By Marvin A. McMickle
I love the assurance of
Romans 5:8 that says, "While we were still sinning Christ died for the ungodly." I love the assurance of the hymn that says,
"He looked beyond my faults and saw my needs." This is the true meaning of
grace: that the sins of our past do not prevent us from receiving the blessings God has in store for us.
I love the words of the hymn "Amazing Grace," and I love the story of the man who wrote those words, a man named John Newton. This man had been involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, capturing and/or buying people in various locations in Africa and then selling them into slavery in various locations in North America, South America and the Caribbean. At some point he saw the evil of what he had been doing for all those years, and that led him to write those inspired and inspiring words:
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This is the work of grace: that people who have sinned in terrible and grievous ways can still receive forgiveness and the assurance of a second chance with God.
I do not know who spoke these words, but I agree with the sentiment of the man who said that he had a dream in which he imagined himself in heaven, and three things surprised him. First, he was surprised at who was there. Second, he was surprised at who was not there. Third, knowing himself as well as he did, he was surprised that
he was there. If I close my eyes in death and open my eyes to behold the beauties of heaven and to see the face of Jesus, it will not be because of my merit; it will be because of the terms of my life
assurance policy that does not hold against me my pre-existing condition of sin.
Next, while my life
insurance policy names somebody else as the beneficiary, it is my name that appears as the sole beneficiary of my life
assurance policy. That is the promise of the resurrection as found in
1 Corinthians 15: "Now has Christ been raised from the dead and become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (
vv. 20,
22). That is what happened to Jesus Himself; on a Friday afternoon He was committing His spirit into the hands of God, and early on a Sunday morning God raised Him from the dead.
If Jesus had owned a life
insurance policy, then His mother, Mary, or someone else in His family would have been the beneficiary following His death. However, because Jesus had a life
assurance policy, He was the beneficiary of that policy. His enemies who conspired to have Him nailed to that cross enjoyed no final victory. Death could not hold Him. The grave could not keep Him. Here is the central message of the New Testament and the central theme of our own faith story.