Calvary Baptist Church

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

Being described as a worm is not very appealing to the flesh. However, this is how God described Jacob or Israel. There is a world of grace between those two words. “Jacob” means a “deceiver” or a “supplanter”, while Israel, the name God gave Jacob after Jacob’s encounter with the Angel of the Lord, means “Prince of God.” The encounter that Jacob had with the Lord made him a changed person and taught him to lean on the Lord and not his schemes. The word “worm” which God used serves to remind us of the children of Israel’s and of our own sinfulness and weakness and need of a redeemer. And that is exactly what God in grace provided for us in Christ Jesus.

Think what a marvelous truth this is. In Psalms 22:6 in a graphic prophetic description of the crucifixion of our Lord, He cries “I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men and despised by all the people.” The Son of God offered Himself up as a sacrifice for sin! He who knew no sin— who was holy, harmless, and undefiled—with not one thought of evil in His heart, yet made sin or a sin-offering for us. If God himself had not declared it, who would have believed it?

What was the end or design of our Savior’s mysterious and intense suffering? Was it not that He should bear the sin and shame that rightfully should have been mine? Was it not that He should endure the cross, and bow his head in death that I might go free? Was it not that He would become a “worm” for me? What infinite and free grace! I deserved just the opposite. That He, the absolute Holy One, would allow himself to become incarnate, to be tried and tested, living the life I should have lived in perfect obedience to the Father, and then go to a cruel cross for me is a mystery. It is even more a mystery that he should drain the cup of the wrath of a Holy God, that He would give His back to the smitters, His feet and hands to the nails, endure the shame and the spitting, make His soul an offering for sin, and at last suspended between heaven and earth on the cross pour out His most precious blood – all for me a sinner! For me a worm! For me the chief of sinners! What grace! What mercy! What love! Need I ever doubt He stands ready to help me!