Ah, good old snail-mail. E-mail is handy, but when someone takes the time to hand-write a personal letter, go to all the bother of addressing the envelope, paying for a stamp and taking a little trip to the mailbox, it really means something. I should do it more often. I sent something to myself once. It was something I wanted a copyright for, so someone told me that if I sent it to myself, it would have the official postmark with the date stamped on it to prove I had possession of it at that time. So, that’s what I did. I still have it, but I have to resist the temptation to open it. I think I’m going to send myself something I can actually open.
Now that I think about it, I guess I am a letter, really. You are a letter too. It says so in the Bible: “You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men.” 2nd Corinthians 3:2 I’m not exactly sure what that means, but we do have other distinguishing marks of being a letter. We’ve been signed, sealed and delivered. I’m not talking about the time you got that autograph on your forehead, or when you played in that cardboard box and your brother thought it would be funny to tape you up and address it to “Outer Mongolia”. We’ve all done that stuff... right? But spiritually speaking, it’s true. It happened. We’ve been in God’s mailbag.
We write our names on stuff that we own. With the aid of a “magic marker” we indelibly imprint our claim to the possession of a thing. Permanent ink really helps when two people own identical objects. Call me King-of-the-Obvious, but it’s just that the same thing is true of us spiritually. The Lord Jesus Christ wrote his name on us when we put our faith in him. “That one’s mine” he says. It’s a spiritual tattoo. Here’s what James said about it in the book of Acts: “God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name.” Then quoting Amos, he said, “Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name.” The Lord’s name becomes our name. That’s why we are often called “Christians”. In Revelation 22 we read, “They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.” It’s crazy what autographed objects can fetch. Jesus signed his name on us. That makes us worth more than anything.
In the grocery store, it’s important to check that packages have not been tampered with. We’ve all heard stories about things being in boxes that were not found in the ingredient listing. Then there are those jars that have the little indent on the lid – The ones that “pop” when you give them a turn. That’s the time when the men of the house get to feel real strong, after the ladies hurt their wrists trying to open them. Imagine a lid on so tight that only God could open it. That’s your lid. That’s mine. We’ve been sealed. We read in God’s Word that we’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 1:13) It means we’re protected, preserved, and it’s a promise that God will one day remove us from the very presence of sin.
So far, we’re signed and we’re sealed. We’re delivered, too? That’s right. We’ve been borne by the great letter carrier, and no dog would dare bar His path. Just as the Children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt, we have been delivered out of our Egypt – the bondage and slavery of Sin. We are now only slaves to God. “Bondservant” is a better word. We are voluntary slaves. We wouldn’t trade it for the world. We know where we were, and compared to that, the slavery of God is freedom like nothing we’ve ever known. We are out of sins’ hands. The postage has been paid. Delivery is a done deal. We are not waiting to be delivered from sin. We’ve covered that ground already. The Cross of Jesus has trucked us far from that old slave-master. When Jesus was done being made sin for us, he was delivered and received up into Heaven itself. That’s means we’re with Him.
Watchman Nee once gave this illustration. Imagine a piece of paper lying beside a book. Now picture someone coming in, opening the book, putting the piece of paper inside it, and closing it again. Then, that book gets sent to Shanghai. Where is the paper? It’s in the book still. The fate of the paper is wrapped up in the book. What happens to the book, happens to the page inserted into it. This may seem like a silly illustration, but our problems mostly lie in the fact that we don’t really believe that this is our situation. Our fate has everything to do with Jesus. We died with him, we were raised with him, we ascended with him, we are seated in Heaven with him, and one day it will be much more obvious – but it’s still true today. Dead, raised, ascended and seated with Christ. Don’t just think of it as “Theomological” stuff that’s not very practical. It’s very useful stuff for everyday living. We’ve been delivered. The baggage has been claimed.
Signed, sealed and delivered. Each of us is a treasured piece of correspondence. We are in a relationship with the living God, and as living letters, our lives should exude an intimacy with the Lord. He’s written to us, you know. His Word is a message from his heart to ours. There are very personal things written there. He knows you. He can read you like a book. Read him like one too. He doesn’t mind. He’s taken great pains to be transparent and forthcoming. He has poured out his heart onto paper and we so often leave it on the shelf.
No more do we see the pouring out of the heart of God than in His beloved Son. God the Father actually signed His name on Jesus. “I have come in my Father’s name” he said. Another time he said, “Father glorify your name” to which the Father replied, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” Jesus was all about his Father’s name. He could have used his own just as rightfully, but He humbly took his Father’s name. And because he did that, and did it to death, God the Father then gave him a name that is above every name.
Speaking of signed, the good book also says that Jesus is “the express image of his person.” Hey, that’s a seal, eh? “Express image” in Greek (they tell me) carries with it this idea of a signet ring being pressed into hot wax. It was the way a king would show that an edict or decree was of his doing. Jesus carries the seal of God. He is the signet ring of God. I guess that’s how the seal got placed on us. Jesus did it. But only after he got it done to himself first. He’s always first, you know. He goes before us – preeminent. He was signed first, and sealed first.
As far as being delivered goes, it’s a bit different when it comes to the Lord Jesus. Remember, he had no sin nature to be freed from. But he was still delivered. He was handed over to the people he came to give his life for. We even have this time when it seems that the Father may have stepped in to stop the whole thing from going down. It’s in those words, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I’m indebted to a guy named Joe for showing me that Jesus was actually staying God’s hand at that point. Ten legions of angels were at the ready for any time the Son of God’s life was at stake. They tried to kill him before, but were never able. Once, Jesus just strolled through the crowd as they were attempting to throw him off a cliff. Talk about protection. Well, here, Jesus was saying, “Father, let them do it.” We were delivered out of sin, but Jesus was sent right into it.
He went into it, because we were in there! It was a rescue mission. Christ willingly sent himself Express Post into the slave camp of sin to get us out. He carried each of us, not willing that any should perish. But some won’t come. They see him as the enemy somehow. I once read a story about a rescue mission where the prisoners of war had been so brainwashed that they wouldn’t leave with the soldiers who had come to free them. One soldier had a flash of brilliance and took off his helmet and other gear, so that he looked like one of the prisoners. He then got real close and spoke softly to them, and one by one, they got up and left. Jesus did that for us. He took off the glory he wore in eternity past and got real close and spoke softly to us. But that wasn’t all.
Jesus’ delivery meant death. He had to go right through it. That’s where we were. “…Dead in trespasses and sins.” So, in he went, and from the outside, it looked like defeat. He lay silent and still in that cold tomb until the third day, but we’ve been given a little peek into what was going on during that time. We read in Revelation 1 that Jesus has “the keys of Hades and of Death”. Those keys were taken from the Devil. Death was his territory, but not anymore. Peter also talks about Jesus going down and preaching “to the spirits in prison.” What these things really mean, may have to wait for Heaven, but Christ stormed Hell and freed us. We have been delivered from death, because Jesus was delivered into it.
We are who and what we are because of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are only signed, sealed and delivered because HE was first. It’s always that way. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us…” Christ is the great Forerunner. John the Baptist said that Jesus is, “a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.” It’s incredible that we are never asked to do anything that Christ has not already set the example in. When he said, “whoever humbles himself will be exalted” we find that Christ humbled himself to the point of death. When he said, “it is more blessed to give than to receive” I have to ask the question: What did Christ not give? Even when he said, “unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” we find that Jesus was always crying out to his Father, wasn’t he? “Father if it be your will, let this cup pass from me…” Christ went first, clearing the way for us to follow.
We’ve been in God’s mailbag, but it’s a humbling thing to see that Jesus, though he is the Son of God, went there too. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Something else to reckon. Another basket to put all our eggs in. They won’t break. God himself is the carrier, remember? Signed by Christ, sealed by the Spirit, and delivered by the Father. We can’t be lost. We’re now a page in His book. He never tires of reading it.