Category Archives: Gospel

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD

Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS  

REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. (Eph. 1: 7)

Everything that God has done for us flows from His grace but through the cross. I said yesterday that Jesus foretold the fact but did not give the reasons for His death. It was Paul who received the revelation from the Holy Spirit to explain the depth of meaning that the cross has for us.

Before we go any further, let’s sever, once and for all, the connection between Jesus’ death and Easter with all its pagan trappings. No self-respecting believer in Jesus should ever celebrate Easter (or Christmas, for that matter) because everything Easter and Christmas stand for are an intrusion into the truth.

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.’ (2 Cor. 6: 16)   

The death of Jesus is rooted in the Passover feast. God gave His people seven annual feasts to celebrate, in anticipation, the work of Messiah. Each feast foretold, in picture form, an aspect of what Jesus would do for His people. The first of the annual feasts was Passover which told the story of their redemption from Egypt. 

Just as the Israelites were slaves to their cruel taskmasters in Egypt, so humanity was enslaved by the devil when Adam chose to believe his lies over the truth of God. God created the first pair to be one with Him. He made them in His image and filled them with His Spirit (breath) so that they would enjoy fellowship with Him and live in perfect harmony with Him as their Father and with the world in which they lived.

God gave man one gift which put both Him and man at great risk – the gift of choice. Without the freedom to choose, people would be robots, programmed and controlled by their Creator. True freedom involves the right and power to make choices without the control of anyone else, including both God and the devil. 

Satan lured Adam and Eve into believing that God had short-changed them; that He had withheld from them something that would be to their benefit, independence. God never intended that freedom to choose would involve freedom to make the rules. The moment they capitulated to the devil, they were hooked. They did not understand that the depth of true freedom lay in their oneness with God, choosing to do His will and living in perfect harmony with Him because only He is truly free – from everything imperfect that enslaves the heart.  

They were enslaved to a nature that was corrupted and could no longer serve its purpose – to have fellowship with the Father in the perfection of His untainted nature. They had a new nature, stubborn, rebellious, and evil, and a new master – a cruel taskmaster who drove them through shame, guilt, and fear to hate God and to run from Him. They no longer recognised or experienced God as their Father, but they hid from Him because they were afraid of His wrath.

Their imperfection became an impenetrable barrier between God and them. They could not reach Him, and He could not reach them. They were enslaved, body, soul and spirit to the devil, and no amount of self-effort could remove the barrier.  Even if they tried to be perfect, their past disqualified them from access to Him.

God built into His instructions for living – His Torah – a sacrificial system which would teach His people how serious the problem of sin was, and that the death of a perfect lamb was demanded to pay the debt of sin and free the sinner from his enslavement to the devil. Animal blood was only a picture of redemption. It could never pay the debt God required, but it spoke of one who would come – a perfect Lamb who would be qualified to pay the debt and free humanity from the penalty of death.

Every year, the Israelites celebrated their redemption from slavery in Egypt in anticipation of the one God would send to redeem them from even greater slavery – slavery to sin and the devil.

When Jesus came, they refused to recognise Him or to acknowledge that He was God’s Messiah. He lived the life of a perfect Son before them, but they crucified Him. They did not realise that the very suffering they put Him through, in His life and in His death, qualified Him to be the perfect Lamb that would remove the barrier of sin between them and God and rescue them from slavery to the devil so that they could be restored to fellowship with the Father.

It was Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, who recognised Him to be that perfect Lamb.

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’ (John 1: 29)

Through His death, Jesus took sin away and broke its hold over the sinner. Satan can no longer hold us to ransom because the debt has been paid. He no longer has a claim on us. Jesus provides forgiveness for the whole world and for all time. Even the sins that lie in the future are taken care of by His blood.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2: 2)

This is the power of the cross!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – PURIFED BY THE BLOOD

Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

PURIFED BY THE BLOOD

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1: 7)

How much truth is encapsulated in this one verse!

First of all, what does it mean to “walk in the light”? Unless we understand the Hebraic thought behind this statement, we will invent our own interpretation and make nonsense of its meaning. To understand it accurately, we must go back to its use in the Old Testament.

“Remember, words used by the New Testament writers were not created in a vacuum. They have their meanings established in the Tanakh. The writers of the New Testament do not spend time defining words or phrases to the reader. The meaning of the terms are assumed. Assumed from where? The Scriptures. So let’s see how the New Testament dictionary defines light.

Psalm 119:105 – Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Psalm 119:130 – The entrance of thy words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.

Proverbs 6:23 – For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

“This would be the dictionary of the New Testament writers. Their understanding of the words they used came from the Scriptures they already had. When the Bereans were commended in Acts 17:11, it was because they went back to the Tanakh to verify everything that was being taught by these early disciples. Why? Reason number one is because that is all they had. The New Testament had not yet been penned. Reason number two is because the Hebrew people had been taught for centuries that if someone does not speak according to the law and the testimony there is no light in them. So, when the New Testament writers, especially Yeshua‘, used the term light, they used it in a way that was already understood. Let’s go over a few New Testament verses again. This time we will see them in their proper context.

John 8:12 – I am the light of the world …” (i.e. I am the words of ’Elohiym.)

Matthew 5:14-16 – Ye are the light of the world …” (i.e. Now you are the words of ’Elohiym.)

Matthew 5:16 – Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (i.e. Proclaim and DO the words of ’Elohiym, so that the world can see who you are and glorify Him).

http://www.wildbranch.org/teachings/lessons/lesson4.html (-retrieved October 2015)

We have established that to walk in the light means to live our lives in obedience to the Word of God. It stands to reason that, if we are all walking in the light, we will be in harmony with one another. The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia. It means having things in common or being in harmony, communion.

Firstly, to have fellowship with one another, we must be in fellowship with the Father, which He brought about by redeeming us from slavery to sin and reconciling us to Himself through the blood of Jesus.

Secondly, Jesus made peace though His blood, bringing Jew and Gentile together into one family, creating a new race which is characterised by spiritual birth rather than by natural human birth and condition. We are citizens, first, of the kingdom of God which takes precedence over citizenship in the land of our birth.

Thirdly, obedience to Jesus as Lord and to the Word of God brings us together as one. Fellowship with the Father and with His Son, and fellowship with one another is the evidence of a spiritual cleansing by the blood of Jesus. God promises to purify us when we acknowledge our sin, and to keep us pure when we live in harmony with Him and with one another.

The word for “purify” is in the present continuous tense. It implies a continuous action, something like a windscreen wiper that continually wipes the rain off the windscreen. Cleansing by the blood of Jesus is not a once-off action but a perpetual washing as we live in obedience to His word. It cleanses us from our impure intentions, attitudes, motives, and failures to be perfect.

Hallelujah! This lifts the burden of trying to live up to God’s perfection because we are already perfect in Christ. Our job is to keep our eyes on Jesus and His job is to keep us clean and pure by His blood.

What do we have in common? We have a common Father, a common Lord, a common Holy Spirit, a common citizenship, a common salvation, a common hope, a common purpose, a common destiny and a common destination, and even common resources because we are one family.

This is the power of the cross!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – CLEANSES OUR CONSCIENCES FROM DEAD WORKS

Christian life, Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

CLEANSES OUR CONSCIENCES FROM DEAD WORKS

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ who, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God. (Heb. 9: 13-14)

“The law of God given to Moses is a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that the Israelites’ behaviour reflected their status as God’s chosen people. It encompasses moral behaviour, their position as a godly example to other nations, and systematic procedures for acknowledging God’s holiness and mankind’s sinfulness. In an attempt to better understand the purpose of these laws, Jews and Christians categorize them. This has led to the distinction between moral law, ceremonial law, and judicial law.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/ceremonial-law.html (- retrieved October 2015)

According to the writer to the Hebrews, the sacrifices prescribed in the Mosaic Law could do no more than remove their guilt for transgressing the ceremonial law. Let’s look at an example. A woman has a baby – which involved the shedding of blood. There is nothing morally wrong with giving birth but, because she bled, she became ceremonially unclean because the shedding of blood was contrary to God’s perfection. She, therefore, was obligated to offer a sacrifice to remove her ceremonial impurity.

All the animal sacrifices prescribed for every condition and every transgression in the old covenant served one of two purposes; firstly, they covered ceremonial guilt but could not change the status of the worshipper. No matter how many sacrifices they offered, they could not approach God except through a priest who was their designated mediator, because of sin. Secondly, they reminded the worshipper of the barrier of sin that separated him from a holy God.    

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. . . But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sin. (Heb. 10: 1; 3)

Animal sacrifices were a foreshadowing of something much better that was to come.

What are the “acts that lead to death”, to which the writer refers? Sin can be both the things we do, say or even think that transgress God’s absolute perfection and the so-called “good works” we do to try to gain God’s favour. In His mercy, God intervened to change our status before Him by sending His own Son to take our place. Jesus came under judgment for our sin and paid our debt by submitting to death although He had no guilt of His own.

Jesus was born of a human mother, but He was not conceived by a human father but by the Holy Spirit. He became the “last Adam”, without sin, but subject to our human condition in a fallen world so that he could prove His love for the Father as a son by living in perfect submission and obedience to Him. After 33 years of sinless living, He gave up His life by being executed on the cross – condemned as a criminal, but not guilty.

His death became an atoning sacrifice for all people, for all sin, for all time. He is the only human being who ever died as punishment for sin He did not commit, qualifying Him to be the Saviour of the world.

The human problem is that we are not only guilty of transgressing God’s laws and His holy nature, but we are also guilty of believing that we can balance our sin by doing “good works” which we think will satisfy God’s justice. How can a murderer hope to make amends for his crime by doing community service for a prescribed length of time? No amount of doing good will make up for taking a life. The law demands appropriate punishment for the crime. But we apply that kind of cock-eyed thinking to God!

God demands the death of the sinner and no amount of “community service” will take away the guilt of our sin. The problem is that we are already dead because sin has killed us. What Jesus did on the cross was God’s just and perfect solution to this dilemma. Now guilty humans can be declared innocent and righteous and can approach the Father without fear of punishment.

This is the power of the cross.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – BROUGHT NEAR BY THE BLOOD

Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

BROUGHT NEAR BY THE BLOOD

. . . At one time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.  But now, in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph. 2: 12-13)

What is Paul saying? Does he mean that all Jews are “in” and all Gentiles are “out”? Not at all. In his letters to the Romans and Galatians, he stated quite clearly that not all Israelites are true Israelites. Only those who are the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus are the true Israel. They have completed the process which He began when He called Abraham to be the father of His people, by recognising and receiving Jesus as God’s promised Messiah, and His gift of righteousness to which the old covenant pointed.

However, Gentiles were not even in line to be a part of the Old Covenant because God had called only the natural children of Abraham to be His special people. They received God’s Torah, His instructions for living, and His promises, so that they could show the pagan nations around them the nature of the true God. It was through them that the Messiah would come, and they were to live in anticipation of His coming – prophesied over many centuries in uncanny detail so that they would recognise Him when He came.

According to the prophetic fingerprint in their sacred writings, He would come as both Suffering Servant and King, but their exile and repeated occupation by enemy forces because of their unfaithfulness to the covenant, aroused in them a longing to be free from their enemies and to rule their own country without interference from outside. The other side of Messiah’s purpose to rescue them from sin was either forgotten or ignored in favour of a king who would rule over them in justice and peace, as did their great ancestor, David.

When Jesus came, the Jews did not recognise Him because He did not fit their expectation of a political deliverer. Even worse for them was that those who followed Jesus and preached that He was indeed their Messiah, had opened the door of faith to the Gentles. Their hatred for and prejudice against the Gentiles was so strong that the followers of Jesus were to be exterminated for daring to preach that their God was also the God of the Gentiles.

Despite the message of their prophets that God would call the whole world to obedience to Him, they resented the intrusion of Gentiles into their exclusive right to worship God. There were many “God-fearers” scattered across the Roman Empire in Paul’s day, Gentiles who worshiped the true God without embracing Judaism with its tedious rules and ritual. It was this group that were more ready to receive the good news about the Messiah than God’s own people.

In his letter to the Ephesian church, and the other churches in Asia Minor which also read his letter, Paul reminded them that, without the message of Jesus which they had heard and embraced, the Gentiles had not hope of reconciliation to God or participation in the promises of the covenant made to Abraham and his descendants.

It was through Abraham that the whole world would be blessed. His descendants would receive and were to preserve the revelation of God given to them through His covenant with Abraham and expanded in the covenant He made with them at Mount Sinai when He espoused them to Himself as His bride. In the Abrahamic covenant was the promise that they would be a blessing to all nations.

The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ (Gen. 12: 1-3)

Through Jesus, then, God fulfilled His promise, opening the door to the Gentile world to embrace everything that He had promised His own people in His covenant. It was through Jesus that they were “brought near”, giving them access to the Father through the forgiveness He made possible, and allowing them to be a part of the promises that guaranteed their acceptance with Him and everything that the death of Jesus made possible.

Through faith in Jesus everyone, Jew, and Gentile alike, becomes a part of God’s new race, no longer categorised as “Jew” and “Gentile” but by their new status as sons and daughters of the Father.

For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of His household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. (Eph. 2: 18-22)

When we consider how strong and how damaging the issue of racism is in our world that no amount of external pressure can cure, we can only marvel at the miracle of reconciliation which Jesus made possible by His death.

This is the power of the cross.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – THE ATONING SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS

Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

THE ATONING SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement (propitiation), through the shedding of His blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3: 25-26)

A sacrifice of atonement, more accurately translated “propitiation” – what does it mean? It is a truth about the blood of Jesus that is not spoken about much these days. Forgiveness – yes. Propitiation – no. Although it is in the Bible, we ignore it because we have no idea what it means.

Propitiation has to do with the wrath of God, something we don’t like to think about because it conflicts with our idea of God’s love. How can God love us and be angry with us at the same time?

“In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul makes the argument that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is under the condemnation of God and deserving of His wrath (Romans 1:18). Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). All of us deserve His wrath and punishment. God in His infinite grace and mercy has provided a way that His wrath can be appeased, and we can be reconciled to Him. That way is through the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus Christ, as the payment for sins. It is through faith in Jesus Christ as God’s perfect sacrifice that we can be reconciled to God. It is only because of Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection on the third day that a lost sinner deserving of hell can be reconciled to a holy God. The wonderful truth of the gospel is that Christians are saved from God’s wrath and reconciled to God not because “we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10)”

(http://www.gotquestions.org/propitiation.html – retrieved October 2015)

To understand the meaning of propitiation, we must understand the implications of sin. Sin is much more than just the bad things we do that God does not like. Sin, in the Bible involves everything that contradicts God’s perfection. This includes things like disease, deformity, and death; bloodshed or the disruption of anything that God created. Even the mildew in the houses of the Israelites had to be atoned for by sacrifice because it was something less than perfect.

Imperfection of any kind is an affront to the perfection of God’s nature. The wrath of God is His settled disposition of anger directed towards sin.

“Wrath is defined as “the emotional response to perceived wrong and injustice,” often translated as “anger,” “indignation,” “vexation,” or “irritation.” Both humans and God express wrath. But there is vast difference between the wrath of God and the wrath of man. God’s wrath is holy and always justified; man’s is never holy and rarely justified. . . 


In the Old Testament, the wrath of God is a divine response to human sin and disobedience. Idolatry was most often the occasion for divine wrath. . . The wrath of God is consistently directed towards those who do not follow His will (Deuteronomy 1:26-46; Joshua 7:1; Psalm 2:1-6).

“The New Testament also supports the concept of God as a God of wrath who judges sin. The story of the rich man and Lazarus speaks of the judgment of God and serious consequences for the unrepentant sinner (Luke 16:19–31). . .

“The wrath of God is a fearsome and terrifying thing. Only those who have been covered by the blood of Christ, shed for us on the cross, can be assured that God’s wrath will never fall on them. “Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!” (Romans 5:9).”

(http://www.gotquestions.org/wrath-of-God.html – retrieved October 2015)

Since God is holy/love. His wrath must be appeased and therefore demands the death of the sinner, but His love cries for mercy. How could He be both just in punishing sin and, at the same time, the justifier of the sinner, declaring him not guilty and allowing him to go free?

God’s solution was Jesus. He came into the world as the Son of God, a human being born without sin since He was conceived, not by a human father but by the Holy Spirit. He lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father. He had no sin of His own; His death was unjustified unless He became the substitute for sinners.

God’s wrath against sin was directed at Jesus. Death was the culmination of everything that sin could throw at Him, which He absorbed into Himself without rebellion or retaliation. When God’s wrath was spent, Jesus died – but He rose from the dead because death could not hold Him. Unlike sinful man, His death was not for His own sin.

God’s wrath was completely satisfied. Sin’s debt had been paid in full. Sin was atoned for – God was propitiated, and He was free to absolve every sinner from the guilt of sin. Both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus.

This is the power of the cross.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.