The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. (Exodus 15:3, ESV)
In 1991, the stage was set for one of the most hotly contested Ryder Cup matches ever held on either continent. America’s best efforts to hoist The Cup had fallen short in its three previous attempts. To say the “stage was set” is a classic understatement. We might more accurately say, The Ocean Course at Kiawah resembled a “battlefield.”
The metaphor of “war” seemed inevitable. The Americans were intent on reclaiming The Cup. The Europeans had won in ’85 and again in ’87. In ’89, the Europeans retained the Cup by “halving the match.”
America’s last win had been in ’83; almost a decade had passed since feeling the raw emotions of national pride. The Gulf War loomed large in the cultural background and cast its shadow over the entire week.
As always, there were intensely contested matches. There were spats between rivals—Ballesteros and Azinger, not exactly best friends, verbally sparred. There was more than enough drama, but nothing remotely like a “war,” not a real one anyway!
We know the difference between real and metaphorical wars. Our generation watched as terrorists hijacked commercial planes, converted them into weapons, and killed thousands of our finest citizens. Like every age, our age is filled with “wars and rumors of wars.” Will we ever know peace?
Jesus made an unbreakable promise that one day he would return and end all wars, crushing all who opposed his universal reign and renewing the world in everlasting peace (see Psalm 2). How do we know with certainty that Jesus can win the war to end all wars?
The answer is found in another decisive battle fought two thousand years ago. It wasn’t fought on a battlefield. It wasn’t fought between two armies. It was a battle that Jesus voluntarily entered on our behalf.
The stakes couldn’t have been higher! The casualty list had one name, at least for three days and three nights. The pressure was so intense that the Son of God sweat drops of blood. Nevertheless, Jesus chose to go into battle and did it alone.
To understand Jesus’ death as mere martyrdom, reducing it to a moral example, misses the significance of Calvary by a million miles. To only see the physical torture and social humiliation of our Savior hanging on that tree ignores vast swaths of what Scripture reveals to us.
What do we mean when we say, “Jesus took our place?” No doubt, we will spend all eternity trying to wrap our minds around such sacrificial love. But at its core, the death of Christ as our substitute means he went to war with sin, Satan, death, hell, and the grave
The agony of his suffering, in body and soul, as a man for sinful men is unspeakable. The cost of his death is incalculable. To explore the depth of meaning in his cries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” is beyond our reach.
When we say with the church throughout the ages that Jesus’s death was “substitutionary and penal,” we are saying Jesus bore the judicial wrath of God’s hatred against sin. He absorbed the thunderbolts of God’s judicial fury, and he did it for us, the enemies of God (Romans 5:10).
Our peace with God came at the cost of his death. We who were once the enemies of God are now his friends. How is this possible? The Father of love sent the Son of his love to solve the “problem” of his justice. Justice was satisfied that day two thousand years ago.
How do we know that Jesus’ sacrificial death for us was accepted as the atoning sacrifice for sin? Answer: God raised Jesus from the dead and seated him at the right hand of the Father, and that for all eternity!
To have the peace of God, we must first have peace with God. For that to happen, Jesus had to drink the cup of wrath and drink it dry he did.
Prayer: Father, remind us that the peace we know in our hearts is a down payment for peace that one day will prevail over the entire world.