There is a little Biblical Greek word that has within it a world of meaning: anti.
You’ll find it in Hebrews 12: “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for [anti] the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, etc.,” (vs. 2). Our common translation lends a whiff of possible egocentricity; Jesus endured the cross because He saw a great reward awaiting Him at the end if He endured it.
In contrast, the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Lexicon of New Testament Greek (p. 72) says that the primary meaning of anti is “instead of.”
If that insight is valid, we have Hebrews 12:2 saying that “instead of the joy that was set before Him, [Jesus] endured the cross, ...” etc.
What “joy” lay before Him?
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Christ was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities; ... in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15, emphasis added). He had laid aside the prerogatives of His divinity and shared human life with us in His incarnation, as we must live it—all “yet without sin.” At the young age of 33, as is true of all young men, He was just leaving behind His human youth and taking upon Himself our adulthood, and facing a career before Him.
He was already aware of His marvelous divine gifts; for example, in His public speaking He could hold a crowd in attention all day; He saw a marvelous future opening before Him. Crowds wanted to crown Him the King (John 6:15). The “joy” set before Him was boundless. No man on earth has been so tempted by “joy” placed before Him.
Yet because He loved us, Jesus chose the way of the cross, “instead of” the “joy that was set before Him.”
In His divine preexistence, Jesus had made a covenant with the Father to give Himself for the salvation of this lost planet; now in His incarnation, He ratifies that covenant. He will “set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). Satan will seek to turn Him aside from that sacrifice (see Matthew 16:22, 23), but Jesus will reject every temptation to want to “live.” He has chosen to go the way of the cross and the way of sacrificial death.
The Greek scholars in this instance are right: the word anti means “instead of.” All the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height ... [of] the love (agape) of Christ” is hidden in that little word anti.
Living in our flesh, facing our temptations and above all the inward desire to live, Jesus fulfills the divine covenant He made with the Father aeons before; He will go all the way to hell and take upon Himself the guilt of all our sin; He will become “made ... sin for us, who knew no sin”(2 Cor. 5:21). He has died our second death.
There is only one thing we can do—let His love constrain us to live henceforth only unto Him who died for us and rose again.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
------------------------------
