September 22
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8.
The author of the Epistle inserts a statement about the heart and center of Christianity. Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior. There was and is and ever shall be only one Redeemer.
The apostle Peter testified that whenever any of the prophets wrote or spoke of a Savior, they bore testimony to Jesus Christ. “To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins,” Acts 10:43. Previously, Peter testified to the people in the temple, “Those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled,” Acts 3:18.
After Adam and Eve had sinned and God promised that the Seed of the woman, the virgin-born Jesus, would come and crush the serpent’s head – that is, destroy and conquer the devil – God was not speaking of just any human being. God was speaking of the Son of God, who would become also the Son of Man, and as the God-Man He would accomplish everything necessary for the salvation of all people. From eternity, God planned our salvation.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday. Yesterday points back to eternity. The Son of God existed from eternity before He became the Son of Man. From eternity, which has no beginning and no ending, He is true God with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Today, He is the same Son of God who became the Son of Man in order to redeem us. It was necessary for Him to be both God and Man in one Person to redeem us. He had to be a true man to fulfill the Law in our place. However, He also had to be true God to fulfill the Law perfectly. He had to be a true man to suffer and die on Calvary’s cross to redeem us. However, He had to be true God to make a sacrifice sufficient to redeem all people. He had to be a true man in order to die, but if He had been only a true man, He would still be dead. He had to be true God to rise on the third day and to conquer sin, death, and the devil.
Jesus is the one and only Savior forever. He is the only One through whom all believers in the past and in the present and in the future will be saved. In Old Testament times, the children of God believed and trusted in God’s promises with reference to the Savior who would come. We, in the New Testament times, believe and trust in the Savior who came. All the children of God from the past, at the present, and in the future believe and trust in one and the same Savior. “He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again . . . God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation . . . (God) made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,” 2 Corinthians 5:15, 19, 21.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He is the only Savior for all people who lived in the past, who are living now, and who will live in the future.
“We all believe in Jesus Christ,
His own Son, our Lord, possessing
An equal Godhead, throne, and might,
Source of ev’ry grace and blessing.
Born of Mary, virgin mother,
By the power of the Spirit;
Made true man, our elder Brother,
That the lost might life inherit;
Was crucified for sinful men,
And raised by God to life again.” Amen.