2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
Since we are in the Lent season, it is the time of the Christian year when we are commanded by Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness, to examine the significance to our lives of the work of the cross. To do that accurately we must look at the issue of sin, so that we can appreciate what a great sin-sacrifice Jehovah Tsidkenu made when He gave His only Son over to suffer and die on the cross for us. Since spending two years teaching the Precepts Ministries course on the book of Romans, I have come to see it as the key that unlocks all the rest of the Scriptures, both OT and NT. That is why we are going to look at how it helps us to understand the topic of today’s message.
RO 3 is heavy with crucial teachings from God. RO 3: 22, “God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference.” What is being said here is that faith does not come from being an expert on the Law, from outward rituals (like circumcision or baptism), from a meaningless leap in the dark, nor the work of our hands. It is a gift of God’s grace to those who open their hearts to Jesus Christ. The comment, “there is no difference,” tells us that this faith is available to all people, whether they come from a Jewish or a Gentile background. Faith is never a meaningless leap in the dark. HE 11: 1 defines it as, “being sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.” HE 11: 2 reminds us, “It was by their faith that people of ancient times won God’s approval.” This is a direct reference to GN 15: 6 for example. “Abram put his trust in the Lord, and because of this the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.” As Les Feldick says, “Faith is taking God at His word.” Being put right with God is being justified, and that is something that is a done deal once you come to true faith and have repented. It’s one of the perks right along with having righteousness imputed to your accounts, replacing the sin that was once there.
Christ made the point that we can’t serve two masters. MT 6: 24, “No one can be a slave of two masters; he will hate one and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The same principle applies to trying to serve sin as your master while you are trying to serve righteousness. It just can’t be done. God, through Paul, writes about this in RO 6: 16, “Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slaves of the master you obey-either of sin, which results in death, or obedience, which results in being put right with God.” Knowing that, we can go on to look at how the work of the cross impacts and changes the focus of our lives. Again, note the grace given here by Jehovah Tsidkenu. RO 6: 17-18, “But thanks be to God! For though at one time you were slaves to sin, you have obeyed with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received. You were set free from sin and became the slaves of righteousness.” The term, “slaves to righteousness,” refers to a slavery which we freely choose, because of the righteousness that has been imputed to our account at the time we came to faith. If we must be slaves to anything, let it be to the always righteous Lord Who loves us from the depth of His very ample heart!
Jehovah Tsidkenu wants us to be victorious through Christ. We are reminded of that with Paul’s statement in 2 COR 2: 14, “But thanks be to God! For in union with Christ we are always led by God as prisoners in Christ’s victory procession. God uses us to make the knowledge of about Christ spread everywhere like a sweet fragrance.” If we are to march in a victory procession to spread the Gospel, let it be Christ’s! As servants of the new covenant, we must have faith in the origin of our salvation. 2 COR 3: 1-3, “Does this sound as if we were again boasting about ourselves? Could it be that, like some other people, we need letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are the letter we have, written on our hearts for everyone to know and read. It is clear that Christ Himself wrote this letter and sent it by us. It is written, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets but on human hearts.” This statement that Paul writes to the Romans where he is challenging them not to drift back into thinking that salvation comes from the written Law applies to us today. Faith in Christ Himself is the only source for salvation. Remember: FAITH + NOTHING=SALVATION, (Les Feldick’s way of expressing it).
The death of the innocent is required for the salvation of the guilty. Before we came to faith, we were deemed guilty by Jehovah Tsidkenu. GN 3: 21, “And the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.” This amazing citation occurs just before Adam and Eve and expelled from the Garden of Eden. An innocent animal had to die before their sins had any hope of being forgiven. This is clearly supported in LV 17: 11 and HE 9: 22, which teach us that blood must be shed for there to be forgiveness. In LV 23: 12, we learn that a Passover sacrifice of a lamb without spot or defect was made each year. That foreshadowed what we understand from 1 COR 5: 6-8, “It is not right for you to be proud! You know the saying, ‘A little bit of yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.’ You must remove the old yeast of sin so that you will be entirely pure. Then you will be like a new batch of dough without any yeast, as indeed I know you actually are. For our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us celebrate our Passover, then, not with bread having the old yeast of sin and wickedness, but with the bread that has no yeast, the bread of purity and truth.” Because we know Jehovah Tsidkenu’s sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the once for all sin-sacrifice under the new covenant prophesied in JER 31: 31-34, we can begin to understand what a great gift of His grace it really is.
PRAYER: O Lord, there are so many ways that You help us to understand the significance to us of the great sacrifice of Your Son on the cross. You break down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles by making faith in Your Son available to both. You open the way to salvation for all of us by having made the greatest, most painful, and most unselfish sacrifice a parent of an only child can make. You endured watching Him suffer while taking on the sins of the world, knowing it was the only way we could come to faith, be deemed acceptable to You, and be judged “innocent.” We who are faithful are no longer Your enemies, but instead, are Your friends. In ancient times, it was the blood of animals shed that made temporary forgiveness possible under the old covenant. You knew that wasn’t good enough. That is why You made Christ our Passover Lamb, instituting the new covenant, an eternal one, with His death on the cross. We approach You today in humility and in deepest gratitude for what You have done for us. We acknowledge our faith in You and offer You our adoration, worship, trust, obedience, loyalty, honor, glory, praise, and, once again, thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, Jehovah Tsidkenu helps us to go even further in our understanding of the significance of Christ’s Atonement to us by prompting me to write about what Jehovah Tsidkenu teaches us in the book of Hebrews and other Scriptures about this. While we have been looking at the same subject from different contexts in the last few days, the message of God’s profound love for us remains the same. I never tire of writing about that, because it gives purpose, protection, and quality to our lives. His love is for each of us individually, for us as members of congregations that He put together, and for us a members of the total Body of Christ. As we are nourished and sustained by that love, we move forward in the process of sanctification and in doing His work. Feel blessed, Dear Ones, because we are! Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn