Christ Our Savior

The nature of man and his final destiny

In the beginning, God. God was there before the beginning. Eternally glorious.  Perfect. Breathtakingly good. In the beginning, God spoke, and made out of nothing everything (Gen 1.1). And it was very good (Gen 1.31). Perfect. In the beginning, God made man in His image, male and female, immortal souls, like Him not in His infinite perfections but rather as sentient, self-aware beings with the capacity to reflect (and reflect on) those perfections, to relate to God, to enjoy and celebrate His goodness, in Paradise, forever (Gen 1.27).

But man broke it. Not God. We chose something other, something less than God (Gen 3.6-8, Rom 1.21-23). Not God. We rebelled. We chose what we want, chose to do what we want, not God and what He wants (Rom 3.23). And we broke it. We broke what He made. Brokenness. Rampant, cascading. Tragic, horrific (Rom 1.28-32). We broke our relationship with God. And the consequences were catastrophic. With that fateful choice, death entered our world (Rom 5.12). Brokenness. Not good. Physical death - sickness, disease, bodies sooner or later breaking down until they die. The immortal gone mortal. Not good. And spiritual death - our spirits dead to Him and destined now to exist forever separated from Him and His goodness (Rom 6.23). Not good. There is none who does good, broken and bent from birth, bent on doing what I want instead of what God wants (Rom 3.10-12). This is what the Bible calls sin. Conceived in iniquity, we are. Born to transgress, unable to not sin. Our long night of rebellion against our breathtakingly good Creator. And all of creation broke right along with us. Paradise lost. The consequences of our rebellion. Not God —> not good.

This brokenness has continued, unabated, to this day, all of creation wearing out and wearing down (Rom 8.20-22). Our severed relationship with our Creator introduced brokenness into every facet of life on this planet, into all other relationships - how I relate to self, to others, to the world around me. Selfishness, fear, guilt, greed, hate, animosity, injustice, racism, exploitation (Gal 5.19-21). Evil. Not good. We don’t take care of ourselves or one another or the world around us - and a world full of evil hollas right back at us. Dealing out brokenness with indiscriminate abandon. No one is excepted.  No one is immune. Not God. Not good. We may not get to choose which particular version of brokenness comes our way, but when it comes to God, we don’t. We don’t come to God. We all go away, go astray, from birth, no lessons needed (Is 53.6).  Neither caught nor taught. We all choose to go our own independent way, born to sin like sparks fly upward (Job 5.7). We all fall short. And the penalty is death. Again, a spiritual death penalty. Forever separated from God and His goodness. That is my destiny (albeit not that for which I was designed). There is no escaping it - I must die. Unless - I could somehow find a substitute…

The plan and purpose of the atonement

But God. God had a plan. A plan to make a way back, back to Him. A plan to crush this rebellion (Gen 3.15). My sinful rebellion separated me from Him, incurred His wrath and deserved to be punished. But God, from the beginning, began to show us the blueprint for the way back. He gave us pictures of mercy, how He would one day remove sin and make it possible for us to be restored to a right relationship with Him. He had a plan to pay for our sin. Goodness restored.

The penalty of sin is death, and so the way to pay for sin is with blood. A blood sacrifice to atone for, or cover, sin. This is because life is in the blood. And because life is in the blood, without the shedding of blood (death) there is no removal or forgiveness of sin. What we see in Scripture is that right from the get-go, God began giving pictures of this truth. He killed animals, shedding their blood - the first recorded deaths - and using their skins to cover the nakedness and shame of the first couple (Gen 3.21). He sent a ram as a sacrifice in place of Abraham’s son (Gen 22.13). We see the Passover, where the shed blood of an unblemished spotless lamb caused God’s destroying angel to pass over the houses of His people (Ex 12.21-23), and which became an annual rite for God’s people as the Lord incorporated this into the entire complex Levitical system of sacrifices (Lev 9.6-7, 16.29-34). Lambs and calves and goats and bulls and birds - all pictures (albeit imperfect) of the blood which needed to be shed to pay for and cover and cleanse our sin (Heb 9.18-22). Atonement.

But these were indeed imperfect pictures, because the blood of animals cannot hope to atone for the sins of humans (Heb 10.4). There would need to be a better sacrifice (Heb 9.23) - human blood - and innocent blood at that. But God - He had a plan. He Himself would rescue us, save us - become our Deliverer, to deliver us from His righteous wrath revealed and poured out against our sin.  He would come to earth, become human, and sacrifice Himself for the sins of the whole world, for those who in fact had become His enemies, all us rebels. In the fullness of time, at just the right time in history, God sent His Son, the Lamb of God, as a once-and-for-all sacrifice, to die in our place on a cruel Roman cross and forever cover over our sins (Jn 1.29). The Atonement. God’s Son - Jesus - was born of a virgin in Bethlehem of Judea, conceived not in iniquity but absolute purity by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1.20). Perfect. Sinless. Born not to sin but to die (Mt 20.28). For you and for me. For the sins of the world (1Jn 3.5).

Not only did God give us multiple pictures of this, but through His prophets He also gave scores of advance messages as to the details of this incredible plan (Is 7.14, Is 53.5 et al). And then He did it. God did it. He made the way back by atoning for (covering) our sins with the blood of Jesus. Jesus is God’s appointed Messiah, Savior, the One Who saves us from the wrath to come, by His substitutionary death on the cross (Lk 19.10). He alone is the Way to find forgiveness for our sins and to be restored to a right relationship with our heavenly Father (Jn 14.6). Goodness restored.

The means and results of justification

How then does one lay hold of all this? How do you and I enter in to a restored right relationship with God, when - as we have just seen - Scripture makes it abundantly clear that God is the One Who did (and does) the heavy lifting?  Yes, He is the One Who did all the work. What is there left for you and me to do? Jesus said, it is finished (Jn 19.30). Is there anything for us to do? Some great feat of strength perhaps? Some noble deed? Some ritual, some sacrament? What is it we must do in order to make us right with God, for us to be justified in God’s eyes? Is there anything we must do or even could do to somehow further atone for our sins? Was Christ’s death insufficient or lacking in any way? May it never be. Jesus paid for, made purification for all our sins (Heb 1.3). There is nothing you or I can add to the atonement. Not one thing we need do to earn this salvation, this gift. For that it is - a free gift (Eph 2.8-9). Ours is to simply believe (Rom 4.5). We receive God’s forgiveness, we appropriate Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf by faith (Rom 3.28). We are justified by faith, God makes us right with Him, when we choose to believe/trust that God did it all in Christ, that Jesus did in fact die and pay the penalty for every one of our sins on the cross.

Faith is the same as trust. The object of our faith is that in which we trust, for whatever outcome we desire. Usually, instinctively, we trust in our own efforts. It is second nature. If we desire to excel in a sport, we trust that our practice will make perfect. If we desire to get a good grade, we trust in our efforts to study. In the case of heaven, as we have already seen, however, our best efforts will not cut it (Tit 3.5). This is why we need to decisively transfer our trust from our own efforts, from our own works, to the work of Jesus Christ, to what He did on the Cross. This is how we become justified in God’s eyes - not by our own works, but by faith (2Tim 1.9). Trust in Jesus.

This was the message God gave to His people from the earliest times. The just live by faith (Hab 2.4). Abraham believed God, he trusted in God and His Word and His Way, and God credited it to him as righteousness (Gen 15.6, Rom 4.9). That was how Abraham was made right with God - God credited sinful Abraham with righteousness not for his own efforts, but when he put his faith, his trust in God. Faith is the way that all those who have gone before us gained approval with God (Heb 11.1-2). They trusted in Him - to deliver, to perform miracles, to provide, and to ultimately provide a Savior.

When we put our trust in Jesus, in His finished work on the cross, God credits Christ’s sacrifice to our account, and our sins are paid for. Every last one of them. God puts us in Christ. He takes all of our sins, and covers them with the blood of Jesus. They are forgiven, buried in the deepest sea, removed from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103.12). There is not even a reminder of them (Heb 10.17). And thus we are pronounced NOT GUILTY. He declares us righteous - He credits the righteousness of Christ to us (Rom 4.5). Totally clean in God’s sight. In His eyes, we have done everything right (Heb 10.14). Which of course is the entry requirement for heaven - but now we pass the test. Through faith in Christ. This is a free gift which we in no way deserve, can do nothing to earn. What we deserve is justice. But instead we get grace. God’s riches at Christ’s expense. And this gift, this eternally right relationship with God, is forever - it will never be taken away (Rom 8.38-39).

My personal experience of Christ as Savior

I grew up in a home where these truths were unknown. My family never went to church. There was no talk of God or heaven or Jesus in our house (except in epithets). No talk of sin, no talk of grace or forgiveness. There may have been a Bible. But Sunday morning was a time to sleep in, or, depending on the season, hit the slopes or head over to Buffalo to watch the Bills. Ours were the values which made America great - liberty, hard work, rugged individualism - this meant freedom to choose your own path, and whatever path you’re on, you just do your best to reach your goal. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Success. And success came to be defined in strictly temporal terms. Good education, good job, good house, good spouse, good kids - and of course hopefully at least a good amount of attendant happiness tied in to all that. All good - presumably. But not God. God was left out. A great unknown - or an afterthought, at best. Irrelevant. I was an agnostic - if I even understood what that meant. I didn’t say there was no God, I just didn’t believe in anything, nor did I feel the need to. Just me.

When I went off to study engineering at Virginia Tech, I met some guys who said they had a personal relationship with God. This was a completely foreign concept to me. They took the time to explain the message of the Bible to me - again, foreign concept. They invited me to consider the truth claims of Scripture. As I looked into the reliability of the Bible, the reality of fulfilled prophecy and the empty tomb, I gradually became convinced that it was true - in my head. But my heart lagged behind. I imagined that life with God would be rather dull and dreary, not at all attended by happiness. I figured God would make my life miserable, make me marry an ugly wife and ship me off to Africa or some place as a missionary, eat bugs the rest of my life. Not good at all.

These guys also invited me to some meetings on campus. I was seeing and spending time with people who had a happiness, a joy and a peace about them that I knew I didn’t have. They didn’t need alcohol or sex or any of the other things the unbelieving world looks to in the vain attempt to fill the God-shaped hole in our heart.  Once my mind and my heart were in full agreement that I did need to deliberately trust in Jesus for myself, I asked Him to forgive my sins and give me eternal life. Which He did, just as He promises in His Word.

I didn’t sprout wings or a halo or hear a chorus of angels singing halleluia. But overnight, things were different. I knew I was going to heaven. I knew I was forgiven - AND I knew this One Who had forgiven me. He was now MY Father in heaven. He had brought me into His forever family. That WAS good! When I prayed and read His Word, it all made sense. It all connected, because I was now connected to Him. And I had this inexplicable connection to all these other believers in Christ - they were really family. Brothers and sisters in Christ. Lots of good!

It wasn’t long before the entire trajectory of my life changed. It was no longer just me, all about me. In the end, it was about God, and learning to make it all about Him. It was about knowing Him through His Son, Jesus. Knowing Him better, how good He really is - AND helping others come to know Him, just as I had. Spreading the message of forgiveness through Christ. Do you know Him, I wonder? Have you trusted in Christ our Savior as YOUR Savior, for the forgiveness of your sins?

(Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995)