Well, that’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
The obvious answer is: YES! Of course, he is- that’s what the Messiah is all about!
Didn’t you hear that he died for our sins?
Didn’t you read in Isaiah that he was wounded for our transgressions?
Didn’t he, himself, say that the only way to the Father is through him?
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Yes, I know all that, but let’s step back for a moment and let me ask you…who sent him? Is Yeshua really our savior or the tool of our true savior, God?
The Messiah is the one who brings us back into communion with God, who removes our sins so that we can come into the presence of the Lord, and he is the one God promised to send us throughout the Tanakh, in order to provide a means for us to have our sins forgiven.
At first, God provided for the removal of sin through the sacrificial system, where an innocent animal is killed as a substitute for the death we deserve for having committed the sin. Innocent blood shed in placement of our blood, which should be shed.
When the animal is sacrificed, it has died for our sins; it was wounded for our transgressions, and by it’s stripes we are healed.
Sound familiar?
So, is that sheep our Savior? Do we call upon the name of the bull we killed when we ask for forgiveness?
Of course not- they are just sacrificial animals. So why, then, if they died for our sins do we not call them our savior? The truth is, they were- if not for that animals’ death, we would have to die.
So, nu? What makes Yeshua’s actions any different from these animals?
The difference is that the animal didn’t choose to die for us, and Yeshua did.
He had the opportunity to reject his role as the Messiah, just as Jonah (initially) rejected his calling to save Nineveh. Yeshua could have decided that he didn’t want to be the Messiah and simply live out his life as a normal, although highly spiritual, man. And I believe, if that had happened, God would simply have created another Messiah, in the same way that he would have saved the Jews in Shushan, as Mordecai told Esther in the Megillah of Hadassah 4:14:
For if you fail to speak up now, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from a different direction;
However, as we all know, Yeshua did not reject his calling to be the Messiah, the tool through which God provided the chance for everyone in the world to be saved from the eternal consequences of their sin.
So, the answer to my original question, “Is Yeshua really our savior?” is “Yes”… and “No.”
Yes- what he did allows us to be forgiven of our sins. He did this voluntarily and of his own free will, and since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem he has become our only means of salvation, which (by definition) makes him our savior.
But the original provider of this means of salvation is God, who divinely created, sent and empowered Yeshua to be the Messiah, so the answer to the question is also “No”, because if not for God there would be no way to be forgiven of our sins, at all. In fact, God is really the only one who can forgive sin. Yes, Yeshua had that authority when he was performing his ministry on earth, but now that his role is to be our Intercessor, he doesn’t forgive us but asks his father to forgive us because we are his sheep, and because he shed his blood for us.
Yeshua doesn’t forgive our sins- only God does. And if you’re not sure about that, then find the biblical passage that says the Messiah sits on the Throne of Judgment in heaven.
Now, there, there…don’t get all confused, and don’t worry that you have to change your beliefs about Yeshua being the savior of the world, because he is. But God is the ultimate power and authority, to whom Yeshua humbly submits (which he made clear throughout the Gospels), therefore God is our Savior because he sent Yeshua, who gave his human life so we could have eternal life.
Yeshua saved us when he gave his life as a substitution for ours, providing the pathway to salvation, but this was only possible because God sent him, which means our real savior is God.
God is the ultimate Savior of the world, and when we individually accept Yeshua as our Messiah, he becomes our personal savior.
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That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Interesting, I read something like this sometime ago from Eric H. H. Chang’s wonderful book entitled THE ONLY TRUE GOD A Study of Biblical Monotheism. Available online in this site;
http://www.christiandiscipleschurch.org.
“The meaning of the name “Yeshua” was, clearly, that Yahweh would save in and through the person who was given that name. At various times in Israel’s history Yahweh saved His people through deliverers or saviors whom He raised up. For example:
Nehemiah 9:27: “Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies” (ESV).
Obadiah 1:21: “Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s.”
Jesus, too, was a Savior sent from God, as it is written in 1John 4:14, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” Moreover, as we recall, Jesus constantly affirmed that it was the Father who did the work through him: “the Father who dwells in me does his works” (Jn.14:10; cf.5:19); “His works” here are, above all, what is needed to be done for the salvation of mankind.
“God my Savior” (or “God my Salvation” in other translations) is frequent in the OT. The words “God” (elohim) and “save” (yasha, the Hebrew root from which the name “Yeshua” is formed) occur together no less than 70 times in the OT; and “Yahweh” occurs together with “save” 131 times. Ultimately, there is no other savior apart from Yahweh: “And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me” (Isa.45:21).”
“If we look carefully at Colossians 1:12-20 we will see something significant: All the active verbs are used in relation to the Father (Yahweh) while the role of the Son is consistently passive, e.g. the repeated “in him”. (The Greek probably shows this even more sharply than the English.) This active role of the Father in our redemption, and the Son’s relatively passive role vis-à-vis the Father’s, is precisely what we saw Jesus himself teaching in John’s Gospel. This important fact stands out so clearly in the Colossians passage that it is hardly necessary to elaborate upon it in detail here.
The point that emerges most clearly from this fact is that it is God the Father (Yahweh) who is our Redeemer/Savior in and through Christ. It was He who “was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2Cor.5:19 and Col. 1:22). Christ is our Savior in that all God’s saving work took place in him and through him. To speak of Christ as though he is primarily, if not solely, our Savior is to totally fail to understand the NT revelation, including Jesus’ own teaching. This is why the Apostle Paul commences this Colossian passage with the words, “giving thanks to the Father…” (v.12)—
without even mentioning the Son as an object of thanksgiving (to our surprise). This is because, as the passage goes on to elucidate, the prime mover in the work of our salvation was the Father, who was working “in Christ”—a favorite term of Paul’s.” Eric H. H. Chang.
Thank you for adding to this with your input. It is indeed well written and makes sense.