Psalm 49:7 No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him.
For most of his life, my father was an agnostic. He wasn’t sure if God existed and part of his stumbling block to faith was in accepting that Jesus was actually the Son of God. He was willing to concede that Christ was a deeply spiritual person and a great moral teacher. He just couldn’t grapple intellectually that Jesus was more than a mere man. In the end, however, when he was dying from cancer, he let go of this struggle and allowed Christ into his heart.
Lots of people wrestle with Christ’s divinity. Like my Dad, they’re willing to picture Christ as a religious and philosophical leader, but they doubt Christian claims that He was, is, and always will be the Holy Son of God. They believe that His crucifixion and death were final, proving that Jesus was only human after all.
But the Cross actualizes Christ’s divinity for me through the prophecy that is proclaimed in today’s verse. Hundreds of years before the Crucifixion, the sons of Korah prophetically sang: “No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him”
No man, no mere human being could redeem the life of another; but Jesus, who is both human and divine, could bring about this redemption and give the ransom for the whole world!
If anybody else had gone to the Cross at Calvary, redemption would never have occurred. Only Christ’s sacrifice could completely save humanity. Anyone else’s death would have been insignificant; any other sacrifice would have been merely superficial.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, without Your miraculous entrance into the world, we could never have truly known God. Without Your sacrificial exit on the Cross, we could never know the joy of redemption. We praise You for being fully human and fully divine. You are the Holy Son of God, the Lord of all Creation, and Only Savior of the World. Amen!
John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.
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