Sweet Substitution - Day 7

Congratulations! You have hung in there a whole week. I know that the reading can be long, but I hope that it is enriching your love for and knowledge of Jesus. The things we could say about Him are inexhaustible! But for today, lets take a closer look at the amazing hands and body of our Lord, and see what He shares with you personally...

His hands are rods of gold set with beryl.
His body is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Ps 19:1) The hand is indicative of power, means, dominion, and strength. Rightly should we notice and praise His hands. The Bible says that Jesus’ hands made the world and spans the universe. “I have made the earth, and created man on it. I-My hands-stretched out he heavens.” (Is 45:12) And also, “Indeed, My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens.” (Is 48:13) There is none mightier or more powerful. So we can pray with great assurance with the Psalmist, “My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies.” (Ps 31:15)

In such a prayer, we know that He is able. For not only are these mighty hands able to hold all things in the heavens and earth in their right place, but they are also able to eternally keep and protect what are in them. There is nothing that can be taken out of them, including us. Isn’t this a great comfort? In John chapter 10, Jesus, speaking of the security of the flock of believers under His care, says that “no one shall snatch them out of My hand.” Jesus testified of this to His Father, giving account of His faithfulness towards those who are His, and said, “Of all that You have given Me, I have lost none.” (Jn 17)

Through persecution, peril, tribulation and all the trouble of this age, we need never fear that we will be plucked away from the Lord’s loving, protecting hands. No matter what the circumstance, Christ will keep us from falling out of His grip and present us blameless before the Father in love. We need only place ourselves in His grasp and trust in His ability to keep us there. Our Good Shepherd says, “In this world you will have trouble, be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33) Hold on to Him, as He holds onto you. He is the ultimate Victor, and will hold our right hand continually until He brings us into glory to be with Him.

“I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand; You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Ps 73:23-26)

They are fittingly described as rods of gold, picturing the golden scepter which identifies Him as the King of kings and Lord of lords. “Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him and His work before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom.” (Is 40:10-11)

This word for hand is also used to describe labor, order and service. We are commanded in Scripture to offer up our hands to God as members of righteousness for His service. Jesus is our perfect example of this. He was always about His Father’s work, and was continually seen using His hands to touch, heal, deliver, and comfort His people. One such incident involved a leper. Leprosy was common in Jesus’ day, and meant a life sentence of bitter isolation and disgrace until the victim’s very life was consumed bit by bit by this disease.

It was illegal in those days for a leper to enter society at any time for any reason. So they were banished to the outskirts of town where they would occupy caves and other shelter, reduced to a life of squalor. The Bible tells us of one such leper, unnamed and dwelling in the region of Galilee when Jesus passed through. As recorded in Matthew chapter eight, word that the Messiah was teaching on a near by mountain came to the man and he went to worship Him. This man was in terrible misery, without the comfort of another human touch for many years. When he heard that Jesus was coming, he risked shame and peril to break the law, enter the crowd, and attempt to reach the only One he knew could heal him; his only hope. When the people saw him they were no doubt disgusted and amazed, filled with contempt and fear. But God in the flesh did not resist the sick man nor shield Himself from his grotesque figure, but instead, did the unthinkable. He reached out His hand and touched the disease ridden man, something that no other would dare to. And immediately, the man’s hope was realized, his leprosy was cleansed, and his body was restored.

That day, the leper received more than just a physical cure. For a few glorious seconds, he knew what pure love and power felt like as Jesus’ hand lay purposefully upon him. How he must have dreamed and longed for the sensation of another human being’s touch. What He received that day no doubt fulfilled and healed a lifetime of loneliness.

The hands of the One who was in the beginning with God, and was God, the One through whom and for whom all things exist and have their being, are indeed powerful. They are merciful. And they are also pierced. “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands,” He told Thomas. Jesus’ loving, ministering, wonderful, life-giving hands were pierced for our transgressions with Roman nails upon a cross. The last description of the use of the Hebrew word for hand is yield. To surrender to someone greater is no mystery. But He who is omnipotent, and even confessed to having more than ten legions of angels at His disposal, yielded all His power for a great purpose. He did not use His mighty hands in retribution or defense, but stretched them out upon a beam so that our sins could be fixed to them. Just as He reached them out to the leper, He reached them out for us, and is still doing so today. Will you run to them and find comfort unimagined and incomparable? Stay within the loving touch of the Savior. And His hands will hold you there.

His hands, of course, were not the only parts of His body that were wounded for our redemption. Jesus’ whole body was bruised, beaten, whipped, torn, and marred beyond all recognition. The Beloved’s body is described in our verse as carved ivory inlaid with sapphires. Truly Christ was carved by the cruel lashes of the flagellum, by the thorns pierced into His perfect brow, and by the spear thrust and twisted into His side. It was a gruesome sight that day at Calvary as our Lord suffered so greatly. Yet we still, like the Shulamite bride, can describe this horrendous sight as a thing of such great beauty because of the precious, priceless prize it earned; our blessed redemption.

On this side of the cross we can and do call the body and blood of Christ truly precious. The sight of our marred and marked Savior, though it brings tears to our eyes, it should be the most beautiful and pleasant sight to our souls. For without His suffering, we would be alienated from God forever and eternally condemned to dwell in the misery of our sin. “He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor 5:21) He took our punishment, and asks us in return to simply abide in Him. “Praise be to our God for we who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ!” (Eph 2:12-13) What a wonderful mystery, that He, who endured so much for us, wants only our fellowship! True, we owe Him our lives, our obedience, and our worship forever. But even in these He asks them because He seeks for only our good. He gave up all to obtain what He wanted most dear – an eternity with us!

It is essential to accept His offer to abide if we desire to have any fruitfulness in this life. Jesus says of Himself that He is the vine we are to abide in; and that He is the Rock on which we are to stand. We first get a picture of this gracious invitation in the Book of Exodus. Moses, desperately longing to see the glory of God, was told to stand upon a rock and hide in a cleft of the mountain so when the Lord passed by he wouldn’t die from seeing His holiness.

“And the Lord said, ‘Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by.’” (Ex 33:21)

Could it be that this very cliff and cleft which sheltered and protected Moses, enabling him closeness with the Lord Almighty without suffering death, is none other than Jesus Christ? The Hebrew word used for Ivory means sharp and cliff. He is the One who makes access to the Father possible for us. He is the foundation stone upon which our salvation stands, and He is the cleft that shelters us from the storms of the world and from the wrath of God.

And His strong, pure, ivory body is inlaid with sapphires. Sapphires are precious stones that were used for scraping other substances, scoring to mark, inscribing and recording. Look again at the cross, and you will see that a sapphire marked each hand and foot; that many have scratched His head and shredded His back; that one is deeply inlaid within His precious side.

The scoring sapphires indeed served their purpose in His body to severely mark and scrape and scar. “He was wounded for our transgression, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” (Is 53:5) He bought us peace with His pain, therefore blotting out the offenses written against us with His blood. They did their worst in marring the perfect ivory pillar of Christ’s body. But now they serve to no longer scrape or scour but to inscribe. Today those scraping stones serve to inscribe righteousness upon our accounts, and record our names in the Lamb’s Book of Life! Praise be to God for these precious stones indeed, which scarred the Savior to save the sinner!

His body, as an ivory tower made of the purest white, stands between the Father and us. It bears the sapphire scars and wounds that won our freedom, that purchased our peace, and that brings us back to God. Gaze with me upon the beautifully scarred Savior whose hands, majestic and merciful are outstretched still. Lord Jesus, may we ever know the perfect bliss of Your touch, and be eternally hidden in the cleft of Your presence.

Application:
1) Read Duet 33:12. Is there something in life that makes you feel unsafe or afraid? What does this verse promise us?
2) Take a few moments to enjoy communion with the Lord, thanking and worshiping Him for His scars.