Jesus the Precious One, part V
“Unto you, therefore, which believe He is precious” (1 Peter 2:7).
As we read the Acts of the Apostles we see that power, forgiveness and salvation are related to the precious name of Jesus. Take, for example, in Acts 8 where we discover the story of Philip and the Eunuch. As you remember, Philip the Evangelist was instructed by the Angel of the Lord to go to Gaza where he encountered an Ethiopian sitting in his chariot reading the Scroll of Isaiah. Let’s take up this story from verse 32.
“The place of the scripture which he was reading was this,
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.” And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
The eunuch refers to Jesus as "some other man." "Some other man" involves in its meaning "another kind of man." Did this eunuch have some additional insight? He refers to Jesus as another kind of man! Another kind of man indeed! He was man as God intended man to be. He reveals man to God and God to man. He is the Precious One. He is the sinless, and glorious One. He is the Saving One, the only One who has resources in Himself to give life and to redeem. He is precious!
Notice how, in Isaiah 53:32, Christ does not open His mouth, and now in Acts 8:35 Philip opens his mouth on Christ’s behalf. As he opens his mouth, Philip proclaims Jesus. May we all, as Philip, be ready to open our mouths for the One who remained silent for us.
Satan hates and despises the name of Jesus. He loathes the mention of His name and wants men to detest and scorn the Saviour. He knows he cannot get that precious name to be forgotten so his strategy is to have that name relegated to an odious place amid the dunghills of humanity.
Many people hate the name of Jesus and use it as a swear word. Why do they not use the names Buddha, Krishna, or Allah as swear words? Why is it that in many languages they even use the lovely name of Jesus in its translated form, as an expletive? It’s because both Satan and many people hate that precious name.
Of all who hated that name of Jesus, there was perhaps none greater than Saul of Tarsus. He thought it right, "to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 26: 9). There was a time when Jesus was not precious to Paul but one day the power resident in that precious name flooded his pharisaical heart, and do you remember what words transformed Him? They are words that will transform us. They were simple life-giving words. They were, "I am Jesus" (Acts 9:5). Paul was confronted by the person of Jesus. From that point on, his life was revolutionized. The preciousness of that Name and the One who bore it were the constant joy and theme of his heart and testimony.
All through his ministry, Paul's desire was that the affections of the believer should be preserved in pure and unadulterated loyalty to Christ Jesus. He writes in 2 Corinthians 11:32, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 11:3, he writes, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
If Jesus has captivated your heart, He is precious to you.
Peter tells us that Jesus is precious, but he did not and could not tell us just how precious. None of us can compute the value of God's unspeakable gift. We find it impossible to set forth the preciousness of the Lord Jesus in its fulness. But this we know, He is the Precious One.
And that’s the Gospel Truth!
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