Waves at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, uploaded December 17th, 2006
“Forever, Author of salvation…” What a powerful statement. To call Christ the Author of our salvation. In Acts, Peter calls Him the Author of Life, and rightly so, for he is the Logos, the Word that is with God, the Word that Is God, in the creation of the world when God says “Let Us make man in Our Image.” He is the One through whom and for whom and by whom all things are created, and without whom not one single thing was made that has been made on heaven or in earth. He is the One in whom we live and move and have our being, so yes, it is fitting to call Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed Messiah of God, the Logos, the Author of Life.
In the letter to the Hebrews, the unknown writer calls Jesus, the Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and this too, fits. And it is He, Beloved, who perfects our faith, testing us, cleansing us from impurities as gold it tested, melting and refining it to melt away the dross and imperfections. Like wheat is threshed, thrown into the air so that the straw and chaff, the part that is worthless for consumption, can be blown away on the wind, while the heavier grains of good wheat can fall to the ground and be gathered, so are we threshed, tested to let the good remain and the waste blow away. Times of testing and trial come to perfect the work He began in us and will not finish until He calls us home to Him in glory.
But it is also in Hebrews that we find Jesus called the Author of Salvation. God is the author of Salvation, Beloved, accomplished through the person of Jesus, the anointed Christ. After all, it is Jesus, the one Paul tells us did not find equality with God something to be grasped after, but rather, humbled himself and took on the shape and form and mortality of a man, the limitless Creator taking on the limits of His creation, in order to win and woo them back to Himself, to serve as the one and only mediator between God and Man, becoming the only name in Heaven and Earth at which every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus, Jesus the Christ, is Lord. Yes, Beloved, it is this One, God made flesh, come to dwell among us, the Holy among the unholy, the Incorruptible among the corrupt, the Sinless among the sinners, who began the work of salvation by stepping out of glory to win us to Him while we were still so lost and drowning in our filth and stench we didn’t even know that we were filthy and stinking. It is He, beloved, who accomplished our salvation by providing the necessary blood sacrifice, the spotless, perfect lamb offered up as a scapegoat for the sins of mankind, dying for the wrongs I did, crushed and beaten and pierced not for what He had done, but for my wrongs, for my sins, Beloved, and for yours.
Forever, Author of Salvation… You rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave! You see, Beloved, if it ended on the Cross, He would be no different than any other crazy martyr who died for their beliefs. But the Author of our Salvation is different. You see, the one through whom and for whom and by whom all thing are created? That stone had been created to roll out of his way. And while His mortal body was born to die, and did die, when He who had thought it no shame to put off His glory as the Creator of all things took it back up again, as the Uncreated, eternal God of this universe? What rock is going to stand in His way? He rose, Beloved, and He conquered the grave, because this wasn’t just a man. This was God, the Author of Life, who deigned to be the Author of Salvation… and all for love of us. My God is mighty to save.
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