Dear Friends of “Dial Daily Bread,”
How can Jesus Christ be “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42), and “the Savior of all men” (1 Tim. 4:10), when so many people in the world reject Him? How can He save people who don’t want to be saved? Is He forcing people?
No, He will not force anyone. But if God “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16), He has a perfect right to do so. He is the Creator of the world, and of “all men.” Why can’t He love them if He wants to?
And He “so” loves them that He sent His Son to save them; that was His job description. And He did what He was sent to do: “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do,” He says (John 17:4).
That means He did “save the world.” And the clear evidence that He did so is that you at this moment are taking a breath: your physical life is full proof that He took your death and gave you His life; otherwise, you would be locked into the throes of the “second death,” which is darkness forever. Yes, we must confess, He has “tasted death [the second] for everyone” (Heb. 2:9). Isaiah 53 says, “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (vs. 6), and that means just what it says--us all. “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him” (vs. 5).
That means every moment of “peace” that anyone in all the world has ever known has had to be balanced by a corresponding payment of torture that He has had to endure in our behalf. Think of all the pleasure that countless millions have enjoyed without the slightest realization of what their “fun” has cost.
The “everlasting gospel” that must yet “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev. 18:1-4) must and will make plain this cosmic exchange. “By His stripes we are healed,” says Isaiah. Every human soul must at last be confronted with reality, must face the cross, be brought to realize the true Source of all the wealth and pleasure he or she has always enjoyed so selfishly.
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” (Lam. 1:12). This ultimate confrontation will be the final “everlasting gospel” that will polarize humanity into two classes: those who believe and those who disbelieve.
--Robert J. Wieand
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 13, 2003.
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