Last week I was talking with a guy on Facebook, and he said he could never believe in a God who sentenced people to hell. I told him I couldn’t either. This man had a very skewed view of God’s grace.
God is holy (Isa. 6:3). Nothing unholy can stand before God (Rev. 21:22-27). Man is unholy. Only one sin, no matter how large or small, is all that is needed to make us unholy (Rom. 3:23). We can’t help it. We carry the sin nature (Gal 5:27). That means it is in our nature to sin.
So, what can we do about this? That’s the problem. We can’t!
But, God is love (1 John 4:8), and loves us infinitely. He has made a path for us to follow, a system for us to be made clean of unholiness.
God set up a system in Old Testament times whereby animals would take on the unholiness of an individual or the entire nation of Israel. The animal would then be killed, give his life as punishment or payment for sin (Lev. 4). The High Priest represented the entire nation of Israel in the annual sacrifice, the Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:26-32). On that day, the sacrifice made by the High Priest cleansed the sins of all the people of Israel.
The problem is the next day the people would sin and have to wait a year before they were corporately cleansed again.
Israel fell into sin and away from God often. The system didn’t work, not because it was flawed but because the people were (Rom. 8:3,4).
The Old Testament system, the Law, also showed us we could not do it on our own. We were and are unable to reach perfection, holiness. Attempting this is futile. We need a new system to take care of our unholiness.
What God has provided is not so much a new system but a completion of the old system (Matt. 5:18). A sacrifice was still required. A High Priest had to give it (Heb. 7:27). I suppose God could have created a perfect man to become the sacrifice. A perfect man brought sin into the world after all (Rom. 5:12). There must have been a lot of reasons He decided to come Himself. I think He didn’t want to short-change His children by sending a created being even if He loved that being infinitely. It still would mean more to His beloved children to come Himself. His love is shown in no greater way than to offer Himself for us (John 15:13).
This sacrifice fulfilled the old law and gave us a new one (Rom. 8:1,2), a law based on Christ’s sacrifice. Now we could be holy if we wanted by accepting Christ as Lord of our lives. How simple is it to accept Jesus gift of salvation?
“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).
This passage was written by Paul to Roman Christians, and there is a lot of Roman tradition behind it. In the Roman culture, a wealthy man could adopt a slave if he wanted. It didn’t matter if the slave were an adult or a child. He could follow the ceremony I’ll describe. At the end of the ceremony, the adoptee became the master’s child forever. While the master could disown his own natural child, he could never disown an adopted child. So, it was a big deal to be adopted by your master. Here’s how the ceremony went:
The one in charge of the ceremony was always to be the head of the family, usually a wealthy and often a powerful family. A fee was paid by the adoptive family to the family of the adoptee. The adoptee took the new family name as his own. In effect, the adoptee was given a new identity, became a new person, an heir. New rights and responsibilities were taken by the adoptee as the son of a ruler. No prior commitments or debts would be recognized. The adoptee did nothing during the ceremony except at the end. After everything else was finished, it was ultimately up to the adoptee if he wanted to be the master’s child. If he did, he simply turned to the perspective father and said, “Abba! Father!” This closed the ceremony, and the child was now a full heir of his new family.
This is such a beautiful example of God’s salvation plan. He wishes all men to come to Him (1 Tim. 2:7). He has paid the price (1 John 2:2). He has made all the arrangements and completed His part of the ceremony. All that remains is for us to turn to God and say, “Abba! Father!” to accept God as our Father, our Lord. Accept the gift of salvation He offers if you haven’t already. It is free.
Why is this important?
There are many lost people who have an incorrect idea of Who God is. They think of Him as Someone who is watching for us to step out of line so we can be punished. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we need to understand the process ourselves in order to better explain it to the lost.
There are also people in the church who do not fully grasp what salvation entails. They need to understand as well.
God’s gift comes from the fact He is love, He is loving by nature and wants us to join Him in His kingdom as fellow heirs with Jesus. My wife shared a wonderful verse with me this week that sums this up beautifully:
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)
Believers Armed and Dangerous 