What was Lost, Is Now Found:Jesus, Complete and Final
- E.O.
- Mar 30, 2020
- 5 min read
In this past sermon [1], Pastor Ray was preaching on how to navigate through this time of uncertainty and chaos. The corona virus which I will write about sometime soon, has interestingly and I am surprised that something that is so small could change the world within a month. But that’s besides the fact, but what Pastor Ray used this passage Hebrews 10:19-25, but want to focus on verses
19 -22. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water”.
Many Christians today preach the gospel and talk about how Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6a) or Jesus gives life abundantly ( John 10:10). And that is so true, but why? Why is Jesus’ blood so precious and powerful and how does it give us life? How is this “ life” different from the physical life we live in if we say, don’t believe in Jesus?
And it is simply that Jesus gives “ confidence to enter the holy places” by His blood. And if you read Leviticus, the holiest of holy places has such an intense weightiness to it, especially to the Israelite's. There is absolutely no one who can enter except the High Priest once a year. Why? Because that is where the fullness of God’s presence dwelt. So God shed Jesus’ blood, the very thing that gives us physical life ( Lev 17:14), for us. The many sacrifices of animals for the atonement of sin for people to be right with God and to be able to be in God’s camp all pointed to a final blood that would be shed. So not only are we able to stand before God, we can stand before Him confidently. We are able to know God, draw near and worship Him freely without guilt and shame.
And although there is this idea of grace and we receive it freely, it came at a cost. Jesus in the fullness of man and of God paid the price to reverse literally everything that was lost at the fall, even death. Jesus in summary was everything we couldn’t be and took the eternal wrath and punishment we deserved.
What was lost at the fall:
Our Ability to Fear God and Remember Him- Like the serpent, address God as god, not as Lord God and unable to revere and believe all that He says He is. And even if we understand who God is, we tend to forget. A lot. Like Israel, God had to continuously remind them to remember Him in abundance and warn them against idolatry, both roots of our forgetfulness of who God is. But unlike us, Jesus not only believed in God, He was God Himself. And this relationship between Jesus and God knowing one another completely is seen in John 10:22-42.
Our ability to Know Who we are- Interesting thing, as God’s creation, even before sin entered the world, God told us who we are and what we had to do. But after the fall and even now, God constantly reminds us that we are His, we are chosen by Him and for Him, etc. ( Deut 7:1-26/Col 3:12/ 2 Corinth 4:7-18) and that our purpose is to live for Him ( 1 peter 2:9). But Jesus was different, He not only stood for who He was among doubters and his disciples (Mark 14:62), but He knew His purpose.
Our purpose- We were made with a purpose, not just to work the land and oversee creation, but to love God and be loved by God. But in the fall we began to run from God and to autonomy and worship other things outside of God ( Rom 1:18-32). But Jesus knew exactly why He came. He came to make a way for sinners like us to be saved; He came to seek and save the lost by fulfilling God’s plan to unite all things( Eph 1:10) including reconciliation of man to God ( 2 Corinth 5:14-21)
Inability to Obey- Remember all those laws? Yeah It is so clear how often the Israelite's disobeyed constantly. Right after Moses gives God’s laws, just 12 chapters later, they break the second commandment by worshiping idols ( Exodus 32). But Jesus not only obeys His Father’s voice perfectly (John 4:34) but Jesus was there from the beginning and was with God when all things were made ( John 1:1-5).
Life was lost- At the fall, the consequence was death (Gen2:17). Death is something that is inevitable for every person that lives. It is a physical representation of what it means for us to be separated from God- without God, we dead. And that’s literally the thing that sin took away from us, our ability to be with God. And throughout the bible, no man lives forever. Even Moses dies. And even the people Jesus brought back to life, they eventually died too, they just lived on borrowed time a little longer. But Jesus, He chose to die( Phil 2:5-8). He chose to take on the eternal wrath that we deserved and what did that mean actually? It meant that a sinless man took on the sins of man and chose to be outside of the camp ( 1 Peter 2:22-25). This is so significant because the first time in history from eternity past, Jesus separated Himself from His Father. Because of sin, we deserved to be separated from God and His Presence, the one and only thing that gives us life, yet Jesus chose death of many to give life to all ( John 3:16).
Life giver- In our sinful nature we sometimes don’t like to be in God’s presence and find life there, we try to find it in other things. For instance our identity, like Adam and Eve, we try to find fig leaves to cover our shame and guilt and find it in other places outside of God. Whether it be in our false sense of autonomy or in idols ( Rom 1:24-25). Or work was supposed to be good and God glorifying, but instead we try to find our purpose in it apart from God. Or escape, we try to go to the booze or the drugs to dismiss ourselves from the chaos and darkness we see around us.
But because of Jesus and by the blood Jesus, He brings all that is broken by sin and redeems it, including us. He restores all things and gives life abundantly because He gives a peace that the world can’t give- peace and reconciliation between man and God. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6b). He gives us new life on this earth and eternal life after because we can be with God forever. Because of Christ we can confidently stand before God knowing that not even physical death can separate us from Him. It was complete and it has the final word. And that is the joy and hope of every believer, for when we are found in Him through faith, we have God- the never changing, everlasting, life giver and purpose of our lives.
“ 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord “ ( Romans 8:37-39)
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