Tag Archives: Lamb of God

The Power Of The Cross – The Forgiveness Of Sins

Gospel, , ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

. . . In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col. 1: 14)

This topic should have been at the beginning of our series, but I have left it to last because it sums up everything we experience through the power of the cross.

Do you know what it is like to be forgiven? Really forgiven? All the weight of your guilt removed; the torment of your conscience because of what you have done gone; the flashbacks and the regret of what you said or did, stilled.

Four men brought their paralysed friend to Jesus but they could not get him near Him. The house was jam-packed with people, and not one of them was willing to make way for him. They were too eager to hear Jesus to give him a place. What were they to do? There was only one answer. If they could not get him into the house through the door, they’d let him down through the roof! Then the people would have to make a place for him if they didn’t want him on their heads!

Fortunately they had access to the roof via the outside staircase. They lugged their heavy burden up the stairs, dug a hole in the roof big enough to get him through and slowly lowered him down on his sleeping mat until he lay at Jesus’ feet. What would Jesus do?

The man obviously needed healing. Would He heal him and send him on his way? Perhaps Jesus gazed at him for a moment, saw the pain in his eyes, perhaps the pain of memories he could not escape. Why was he in that condition in the first place? Did he believe that it was punishment for sin? Was there something he had done years before that still tormented him? Did he remember all the times he had disregarded the ceremonial law, failed to do his duty to God and his fellow Jews? And now he was powerless to make it right.

The first words that fell from Jesus’ lips were, surprisingly, not, ”Be healed,” but, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark. 2: 5b) Did you get that? First of all, Jesus called him “son”. What did that mean? Yes, he had sinned, but that did not cancel his relationship with His Father as His son. Not even sin could destroy that relationship. His guilt had long destroyed fellowship with God – in fact he was born in sin, but God’s forgiveness through Jesus would take care of that.

Jesus knew what he needed most of all, even before the healing of his body. He needed the healing of his heart and Jesus gave it to him unconditionally. Forgiven! Imagine that! No more regret. No more tormented dreams. Just peace. Peace. Peace!

The ever-present Pharisees were up in arms. They knew that there was no forgiveness without sacrifice. What right had Jesus to forgive sins? Did He think He was God? Where was the sacrifice? Little did they know that they would be partly responsible for making the sacrifice – not of an animal on the altar in the temple court but of the man they had come to hate because of His goodness, on the altar of a Roman cross.

You see, the death of Jesus was much more than just an event in history. It was the very heart of history – the pivot around which the whole of human history turned. Every animal that was sacrificed on the Jewish altar of God, in the tabernacle or in the temple, pointed backwards to what had already taken place in eternity, and forwards to what would happen at a moment in history.

Could Jesus forgive his sin? In spite of the religious leaders’ objections, yes, because He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God planned it before man sinned, and the effects of the one event in history covered all sin for all time. Those who sinned before the cross were invited to put their trust in a lamb because the Lamb of God would be manifested on earth to reveal what He had already done in heaven.

Forgiveness! Yes, Jesus had the authority and the power to forgive sins because He bore our sin in His body on the tree. He was the sacrificial lamb and the scapegoat who took away our sin, removed our guilt and set us free to follow Him.

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.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

Lion Or Lamb?

Bible Study, , ,

LION OR LAMB? 

“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’

“When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘Rabbi (which means “Teacher”), ‘where are you staying?’ ‘Come,’ He replied, ‘and you will see.’ So they went and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about four in the afternoon.” John 1:35-39 (NIV).

Jesus rated John the Baptist the greatest of all the prophets. Why? He was not like Isaiah, for instance, who was a member of the royal family and whose long ministry lasted through the reigns of four kings. Isaiah was the prince of prophets in the Old Testament era. He had insights into the nature and ministry of the Messiah like no other prophet. After all, didn’t he write the most profound and sublime chapter in the Old Testament — Isaiah 53? But John was greater.

Why was John such a great man? His ministry lasted no more than six months before he was incarcerated and then beheaded. I believe his greatness lay in the way he fulfilled his assignment. What was his assignment? He was to prepare the way for and introduce the Messiah to Israel. It was not so much what he did but the way he did it that marked him out as a truly great man.

In response to the constant squabbling of His disciples over who would be the greatest, Jesus taught them what true greatness was all about. They thought that greatness was about being the most important and the most visible person in the pecking order. James and John even asked for positions at His elbows in His kingdom! Imagine that!

Jesus was quick to point out that it was they, not He, who determined their greatness. If they were were prepared to stoop down to the level of the lowliest in society, a little child, and lift him up, they would be truly great. Humility and the behaviour it produces, is the way to greatness.

How did John the Baptist measure up to Jesus’ criterion?

When the Pharisees interrogated him, he was quick to point out that he was no more than a voice. He could have claimed to be Elijah come back from the dead, a great prophet who had ministered during a time of apostasy in Israel and who had done amazing miracles – stopping the rain, bringing on the rain and even raising a dead child on one occasion. Jesus identified John as the fulfilment of God’s promise to send Elijah ahead of the Messiah but John made no such claim for himself.

John had the heart of a servant. His fiery preaching was not to humiliate but to call people back to God. When they responded, he spent time encouraging and teaching them about God’s kingdom.

He never lost an opportunity to point people to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Whenever he saw Jesus, he declared, ‘There is God’s Lamb!’ John, unlike Jesus’ own diisciples, had grasped the real mission of the Messiah.

The disciples were anticipating a stand-off with the Romans, their humiliating defeat and an era of glorious freedom for Israel under their new ruler, Jesus. The miracles He did confirmed their notion that He would restore Israel to her former glory under their great king, David, when everyone lived in safety and in plenty under his merciful and benevolent rule.

John, on the other hand, kept insisting that Jesus was God’s Lamb, not God’s Lion, at least not yet.  He was not in any way resentful when some of his disciples left him to follow Jesus. That was his purpose, to point people to Jesus and to introduce Him to the world as God’s sacrifice for sin.

John was faithful to his calling. He had no other purpose in life but to ensure that everyone he encountered knew who Jesus was. He was consumed with the passion to prepare the way so that, when Jesus arrived on the scene, people would recognise and follow Him.

This story speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Soaked In The Spirit

Bible Study, , ,

SOAKED IN THE SPIRI 

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man comes after me who has surpassed me because He was before me.’ I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptising with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.’

“Then John gave this testimony, ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on Him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.'” John 1:29-34 (NIV)

There you have it, straight from John’s mouth! It seems that John and Jesus, although they were relatives, had no connection with one another until this moment. Jesus grew up in the northern province of Galilee and John in Judea in the south. There were no motor vehicles to make the trip to Galilee or Judea easy for a family holiday, and besides that, John’s parents were elderly and probably not given to travelling around.

Naturally John knew about Jesus — had his father not prophesied over him at his birth that he would be a prophet and forerunner of the Messiah? Had he himself not leapt for joy in his mother’s womb when she came face to face with Mary, mother of the Messiah? Would his parents not have thoroughly prepared him for the day when he would begin his role as priest-prophet in Israel, the first after 400 years of prophetic silence?

And what about the time he spent in the wilderness with God, soaking up the Word he had studied and memorised during his years of preparation to be a rabbi? Of course John was a rabbi! Only rabbis had disciples — and John had his disciples as did Jesus. So crucial was John’s ministry to be that God would not have left his first meeting with Jesus to chance.

God gave John a clear sign to identify Jesus as the Messiah from among the many Jewish men he would encounter in his ministry. How would he recognise Him? Would He be wearing special clothing, have a distinguishing mark on His face or on His body, have a specific hair style, wear a name tag on His chest? Of course not! Nothing as silly as that!

The Spirit! The Holy Spirit was the key, but how would John know that the Holy Spirit was on Him? God told him that he would see the Holy Spirit descend and remain on Jesus and that would be the sign that He was the Messiah. And it happened!

This was the first and only time in Scripture that the Holy Spirit was visible to human eyes. Matthew and Mark wrote that Jesus saw the Spirit descending while Luke simply related the fact that the Spirit descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove. That must have been visible to someone who either wrote it down or told Luke about it.

But John saw the Holy Spirit and to him this was a sign of great significance because it showed him exactly who the Messiah was. From that moment he used every opportunity to point out to those who followed him or came to listen to him that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s Chosen One. That was his job and he did it with great delight and with all his heart.

The apostle John, with hindsight after decades of contemplation, weighing up the evidence of John’s ministry and his years with Jesus, recognised in John the qualities that made him a truly great prophet. After His baptism when John the Baptist knew who the Messiah was by the visible presence of the Holy Spirit coming upon Him, he used every opportunity to point Him out to the people. ‘Look, there’s the One I keep telling you about, God’s Lamb who is to be sacrificed for the world’s sin.’

John was not intent on drawing attention to Jesus to make Him popular but to introduce Him in His true role as God’s sacrificial Lamb, not just for the sin of Israel alone but for the sin of the world. Jesus cautioned those who were healed not to speak about it because He did not want to be known as the miracle-worker who did things for people. That was evidence of the real reason why He came, to take away the sin of the world so that God’s wayward sons and daughters could return home to the Father.

The Holy Spirit was crucial to Jesus who laid aside His deity to live as a man, and He is crucial to every believer. Without the Holy Spirit in us, we are as vulnerable as the Israelites were who failed to keep the covenant God made with them at Sinai. It was His death and resurrection that cleared the way for the Holy Spirit to saturate every believer just as He saturated Jesus and empowered Him to live as a true Son and to lay down His life for us.

Are you drenched in the Holy Spirit?