March 21 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

John 19:17–24

Devotional

In Bethlehem of Judea, the King of kings was born. In a humble manger, Mary brought forth the infant. There was literally nothing in the birthplace that indicated a royal birth. Yet in that stable Jesus still received swaddling clothes to be covered. At the cross, however, His clothes were taken from Him. He was poor when He came into the world; He became poorer when He left His earthly journey.

At the cross, the Surety was naked with no rights whatsoever. All His earthly possessions were stripped from Him, and nothing remained. He was naked on the cross, exposed to the heat of the sun and to the heat of shame. He heard the dice being shaken in the hands of the soldiers to determine how His clothes would be divided among them. And behind the hands of those soldiers He saw an angry God. For God had the right to deprive man of everything. It was not only the soldiers, but above all it was God, the Father, who deprived Jesus of His clothing.

The first gift to Adam was a garment to cover his nakedness. Adam had no right to it and, therefore, the garment is now taken away from the second Adam. Through sin we have lost all rights. The cross ultimately merits even our clothing. If the people of our nation, and, sad to say, also many church people, would realize this, they would not dare walk around with the bare minimum of clothing during the coming summertime.

Adam received coats of skins, but the second Adam had to pay for that dearly with blood and shame. Realize the payment that was made for your clothing, your covering of sin. Then you will end up on Calvary even for God’s common grace. We have lost everything because of sin. We have lost all rights and have become unspeakably poor. We see this portrayed in Christ. He needed to lose everything for His people in order to merit all things for them. That is why they can only become rich through Christ’s poverty.

We will only see Jesus in His riches when we have first seen Him in His poverty. We need grace that exposes our poverty, and only then can we truly appreciate the work of the cross. We will realize that our place should be on that cursed tree. He was forsaken of all because we, in our sin, lost all rights before God.

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.