2015-07-31
Good Morning Dear Ones,
There are two verses that could only be counted as comfort-giving. They are JN 1: 14 and 1 JN 1: 9, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, Who came from the Father full of grace and truth…If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” As God’s human creation, we find ourselves inheriting sin from the original sin [GN 3: 1-3] to which we add any sins we commit. God has known from the beginning we would find ourselves in such a trap, and He determined He would help us to find a way out. That way out was the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ –the sacrifice of His only Son’s physical life on the cross in the taking of human sin with Him-and our faith in Him. 1 PET 1: 20-21 reveals there was nothing accidental about this plan. “He was chosen before the creation of the world but was revealed in these times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, Who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are from God.” The kind of sacrificial love that went into this on the Father’s part and on the Son’s is unmatched throughout human history.
Believe it or not, Christ’s death on the cross and what it means for believing mankind is God’s keeping of the most important promise He ever made. That promise is mankind’s opportunity for redemption that is encased in GN 3: 21, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” Since we know from LV 17: 11 and HE 9: 22, that the life is in the blood, and blood must be shed for there to be forgiveness, this meant there was God’s promise of forgiveness of sins. So in GN 3: 21, where was the blood shed? It was in the sacrifice of whatever animal provided the skins God used for Adam and Eve’s clothing. This was accomplished just before their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Sin is defined as separation between the sinner and God. The more grievous the sin, the wider the separation. We were told in RO 3: 23, “All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.” But, with faith, repentance, genuine confession of the sin before God, and a stoppage of the attitude or behavior, our sins can be forgiven. God’s forgiveness is sweet and yields inner peace. Constantly repeating the sin and confessing it in a vicious cycle (as some do) isn’t good enough. Nor is ignoring God’s teaching concerning the sin. However, we will be enormously blessed if we make it our habit to cooperate with God in the process of sanctification, that on-going process in which we reveal, confess, and expunge our sins, whilst God gradually purifies/perfects us. Sanctification prepares us for the day when God feels we are sufficiently perfected that we may then go back to His side for a heavenly eternity. That is our glorification.
Adam is a archetype of Christ, in that through him, sin was brought into the world, just as through Christ a way out from sin was made possible. It is because of the original sin of Adam and Eve that all humans must endue physical death. However, with faith in Christ and repentance, no human has to die spiritually [RO 5: 12-14]. RO 5: 19, “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one Man the many will be made righteous.” It is rather amazing that the whole outcome of the Bible is given in one very early verse, GN 3: 15, the Protevangelium. [God speaking to the serpent (Satan)], “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush Your head and you will strike his heel.” This verse is letting us know that evil will be one day vanquished, and that crushing the head is a far more serious consequence than striking the heel. For more on these facts consult: DN 2: 34-35; DN 9: 24-27; REV 19: 20, and REV 20: 10.
As for those who are believers, we see the principle of 1 COR 15: 49 applying. “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the Man from heaven.” This author’s understanding is that if we physically die in faith in the Lord Jesus, our spirits will go to heaven to wait for the last Day, while our bodies will be laid to rest in earth till that time when Christ will return at the time of the second Advent to reunite body and spirit in heaven. 1 COR 15: 52-54, “In a flash in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immorality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written [IS 25: 8] will come true, ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’” Yes Dear Readers, we can find comfort in knowing that God will keep His promise that death will be overcome and that the hope of the redemption of believers will also come true; evil will be vanquished!
PRAYER: O Lord, the more we look into the Bible, the more we see evidence that it is Your love letter to Your human creation. It would be illogical for You to detest those believers You created. We were created in Your image [GN 1: 27], and it would have been like You were detesting Yourself otherwise. Instead, You anticipated our sinfulness and imperfections, and You supplied us with a way out from under the sure condemnation of the negative consequences of sinning. That Way Out is through repentance and faith in Your Son, Jesus Christ. JN 3: 16 and RO 3: 24-25 reveal the extraordinary power the sacrifice of His physical life on the cross has for us. We are forever grateful for being given the hope of resurrection and a blissful eternal life of sweet fellowship in heaven with You. It is what You have wanted all along, which is why we are told this in JN 6: 39-40 and EPH 1: 4-5. Nothing we have done or can do has the beneficial effect that Christ’s Atonement has. None of us can be as perfect as He is. We have been told, in JN 14: 6, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one goes to the Father, except through Me,” by the Lord. This leads us to the hope that even those people who didn’t come to faith in the Lord Jesus, but lived righteously will be given the opportunity to hear and believe in the truth of His deity and thus, go back to You in heaven-- people like righteous Jews who died in the Holocaust. Our Lord died “as the First among many brothers” [RO 8: 29], which leads us to believe, we have been adopted into Your family and will one day (on Your time clock) will return to You, sufficiently purified from our sins. We thank You for giving us that assurance and pledge to remain faithfully obedient to You, in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: There is more to write about the hope of the resurrection. To believers in Christ, it is one of many reasons justifying the awful suffering that our Lord Jesus went through to take our sins with Him on the cross. The only thing we can do in the face of our increasingly evil world is to pray and educate. The need for prayer is immediate for relief from problems like the break-down of the family unit, the misdeeds of non-believing groups trying to negatively impact believers, the increasing evil influence of some groups on governments, and other trends in today’s society. Prejudice is borne out of ignorance and separation between groups. We need to work to break down these barriers and to bring people together under God’s loving hand. The example we set in our individual lives makes a difference. Sadly our traditionally Jewish friends are being taught to keep separate from the rest of the population as a result of fear of assimilation. That fear is based on a long history of various groups throughout their 3000 year history trying to do this. Only God Himself can solve these problems with believers supporting His efforts in obedience to Him. Our God hears our prayers and answers them [PS 116: 1]. We can take comfort in knowing that He will protect believers in His Son and that He keeps His promises. Even during the Tribulation, He plans to pause after the 6th seal judgment to make sure that all the believers are protected [REV 7: 3 and REV 8: 1]. We should never underestimate the power God has and always uses for righteous reasons. We should never feel that our God will not keep His promises. He is a great, grand, and glorious God, Who deserves our forever thanks and praise!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2015. All Rights Reserved.
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