"You Shall Call His Name Jesus, For He Will Save"

"And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)

To understand Jesus as Savior we must read and have written on our hearts Leviticus 16, perhaps the greatest revelation on the saving work of Jesus Christ.  I had been a pastor for 6 years before I ever read the whole book of Leviticus.  How dwarfed a human being.  Leviticus 16 gave me a glimpse into the mystery of the Atonement, the Living Triune God's "plan of Salvation," in a way I could never have imagined.

Just as one goat was slain in the camp and the other taken into the wilderness and abandoned to suffer thirst, starvation, and probable tearing apart by some vicious beast, Jesus so suffered on the cross.   After the animals were offered "for sin," they were taken "outside the camp" to be destroyed.  Jesus fulfilled all of this and so much more in His Cross.  Hebrews 13 tells us, "For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp.  Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate."  The Holy Spirit then adds one of the most moving passages in Holy Writ.  "Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach."

The wise men came bearing gifts.  May you and I come "bearing His reproach."

Father, in Jesus' Name, forgive me when my desire for respectability has kept me from going "forth to Him, outside the camp."  Amen.
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Eighteen year old Norwegian, Peter Torjesen, "when he heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2