God’s Will – Jesus to the Rescue
God’s Will – Jesus to the Rescue.
“In obedience to the will (“thelema”) of our God and Father, Jesus our Savior gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sins in order to rescue (“exeletai”) us from this present age dominated by evil. May God’s glorious name receive all the honor and praise through all the ages of ages and the eternities of the eternities! Amen. (Galatians 1:4-5).
“Exeletai,” the Greek term for being completely plucked out; fully rescued; totally delivered; removed from danger or saved from distress; liberated; set free.
“Thelema,” the Greek term for one’s preferred choice; the intended will that has a deep purpose behind it; the desired preference for action; the plan of action.
Yeshua. Yeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus. It means Yahweh who saves, or LORD to the Rescue. Yeshua, or Y’shua, is a common form of the Hebrew name Yehoshua, which translates to Joshua. The name Jesus is actually an English version of the Greek version (Yay-soos) of the Hebrew Yeshua. And since Greek was the common international language used when spreading word about Yeshua, Jesus (Yay-soos) is the name most commonly used. Yeshua is the name most commonly used by Hebrew-speaking Christians in Israel and followers of Messianic Judaism. The name Yeshua represents His Hebrew identity, and anyone who called Jesus by His Hebrew name while He was on earth would have called Him Yeshua. The Hebrew word for salvation is Yeshuah. Since Jesus is our salvation, we can say with confidence that Yeshua is our yeshuah.
“Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!’” (Acts 15:20-21).
The Song of Moses and Miriam. Also called the Song at the Sea, this song (Exodus 15:1-18) was written around 1446 BC by Moses, a hero of the Faith, a Hebrew prophet and emancipator, renowned servant of God. Many maintain that his sister Miriam had a hand in writing this song as well, since she was called a prophetess (the first time a woman was called a prophetess in the Bible), in connection to her leading the singing and dancing in 15:20-21. The song opens with a victory chant: “I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and rider He has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song; He is become my salvation.”
Rescued and Liberated. The gospel idea of a savior/rescuer started with Moses. He delivered the Jewish nation from slavery in Egypt, and he brought them to the Promised Land forty years later. Moses freed his people from bondage. God gave Moses the mission of delivering his people, and Moses succeeded. The Exodus has been used ever since in Christian thought as an historical picture of a spiritual truth. God appointed Moses to be a savior. God appointed Jesus to be the Savior. Jesus’ mission spiritually fulfilled Moses’ mission. Moses brought the Jews salvation from slavery. Jesus brought all people salvation from sin. Moses brought the physical reality of deliverance, Jesus brought the spiritual reality of deliverance. Moses illustrated the gospel story, while Jesus embodied it. Moses led the old Exodus. Jesus led the new Exodus, the exodus of the soul, freeing humanity from the bondage of, not Egypt, but sin. The Red Sea was a landmark in Biblical history, a signature moment in the Jewish faith, as well as Christian. The Red Sea miracle is a defining event in Judeo-Christian belief, and is an illustration of redemption, of salvation and deliverance, of a people being “redeemed” and “purchased” by God, as Moses sang in his song (verses 13 and 16).
“Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.” (Psalm 107:19-21).
The remarkable and anonymous Psalm 107 offers several vignettes of what has been called “God’s Great Works of Deliverance.” We find people in all kinds of trouble in this psalm, and the Lord provided rescue and salvation each and every time. Most scholars claim that this psalm can be taken either literally or as metaphor, or more probably both. Historically we can point to the Chosen People here, experiencing exile and all sorts of problems because of their disobedience to their Lord Yahweh. But there are many who say, especially in verses 10-18, that the description of people hopelessly imprisoned in a dark, windowless dungeon is rightly understood as a picture of our spiritual captivity before the arrival of Jesus Christ. This is a realistic picture of the inner prison of the heart before redemption and deliverance. This is certainly a bleak snapshot of the state of our soul without Jesus. Weaving together many translations of Ps. 107:10-18, the following paraphrase can best be understood at the spiritual level, and is what salvation looks like when we are delivered from our spiritual captivity. I have written the following in the more direct and personal first person instead of the more impersonal and distant third person.
“We are those who sat in darkness, locked up in a gloomy prison, living in the shadows that were as dark as death. We were prisoners in absolute misery, bound in chains. All this because we defied the instructions of Lord Yahweh, we despised the counsel of our God, scorning the thoughts of the Most High. So Yahweh humbled our hearts through suffering, and if we fell down, there was no one there to pick us up again. We cried out to the Lord in our distress, and He saved us. He rescued us from our miserable plight. He delivered us from the gloomy darkness and the deathly shadows. He shattered our chains of captivity, He broke the jail wide open. We thank Yahweh for His goodness and lovingkindness, His faithful love for us, His wonderful works for the children of mankind. He broke open those gates of bronze, He smashed the iron bars, and He shattered those heavy jailhouse doors. Yes, we cried out to Lord Yahweh in our distress, and He saved our lives from the Abyss, the pit of destruction, from certain death. We will thank the Lord for His mercy, faithfulness, and goodness!” (a paraphrase of Psalm 107:10-18 by Steve Larson).
‘He saved us.” The word for save here is “Yasha,” which means to be rescued and set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus rescues us, when He delivers us from our inner spiritual prison, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place.
Psalm 18:19 = “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straightjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straightjacket).
Psalm 31:8 = “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have rescued me, you have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.”
Psalm 118:5 = “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.”
A Siege. The messianic Jewish Bible scholar, Brother Rex Andrews, points us to Psalm 118:5, and notes that the Hebrew word for “distress” suggests a siege, a heart held captive to a suffocating and restrictive siege. Without Jesus, we are in extremely constrained circumstances, surrounded by enemies, with no way of escape. We need a rescue operation to free us from our enemies: Our fallen human nature; our inclination to sin without the ability to change ourselves; the ongoing spiritual warfare conducted by the Adversary and his demons; a broken society that makes it difficult to do the right thing; our wounded past that needs healing; deep-seated patterns that are impossible to overcome. But this is the Good News: Jesus makes a way where there is no way. He breaks the enemy’s battle lines, destroys the siege, and sets us free from our enemies. Jesus is our only hope to accomplish this act of liberation, release us from captivity, and grant to us the freedom to be enslaved no longer to our sinfulness.
Spiritual Jailbreak. Psalm 107 would be the testimony of our fallen heart if it could talk. What better way to paint a picture of sin holding us captive, hopelessly locked into a dark dungeon without any true freedom. The truth is that we aren’t strong enough to break those chains. Only Jesus has “bound the strong man” and mercifully liberated us in a dramatic spiritual jailbreak. Only He can break every chain.
“For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have our salvation, our redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14).
Describing God’s Will. Accepting the fact that God’s thoughts are as unreachable as the furthest star in the galaxy, and that His level of understanding is as far from us as the distance from one end of the universe to the other end, we can try to describe God’s will this way: His will is His heart’s desire for every creature to become what that creature was created to be, to reach God’s purpose and destiny for that person; God’s will is what He wants to happen; God’s will is His pure and perfect intention for everything under the sun; His will always remain what is best for all of humanity; His will includes all of mankind’s actions and attitudes that are in line with His character and purpose; His will is that which brings pleasure and joy to His heart; God’s will springs from His character and is an expression of who He is by nature. According to many biblical scholars, God has three wills: His Intentional Will, which is what He prefers according to His designs and plans for the world. The whole world is full of God’s mercy (Ps. 119:64), and God intends that his creatures reflect and live into that mercy with each other. But His intentions could be thwarted in the short-term, because of His… Permissive Will: His will honors each person’s free will, since we are all made in His image; for the short-term, His permissive will allows each of us to stray from His preference or His intention, refusing to eliminate the freedom of mankind to make their own choices in life. However, God has an Ultimate Will for the long-term, a perfect will that is irresistible, that God has had in mind since the creation of the world, and God is determined that His ultimate will shall prevail. Much of God’s ultimate will is a secret at this point, known only to Him. God in His wisdom enjoys a unified plan that we are not privy to, and life in this world is moving towards the ending He has determined. If God’s will and desire is that everyone will eventually be saved, as Rob Bell asks, “Does God finally get what He wants?” Of course He does! In any discussion of God’s will, of course, we shouldn’t forget that, “whatever the Lord pleases to do, He does.” (Ps. 135:6), and “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” (Ps. 115:3).
May your faithful lovingkindness overwhelm me, O Lord, your salvation, as you have promised.” (Psalm 119:41).
The Eternal Promise. God had promised salvation before the foundation of the world. He had planned on the world’s need for a Savior before the world was even created (1 Peter 1:20). God was fully aware, of course, of what He was getting into when He created the heavens and the earth. Because He is a God of astounding love, always reaching out to express His mercy, He knew the people He created in His image would sooner or later disobey Him. He knew that mankind’s sin would taint His image, alienate mankind from Creator God, and lead to spiritual death. God knew He would need to provide a way to rescue mankind and deliver them from the grip of sin. God knew this back before the Garden, and He promised in the Garden that a descendant of Eve would bruise Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15). God promised salvation to Adam and Eve, and God kept His promise through Jesus Christ.
The Ancient Plan. In His divine plan, His promise of salvation, God knew that He had to choose a race of people who would eventually produce a Savior. God knew He would have to provide a blood sacrifice, and only His Son would be able to cleanse the world. So in the fullness of time, God sent a special messenger from His throne, an angel who would speak with the blessed woman who would bear His Son. The angel’s instructions were to call this baby boy Jesus (Matt. 1:21), because that name means Yahweh-saves. Another way of putting His name is Lord-to-the-rescue. God would Father-forth with His heavenly seed through the Holy Spirit, and the Savior-Son would be God in the flesh. This Messiah would take away the sin of the world, forgiving sins, reconciling God and mankind, restoring God’s image in man, and releasing mankind from their slavery to sin. The Savior would deliver mankind from sin’s deadly consequences. God has planned all along that salvation is secure when in union with His Son. “Surely it is God who saves me, I will trust in Him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and He will be my Savior.” (Isaiah 12:2).
Salvation comes to us in all three tenses… In the past tense, we have been saved. In the present tense, we are being saved. In the future tense, we will be saved.
We have been saved from the stain of sin in our soul, from the righteous judgment of God. In union with Christ, we have become new creatures, and we have been adopted into God’s family as His children. That’s a done deal. We have been saved from our old selves into our new selves.
We are being saved from sin’s grip on our character, from our slavery to fallen impulses and sinful inclinations. Our current life in Christ is gradually but surely transforming us, freeing us from sin’s dominion over our old life and bringing us into His light, from one glory to the next. It’s a process of being sanctified. We are being saved from sin’s consequences in our human nature.
We will be saved from a sinful world and brought into a Kingdom of God’s making, a City of light and fellowship with our God of salvation. We live in hope because of our future deliverance, a time when we are not subject to a fallen, broken world of pain, suffering and death. We will be saved as we enter the eternal City of God.