“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” – Galatians 1:3-4
Take a few moments to meditate on this truth that you may have heard many times before… Jesus Christ “gave himself”. The eternal Son of God, the sinless Son of Man, the Anointed One of God gave Himself. He stepped out of the glory of heaven and into the ugliness of this world. He took on a human body and nature to experience the indignities and temptations of life firsthand. He lived and He died. He gave everything!
Jesus Christ “gave himself for our sins”. He sacrificed His life, dying in agony to deal with our sins. Not just the sins of people long ago – our sins, today, right now. Not just some sins, ALL of them. Jesus died so we could live. He suffered so we wouldn’t have to suffer eternally. He traded His life for ours, our punishment for His. And it was a gift, a choice of His to give as well as an expression of the perfect wisdom and will of God the Father.
Jesus Christ did this “to deliver us from the present evil age”. We should readily agree that this present age is evil! War, plague, injustice, economic distress, famine, religious persecution, tyranny, a flood tide of mental and physical illness… The list goes on and on. But this isn’t all there is or ever will be. Jesus gave Himself to deliver us out of this age. He gave Himself so that when we believe in Him, we’re immediately made new, transferred into His glorious Kingdom, and sealed by His Holy Spirit as a guarantee that our eternal future is wondrous and secure in God’s presence. Our life doesn’t end in this evil age, but in Christ we will live and rejoice forever in the age of Messiah!