Blows that hurt
Proverbs 20:30-"Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, as do stripes the inner depths of the heart." Jesus, my savior endured a terrible beating of both blows and stripes in Pilate's Praetorium. He had done no evil, yet, the prescribed remedy to rid one of the evil they have done was given to Him. It was, of course given Him on my behalf- on behalf of all humans for all time. If one is to contemplate this verse in a merely superficial way, one can see that just because a one takes a beating in response to the evil they have done, it does not force them never to do evil again. However, this verse, when examined both with more awareness of the human psyche as well as esoterically, one can see that the verse is more than applicable, it is true. When we are children and we cross the street without looking, for instance, once we are retrieved by our parents, they give us a good spanking on the bottom- or at least they should. Why do they do this? Because they want us to associate crossing the street without looking with pain in our physical bodies. For it is much better if we suffer momentary pain and discomfort at the loving hands of our parents than if we are hit by a car. Furthermore, when we are young children and this situation occurs, our parents would do little to dissuade further careless behavior were they simply to try to reason with us by talking. We simply would not be mature enough to comprehend the gravity of the situation. That being said, once a good spanking has taken place, not only will we refrain from crossing the street without looking immediately subsequent, but our memories will be so affected by the correction that we will probably never do it again- which of course is the goal. So why, as a child who disobeyed His parents, did our Lord and savior have to endure such a beating? Well for one thing, the Word says that He became our sin. Sin is unacceptable behavior and must be dealt with whatever the cost is. But, Jesus was a mature, man-even if we are just speaking of His personage, why then could He not be reasoned with? The answer is a bit more theological than it is straight forward. Man, since the fall, has been dead in his trespasses and sins. When a human is dead in this way, they can never mature because they are dead- only live things mature. Therefore, it can be reckoned that man, without Jesus' redemption and the new birth, are a bunch of over grown children- mentally speaking that is. As has previously been established, children cannot comprehend reason. Furthermore, the Word assures us that the flesh and the Spirit are enmity against one another. Since, pre-salvation man has only a dead spirit, they are naturally at enmity with the Spirit- which is the Word of God and therefore could not hear reason. So the first reason that Jesus endured this torture was because He was the substitution for all mankind - which by and large were spiritually dead, mental children at this point in history. Second, 1 Peter 2:24 quotes Isaiah 53:5 which states that "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are (1 Peter states we were healed) healed". Jesus, as a proper propitiation had to receive the beating to a. fulfill the prophecy regarding the Messiah and b. so that we may be healed from all of our diseases. The healing Jesus gave us at the time He bore our strips and was smitten on our behalf affords us the knowledge that there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. That it is no longer necessary for us to "take a beating” for any of our wrong doing. Instead, we can now receive the Spirit of the Living God on the inside of us and along with that, the mind of Christ. Since this is the case for all redeemed individuals, we no longer have an understanding of sin for we are new creations. Even if we do sin willfully, the Spirit of the Lord can speak to us, reason with us, and correct us from the inside. For we are now mature sons. This is the fulfillment of Proverbs 20:30 for the New Testament believer. The blows that Jesus endured on our behalf cleansed all evil from our lives. The stripes let our conscience be aware of our deliverance from any evil or any consequence there from derived.
Comments