They cannot accuse the Lord of unrighteous dealing, it was
for sin that they have experienced this desolation, not capriciousness on His
part. In verses 4-11 we hear the voice
of the servant, the one who is innocent, the one who has allowed sinners to
have their way with Him but whose trust remains in the Lord for
vindication. That attitude is one we
should more often see in our lives. Our
vindication is not in our words spoken in response to those who speak against
us but we wait upon Him to take our part and reveal truth. Sometimes that is a difficult thing to do but
we have a redeemer who will take up our cause and when He does there is more
vindication than we can imagine. Is our
trust in Him or something else? Do we
light torches and walk by their light or do we allow Him to provide our light?
"It is I; do not be afraid." They were already terrified and now He is
walking on the water. Mark says that this
utterly astounded them. Surely that is
an apt description of what they were feeling.
Do you get the sense that they frequently thought, "What the…"
as they saw Jesus do things they couldn’t imagine? Twelve men in a boat rowing towards shore
were making no headway against the storm and Jesus is walking across the water
to them and when He gets into the boat it all subsides. What possible reaction is there to such
things? It is almost old hat then when
they get to the other side and people begin to be healed by simply touching the
fringe of His garment. What is there to
fear when He can do anything? Faith is
meant to take the place of fear.
Paul argues that the offspring to whom the promise is given
in Genesis is Jesus, the one righteous man who ever lived. The Law simply defined sin, man's side of the
covenant obligation but that came later, after both the faith of Abraham in
Genesis 15 and the cutting of the covenant in Genesis 17. At that time the Lord essentially swore by
Himself that the covenant was sure, He asked nothing of Abraham, no promise, no
duties or obligations. The keeping of
covenant was contingent only on the Lord who passed through the pieces of the
birds and in Jesus He indeed died so that the covenant was kept eternally. Do we understand that means that our
salvation is not dependent on us, only on Him?
Faith in Him is our response and our salvation, that faith is evidenced
by our works, the fruits of faith. Works
don't save us or maintain salvation they simply are the overflow and expression
of love for Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment