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by Bill Seng

My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant. (Luke 1:46-48)

Before Jesus was born, an angel came to Joseph, his earthly step-father, to tell him what was going on with his pregnant wife-to-be. The angel told him “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The very name, Jesus, means “God is salvation.” To call Jesus our Savior is to call him by name. But if he is our savior, what is he saving us from?

Matthew 1:21 very clearly states that Jesus would save his people from their sins. But what does that mean? The other day, my wife had a conversation with a very kind person who said that they do not believe in hell because a loving and just God could not punish someone eternally when his or her sin was only carried out for 70 or so years. That implies that if people do not go to heaven, then the worst punishment for them is to be obliterated from existence when he or she dies. If that is the case, the atheists may as well continue living as they are and believing as they do because that is what they are expecting anyway.

Hell, however, is a very real place and it is entered through our sin. Sin is separation from God. Hell is eternal separation from God. The reward for sin is death and the place where the spiritually dead reside for eternity is hell. Regardless of what the nature of the torment is, the New Testament makes it very clear that hell is a place of torment.

In the Old Testament God made provisions through the Law that he gave to Moses so that people could have their sins covered over through animal sacrifices. Since sin warrants death, something had to die in order for people to be made right with God (if this does not make sense, think of it in legal terms). In all reality, in order to bring about true justice, a human would need to be sacrificed. This human would also have to be perfect in order to cancel out the sin of the offender. The problem we have is that there is no perfect human and even if there was, the power of sacrificing one human would either be limited or non-existent. Jesus, God’s Son, fulfills every requirement to make mankind right with God through his sacrifice. Being in very nature God, his sacrifice had the power to wash away the sins of the world.

But that’s not all! I would like to add that Jesus introduces a new lifestyle to those who have accepted his sacrifice. The world wallows in purposeless existence. Jesus wants us to spread the good news of the Gospel. The world drowns out their sorrows with destructive behaviors. Jesus wants us to engage in a lifestyle that yields treasure for eternal life. The world is bitter towards everyone. Jesus wants us to love everyone, even our enemies. Because he has saved us from our sins, he has saved us from the pattern of a normal life and has reserved us for a supernatural life.

This is the time of the year to remember our Savior. We put our hope in so many things that do not matter. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is God, and it is only God’s Son that gives us eternal life.