“They shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a Saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.” Isa. 19:20.
I HAVE no doubt that the One who will be the Saviour of those referred to in this chapter is the One who is my Saviour, thank God, and, I hope, if He be not already your Saviour, that you may find Him now; for He is indeed “A SAVIOUR, AND A GREAT ONE,”
Let me ask you first what you understand by a Saviour? A Saviour is a person who is able to do what the one whom he saves cannot do. If I think of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour, I think of Him as one who is able to do what I, a poor sinner, cannot do, viz., deliver myself from the grip of Satan, the power of sin, and the judgment of God.
I do not believe that any man knows Jesus as a Saviour until he finds out that he is lost, i.e., until he finds out that he is a sinner, and what the result of his being a sinner must be. But the moment a soul feels the power of sin, and the oppression of the devil, ―for he is the great oppressor, ―and turns round to Jesus, then that soul finds out that He is “a Saviour, and a Great One.” Only a great Saviour could save a great sinner. God’s is a great salvation, and Scripture well says, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3.)
Note that the Saviour delivers a man. If I am merely hoping to be saved, I am not delivered. The man who is shipwrecked, and who is merely toping to get into the lifeboat, is not in it. The man who is drowning, and is hoping to be pulled out of the water, is not safe on shore―so the one who is only hoping to be saved is not saved.”
“A JUST GOD, AND A SAVIOUR.”
If you turn to Isa. 45 you will find that God is unfolded as this Saviour, and you have what the character of this Saviour is. “A just God and a Saviour, there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else” (verses 21, 22). Being a just God, He cannot pass over your sins, He will not make light of them. What a lovely combination of truth and grace is here seen! A just God, who will not overlook the sin, and yet He is the Saviour of the sinner. Do you ask, How can He be a just God, and yet a Saviour? Is the God I have sinned against the Saviour too? That is it. And do you ask, How can I be saved? He says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” You may ask, What do you mean by looking? Well, it is just simply confiding in, trusting to another for that which you need, and cannot furnish, but which this proposed Deliverer can supply. While I look He is saving, the heart bows to Him, confides in Him, and He saves, and saves righteously.
Bow to Him every soul must, at some time, for He says, “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow” (vs. 23). If yours is the hardest heart that has never bowed to Jesus yet, remember you must bow to Him some day. Surely it is much better to bow to Him now, in the day of His grace, than to be forced to bow in the day of judgment.
The 45th of Isaiah states, that every knee shall bow to God, and Philippians 2 tells us that this submission will be rendered to the Lord Jesus as man, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (vs. 10). This is a striking testimony to the divinity of the Lord Jesus.
Into the very scene where man has sinned, and where God must deal with sin, His Son, Jesus, comes to save.
Let us now turn to Matthew 1, where we find
THE SAVIOUR ANNOUNCED,
and a beautiful statement of who He is. Joseph hears that the one who is to be born shall be called “Jesus (=Jehovah, the Saviour), for he shall save his people from their sins” (vs. 21). Wondrous tidings, and charming name! Jesus! It is music to the heart of every Christian, there is no name like it. But we further read, “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (ver. 22, 23). Nothing less than a God-man would do for you and me. He must be God, or He would not be able to present to God that which He demands; and He must be man, or He would not be able to understand or to meet my needs.
THE SAVIOUR BORN.
I have a Saviour promised in Isaiah 19, and what the character of this Saviour is in Isaiah 45. In Matthew 1. I have the name of this Saviour, and in Luke 2. I have the Saviour born. The angel comes down and announces to the shepherds, “Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:11, 12).
There are two signs given in Scripture, for faith to rest on—a babe and a dead man. (Compare Luke 2:12, and Matthew 12:39-41,) Jesus was born to be a Saviour, and He died that He might be able to save.
THE SAVIOUR REVEALED.
In John 4 we find Him revealing Himself as a Saviour to the needy soul of a sinner―and then, as a consequence of her report, the whole city of Samaria came out to see and hear Him―and many believed. The mere knowledge that He is a Saviour is not enough to save. Nor does the fact of Jesus becoming a man save you. Union with Christ is not through His incarnation, but through the wonderful facts of His death and resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost to unite us with Him. Incarnation only shows the distance between me and God, for Christ was holy, and we are unholy; He was sinless, and we are sinners; He was just, and we are unjust; so incarnation apart from death and resurrection could not bring us to God.
THE SAVIOUR REJECTED.
In Acts 5 we find a remarkable statement. There Peter says, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree” (vs. 30). The world today stands charged with the murder of the Son of God, and if you have not turned round to the Lord Jesus, and identified yourself with Him, the rejected Saviour, you are part and parcel of the world who slew Him, and hanged Him on a tree. God sees no middle ground. Do you say, I profess Christianity? That is not the point. Do you possess Christ?
THE SAVIOUR EXALTED.
Peter brought things to a point that day. “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance and remission of sins,” he says. Peter knew full well how they slew Him, and he also knew how God had raised Him, for he says, “We are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.” Did it ever strike you that the Holy Ghost came down to convince the world of its guilt in murdering the Saviour? The fact of His being here is the standing witness of the guilt of the world. If I were you, my friend, I would cross over from the world’s side to Christ’s side. Today there are two great classes: Christ’s friends, and His foes. In which of these classes are you? Have you got the forgiveness of your sins yet? Have you ever gone through repentance? Have you ever seen yourself as a lost soul? If not, God grant you may see it today, for till you do, you will not care to turn round to the Saviour. Oh! my friend, be sure of this, if you do not repent, you will be damned. Christ―the rejected, and exalted Saviour―gives repentance, and remission of sins. Is it not a blessed thing to know yourself forgiven? Do you say, It is presumption? Is it presumption to believe what God has spoken? Oh! take Him at His word.
Jesus is “a Saviour, and a great one,” and He shall deliver. He delivers by becoming a man that He might die. By death He annuls death.
THE SAVIOUR PROCLAIMED.
The Gospel, as preached now, is the setting forth of “our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). This Gospel is for all, and in Titus we get a category of some of the bad people this Saviour saves: “Foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, an hating one another” (Titus 3:3). They have believed Jesus, and with them it is a case of
THE SAVIOUR APPROPRIATED.
“But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” Have I then the right to say, I am saved? I have, or else I do not know the Saviour. The man who confides in Christ is brought under all the benefits of the work of the Saviour. The moment you own what you are, you are the very one for the Saviour. Jesus says sinners are wanted, lost men and lost women-not righteous. He did not come to call the righteous but sinners. If you believe on this blessed Saviour, you belong to Him, and He to you. You look to Him, and He saves you. Looking to Jesus is just confiding in Him as the only Person who can do the very thing you want, Repentance is my judging myself, owning I am a wretched lost sinner, and remission of sins is what Jesus gives me. I get from His own blessed lips the assurance of forgiveness and salvation. He has loved you, and you trust Him; He has died for you, and you are saved by Him; and now you have only to adore Him, bless His name, wait for His coming back, and, till He comes, tell all your neighbors that you have found
A SAVIOUR, AND A GREAT ONE.
Well indeed may we sing―
“Oh, what a Saviour―that He died for me!
From condemnation He hath set me free;
‘He that believeth on the Son,’ saith He,
‘Hath everlasting life.’”
W. T. P. W.