I recently heard a song by Josh Turner entitled “I Serve a Savior.” I began thinking about all the songs that speak of Jesus as our Savior and Deliverer. This document could not hold all the titles. This is because without Jesus as our Deliverer and Savior, we would not enjoy any of the abundant blessings we have from God. God’s people have always needed a Savior, because they have always had enemies that opposed God’s influence in the culture. As a matter of fact, often the greatest enemy we face is ourselves and our propensity to go our own way (Isaiah 53:6). Throughout the history of Israel, God has always raised up someone or a group of somebodies to be the savior for His chosen people.
Nehemiah chapter 9 is an account of a declaration and prayer to God, most likely led by Ezra. In verse 27, he makes this statement. “…according to your great mercies You gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. Recognizing the reality of God’s people either getting themselves into a fix, or their enemies coming against them, the book of Nehemiah reminds us that often God would send or anoint someone to lead them out of their bondage or predicament. “You gave them saviors.”
In 2 Kings 13, we have an account of Jehoahaz becoming king of Israel. The Scripture tells that he continued in the same folly as Jeroboam and God handed the nation over to the Syrians. Remember, when God wants to judge a nation, He delivers them to an oppressor of some kind, for the purpose of drawing them back through repentance, so they can renew and restore their relationship with Him. The text tells us “then Jehoahaz sought the favor of the LORD, and the LORD listened to him…Therefore the LORD gave Israel a savior, so that they escaped from the hand of the Syrians.” There is some debate among scholars as to who might this “savior” be; some think it Joash, some Jehoahaz…regardless of who their deliverer might be, God in His mercy provided a savior to set them free from the oppression at the hands of the Syrians.
On another occasion, the children of Israel were living in the Promised Land, but instead of importing God’s will and ways, they began to intermix and intermarry with the people of the land; the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, etc. Therefore, the people of God abandoned Him and began to serve Baalim. This was not the donkey whisperer recorded in Numbers, but it is rather the idol Baal. This angered the Lord and He gave them over to the king of Mesopotamia to once again drive them to repent and return to the only true God. It took eight years, but eventually they cried out to the Lord God and He heard their cry. He raised up a deliverer/savior to lead them to freedom and away from bondage to the king of Mesopotamia and his name was Othniel, the son of Kenaz and nephew to Caleb (yes, that Caleb). We are told the Holy Spirit came upon Othniel and he went out to war. The Lord honored him and the people of God and delivered the king of Mesopotamia over into the hands of Othniel and his armies. Once again God stepped in by the hands of a savior for the nation of Israel.
Of course, the most well-known savior and deliverer for the Israelites is the person of Moses. Born an Israelite, but not knowing it until he was much older, Moses became God’s hand of deliverance for His people as they were slaves to Pharoah and his Egyptian kingdom. Moses performed many brave acts and boldly confronted the king of Egypt, probably at the risk of his own peril, speaking as God’s spokesman on behalf of, to quote God, “My people.” The story is too long and involved to
do it justice here, but suffice it to say he was one of them and sought to set them free by confronting the enemy of God’s people.
In the end, God and Pharaoh allowed the people of God to exit, maybe 2 million of them, following their savior, Moses. Of course, he led them through the Red Sea and the wilderness for forty years, until they came to the Jordan River. It was there that Moses committed the egregious sin of disobeying God and striking the rock instead of speaking to it as God had instructed. This was the end of the journey for Moses, he could only view the Promised Land from the other side of the Jordan. His protégé, Joshua, would take up the mantle of being their savior and leading them over the River into the land which God had promised Abraham many years before. Moses is closely associated with the Lord Jesus is so many ways, Moses himself
declared,
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to Him.”
As a savior, Moses was the perfect/imperfect model. It is fitting that Moses instructed the people of God (this includes you and me) that we must listen to this coming prophet. Ultimately, He would be the final prophet to deliver His people.
Since the fall of the human race in the Garden of Eden, God had sent saviors to deliver the children of Israel from their predicaments.
Of course, these saviors were only temporary and spoke prophetically of One who would come and settle the matter once for all.
As we enter into the Christmas season, the importance of what Christmas stands for becomes clear and vital. The other saviors who preceded Jesus were called and gifted by God, and yet the people of God still returned to their sin or created some new ones. They were unchanged in their inner beings and therefore would only obey God on the straight and narrow
for a while. The plan of God (which was established before the beginning of the world) was for an Eternal Lamb to come to the world in the person of the Son of God, having become flesh like one of us.
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things.”
It was necessary for the Son of God to become the Son of Man by being cloaked with a fleshly body just like the rest of the human race. And yet, the final and complete Savior would not take on any of the sinful nature the rest of the race of people were subject to, as His Father was perfect and therefore did not transmit sin or the sin nature to His offspring.
Therefore, this Savior had to be born to a human just like the rest of humankind. It was necessary that He came to earth in the same manner as every other living and breathing person who had ever lived upon the face of the earth. Enter Mary into the picture and her encounter with Gabriel informing her that even though she had not had any physical relations with a man, she would indeed become with child. In response to her question to how this could be, the angel replied,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy–the Son of God.”
I don’t know how much of that explanation Mary actually grasped, probably not very much. But she didn’t need to totally understood it to be able to say to the angel, and thus to say to the God who had sent him,
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Upon the declaration of Mary of her unconditional and fully committed obedience to the word, the angel seemingly immediately departed. His mission was done and he had heard what he came to hear. The plan was in place for the first Christmas to become a reality.
Because of the destitution of the human race without any hope of deliverance, God sent His Son to be the complete and final Savior for His people. He would be the Savior of all saviors. Coming to earth as one of us, He would become the supreme sacrifice for the human race to atone for the sins of the people that had held us in bondage since the Garden of Eden. And yet, the sacrifice had to be a sinless sacrifice, as in the Old Testament when “Your lamb shall be without blemish” according to
God’s instructions. The Eternal Lamb must be without blemish, which eliminated any current member of the human race. Jesus comes as completely God/deity, and at the same time completely human, minus the sin nature, because the Holy Spirit had caused the conception in Mary, not a human male.
And so it is now said of all the human race, not that He sent saviors to free us from our bondage, but that He sent one Savior to redeem that which had been lost. Three different times the letter to the Hebrews states that after Jesus did the work He was sent to do, “He sat down.” The fact that He sat down meant there would be
no more saviors or saving needed, since,
“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
This is why we open the Christmas scene with a couple finding their way to Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) in the Sovereign plan of God. This is why we focus so much at this time of year on a baby in a manger, because unless He became an infant, there would be no Savior and with no Savior there is no salvation. No, we do not leave Jesus in the manger, because it is when He became an adult that He went to the cross and fulfilled His earthly destiny. But for a certain time each year, we are reminded that God has provided a Savior for all of humanity and He did so by sending His Son to become like one of us, even to be born in the same manner as the rest of us.
May your Christmas season be filled with festive joy, unexplainable peace, and unlimited love as we celebrate the main reason for the season.
O Holy Night by Placide Cappeau (1847)
Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly
shining
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by an
Unknown Author (18th Century)
God rest you merry, gentlemen / Let nothing
you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Savior / Was born on
Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r /When we
were gone astray.
Born in Bethlehem by Third Day (2006)
Baby Jesus, born in a stable / Humble Savior’s
birth
You left Your throne in Heaven above / To
live here on the earth
Baby Jesus, lying in a manger / Crying for the
world
The angels told the shepherds / Of the good
news for us all
Hallelujah, the King is here / Given for all men
For today the holy son of God / Is born in
Bethlehem
“Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!”
Luke 2:11
