Christ in Baruch

Christ Connection - The One Who Bears Our Sins

The exiles say: "We are a sinful people." They stand and own it. In the gospel, Jesus stands before God and says, in effect, "I bear their sin. I take it into myself." Paul writes: "him who knew no sin he hath made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). The exiles own their sin. Christ owns it for them. Both acts are necessary for restoration.

Baruch 2 is the floor of all true repentance laid bare - a people saying without flinching that God’s judgment is just and that they themselves are the ones who sinned: To the Lord our God appertaineth righteousness: but unto us... open shame (v. 6); we have sinned, we have done ungodly (v. 12). That candor is exactly the disposition the Gospel calls for: if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us (1 John 1:9), the broken and contrite heart God will not…

Christ Connection - The God Who is Uncompared

When Baruch declares “This is our God,” there is a note of triumph. After searching Babylon, questioning the giants and the old men, having proven that wisdom cannot be found through human effort, the text now affirms: This - the God of creation, the God who holds all things in obedience - this is our God. Paul echoes the same truth: “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things... and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Th…

Christ Connection - The Law Fulfilled in Love

Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment. His answer: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:37-40). Baruch says: keep the commandments and live. Jesus says: I AM the life (John 14:6). The commandments point to Him; He is their fulfillment and their goal.

Baruch 5 is a short restoration poem, and its central images are the very ones the Gospel later takes up. Jerusalem is told to put off “the garment of thy mourning” and put on “the comeliness of the glory that cometh from God,” to wrap herself in “the righteousness which cometh from God” (vv. 1-2) - the same exchange of mourning for a God-given splendour that the prophet sang, “he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteous…

Christ Connection - The Righteous One

In 1 Peter 3:18, the apostle writes: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust." Christ is the truly righteous one. He is the one whose deeds the Lord remembers eternally. He is the one before God, forever. And those who are in Him are counted righteous - not because of what they make or fashion, but because of what He has done.