A gracEmail subscriber writes: "You said that Jesus was without sin. But didn't he become a sinner by taking on our sins? Isn't this why he was forsaken by God on the cross?" * * * Indeed, Jesus was the "lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). He "bore our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). God made him "who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf" (2 Cor. 5:21). He "became a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13). It is as if the cross of Jesus was a cosmic lightning rod planted squarely in the middle of the universal storm of divine judgment, a judgment that built in … [Read more...]
WAS THE CROSS NECESSARY?
A gracEmail reader asks, "Was the cross necessary in order for God to forgive our sins? Did Jesus have to die in order for God to love us sinners?" Part 1 Jesus considered it imperative that he be murdered (Matt. 16:21) by crucifixion (Luke 24:7) and that he be "counted with the transgressors" (Luke 22:37). These things were "necessary" because the Father's own love and holiness made it so, not because of something external to God himself which God was bound to obey. Nor were these things imposed on an unwilling Jesus by a determined Father, for Jesus "gave himself" (Gal. 2:20). Jesus' heart … [Read more...]
WHAT, WHO, WHY, HOW
A gracEmail subscriber writes, "My 18-year-old daughter asked me exactly what Jesus did for us by his death on the cross. I told her that he took on our sins and died in our place. She then asked, 'But if the penalty for sin is eternal death, how did Jesus' death remove that penalty, since Jesus was raised from the dead and lives forever?'" * * * Because of his great mercy, and through the life and death of Jesus Christ his Son, God has graciously set us right with himself. New Testament writers use a variety of metaphors to express this divine act -- metaphors familiar to their readers … [Read more...]
HE MADE THE CHOICE
For our sake Jesus "suffered" (Heb. 13:12) the "suffering of death" (Heb. 2:9). He experienced physical pain we cannot imagine. There is a reason the root of "excruciating" is the Latin word for "cross." It began with a bloody scourging followed by savage pummeling. A crown of thorns, pressed down, punctured his scalp. Metal spikes impaled his wrists, securing him to the wooden cross-beam. Then he hung suspended for hours while every muscle cramped and every nerve was set on edge, until finally, mercifully, death ended it all. Yet the Bible focuses more on the suffering of shame and … [Read more...]
ANIMAL SACRIFICES: WHY & WHY NOT?
A gracEmail subscriber asks, "Why did God command the Israelites to bring animal sacrifices as sin-offerings, and why did those sin-offerings stop after Jesus died and rose again?" * * * Those animal sacrifices reminded the Israelites of God’s greatest desire—that they love him with all their hearts, and show their love by keeping his commandments. The sacrifices also reminded them of their own failure ever to do that. And they pointed to a future Messiah who would give God what he had always wanted. To say it a different way, God asked from every Israelite the living sacrifice of a … [Read more...]
JESUS PLEASED GOD FOR YOU (3)
Did you ever stop to think, if you are a believer, that Jesus' perfectly obedient life was lived for you? That when God views you through Jesus your representative, he sees you as perfectly pleasing to himself? That is the astounding message of Hebrews 10:4-14. * * * Above all else, in Hebrews (as in the Old Testament), a high priest is one who acts as a representative of all his people. God sees what the high priest does, and he regards it as done by all the people whom the high priest represents. The holy clothing or vestments of the Mosaic high priest from Aaron forward symbolize this … [Read more...]
JESUS PLEASED GOD FOR YOU (2)
Did you ever stop to think, if you are a believer, that Jesus' perfectly obedient life was lived for you? That when God views you through Jesus your representative, he sees you as perfectly pleasing to himself? That is the astounding message of Hebrews 10:4-14. * * * Hebrews 10:10 is a gospel gem! The author has already told us that Jesus came to do God's will in a human body -- to offer God the living sacrifice of a sinless and obedient human life. Now he tells us that Jesus' obedience was for our benefit. "By this will" -- this life of perfect human obedience, this life lived fully in … [Read more...]
JESUS PLEASED GOD FOR YOU (1)
Did you ever stop to think, if you are a believer, that Jesus' perfectly obedient life was lived for you? That when God views you through Jesus your representative, he sees you as perfectly pleasing to himself? That is the astounding message of Hebrews 10:4-14. * * * The New Testament author of Hebrews says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin (10:4). "Why is that?" we ask. Because animals, being amoral creatures, are incapable of offering God what he most desires from his human creatures -- an obedient human life, lived in right relationship to the Creator from … [Read more...]
WHAT IS YOM KIPPUR? (3)
After the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 69-70, Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah were not nearly so dismayed as their fellow-Jews who did not, for they realized that all the rituals of high priests and sacrificial animals had reached their intended goal in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth -- "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Those Jews who did not receive the Messiah were devastated and felt obligated to re-invent Judaism for a situation without any Temple or priests or sacrificial animals. Over time, repentance and prayer … [Read more...]
WHAT IS YOM KIPPUR? (2)
This all foreshadowed the realities that Jesus later brought to pass and anticipated the eternal atonement Jesus would make by his self-offering to God on the cross. The white linen spoke of purity and common humanity. Though deity incarnate, Jesus was fully man, and he went to the cross having kept God's laws perfectly and having lived in absolute covenant faithfulness to God. The word for the Mercy Seat in the Greek Old Testament was hilasterion, the "Propitiation," a word combining the ideas of appeasement and reconciliation. By offering himself, symbolized in the shedding of his blood on … [Read more...]