He Gets Us, Or He Saves Us?

During this year’s Super Bowl, millions of people watched a moving, cinematic commercial that depicted quasi-biblical imagery placed in the modern world, and which closed with the tagline “He Gets Us” at the end. Many Christians celebrated the depiction of Christ as a loving, humble servant who came to disrupt the powers of this world. 

Of course, Christ did exactly that. He was humble (Philippians 2:3-4), and a servant (Matthew 20:26-28) and He did disrupt the world’s system (read the whole book of Acts). So should we celebrate this commercial? Was it a sign of genuine faith being spread throughout our culture? Nope! Why? Because it proclaimed a false gospel. 

While the Name of Jesus being put on display for so many people to see could hypothetically have some positive effect, the reality is that the creators of this commercial have an agenda (one clearly laid out on their website) that has nothing to do with helping people enter into a transformative, repentant life with Christ. 

For instance, nowhere on the website do they mention the word ‘sin’. In fact, when I searched for it on their site, all I found was a list of hashtags that included: love, relationships, activist, hope, judgment, and struggle. Whilst Jesus certainly has much to say about all of those things, you would imagine on a website supposedly dedicated to introducing people to the Jesus of Scripture that it would include at least one mention of sin? 

It’s certainly not a topic He avoided. Let’s look at some of His words. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” To clarify here, ‘lost’ does not mean confused, hurt by the church, or someone deconstructing their faith. He means lost as in, “lost in their sin and damned to hell.” 

Yes, Jesus does “get us.” In fact, I’d argue that He gets us better than we get ourselves. He knows what is in our hearts, and He knows it so well that we are told “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” And yet in spite of this knowledge of how deep our sin really goes, we’re told that, “He who knew no sin, became sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The enemy often disguises himself as light to lure people into his traps. As Christians, we need to identify these traps, remove ourselves from their grasp, and help others do the same. 

Instead of just a God who “gets us,” we need a God who saves us. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, the Apostle Paul reminds us that all of us were sinners at one point, but now in Christ, we can be free from the sin that used to entangle us. 

The Gospel of redemption is about a God who became a man, lived a sinless life, and died on the cross to be the atonement for our sins. In doing so, He moved from beyond merely understanding us to actually saving us. 

That is a better message, and it is the message our world needs most.