The Only Saviour

I don't know whether you've seen the film version of John Grisham's novel 'The Firm'. It was the one from which all the critics emerged saying, 'Hey, Tom Cruise can act, after all.' (Previously he'd starred as a fighter pilot in 'Top Gun', about which one critic wrote, 'Cruise may have the better looks, but the planes have a greater range of expression'.) Well, in 'The Firm' he plays a lawyer recruited into a powerful law firm. The bosses, unbeknown to Tom Cruise, are Mafia men who control their employees by blackmail. And on one business trip, they set him up. He's married, but he falls for the pass of a seductress and it's recorded on film. So the blackmail begins. And he realises the only way out is to confess to his wife that he's committed adultery. Which he does. And there's a striking scene, where she goes out at night to sit in their garden under the stars, to decide whether to stay or walk out. And he can only wait and watch powerlessly from inside. Because you cannot influence forgiveness. What happens is that they agree on a plan which might, if it succeeds, get him out of the firm.' And she agrees to leave their home for her own safety. And it soon becomes clear to you the viewer that she's still utterly committed to him, because she spends the rest of the film helping to save his skin. But he doesn't know that. And at the very end, she arrives back at their house and walks in. First time they've seen one another since she left. And he voices the one question that's haunted him ever since. 'Did I lose you?' he says. She replies: 'Did you lose me? I've loved you since before we even met. I loved the idea of you before I even saw you. How could you lose me?' In an age when most films - like The English Patient - turn on adultery, it's refreshing when one turns on the forgiving faithfulness of a wife. 'Did I lose you?' A lot of us will have asked that of human relationships in which we've blown it. But many of us will also have asked it of God. 'Did I lose you?' You've been a professing Christian for a while and then you go away from the Lord - into doubt or apathy or compromise. And then you want to come back. And you wonder: will he have you. 'Did I lose you? you ask God.' Or as a Christian faithfully plodding on, your daily failure slowly sucks out of you the confidence you had at first that God accepts you as you are. 'Did I lose you?' you ask God. Or you know you're not a Christian. And maybe you feel you've gone too far to come back. You like what you see these Christians have got. But it seems a lost cause to think you could ever change. 'Did I lose you?' you ask God. Isaiah was writing for people asking God that question. Isaiah ministered between about 740 and 700 years before Jesus. His message to his own generation was that God would send his people into exile for their disobedience. And sure enough in 587BC he did. But Isaiah also had a message for the future generation that would actually be in exile. Now Isaiah knew that some of that exiled generation would have no faith at all. No sense of God, no sense of sin. But others would. Others would take to heart what had happened to them. And the question in their minds would be: 'Is that the end of the road for our relationship with God? Have we sinned ourselves beyond the reach of his love or his capacity to forgive? LORD, did we lose you?' And it's to those people that Isaiah writes chapter 43. It begins, 'But now…' Which means we need to back up to understand what the 'But' is about. (Just as when you hit a 'therefore' in the Bible, you need to read what came before it - 'what is the 'therefore' there for?') Isaiah 42.23-25:

Which of you will listen to this or pay close attention in time to come? [Remember: he's writing this for the exiles ('in time to come'), over 100 years before the exile.]{24} Who handed Jacob over to become loot, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned? For they would not follow his ways; they did not obey his law. {25} So he poured out on them his burning anger, the violence of war. It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

That was the verdict on the generations running up to the exile: no sense of sin, no sense of God. 'They did not take it to heart.' But now Isaiah's job is to speak to the exiles who do take their sin to heart, whose great fear is that they've lost God. And he tells them - and us three things: first, WHAT GOD THINKS OF US IN OUR SIN; secondly, WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US IN OUR SIN; thirdly, WHAT GOD SAYS TO US IN OUR SIN First, WHAT GOD THINKS OF US IN OUR SIN (vv 1-7)

But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. {2} When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. {3} For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. {4} Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. {5} Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. {6} I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth-- {7} everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."

Is that would you would have said? To people who'd ignored you so blatantly that sending them into exile was the only discipline big enough, is that what you would have said? I never supported a football team before moving to Newcastle, so I've followed Newcastle since I arrived. But I've discovered this season what a fair-weather supporter I am. Back in September I was talking about how 'we' were doing. Now I talk about how 'they' are doing - gently distancing myself, subtly disowning them. Quite different from one of our 3rd year students whose loyalty to Manchester City knows no bounds. He sticks with them through thick and thin. Or rather, through thin and thin. And in that, he is like God with his people. Listen to the LORD speaking to his people in all their sin and failure. Verse 1:

But now, this is what the LORD says - he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

He doesn't distance himself. He doesn't disown them. He doesn't wash his hands of them. He created them, he formed them. Later on he says, 'I formed you in the womb'. So it's a picture not of an inventor committed to his invention (which he might scrap if he doesn't think much of it) but of a Father committed to the child he's brought into being; that bears his name; that is his; that, with that parent's sixth sense, is always on his mind. Sometimes you see a child misbehaving and the wife says to her husband, 'Have you seen what your son is doing?' 'Your son'. It's not seriously meant, but it's what she feels as the little fellow wallops his sister ,or takes his trousers down in the middle of Asda. 'I don't want to be associated with this child right now.' What does God say about his children when they misbehave enough that he has to exile them all over the middle east? Verse 6-7:

I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth-- {7} everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."

He doesn't dissociate himself from them in their misbehaviour. Poor sons and daughters they may be. But the point is that to him they are sons and daughters. Which is why he can say verse 4:

Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.

It's the same attitude as the parents at the press conference appealing for their missing youngster; or for an organ donor for the crucial operation. There is nothing they wouldn't give, if they had it, for the sake of their child. And that, says Isaiah, is what God thinks of us in our sin. Now, if you haven't yet taken your sin to heart, this will mean very little to you. It will just confirm your view of cheap forgiveness - 'Of course God forgives. There's no real problem. Everything will be OK for everyone in the end.' But if you've come to see sin as your biggest problem, this passage will mean a very great deal indeed. Because is this how you expected God to think of people in their sin? You and me in our sin? Don't you project onto God all sorts of harsh thoughts? Don't you picture him totting up sins until he reaches the point of no more forgiveness? Don't you imagine him fed up of you, critical of you, on the verge of washing his hands of you? But that's not the real God. The real God is like Isaiah 43. The real God is like the father in the parable of the two sons that Jesus told (see Luke 15.11-32). A father has two sons. And one of them can't stand being at home any more, so he asks for his share of the inheritance money and leaves. He blows the money and messes up his life. This is how Jesus tells the rest of it:

When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired hands.'' So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15.17-21)

What does that tell you about the father? What has the father been doing ever since the son left? Trying to forget all about him? Rehearsing the speech in which he'll give him a piece of his mind if he ever does show up again? No. Watching. Waiting. Longing. Loving.

…while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him

If you've never come to God and you think you're a lost cause, think again. Because God isn't the mean old man of your imagination. And if we have come to God but think we've somehow lost him along the Christian way, think again. Because God isn't the human father whose commitment 'snaps' somewhere along the way. God is God, and all human parenthood is just a pale and sin-spoiled reflection of his. And if, sadly, our experience of human fatherhood has been a let-down, let's not imagine God to be like that. Let's trust his own self-portrait in Scripture.

…you are precious and honoured in my sight, and …I love you.

That's what he thinks of us in our sin, whether we've come back or whether we're still far off. And what stops us coming to him in prayer and confession to find forgiveness is not him. It's either that we haven't taken our sin to heart. Or it's the false picture we have of him - the idol in our minds, the unapproachably hard god, rather than the Father God of reality. Secondly, WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US IN OUR SIN Verse 1:

But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you.

If my car were to be towed away and put in the police car pound, I would need to redeem it. I would need to pay a price to rescue it from captivity back into my ownership, and the freedom of the open road. And if I didn't pay, it would stay off the road for good, which, for a Rover, would be hell. Or imagine we'd lived in Old Testament [OT] times, and you were my relative. And you'd fallen on hard times and sold yourself into slavery in order to pay your debts. Well, I could be your 'kinsman redeemer'. I could come along with my cheque book and take all your financial responsibilities on myself - call your debts my debts, and pay off everything you owe. And then you'd be free. And I'd come round and knock cheerfully at your door and say, 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you.' It just means rescuing someone or something from captivity by paying a price. Rescue, at a cost. Now as a prophet, Isaiah knew the future. He knew God would exile his people into captivity. But he also knew God would redeem his people. And so sure of it was he that he put it in the past tense, even before it had happened: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you' (verse 1). And what price would God be willing to pay? Verses 3-4:

For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. [So we're talking 'big money'. Egypt and Cush and Seba were the Park Lane and Mayfair on the Monopoly board of the day.] {4} Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.

To the exiles, that would have meant something like this: 'I will bring you home to the land of Judah at the expense of nations. At the cost of upheaval in the middle east, I will rescue you from the Babylonians.' Physical redemption. Geographical redemption. But those who'd taken their sin to heart would know they needed another form of redemption. Spiritual redemption. Because whether you're in Babylon or Jerusalem or Newcastle, the real captivity is to sin. Every sin we commit is like a debt. We owe it to God to love him with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and to love one another as ourselves. But we haven't paid. Again and again, we've 'spent' life on me, on self - not on God, not on others. And God cannot just waive moral debts, because right and wrong matter to him. So much that he demands that sin is paid for by punishment. And the punishment is to lose relationship with him, through death. So what I need is a redeemer. The only alternative is to pay the punishment myself - which would be hell. What I need is someone who is both morally in credit with God and willing and able to pay for me. 'Morally in credit with God' means sinless, and sinless means God. 'Willing and able to pay for me' means willing and able to lose relationship with God through death, which only a human can do. So I need someone who's sinless - ie, God - and who can die - ie, human. And that's what God has given me. Listen to the New Testament:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3.16)

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Jesus' words in Mark 10.45)

For, you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers [that is, the emptiness of living without God, for ourselves], but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. [ie, a substitute without sin of his own to pay for]. (1 Peter 1.18-19)

That's what happened when Jesus died on the cross. The Son of God - the one man who's ever lived sinlessly - dying under the punishment of all the rest of us who haven't. Why? Verse 4:

'Since you are precious and honoured in my sight, and because I love you.

I'll tell you my natural fear in approaching God to confess my sins and ask him to forgive me and bear with me. My natural fear is that I'm asking him to do something immoral. Half of me is praying that he'll forgive me - ie, won't hold my sin against me. The other half of me is saying he shouldn't. After all, he ought to hold sins against those who commit them. It would be wrong of him simply to waive moral debts. But he says: 'Fear not. For I have redeemed you.' I have paid your punishment. I haven't waived it. I've paid it. And I don't demand payment twice. So when we come to pray and confess our sins and ask forgiveness, what should we do? When we're asking God that question, 'Did I lose you?' what should we do? Remember: what God thinks of us in our sin. And, Remember: what God has done for us in our sin. We're not asking him to waive our debts. We're banking on the truth that he's paid them off. Thirdly, WHAT GOD SAYS TO US IN OUR SIN If that's what God thinks of us; if that's what God has done for us, what does he want us to take on board? Well, verse 1: 'Fear not'. The NT says, 'perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment' (1 John 4.18). And if Jesus has paid my punishment and God doesn't demand punishments twice, I need not fear punishment for my sins. Then verses 18-19:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. {19} See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

'Former things' could mean the good times in our past when we were living for the Lord before a spell of turning away (the times we dwell on: 'If only my walk with the LORD was still like that…'). Or it could mean the bad times - that particular sin or episode or period that sticks in our consciences (which, similarly, we dwell on: 'If only I hadn't…'). And to those who've taken it to heart and come back to him and confessed it, God says: 'Forget it. Don't dwell on it.' Don't let the past control you. Get up, forgiven, and carry on. Perhaps you find yourself saying to the LORD, 'How can you say that?' And in a sense it's a good instinct because it shows you take sin seriously. But God means what he says. Having faced up to it, confessed it to him, asked forgiveness, forget it. Don't dwell on it. Because, verse 25:

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

The last the LORD saw of our sins was at the cross, where they were brought right out into the open, the punishment was paid, and they were put away once and for all. And if he's decided to remember them no more, then we too should put them behind us.