Jesus: God's Eternal Solution

Once a year, Israel celebrated the Day of Atonement. The High Priest would wash, and sacrifice a bull for his personal sin, and the sin of his family. Then, he would enter the Holy of Holies -- the heart, and core, of the temple. The place where God would reside among his people. And he would bring with him two goats.

He would sacrifice one goat, and sprinkle the blood on the Ark of the Covenant. The sacrifice would satisfy God's judgment, and turn his wrath away from Israel for another year.

Then, he would pray over the other goat, and symbolically, lay all the sins of the people on the goat. Another man would take the goat away, and release it into the wilderness. Thus, sin was removed from among the people. 

Israel was required to perform this ritual, year after year, or the wrath of God would rest on the people. The contamination of sin would sit in their midst.

This was the Law's means of dealing with God's condemnation, and sin's corruption.

But God revealed a way to accomplish this outside of the Law. God gave his family a blameless, forgiven position in his presence. He gave it to anyone, who believes (give allegiance to) Jesus. Because Jesus redeemed his family, justifying them. Because of Christ's sacrifice, the eternal Judge declares: "the penalty is paid in full."

This sacrifice covers everyone. Jew and gentile. All have sinned. All have God's grace, and mercy, available to them.

Jesus was the sacrificed goat, because he satisfied God's judgment, and God's condemnation.

Jesus was released goat, because he removed sin from among God's family. And, rather than one year, his sacrifice is effective for all eternity.

God was just with the sin of the past, because Christ, and the Cross, spans all eternity. God is just with the sin of the present, because he gives room in the family to everyone, who comes to him now on the basis of Christ's blood.

Sin's penalty is broken. Sin's power is broken. We stand with God, because Jesus stood for us. We can know the Father. We can be -- really be! -- his sons. 

Full Life In Christ

God designed the world, and the people in the world. When we think about design, we tend to think mechanics, formulas, physics, and machines. But the genius behind God's design is that he has moved beyond machines, and formulas.

It is not that he above making machines. Mapping the human genome has uncovered dozens of cellular "machines" that facilitate, and cooperate with DNA, in the manufacture of proteins, and other processes.

I have posted in the past about the "fuels" a human being needs to live optimally. A person can function without joy. A person can function without beauty. But to function optimally, a person needs love, joy, beauty, purpose, and peace. 

And followers of Jesus say that a person was designed to have a relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit. Love, and joy, are completed in that relationship.

It is not that love and joy cannot come from other sources. Love, and joy, from other people is part of wholeness. But there is a qualitative difference in love, and joy, from the Father. It models what love, and joy, among people was intended to be.

Love, joy, and beauty have no place in a machine. They have no place in a formula. They are instilled into creation by the Father's creative will, in agreement with his design. He infuses his nature into the design.

Jesus said one of his purposes was to give mankind a full, and complete, life. By giving allegiance to Jesus, people return to a position to receive that fullness.

Life is now too corrupt, too broken, for people to experience fullness. But, we can begin a relationship with the Father, we can began a lifestyle governed by that relationship. We can begin to grow in, and experience, that fullness.

The design of the Father includes a lifestyle that leads to fullness. Love is the primary key to unlock the fullness. Love for the Father. Love for people.

Scripture says that when we give our allegiance to Jesus, the Holy Spirit makes his home in the core of our being. The Spirit includes us in the Father's family. He is the seal, and guarantee, of our relationship with the Father. He is our connection to God. He is the channel of God's love, grace, guidance, ands transformation.

Scripture says that part of the Spirit's work in us, is empowering us to partner with him, in his purposes. He empowers our personality, and character, to give us a place in his strategy. Sometimes, it is a long term placement to serve in some way. Billy Graham's decades long service as an evangelist is one example of this. Sometimes, it is a one time act of service. Praying for someone to be healed from a physical disease, and the person is healed. And it may never happen again.

But Scripture also says it is not this empowering that has God's priority. It is love. If we express God's given power without expressing it in love, Scripture says it is a worthless act. It is love, which gives power to the works of God. It is love, which is the lynch pin of God's design of people. It is love, which motivated creation, the incarnation, the miracles, the cross, and the resurrection.