Scripture teaches us that God comforts His people. The principal manner in which God's comfort is displayed is that He takes away our sin, He pardons our iniquities, He clothes us in His righteousness, and He thereby makes peace with us.
How glorious that God should reveal that comfort in the very person of His Dear Son, incarnate in our humanity!
There is comfort in Christ's sacrifice at Calvary! We are set free from the fear of judgment, and brought before God with exceeding comforts.
Jesus Himself demonstrated that comfort in concrete ways during His ministry. He embraced the long-ago promises of God, that Messiah would preach the gospel to the poor, heal the broken hearted, preach deliverance to the captives, and recover sight for the blind.
But note well, that Christ and Isaiah promised not mere physical blessings. In fact, most of the items listed in both passages refer to spiritual healing, a change of heart, a rescue from sadness and oppression, beauty from the ashes, and praise to our God.
In fact, Isaiah concludes with this promise: all this is to the end, that His people might be called trees of righteousness, and the planting of the Lord!
Thus, we find the end of the Gospel: that those who trust in Jesus, and believe His Gospel, in the end, will be radically converted, changed, and clothed with righteousness before God, all of His doing to and upon us!
Indeed, it is required that Christ's ministry and work be much more than temporal, physical healing, because sickness in this life always comes again, and troubles return, and violence and repression in this world recur.
Christ's ministry must have permanent effect, He must provide eternal salvation! |
