Daily Word

What a remarkable statement!

Old Simeon holds the eight-day-old infant Jesus in his arms and bursts into praise of God with these words: “My eyes have seen your salvation….”

The Holy Spirit revealed to him that here, in his arms, lay the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises regarding the coming salvation—and the righteousness that Israel had tried in vain to attain.

He saw it, yet did not partake of it in this life.

For us humans to share in it, the cross and the resurrection were absolutely essential.

The joyful message means that God has now done everything to enable us to share in the One whom the people of the Old Testament longed for so intensely—the One whom Simeon now held in his arms.

For salvation means that He Himself is born within us and becomes our life, and righteousness that He lives His life in us through the Holy Spirit.

Thus, God’s salvation is not a work He performs—one that we then try to live up to in order to be all that God requires of a human being and to be called righteous.

Salvation is the Man Jesus Christ—" the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness"

This New Man was created in the resurrection; when, in baptism, we put off the old self and are clothed in Him, we are righteous and holy people, and do not need to try to become so.

Jesus now asks only to live His life through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then the Salvation of God becomes our daily experience!