The stooping Savior.
The stooping Savior.
G. Campbell Morgan on what makes our salvation so great.
In Hebrews 2, the writer proceeds with his first among many written warnings interspersed throughout his sermonic epistle. With an evangelical verve, the writer admonishes his brothers and sisters to “pay much closer attention to what [they had] heard,” or risk drifting away from it (Heb. 2:1). This theological drift constitutes the watchword not only of chapter 2 but many of the other cautionary sections within Hebrews, as this Hebrew congregation found itself on the brink of collapse. Accordingly, the writer takes it upon himself to remind them of what they have in Jesus, the “great high priest” of their faith (Heb. 2:17; 4:14), among which, of course, is the offering of “so great salvation” (Heb. 2:2 KJV). The gospel of God’s salvation of sinners is described as “so great” is not for nothing. By this, it’s meant convey the grandeur and glory of the good news that God has taken it upon himself to raise dead sinners back to life. Renowned orator G. Campbell Morgan has this to say about this same passage in Hebrews:
The salvation is described as “so great salvation,” and the term in its very simplicity is eloquent of the sublimity of the theme. It is smitten through and through with the glory of the grace of God. It is of the highest height, for it comes from the heaven of heavens. It is profound, for it descends to the lowest depths. It is so vast, so wonderful, that the only final adverb possible for the illumination of its greatness is “so,” “so great salvation,” the “so” which laughs at logic, defies mathematical exactness, and finds its own best explanation in the equally comprehensive declaration that “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten son.” When we can place our final measurement on the “so loved the world” we shall be able to express in final terms the greatness of the “so great salvation” . . .
The Christian religion declares that God has come to find man, that He bows and stoops toward man, offering him not an ideal of life to which if he shall conform he shall be admitted to the dwellings of light; but bringing to him salvation, recognizing his degradation and failure, from whatsoever cause arising, and offering him everything he needs in order that he may realize his own life. The teaching of the New Testament is that this salvation has its origin in the love of God, that it has been provided by the wisdom of God, that it is operative in the power of God. (7:141–42, 144)
Our “so great salvation” is seen in just that: a Savior who stoops to where we are. The gospel announces that God has taken on flesh for you and for me, and has bowed himself under the burden of a weary world’s sin and strife. He “descends to the lowest depths,” ascends the cross to carry out the defeat of death in his own death, an act that laughs at the logic of men. Your faith and mine rests in the good news that God has “so loved the world” that he himself has established our “so great salvation.” May your trust be moored to this solid rock of salvation.
Grace and peace to you.
Works cited:
G. Campbell Morgan, The Westminster Pulpit: The Preaching of G. Campbell Morgan, Vols. 1–10 (Fincastle, VA: Scripture Truth Book Co., 1954).