The Captain Sent His Son
That’s why the Gospel isn’t just Christianity’s version of the same religious search.
The Captain Sent His Son
Let’s go back to yesterday. You’re out of air. You’re surrounded by people who want to help, but they have no air to give and no way back to the boat. They’re stuck, too.
Then something happens. You look up through the water and see someone coming down from above. But this diver is different.
He has air.
He has a working tank.
And He is tethered to the boat!
He has everything to get you back to the surface. He comes all the way to you. Then He does something you never expected.
He gives you HIS air.
He puts HIS mask over your face. Suddenly, you can breathe. Not because you became a better diver. You are breathing because someone who had air gave it to you.
And then He gives you something else: a lifeline.
That’s the Gospel.
Jesus didn’t come to give us instructions for living underwater. He came because we were dead in the water. Paul says it beautifully:
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ
—Ephesians 2:4–5.
That is the greatest “but” in the Bible:
“But God…” came down. Jesus entered our world. Became a flesh and blood person, lived the righteous life we could never live, died the death our sin deserved and rose again. Paul says,
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”
—2 Corinthians 5:21
That’s why the Gospel isn’t just Christianity’s version of the same religious search. The difference isn’t that Christians found the right set of rules and instructions.
The difference is that Christ had air and a lifeline and came looking for us.
Every other diver at the bottom of that lake might be sincere. But sincerity doesn’t create air and good intentions don’t create a lifeline.
Only the one who has air can give air. Jesus said,
“I am The Way, and The Truth, and The Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me”
—John 14:6
It isn’t arrogance to say that Jesus is the only way when He is the only One who could actually rescue us. The Captain didn’t send us a set of diving instructions.
He sent His Son.
That’s why I will follow Him always.
