Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

What Has Anyone Ever Done For Me?
Jun 3rd, 2007
Weekly Bible StudyHugh W. Davidson
Categories: Commentary

This is something true for most of us and that’s the fact that we probably have never really thought about all that Jesus has done for you and I. Jesus came into this world to die and through His death He would accomplish several things and the first is that He would save us from our sins. Matthew 1:21 says, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” John 1:29 says, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’” So, these verses tell us very plainly that Jesus came to take away our sins and then Hebrews 9:26 tells us how He would take them away when it says, “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.“ So, no matter what anyone else says about why Jesus came to this world, it was to take away our sins. He didn’t come to check out our situation, He didn’t come to set a good example and He didn’t come just to teach us how to live. He came to take away our sins.

And second, He came to destroy the power of death. We are told in Hebrews 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” The scripture also says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death” and when Jesus took our sins away He experienced the death that we all should have experienced. And then in Hebrews 2:14 it says, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” So, this tells us that death no longer has any power over any believer.

Now having said that I’m sure a few of you are thinking; I know believers who are dead. Are you saying that they weren’t saved? And the problem is that we really don’t know the full meaning of death.

Death isn’t just when your heart spots beating but death is separation from God who is the source of life. Jesus was separated from the Father for the first time in all eternity so we would never have to be. As Paul writes about the death of the believer he says, “Therefore [we are] always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” So, while we are alive we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and when we die we immediately go into the presence of God. So we are never separated from Him.

In the epistles when Paul speaks of the death of the believer he says, we sleep. Our bodies sleep waiting for the resurrection but our souls are awake and alive. We never experience death in the sense that we are never separated from God and I guess in the same sense we could say that the non-believer never really experiences life.

So, Jesus saves us from our sins, He destroys the power of death and then third we are told in I John 3:8 that He also came to destroy the works of Satan where it says, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” The devil is the enemy of every believer but this verse tells us he is a defeated enemy and the only power he exercises over us is when we knowingly step outside of the will and protection of God. And we do that when we consciously and willfully sin and then we are walking in his territory.

And then the fourth result of Jesus death is that He would identify with us as we struggle with all the pressures of life while we are in the body. Hebrews 2:17,18 says, “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto [his] brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things [pertaining] to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” This tells us that Jesus experienced not only the temptations of the devil but then He knowingly faced a vicious and painful death. And that means that there is nothing we can experience in this life where Jesus couldn’t say, “I know exactly how you feel.” You see, He’s been tempted at every point like we are, and yet, without sin.