I admire the Lord Jesus for the final, decisive completion of His mission.
When I was a young Christian, I loved Jesus, but I thought of Him as a fragile, sensitive sort, constantly appealing to His wayward children to come home. I pictured Him as an anxious parent, nervously pacing the sidelines of history, waiting and hoping for the response of His creatures.
Or like that old Sunday School picture of Jesus, I thought of Him knocking at the door of our hearts, maintaining a lonely vigil as He listened for someone to invite Him in.
But I’ve come to know Him in Scripture as The Man, the Conquering King, the One who, as the hymn writer said, “rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.”
Crown him the Lord of life,
who triumphed o'er the grave,
who rose victorious in the strife
for those he came to save.
And it makes me think of another song, Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around.
“After making justification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).
He accomplished in His thirty-three years, or in those three days from Calvary to the empty tomb, the purchase of all God’s elect—those He came to save. He took their place, paid their penalty, and bore the fury of God's just wrath for them. Then He threw off the shroud of death, brushed aside the shrieks of hell's frustration, and rose again to take His place on the throne of heaven.
Mission accomplished. The Lord Jesus is King!
