god keeps his promises. every. single. time.

BUT HE WAS PIERCED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, HE WAS CRUSHED FOR OUR INIQUITIES; THE PUNISHMENT THAT BROUGHT US PEACE WAS ON HIM, AND BY HIS WOUNDS WE ARE HEALED.  - ISAIAH 53:5

Promises, promises.   

Have you ever had someone break their word to you? It can be devastating. It makes you wonder if they’ll do it again or if they can even be trusted at all. Well, our verse is a promise. It’s a promise that God made to his people, to heal them and bring them peace. And he kept it, at great cost to himself. He kept it, though it took a long time. He kept it, because he loves us. And that is everything. God’s commitment to keeping his promises assures us that he is good and powerful and trustworthy.

God promises a reunion.    

If you read our last devo, you’ll remember that in the story of humanity, people introduce conflict right out of the gates. Humans choose to go their own way (not God’s), driving a deep wedge between God and his people. God’s justice simply cannot leave wrongdoing to run its course unchecked and unpunished, so he sends his children away. Yet, he longs all the while for reconciliation. So, in the same breath he pronounces both a sentence of banishment and the promise of reunion. He pledges to send a Son who will crush the head of evil and bring his children home. The promise is so good and so central to the story, that God just keeps on repeating it and expanding it for centuries and millennia. He is committed to the children he loves and it shows.

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Ever expanding promises.   

God repeats his promise over 300 times (they’re called prophecies), giving specific details about his Son, Jesus—where he’d be born, where he’d live, who his family would be, what he would do, how he would die, and on and on. Let me get a little nerdy by saying that it’s mathematically impossible for all of these prophecies to all be true. It’s quite simply miraculous that dozens of authors for thousands of years would pen hundreds of promises that all find their fulfillment in the one and only, historically proven Jesus. Only a real God could do that. It’s one of the reasons I became a Christian. But that’s another story for another time. (Read this article for more on that.) Needless to say, God left it without a doubt that Jesus was the One he had promised.    

“Yes”, Jesus.   

There’s this verse that says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” (2 Cor 1:20). So let’s look at just one promise, our promise from Isaiah 53:5 and see how it finds a resounding “Yes” in Jesus Christ. Our verse says:   

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.    

Remember how we said that God’s big promise from the very beginning was to bring back the children that he loved? Yet, God’s justice couldn’t let sin go unpunished? So, how could he be just in dealing with sin while showing mercy to the children he loved? Well, his answer is in this promise. Jesus took on the punishment we deserved. He paid for our debts with his perfect self, fulfilling the requirement of justice. In exchange, he gave us mercy. He made peace for us by taking on our punishment.  He gave us healing in exchange for the wounds he endured. It is a totally unfair equation! Are you following me here!?!? Why would anyone take another person’s punishment? It’s the kind of action that only a radical, self-sacrificial love would willingly endure. This is our Jesus. This is our Father. This is the hard-won, costly fulfillment of his promises. They all find their “yes” in Jesus. AMEN.  

Who is like our God? Keeping promises to his own harm for the sake of promise-breakers like us? It is too good, too wonderful. And yet it is true. 

Have you asked Jesus to take your punishment for you?    

If you have, spend some time today thanking Jesus for the “unfair equation” he endured for you.   

Thanks for reading,