Missing Words: The Robbery of Truth

In Jesus Christ our Lord is where the beauty, the glory and the majesty of such a promise from God, hinges on. If you remove the hinge, you lose it all! This is an unusual way to begin this blog post but it all ties in perfectly with what follows. With that said, I now invite you Into My HEART.

Picture the scene in the theater of your mind: It’s dark. On the street is utter chaos. Fights erupt. You see homelessness, prostitution, the selling and using of drugs. There is hopelessness, despair, violence and anger. You are trapped in the middle of it and it is a world you cannot fully grasp. Out of the corner of your eye, this bright light captures your attention so you turn to look at it, in the midst of the horror. You see big bold letters that are lit up brightly. They read: FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, BUT THE FREE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE.

Such words seem powerful enough, yet below them is disaster and brokenness to such measures and degrees those words seem to grow dim and remain ineffective in the background. Here is where missing words rob us of truth.

Without, ‘in Jesus Christ our Lord’ the depravity of reality comes into full view. It is evident that anyone who seeks after the God of the Bible, they will inevitably encounter and be confronted with Jesus who is called Christ. There is no deviating from this reality. And for the one who does pursue the God of the Bible they will also quickly come to know that He gives good gifts. Yet upon encountering this Jesus, they will also come to realize that God has so hinged every promise of His to find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, only two outcomes are possible. Either Jesus does become [our Lord] or He does not. And as God has so hinged all His promises to be found [in Jesus Christ our Lord], to have a life void of Him is to have a life void of all God’s promises. 

Therefore, the scene I asked you to picture, is an accurate picture of a life void of, ‘in Jesus Christ our Lord.’ The depravity is real. The darkness is real. The despair is real. The chaos is real. The brokenness is real. The pains and the horrors are real. It is all a very real reality apart from Him that we all cannot escape from. This is why we must not exclude Jesus but always include all that God has promised to find itself in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

The horrific picture put forth above we are all able to accurately see. It comes from a movie I remember watching. In the movie a vastly important verse in all the Bible in huge lettering was displayed across the side of a building. It caught my attention because never had I seen a whole verse from the Bible in a movie with such boldness! The movie wasn’t even a “Christian-based” movie but a secular one with very famous well known actors in it.

However, something else immediately caught my attention. With all the bold lettering and so much expressed in the message of that one verse, the most important part was left off! IN JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.

The Bible verse is as follows: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). That is a grand truth and promise in all the Bible.

To have spread across a building, ‘FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, BUT THE FREE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE’ is great! But if we leave off the end it remains incomplete. Imagine receiving a grand gift; a most glorious gift. A gift to surpass and end all other gifts. What is the first thing we typically do when we receive a gift? We hear or come to know who the gift giver is. Now from what the building shared, we come to know that this free gift is from God. What’s interesting is that this free gift has a specific location where it is to be found and received.

Again, we can comprehend such a thing. A most common theme in many parts of the world and especially in North America, is Christmas and the decorative tree that has become a center piece to the celebration on that day. At the location of the tree awaits for many, free gifts, and on those gifts are labels that say who the gift is from and to whom the free gift is being given to. This is easily understood.

And so it is with God’s free gift. Free to all but located in Jesus Christ the Lord. Now another thing that should catch our attention is the word [in]. Very unusual is this word. And in its context, we read, ‘in Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Many are the gifts that come wrapped up. They are to be found in a box, in a decorative bag, in a stocking, even hanging on the well lit Christmas tree. We must go [in]to these packages to find the free gift that awaits us. And so it with Jesus Christ our Lord. It is in Him that eternal life is to be had. In fact, the free gift of God is in fact Jesus Christ Himself!

Bible verses are wonderful, instructive, provide direction, clarity, purpose, meaning, understanding and wisdom. They possess joy and peace within themselves. They are held together by grace, truth and love and in some cases cloaked in mystery as it were, and even come with stern warnings. To remove any portion or to add our own spin on any portion, is to lose the whole meaning of it all and that will prove disastrous.

And so, missing words are indeed robbery of the truth. For in all things and in every way, we can be sure, if the facts are distorted, if the evidence has been tampered with, disaster is but around the corner. Imprisonment is inevitable and freedom will elude us all. Therefore, let us not miss the full and accurate words so that there is no robbery of truth. Let us, I pray, take in the full and accurate words so that freedom and eternal life that is, in Jesus Christ our Lord, we will receive as that all too glorious free gift from God. Amen.

As always...YOU ARE LOVED.