Volume 22, Issue 35 (August 30, 2020)
Am I Lost?
By Kyle Pope
Matthew 18:11 records a statement
Jesus made about the very purpose of His coming. It reads, “For the Son of
Man has come to save that which was lost” (NKJV). These words tell us that
Jesus’ life-purpose was to rescue or “save” those whom He calls
the “lost.” But who are these people whom Jesus refers to
as the “lost”?
Causes
of Sin and Its Consequence
In the context of this text, twice before Jesus has warned about things that may cause one “to sin.” First, He warned about the seriousness of influencing another person “to sin” (Matt. 18:6), and then He warned about yielding to things in our own life that may cause us “to sin” (Matt. 18:8-9). He warns that this danger is so serious that if it is not avoided one may be “cast into the everlasting fire” (18:8b) or “cast into hell fire” (18:9b). From this we may conclude that “the lost” whom Jesus has come “to save” are those in danger of being condemned to hell as a result of sin.
Things
Lost and Found
In the fifteenth chapter of the gospel
of Luke Jesus teaches three parables about lost things. First, He tells
about a shepherd who left ninety-nine other sheep to search for one sheep that
was lost (Luke 15:3-7). Second, He tells about a woman with ten coins, who
searched to find one that was lost (Luke 15:8-10). Finally, He tells about a
father with one faithful son and one who left his father to live a sinful life
(Luke 15:11-32). When the unfaithful son returns, the father rejoiced, just as
the shepherd and the woman did with each thing that “was lost and is found” (Luke
15:32). It is clear that Jesus used each of these parables to illustrate the
condition of one “lost” in sin and in danger of hell, but His words tell
us more about these people. First, from Jesus’s teaching it is evident that
things that are “lost” once belonged somewhere. We belong to God
in our entrance into this world, but sin changes our relationship to Him.
Second, it is also evident that God, like the father, the shepherd, and the
woman are emotionally moved by the loss of each soul that is alienated
from Him, and when reconciliation with each lost thing takes place there is
joy. This explains why Deity would make it the life-purpose of Jesus to “save
that which is lost”—He cares about us.
Darkness
and the Shadow of Death
Earlier in the
gospel of Matthew the Holy Spirit revealed that Jesus’s life fulfilled a
prophecy that Isaiah declared years before Jesus came to earth. It reads, “The
people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and upon those who sat in the
region and shadow of death light has dawned” (Matt. 4:16; from Isa. 9:2).
Here the Scripture speaks of those “in darkness” and the “shadow of
death,” but to what does this refer and how might this relate to the
purpose of Jesus’s coming? First of all,
it addresses a principle that has been a truth of man’s existence from the
beginning—“the soul who sins shall die”
(Ezek. 18:4). When a person violates God’s will as revealed in Scripture,
either by committing an act prohibited (1 John 3:4) or by failing to do what is
commanded (Jas. 4:17) he or she “sins.” Since this is a violation of
God’s will, it is a sin against God. When we sin, even if it is only one
sin—even if it is something that might seem to us to be “minor,” it compromises
our relationship with God separating us from Him. This helps us understand the “darkness”
described in Isaiah’s prophecy. John called the practice of sin walking
in darkness. He wrote, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and
walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). In
sin we are separated from God. In sin we are “in darkness.” In sin we
are “lost.”
Spiritual
Death
This separation is a condition the
Bible speaks of as spiritual death. We can see this from the warning given to
the very first couple before they committed sin. They were told, “The day
that you eat of it you shall surely die”(Gen. 2:17). They did not die
physically, but “the day” that they sinned they were spiritually
separated from God. This same thing has happened to every accountable soul the
very first time we ever committed sin—we died spiritually. We were “lost.”
Is this true for only a few very wicked people? No, Paul taught, “All have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). All who sin become “lost”
in sin.
The
Nature of God
Is this because God is picky? Is God
unforgiving? No! It has to do with His very nature. John declared by the Holy
Spirit, “God is light, in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). God’s
very nature is such that nothing about Him is sinful, wicked, or evil. How can
something pure come in contact with something that is impure and still remain
pure? Imagine that I gave you a glass of pure clean water, and you asked if it
was clean to drink. What would you think if I said, “Yes, it is pure, it only
has one drop of poison in it!” Would you drink it? Of course not. Pure
water is not polluted by impurities or it is no longer pure. The Holy Spirit
led Habakkuk to declare of God, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness” (Hab. 1:13). God by
His very nature must be completely separate from sin.
The
Death of Jesus
So, if sin
separates us from God, and “all have sinned” who are the “lost”?
Every soul capable of sin, when he or she has sinned is “lost.” In such
a condition (as we noticed above) this sin will ultimately lead to “eternal
punishment” (Matt. 25:46). So how is it that Jesus came “to save” us
from this condition? How has Jesus brought light that delivers us from “darkness”?
How does His coming overcome sin’s separation of us from God? While in the past
God provided other ways to address the problem of sin, since the time of Christ
He now provides only one—the death of Jesus for our sins.
The prophet Isaiah, centuries before
the coming of Jesus, foretold, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, what
Jesus’s coming would accomplish for all who are willing to accept it. Jesus
was, “wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities” (Isa.
53:5). We deserved punishment because of our rebellion against God, but Jesus
accepted a measure of what was due to us in our place. On Jesus, in His death, “the
Lord has laid on Him the iniquity
of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Jesus had no sin, nor did He become guilty of our
sins, but God accepted Christ’s death as a sacrificial payment for our debt of
sin. God the Father, accepted the death of God the Son
as “an offering for sin” (Isa. 53:10). Through this offering, it can be
said that, “He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors” (Isa. 53:12). By Jesus’s death, He satisfied the purity and
justice of God, but also demonstrated divine mercy whereby He may “save that
which was lost.”
Obedience
to the Gospel
Is this automatic—did Jesus’s death automatically save every lost soul independent of any action on the part of those “lost” as a result of sin? No. The message of Jesus’s sacrifice on our behalf is the “good news” (or “gospel”) of salvation. Paul called it, “The power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). If I don’t believe in Jesus as the sacrifice for my sin, His death is of no benefit to me. I must be willing to accept this “power of God to salvation” by being obedient to its message. Paul told the Thessalonians that punishment will come to, “Those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8). How do I obey the gospel? I must die with Christ. Paul taught that in baptism into Christ for the remission of sins we are “buried with Him through baptism into His death” (Rom. 6:4). If I have not been buried with Christ, I am still in my sin—I am still “lost.” But, from baptism Paul says we are then “raised with Him through faith in the working of God” (Col. 2:12). Living a new life in Christ means things must be different. I must turn away from sin (Luke 13:3) and live in obedience to God’s word (John 8:31). I must have the courage to tell others of my faith in Jesus (Matt. 10:32-33). If sin comes into my life again, I must confess it to the Lord and turn from it immediately (1 John 1:9) trusting in Jesus as my intercessor with God the Father (Heb. 7:25). Are you lost? Jesus is ready even now “to save that which was lost.”
