Scripture teaches that God Himself rejoices over saving us!
It was foretold that God would rejoice to save His people. The prophet Zephaniah recorded God's joyous singing over His saved people: "The LORD has taken away thy judgments, He hath cast out thine enemy. The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing!"
In Luke 15, Christ rebukes the Pharisees when they object to His eating with sinners, who wanted to hear Jesus' gospel, and needed Christ's salvation.
Christ tells the story of a man who has a flock of sheep, and one of them has wandered off and is lost. The shepherd will go out into the wilderness and search, until he finds that sheep that was lost!
Once found, he lays the sheep on his shoulders and carries him back home again! All along the way, he rejoices at finding his sheep!
And when he finally gets back home, he calls together his friends and says to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost!
Christ then concludes, that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents!
Christ's use of the image of a poor sinner as the lost sheep that is found, is an example of a more general metaphor of Christ as the shepherd of His sheep, and His sheep being kept and provided for, and protected and saved.
Sheep are recalcitrant, and foolish, and helpless, just like sinners. But we notice here and elsewhere, that Jesus is kindly disposed to His sheep!
The reason is profound: Christ loves and cares for His sheep, because His Father gave those sheep to Him! The Father entrusted the sheep to Christ's care and protection and salvation. |
