Jesus is Our Rock & The Rock of Our Salvation

There are a number of verses in the Bible that tell us that Jesus is our Rock. The ones we are including for this post are the following 4 passages.

Psalm 18:2 “The Lord is my Rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I trust; my buckler and the horn of my Salvation, and my high tower.”

Psalm 18:46 “The Lord liveth, and blessed be the Rock and let the God of my Salvation be exalted.”

Exodus 17:6 “… thou shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.”

1 Corinthians 10:4 “…for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”

Throughout scripture, God gives us such clear and beautiful pictures to illustrate Himself and His attributes. In these scriptures above, we are given the picture of our Savior as a Rock.

Rock.

The word immediately conjures up a picture in our minds of this familiar substance. Solid. Firm. Immovable. Sturdy. Strong. The list goes on.

Jesus is Our Rock. So, therefore, Jesus is Solid. Jesus is Firm. Immovable. Sturdy. Strong. Unbreakable.

Jesus is the Rock of our Salvation. Therefore, our salvation is solid. Our salvation is firm. Our salvation is immovable, sturdy, strong. Unbreakable.

Our salvation is a tangible promise we can depend on, because Jesus is dependable. A Rock.

Our Faith is built upon The Rock of our Salvation.

These thoughts above are the thoughts that immediately go through my mind as I think of this Bible Word Picture.

In and of myself, I am anything but a rock. I am unstable, wishy-washy, insecure, faltering, movable; more like a feather blown around on a windy day! But when I place my faith on The Rock – Jesus, He grounds me, stabilizes me, saves me from being blown away and lost forever.

Jesus is also my firm foundation, my solid salvation, and my Rock I can stand on in my daily growing faith. I feel His strength and security rising up in me. I feel His strength solid around me, under me, and even inside and through me. I truly love this illustration that Jesus is Our Rock.

Another place where we get this Rock picture of Christ was in Exodus 17:6. (see verse above) This is where the original illustration was made, and God fully intended to use it to illustrate the picture of our salvation in Christ from this event.

Moses is commanded to strike the rock and water will come out of it.

What a paradox! What a miracle!

Water to quench the dry and thirsty bodies of the Israelites wandering through the desert.
Water to give life and refreshment and filling.

But water… from a rock.

This is a beautiful picture of the Water of Eternal Life that God gives us freely, from The Rock of our Salvation. Jesus gives water that quenches the dry and thirsty soul, lost and wandering away from God.

Later, in Numbers 20:8-12, the people are again thirsty and in need of water. This time God tells Moses to SPEAK to the rock, and it will give forth water. This is an illustration of the already saved believer only needing to ask for fellowship and refreshment from Jesus, confessing sin as needed (1 John 1:9) for right-relationship, but not needing salvation again from sin after having asked the first time.

Moses in his human frustration with the people’s complaining & whining, strikes the rock twice instead of merely speaking to it, and this breaks the beautiful picture illustration God was intending to paint before the people. For this indiscretion, Moses is punished by not being allowed to enter in to the Promised Land with the people, although God does allow him to see it in all its vastness and beauty.

What God is illustrating is that Jesus is the Rock and only had to be “smote” once (by the crucifixion) to give us His eternal life giving Living Water. After we receive this Living Water in Salvation, to be refilled we only need to ask through prayer. We don’t need to go back and be re-saved. As saved believers, we have already been forgiven for all eternity for all our sins. But regular confession; recognizing, being remorseful over, and agreeing with God that the sins we do were paid for on the cross, is handled through prayer, and directly to Jesus. No intercessor is needed, as the Rock already paid the price, and provides water for all who ask, freely.

There are a number of ways that this name of Christ can be seen in the Bible, and all are an encouragement to our faith. All of them point to a solid foundation for our Savior, our Salvation, and our Faith to grow on. The old hymn cries out, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood, from thy wounded side which flowed, be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure.” I am standing on the Rock of Ages, clinging to the Rock of my Salvation, and drinking freely from the Living Water that flows from the Rock that was smitten for me. Are you?

I think ‘Rock’ is one of the most beautiful names for Christ in the Bible, and one that we can tangibly cling to in our abiding faith.