“…Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, …who confirms the word of His servant, and performs the counsel of His messengers.” Isaiah 44:26
One of the great means by which God reveals Himself to man is not only by His word, but by the accomplishment of His works by and according to His word. Throughout Scripture we find phrases like, “The word of the Lord came unto me.” Primarily this was to believers, specifically His prophets of the Old Testament. We find also throughout the whole testimony of Scripture that God speaks. He speaks and the worlds are made, and by His word every living thing comes into existence. He spoke to and by His servants throughout recorded Biblical history. Because of Christ’s coming to this earth, and the revelation of this Emmanuel, the word meaning “God with us,” His words became the objective centerpiece of God’s revelation to man of the nature of God. By His words was revealed the infinite need of man to be saved from his lost condition, one where the weight and power of sin were the dominating realities, both of which led to the death, or that separation of man from God for time and eternity. There was revealed also by the objective words of Christ, in the Old and New Testaments, that the Almighty, Sovereign Creator of all things, was a loving God, who would not, and could not, be hindered in providing the perfect solution for the salvation of man. The great proof, and confirmation of that love, would not only the words of Christ, as we read them specifically in the Gospels, but the very giving of Himself in Christ as the singular sacrificial Lamb of God to take all the sins of mankind upon Himself, and to bear their judgment. God the Father, by the giving of His Son, not sparing Him with regard to the cross and death, was the greatest testimony of the love of God for man. It was by the words of the Apostle Paul that we are confronted directly with this reality: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us ALL, how shall He not WITH HIM also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) So complete was the work of Christ, revealed in the Old Testament writings especially in the book of Isaiah, and the detailed account of His sufferings before, and on the cross, that the great question resounds throughout almost three thousand years since it was declared: “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Is. 53:1) The words of God in the Old Testament were given to men to direct their attention to a singular, and total sacrifice for sin. It was not only declared and portrayed in God’s dealings with mankind throughout history, but brought to pass when Christ was born, lived and ministered on earth, was crucified, died and was buried, then rose from the dead. Today, we look back at the testimony of the love of God, one so profoundly eternal, that to reject it is to court the certainty of eternal separation from God and His declared, proven love.
But what is this testimony, and its effect, to have on our lives today? The difference between the word of God and that of man, is that Christ’s words are LIVING, and POWERFUL, for the blessing of the Father by the Spirit is upon and in them. They are given to convict men of their need, convince men of God’s presence and remedy for sin, and to convincingly lead men in the way in which they are to go, or to live. The confirmation of the faithfulness of God, and the unveiling of His soul-saving ways is found in His word, the objective word which reveals the subjective, and yet unchanging, Christ. According to His word, to KNOW God is to live, “…a more abundant life than earth could ever give.” To walk with Christ, abiding in Him, is to commune with Him by the Spirit of God.
Dear Father, Confirm Thyself in us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.