This shows us the two-part mission of Jesus on this earth.

What Christ accomplished also satisfies both the negative and the positive sides of God’s law. To fail the law requires a payment but to succeed in the law we need divine help. The blood of our Savior makes the payment and the body (life) of our Savior gives us the help we must have. In short, the baptism represents our freedom from sin and the communion represents our righteous life. We pray that both parts of the mission of Jesus Christ will become our life.