Deity Demonstrated (Radio / Podcast)

This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
(Romans 3:25b – ESV)

With the text of Romans 3:25-26, when we start with a man centered, “what’s it mean to us” then we cannot appreciate the “what this means about God” aspect. God put Jesus on the cross to demonstrate His own righteousness, which is what the text declares as primary.

In this passage Paul’s emphasis is not so much on the righteousness that God has provided in Christ as the righteousness that God has demonstrated through Christ. This distinction may seem subtle, but it is one of great significance. Our minds like to avoid this truth, and we much rather focus on what He has done "for" us. It is too easy to fall into the trap of sentimental thinking about the Gospel, and we need to be reminded that the love of God makes absolutely no sense apart from the wrath of God. Take away the latter, and all you have is the image of a kindly old man who wouldn't hurt a fly, much less punish sinners, and then we start thinking that maybe our own sins really aren't that bad. We cheapen His love by downplaying His wrath.

When we choose to look at salvation from a merely human perspective, we see salvation from the standpoint of what it does for us. God becomes the One who “meets our needs.” While salvation does do something for us, and God does meet our needs, the focus is wrong. Paul portrays this passage from the divine point of view, fixing our attention on God’s purpose for saving men: the demonstration of His righteousness. If you can see this, you will see the value of a God entranced worldview, not one where we say it but we actually have it, and we can see with God’s eyes, and we will begin to learn the value of God, not simply as someone who gives us the treasure of forgiveness, but as the very treasure itself.

The death of Christ proved God’s righteousness. Hebrews 9:15,26 – in His forbearance He passed over the former sins, made during and before the old covenant, knowing justice would be served by a new covenant. People just want God to pardon but that doesn’t demonstrate His righteousness. That would be saying that sins are really no big deal to God, and it would also mean that offending God and despising Him isn’t all that important. The sins are real and they must be paid for, and yet God seemingly overlooked them before. The problem in God's passing over sin (which the natural mind does not grasp) is that God's worth and glory and righteousness have been despised, and passing over it makes him look cheap. God would be unrighteous if He passed over sins as though the value of His glory were nothing.

God’s worth and His name are dishonored by our sins, but He vindicated His glory by slaying His Son. That is how valuable His glory is and how awful sin really is and what it requires. It is not that we were worth it, that we were worth saving, but that God’s glory was worth vindicating, and that Christ was the only payment that could satisfy the justice of God for us offending and despising His glory. That is what sin is, falling short of and devaluing God’s glory. We have done violence to the throne of God. That is why hell must last forever because you can never pay it back, your worth is nothing compared to His, no amount of penance can offset the terrible injustice you have done against the infinite worth of God.

This is all about the value of God not the value of man, how much He is worth not how much we are worth. Now we square this with John 3:16 by saying that His love for us is so great that He paid the only way it could be done. God, out of His love and justice, renders Himself favorable to us by His own action. He suffers the ultimate offense and yet He takes on the punishment for that Himself. He passed over sins before Christ because He knew the plan, it was the plan all along, and that is why He could wait until it was the right time (Galatians 4:4).

Did Jesus really have to die to pay for our sins? We say, “Certainly we’ve done bad things, but what we’ve done isn’t so bad that a merciful God can’t overlook our failings.” We are wrong on two counts. First, what we have done IS so bad, that we cannot even begin to fathom how horrible it is. Second, God cannot overlook, He cannot wave His hand and let bygones be bygones. He may freely forgive us, but He Himself must bear the cost.

The wrath of God had to be satisfied. God could not simply overlook sin; it had to be judged. And so God provided men with salvation in such a way that He demonstrated His righteousness and satisfied His wrath, all at the same time. God’s forgiveness costs something, He freely forgives but it cost Him something. It is the heart of the good news...a bloody yet beautiful thing that proves God's worth, not ours...

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Feasting on Jesus

These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them.
(Leviticus 23:4 – ESV)

In Leviticus 23 we have the seven major feasts that were observed by the Jews under the ceremonial system and each one of them points us to a certain aspect of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. Now, as Christians, since Jesus is the fulfillment of these, we do not have to keep the feasts (Colossians 2:16-17), but they do make for a fascinating study that can enrich our understanding. Of course, there is so much more than we can delve into here, we cannot give a detailed exposition of these verses in one message, but let’s take a quick look at the feasts and see them as types of Christ’s life and work. We want to “feast” on Jesus.

These seven feasts were seasons of joyful solemnity appointed by God to point to Christ’s coming and what He would accomplish. Each feast pointed the children of Israel back to something they had experienced and pointed them forward to things yet to come.

Verse 5 has a reference to the Passover, representing the time when God passed over the Jews and destroyed the Egyptian first born, securing the release of God’s people from captivity, which reminds us of the Cross, the shedding of blood, and the remission of our sins (1 Corinthians 5:7 / John 1:29). In this we see Christ’s death.

Verses 6-8 speaks of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which represents purity, freedom from corruption, and which reminds us of the sinless life of Jesus (Acts 2:27, 31 / Hebrews 4:15 / 1 Corinthians 5:8). In this we see Christ’s burial.

Verses 9-14 bring us to the Feast of Firstfruits, which represented the fact that the whole harvest would come, which reminds us of Christ’s resurrection to an incorruptible body, and the guarantee of our resurrection to an incorruptible body (Acts 26:23 / 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 / 1 Corinthians 6:14 / 2 Corinthians 4:14 / Romans 8:11 / Philippians 3:20-21 / Hebrews 2:14-15).

Verses 15-22 (15-16) are about the Feast of Pentecost, fifty days from the crossing of the Red Sea, and fifty days after Christ was resurrected, when the Holy Spirit was poured out (Acts 2). This speaks of the ingathering of all God’s elect from all over the world.

In reviewing the first four feasts we see that Christ was crucified on the Passover, buried on Unleavened Bread, raised again on Firstfruits and sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The first four, or spring feasts, represent the first advent of Christ; the second three in the fall represent His second advent.

Verses 23-25 (24) give us the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), was the first day of the Jewish New Year, in the seventh month of the religious calendar, but the first month of the civil calendar. It was a memorial celebration of the glorious future of Israel, a proclamation of liberty which served as a calling for attention to the Day of Atonement, and it represents the glorious triumph of Christ in the Gospel and Jesus coming for His Church (1 Corinthians 15:51-53 / 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

Verses 26-32 (27) present the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), was a solemn holy day when the high priest of Israel entered into the Holy of Holies and made a sacrifice on his behalf as well as for all the sins of Israel. Jesus is our High Priest and the full and final sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 9:24-28). The Day of Atonement will reach its final fulfillment when the Lord returns at His Second Coming, at which time Israel will finally accept Jesus’ atonement.

Verses 33-44 (34) show us the Feast of Tabernacles, which celebrated that God provided shelter for the Israelites in the wilderness, He dwelt with them in the pillars of cloud and fire, it represents Christ as our shelter (Colossians 3:1-4), and is a picture of the Millennial Kingdom.

Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected, and as believers He is poured out upon us, He is coming for us again, He has made the final sacrifice, and He is our shelter for any journey we must go through, and our eternal habitation.

The ups and downs of life are here to stay, and life itself is fleeting. Trials are here for a moment. So is triumph. So are we. But amidst all of this there is Jesus, He is risen, and He is everything, and everything we need.

John 7:37-39 – the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:36), symbolized the entrance into Canaan. They would repeat Isaiah 12:3 for 7 days as they poured water on the altar, on the 8th day they stopped the literal water. Jesus took it figuratively for Himself (Isaiah 44:3, 58:11), telling them the true source of Living Water.

Now all these feasts are pointing forward to the greatest feast, what we call the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Matthew 26:26-29 / Revelation 19:6-9 – We proclaim the reason for our hope (the Lord’s death) and the object of our hope (The Lord Himself coming for us).

Ephesians 5:25-27 – this gives us another picture of Christ and His redeeming work from the cross into glory with His bride, His body, the saints

Communion, or as we sometimes call it, the Lord’s Supper, is one important way that we do the remembering, as we remember His sinless life and His sacrifice on the cross and, because of His resurrection and ascension, His sure promise of coming again.

The Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice, because we cannot repeat the infinite sacrifice of Jesus (Hebrews 9-10), but it points us back to the truth that we come to know God because of the judgment that fell on our King at Calvary’s Cross. It points us to the fact that He was given for our trespasses, and raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25).

We should be broken over our rejection of our God but then we should be rejoicing as we see the gospel put on display through the taking of the Supper together. The Lord’s Supper is an opportunity to present the tangible evidence that our sins are forgiven. The Lord’s Supper is the great proclamation of the death, resurrection, and return of Christ until He comes again (1 Corinthians 11:26) and we dine with Him in heaven at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Deity Demonstrated (with audio)

USE THE PLAYER ABOVE TO LISTEN TO THIS POST

This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
(Romans 3:25b – ESV)

With the text of Romans 3:25-26, when we start with a man centered, “what’s it mean to us” then we cannot appreciate the “what this means about God” aspect. God put Jesus on the cross to demonstrate His own righteousness, which is what the text declares as primary.

In this passage Paul’s emphasis is not so much on the righteousness that God has provided in Christ as the righteousness that God has demonstrated through Christ. This distinction may seem subtle, but it is one of great significance. Our minds like to avoid this truth, and we much rather focus on what He has done "for" us. It is too easy to fall into the trap of sentimental thinking about the Gospel, and we need to be reminded that the love of God makes absolutely no sense apart from the wrath of God. Take away the latter, and all you have is the image of a kindly old man who wouldn't hurt a fly, much less punish sinners, and then we start thinking that maybe our own sins really aren't that bad. We cheapen His love by downplaying His wrath.

When we choose to look at salvation from a merely human perspective, we see salvation from the standpoint of what it does for us. God becomes the One who “meets our needs.” While salvation does do something for us, and God does meet our needs, the focus is wrong. Paul portrays this passage from the divine point of view, fixing our attention on God’s purpose for saving men: the demonstration of His righteousness. If you can see this, you will see the value of a God entranced worldview, not one where we say it but we actually have it, and we can see with God’s eyes, and we will begin to learn the value of God, not simply as someone who gives us the treasure of forgiveness, but as the very treasure itself.

The death of Christ proved God’s righteousness. Hebrews 9:15,26 – in His forbearance He passed over the former sins, made during and before the old covenant, knowing justice would be served by a new covenant. People just want God to pardon but that doesn’t demonstrate His righteousness. That would be saying that sins are really no big deal to God, and it would also mean that offending God and despising Him isn’t all that important. The sins are real and they must be paid for, and yet God seemingly overlooked them before. The problem in God's passing over sin (which the natural mind does not grasp) is that God's worth and glory and righteousness have been despised, and passing over it makes him look cheap. God would be unrighteous if He passed over sins as though the value of His glory were nothing.

God’s worth and His name are dishonored by our sins, but He vindicated His glory by slaying His Son. That is how valuable His glory is and how awful sin really is and what it requires. It is not that we were worth it, that we were worth saving, but that God’s glory was worth vindicating, and that Christ was the only payment that could satisfy the justice of God for us offending and despising His glory. That is what sin is, falling short of and devaluing God’s glory. We have done violence to the throne of God. That is why hell must last forever because you can never pay it back, your worth is nothing compared to His, no amount of penance can offset the terrible injustice you have done against the infinite worth of God.

This is all about the value of God not the value of man, how much He is worth not how much we are worth. Now we square this with John 3:16 by saying that His love for us is so great that He paid the only way it could be done. God, out of His love and justice, renders Himself favorable to us by His own action. He suffers the ultimate offense and yet He takes on the punishment for that Himself. He passed over sins before Christ because He knew the plan, it was the plan all along, and that is why He could wait until it was the right time (Galatians 4:4).

Did Jesus really have to die to pay for our sins? We say, “Certainly we’ve done bad things, but what we’ve done isn’t so bad that a merciful God can’t overlook our failings.” We are wrong on two counts. First, what we have done IS so bad, that we cannot even begin to fathom how horrible it is. Second, God cannot overlook, He cannot wave His hand and let bygones be bygones. He may freely forgive us, but He Himself must bear the cost.

The wrath of God had to be satisfied. God could not simply overlook sin; it had to be judged. And so God provided men with salvation in such a way that He demonstrated His righteousness and satisfied His wrath, all at the same time. God’s forgiveness costs something, He freely forgives but it cost Him something. It is the heart of the good news...a bloody yet beautiful thing that proves God's worth, not ours...

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (7)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

We need grace not grit. People think they can stand together and vote for hope but they won’t all get to vote on which measures to take, and some will disagree, and so some will be left out as always. Just getting everyone into agreement that we can do something doesn’t mean we can actually do it. Especially because not everyone who agrees we can do it will agree on HOW to do it. That is and was and always will be the problem, how to do it, not the resolve to do it. Christ has done it, He knew what to do and did it and when we agree with Him we don’t have any more work to do in order to be saved we just work to proclaim it.

They say, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” well the Bible says He is the one we are waiting for. They say theirs is the message for this time but the Bible declares our message is the message for all time. Yes He can.

People want the world to change, but it can change and often does, but not for the better. So people want the world to change for the better, for the good, but what do they see as good? They all have different ideas and God says none actually seeks for the real good, for the real God, and so they may change the word but it won’t be for the good, it won’t be for the glory of God.

Rallying behind some political movement in the guise of some humanistic spirituality that says, “yes we can”? We need to realize that God says no we can’t; but that doesn’t leave us without hope it turns us to the only real hope. Can we save the world, can we save our children, can we save our own souls – no we can’t. But can God save the world, can God save our children, can God save our souls – yes He can!

If you want the world to change you need to have your world changed. People want the world to change and it will change when the people are changed. Don’t look to the power of people look to the power of God, look to Jesus Christ. Can He change the world? Yes He can. For the redeemed the world has changed and the world will be changed. The question is will you be changed? Do you believe God can change you? Yes He can.

Did Christ pay for our sins? Yes He did. Will God deliver on all of His promises? Yes He will. Can God justify the ungodly and still remain perfectly just, righteous, and holy Himself? Can God have perfect mercy, love, and justice, all at the same time? Yes HE Can!

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (5)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

This truth, justification by faith, is what makes Christianity distinctive among all other religions of the world. The false prophets of the false hope think their cause is righteous but we declare only Christ is righteous. No matter how much good they can do if they do not do it for the glory of God it is unrighteous, it cannot justify them before God.

I don’t want to elevate you. I don’t want to show you how we can do it. I don’t want to simply excite you, because that will wear out. I don’t want to proclaim the power of people I want to proclaim the name of God. You could change the world but only God can change your heart. You could save the planet but only God can save your soul. You could justify yourself in the eyes of the whole world but only through Christ can you be justified before God.

While the rest of the world looks for a political savior or some religious savior that only tells them how they can save themselves, we look to God who through Jesus Christ can justify the ungodly and give them a hope for heaven.

Others make promises they cannot keep. They do not have the power. They could be in control of all humanity and still humanity does not have the power to save itself.

People say that they want to see a world without fear. My Bible says that perfect love drives out fear, and we see that perfect love in our perfect Savior Jesus Christ. Can you see it, if you are a Christian, if you are born again then the answer is – yes you can. We need to see the kingdom of God but unless we are born again we cannot see it. Can you see the kingdom of God?

People are looking for redemption but we do not have that power only God does, only OUR God does. I am redeemed by Christ not by cause. They are all looking in the wrong place because they cannot see any other way because they are spiritually dead to God. They must be born again to be able to see it. Can you see it, are you redeemed, have you been justified by faith?

They say that there is nothing false about hope, but it is nothing but false if you believe in a false hope. And the Scriptures here and everywhere proclaim in no uncertain terms that only through Christ is there any real lasting hope for today, for tomorrow, for eternity.

False hopes fade away and false messiahs come and go but only our Messiah, our hope, our God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the true living hope that we have been born again to, born again to see, born again to be, born again into realizing this and proclaiming this truth, this cause, this hope to a lost and dying world who is always looking to some slight glimmer of hope only to be tricked again into believing that they can muster up hope and have real change by the power of themselves and their unity. This is not hope, friends, this is hell and only Christ can deliver us from it and unite us in a reality and hope that is true for all times, for all nations, for all people. Can Jesus Christ give us a true and living hope – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (4)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

This is the truth that anchors us in a real hope. Unlike all other hope it is not dependent on our efforts or other factors, but on God and His own character alone. As we see it demonstrated in the death of Christ we know that it is real, it is sure, it is hope we can count on, the only one. People are getting really excited about the false hopes of humanity but they depend on humanity and its goodness not on God and His. How can they depend on some collective consciousness when they cannot even depend on themselves? If people aren’t as good as them and they have trouble, how can they do this, why would they believe it?

They can say yes they can all they want but their own lives and the lives of the others who have messed things up in the first place (which is who they are depending on) these lives tell the true story that no they can’t. What makes them think they can unless they think they are God? That is the real problem; they think they are God. They won’t say it, but in their hearts they believe in the goodness of mankind, the ability to save ourselves. If they will just open their eyes they will see their demise without the true God. But unless God opens their eyes will they ever see – no, they can’t.

This truth is why we see the need for suffering and evil in the world – to continue to show us that we need the Lord. Can we stop poverty by our purity – no we can’t. Can Jesus Christ give hope to the humble – yes He can.

Ungodliness means not like God, not only in holiness but also in power. We cannot band together and take care of it all. Yes we should love all our neighbors and try and help where we can, and truthfully we would do a lot if people would get together, but it will never be enough. The truth is that we will never band ourselves in unity enough to be able to reach such heights that we can climb our way out of our own hearts. We love Him because He first loved us. We can love others with true love because we have received the true love, the eternal love of Christ.

They are looking to save the world we are looking to the One who saved us

They are looking to the power of unity we are looking to the One who united us

They are looking to the power of humanity we are looking to the power of divinity

They are looking to the divine within we are looking at the divine as Him

We don’t look to ourselves but to our God; we work not for justification but from it. We have the real hope and can we proclaim it in utter confidence, yes we can, but the only reason we say yes we can is not because of we, but because of He. It is not simply yes we can, but yes HE can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (3)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

This is the truth we ought to be excited about more than any other. If we are not we need to examine ourselves, and indeed, we always need to be examining our lives as to how this truth is affecting us in the here and now. I believe one of the greatest errors to infect the Christian Church is the notion that justification by faith is only a ground level aspect of salvation. Because of this, the believer is told they must have further stages, additional works, or the experience of a "higher Christian life" beyond what was begun in justification. People get all excited about some new fad, some new personality, some new secret, some new way to tackle some old problem, some shortcut to happiness. If someone promises a way to do it other than the way God has laid out before us, we are all too happy to run and get it, to pay for it, to bow to it as we do all our other idols. It is time we reclaim and proclaim this ultimate truth. This is the gospel. Yes He can.

This is the truth that shows our God must be the real God, this truth exalts His holiness while also exalting His justice, mercy and love. It is not just that we don’t have the purity but we also don’t have the power. The power is not the purity, and even if people were untied perfectly around a single cause, humanity doesn’t have the power to stop the forces of nature let alone the fact that they will never achieve perfect unity because they don’t have purity of the heart. We might have some pure motives, perhaps, in a sense, some yearning for good, yearning for true meaning, but they cast it aside when it is right in front of their face in the person of Jesus Christ. How foolish to unite around a flawed notion of a common collective when we have the perfect purity and demonstration of divine power that has rippled down through the centuries still speaking to us of the reality behind the rhetoric of the Bible. Can humanity save itself – no it can’t. Can Jesus Christ save all that come to Him – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes He Can! (2)

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

I want you to be enflamed with an important truth. This is the truth that should light the fires of your faith above all others – that we are justified, declared righteous by faith. Now I don’t want to simply inspire you as any good writer or orator can do. It is important to be inspired but more important to be transformed. I don’t want to excite you; I want to exalt God.

When you don’t believe you can be deceived that’s when you already are. People today hear the rhetoric of a human hope, and think that all we need to do is unite. But beyond the rhetoric, what is the record of such things? How has that worked for us in the past? What is different now than then, has the human condition changed; can we actually believe that we have evolved out of our own depravity? People don’t believe that they are simply trusting in themselves but think that they are trusting in some higher cause. They have been fooled in that regard before. Can they be fooled again – yes they can.

I am not saying it is wrong to unite but what is important is what we are uniting around, and the Scriptures declare that there is only one real truth that we should be uniting around as far as changing our world is concerned, and that is the truth of Jesus Christ. They talk about change you can believe in, but they cannot change themselves. I am speaking of a name you can believe in, Jesus Christ. A leopard cannot change its spots but can Christ change a heart – yes He can.

The problems we have are because of who we are, and the answer to who we are is who He is. The only real way we can have lasting peace, lasting hope, lasting joy, lasting change is though the lasting love of Jesus Christ. Can He change our world – yes He can.

They speak of a call that will sound out from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea. They say yes we can. It is all about them. But I speak of a call that will sound out from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell through time and to eternity – yes He can. It’s all about Him.

You may not be the greatest speaker, but as a Christian you have the greatest truth, and you can proclaim it because of who He is – yes you can. They have no real hope, they cannot justify their rhetoric, but God through Jesus Christ justifies the ungodly and we can be justified in our proclamation of Him as our only hope, the only hope for the world. Can He save it? Yes He can.

When the rhetoric is gone the record will remain. Which of the world’s wonder men have risen from the dead, whose words live on, which person, what rhetoric, what record remains? Who has changed the world for the good more than any other, and who can change it for tomorrow and for eternity? Can anyone else – no they can’t. Can Jesus Christ – yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Yes HE Can!

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)

People are always looking to follow someone, to find a message worth believing, a cause worth living and dying for. Well I am here to tell you today that we have the message the world needs to hear. The message everyone needs to heed. We have the message about the greatest love and of the greatest truth of all time. We have something that anyone and everyone wants. Our message is about truth, love, joy, and lasting peace, for time and for eternity. We have what everyone else is looking for. We have THE message, something money cannot buy, something effort cannot earn, and something unity cannot bring.

Now I don’t say these words lightly, I don’t want to engage in empty rhetoric. The message we bring isn’t steeped in empty rhetoric; it is breathed by a God given reality. Before we engage in rhetoric we need to be equipped with reality. So many voices in the world today, as in every previous day, are giving the false hopes of a false belief that we can indeed save our children, our world, our souls, and ourselves just by banding together around that very cause – the salvation of humanity by humanity.

The rally cry today is the same as it was back in years following the Flood of Noah’s day, at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11) – yes we can. However, all the power of the people is of no effect if the people have no power to change their own hearts. Despite all of the rhetoric the Bible tells us the reality of the situation. Can we change our hearts – no we can’t.

When words and actions are in conflict, it's always the actions that carry the day. For most, indeed for all, including me, their rhetoric doesn’t match their record. If you look to some person to save you, people will always let you down, including yourself. That is why we cannot look to our own experience, but we must look to God and His Word for assurance. All men have sinned; all have come short of the glory of God. They are not God, they do not have the purity, and even if they did, they do not have the power. They all must rely on other flawed persons, and no amount of flawed build up can lead to pure ends. Man cannot climb his way out of his own heart.

I am not going to give you my personal testimony, my experience is not the reason I am justified, but in my experience I live out the fact that I am. I won’t trumpet my own righteousness now or as compared to how I used to be before I knew Christ, no matter how far I have come or how far I will go, and I hope to go very far, it will mean nothing compared to Christ. It is Christ whose righteousness I depend on. It is through Christ that I have been declared righteous. It is because of Christ that I can claim to be justified. It is because of Christ that I have peace with God. It is because of Christ that I am changed and it is because of Christ that I have inherited a home in heaven. That rhetoric is based in reality and the record of Christ backs it all up.

I am not simply relying on rhetoric of my own making. I am not relying on a record I have achieved. I am not relying on some false hope. I am relying on the Word of God and on the record of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He doesn’t have to rely on anyone to achieve perfection, purity, and power, and we can rely on Him to save us. Can He do it? Yes He can.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

The Standard

because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
(Acts 17:31 – ESV)

The resurrection shows that Jesus will be the judge of humanity (Acts 10:42), and also the standard of righteousness by which all shall be judged (Romans 1:4).

Why does a good God allow evil? It is because He is merciful. If He were to institute instant justice none of us would make it through the day.

When we say that God has all power, we mean all, ALL, A-L-L power...He is the Creator, but also the sustainer, and yes the allow-er, but also the forgiver.

Jesus has been given all power (Matthew 28:18)…be a standard bearer and tell your world of His righteousness and His power to save.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

God So Loved

For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 – NET)

Many bible versions render the opening words of John 3:16 as “For God so loved the world”. Of course this is true, but the way that this is worded can confuse the primary meaning for some folks. When the bible says, “God so loved the world”, it is primarily speaking of the manner in which God loved the world. It is not simply that He loved the world “so much” as in the degree, but also the manner of that love, that He loved it in this way, that He gave His Son. John is emphasizing the manner in which He chose to express His love to the world, through the giving of His Son, which itself portrays the degree to which God loved the world as well.

Hebrews 11:17-18 uses the same Greek word for “only son” – Isaac wasn’t Abraham’s only son, but he was one of a kind, the heir. The Apostle John uses this word to differentiate Jesus from the other children of God (John 1:12). We are sons (children) of God by faith, but Jesus remains unique. 1 John 4:10 – In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

You see, you can love someone so very much but still not be able to help them overcome that problem they may have. Our love may be absolutely pure and sincere, and we may muster all the power we can, but it still not be enough to save someone from their situation. Yet God loves us so much and was and is able to overcome our greatest problem, our only problem in being reconciled to Him, our sin. And so in this way, through the giving of His Son Jesus Christ, God loves the world and whoever believes in Christ will be reconciled, redeemed, in right standing before God. They will not perish in eternity but have everlasting life. His love is enough.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Torment and Triumph

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
(Matthew 27:46 – ESV)

Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 that Jesus was crucified and resurrected in accordance with what the Old Testament had prophesied of. In Romans 1:1-4 Paul tells us that God used the prophets of old to show that the promise of the gospel was not a new thing. Jesus Himself stated in John 5:39 that the scriptures were about Him, and after His resurrection Jesus told the two disciples on the road to Emmaus that all the Old Testament essentially pointed to Him (Luke 24:25-27). And so it is no wonder then, to discover that this quote from Jesus, which seems such a mystery, is actually the fulfillment of a great Old Testament prophecy written by the hand of David. Part of the mystery of this verse, Matthew 27:46, is revealed by looking back at Old Testament scripture of Psalm 22.

Jesus, in quoting this first verse of Psalm 22, He was revealing that it prophesied of Him and how He would atone for the sins of man against a holy God. These words make manifest the agony and suffering that Christ was under as He is intimately and personally identified with the judgment of God upon man for sin. To suppose that He was merely complaining, or that He was unaware of the meaning of the words of that Psalm, is to completely ignore all His teachings on these subjects (Matthew 20:18-19). Christ knew He had to die for our sins, He knew the cup was handed to Him of God.

Forsaken, He was literally suffering the pangs of hell for us, an atonement that is beyond our comprehension. We cannot comprehend it but we can adore Him for it. I have often said that when we can see the heights of His holiness compared to the depths of our depravity, then we will know the measure of His love to us.

Jesus did not cry out over mere human suffering or despair. It wasn’t the physical pain that hurt so much, but the mental anguish, and the torment of His soul, that was the real suffering. That was what Jesus called the “cup” when He was agonizing in the garden of Gethsemane the night before. Many had been and would be tortured and placed on a cross to die, perhaps even other innocent men. But no other man would suffer for the sins of the world, the spiritual wrath of God upon mankind, placed upon Jesus at the cross of Calvary.

Christ spoke these words of seeming abandonment not because of His humanity as many suppose, but because God is illustrating that in essence, we were in the body of Christ (Romans 6:6-11). It was "we" who deserved to be forsaken of God, and to suffer. Our Savior was speaking on our behalf, taking that suffering as a substitute for us.

Act one of the great atonement drama, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ had been completed. In quoting Psalm 22, Jesus knew that He would rise again, and that His resurrection would bring our justification (Romans 4:25). Jesus was going through torment but declaring the triumph of the gospel. This wasn’t an uncertain cry but a very certain call.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Depression and Destiny

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
(Matthew 27:46 – ESV)

Because Christ suffered the penalty of sin for us, we can be assured that we will never be forsaken (Hebrews 13:5). God has not forsaken you no matter how far down in the pit you have sunk. His arm is not so short it can’t save; He can bring you out of the miry clay and stand you on the Solid Rock. He can do for you as He did for the imprisoned prophet Jeremiah and bring someone to pad the ropes as He pulls you up from despair (Jeremiah 38:6-14).

We may know this truth in our heads, but we need to have it in our hearts. We may have the conception, but we need to make the connection. The bridge from conception to connection is compassion. This is the way for His reality to become our reality. Jesus really suffered and He knows that we suffer, and we can call to Him in faith. Our cry to Him is not in vain; it is a very certain call.

For those of you have already called to God to save you, but you are living in a daily despair, let me make this connection even more real to you today. In this life we will have tears on our face and tears in our armor. It is no disgrace to cry out to God when bearing the cross and feeling the pain. God knows we live in an imperfect world. He understands our difficulties. He realizes that we will have complaints, but we have a right way and a wrong way to complain. We need to be honest with ourselves that we may be honest before God, and we need to learn to bring our case before Him in the right way. We should make our complaints with honesty, trust, and hope.

It is good to feel emotion. Sometimes it is good to feel bad; look at the Psalms, depressed feelings are often a legitimate part of our relationship with God, as strange as that may sound. We often think of Psalms as a book of praise (which it certainly is), but laments and grievances to the Lord make up more than 60 of the 150 psalms. God can interact with us through the context of our depression. He has wise and loving motives although we may not see them.

Christians can and do get depressed, to varying degrees, and for varying durations. This is not always about a lack of faith or a direct result of personal sin or some symptom of a problem with the spiritual life. Depression is not a punishment from God; it may be instructive to you and certainly for others. The truth is that it is in some sense compatible with Christianity.

We seem to sell the Christian life in America today with too much triumphalism and denial of feelings, but look at the Psalms, look at our text today and Psalm 22, and see that we as Christians need to embrace and realize a more fully orbed biblical dealing with feelings. This is not to excuse and embrace wrong thinking, but to deal with depression and emotion in the way we see demonstrated as correct in scripture. Not all of this in scripture is correct; we see both the right and the wrong way. The Jews in the wilderness complained in the wrong way (cf. Psalm 78:41) but also in the Psalms we see that you can complain to Him in a way that indicates you are trusting Him, instead of grumbling in a way that amounts to an unbelieving accusation. Take a close look a Psalms 42-43 to get a feel for what I am talking about. Remember, Jesus cried out to God, not against God.

Christ was forsaken that we might never be. His wasn’t an uncertain cry but a very certain call. Jesus cried this out so that we will never have to. He cried this out to show that even in the darkest moments we could have utter assurance of our final victory in God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:39). We can have real pain and suffering, and real tears as we cry out in seeming despair, but we can also know God in the midst of it all, and through it all, and through to the other side of despair to declare His victory.

We are not forsaken. Let us adore the One who endured for us. Amen.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

A Very Certain Call

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
(Matthew 27:46 – ESV)

This cry from Jesus illustrates the depth of His suffering as He felt Himself regarded as sin though He was sinless (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are reminded of John 3:16, Isaiah 53, and 1 Peter 2:24 as we see the Son of God bearing the sin of the world. This cry of desolation comes at the close of the three hours of darkness. However, it was not only a seeming cry of desolation but also a declaration. Jesus was not simply playing a role, not only acting out a part. No, His pain and suffering were very real, but even amidst this agony He knew what the conclusion would be.

Still, Jesus suffered the ultimate loneliness. Some of the people that had shouted “hosanna” were now shouting, “crucify Him”. Some of the disciples who had stayed with Him had now denied, deserted, and betrayed Him. But much worse than all of this, as bad as it was, much worse, more worse than we can possibly imagine, was the forsaking by the Father of His Son. The Father had spoken words such as, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” but now was silent. The Father had let the Son be beaten, spit upon, mocked and mangled at the hands of men, finally to be hung on a cross, a tree, a curse to a Jew, which Jesus was.

But He was more than a Jew, He was the Son of God, and all this other pain and suffering was nothing compared to the absence of that sweet communion Christ had always known. Jesus’ faith did not fail. He cried out “My God, My God”, and He cried out to God, not against God, but the Father did not answer Him in tenderness, but with wrath (Isaiah 53:10). Even when Jesus had poured out His own blood in the prayers at Gethsemane, God the Father was still with Him, and He had the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, as He had always known. But He had known nothing of the pain of desertion and the suffering of damnation He endured on the cross.

Yet this wasn’t an uncertain cry but a very certain call. When Christ called out to God in this manner, clearly He was consciously quoting this part of Psalm 22 as an illustration of the fact that He was fulfilling all of this Old Testament prophecy. Jesus drew the attention of the Jews to this scripture while He was hanging on the cross. Psalm 22 was a Messianic Psalm, and the second half is hymn of victory (v.22-31).

Certainly Jesus was in a real sense “forsaken”, yet He also knew the final outcome of all this, and so therefore endured the greatest suffering of all time. Jesus’ cry was about suffering the world’s penalty due to sin, but it was signifying more than just that. It was the voice of the eternal victor who proclaimed the eternal victory of the Messiah to His people who were the victims of their own sin. He was supremely confident of the Father's ultimate deliverance of Him through the resurrection of His body before it had even seen decay (Psalm 16 – Acts 2:24-31).

Every person who has ever been born has felt alone and forsaken and wonders if God is real and if He cares, even Christians go through these sorts of things. But only Christians, those born again to a living hope can also cry, “it is finished” (John 19:30), and thereby know that God will never leave nor forsake them (Hebrews 13:5), on account of Christ. When you do that it is not an uncertain cry but a very certain call.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Just For You

…to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
(Hebrews 2:17 – ESV)

You have heard it said that if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would have come to die for your sins. That is true, but we need to see that in proper perspective. He would do it not just because He loved you so, and He does, but the fountainhead of that love flows because His holiness demanded it, the sin was an assault on the throne of God that must be dealt with, and attack on the infinite worth of God, and it required a payment that you could not meet.

He would have done so, not because you were worth saving, but because even one sin is so horrible and such an affront to God’s glory that He must punish it with absolute justice, and since He is of infinite worth, that punishment would be unfathomable, and He would have to pay for it Himself. Think hard and clearly on that. That Jesus had to die shows the worthlessness of any payment we could try and make for sins, and the infinite worth of God.

That statement about Jesus dying just for you makes us feel good about ourselves, and our worth, but we need to realize that we are supposed to worship God, regardless of what He has done for us, He is God Almighty. He died just for His Father, and you as the beneficiary of that plan. This does not diminish His love for us in any way, it lifts up the holiness of God and shows it to be the spring from which God’s mercy and justice can be met together in Christ.

His love is grounded in His holiness not in our worthiness or faithfulness and His holiness is that from which His love springs, not vice versa. Hallelujah, I pray you see it, and if you don’t, consider well what I say, and ponder it until God grips you with this truth of His glory.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Saturday Sermon: God Is Love

Romans 3:25-26 / 1 John 4:7-11

People say all sorts of things about love today, and there are all sorts of notions about what love really is. But how does God define it? What does God say it is, and where does it come from, how can we see and know it, in truth? People quote this verse, 1 John 4:8, and then try and make it say whatever they want it to, and use it as an excuse to do or believe just about anything, but that isn’t what the Bible is teaching here. Only what God means is what counts. So what does the Bible teach? God is love, yes, but God further defines that in the following verses, as we see propitiation declared here once again (1 John 4:10). We have gone into detail about that already.

You cannot change it around here; John does not say that love is God, but that God is love. In the Greek, the two terms are not interchangeable. This same book declares God is light (1 John 1:5), and John writes in his gospel that Jesus said God is Spirit (John 4:24). Yes we want to declare His love, but it is even better understood in its proper perspective, it is an unfailing love because it is grounded in His unfailing character, not in everyone else’s ideas.

Now we can see that God defines His love here through Christ on the cross, and we can relate that back to many passages, including our main text, Romans 3:25-26. God’s righteousness flows from His holiness, His love flows from His holiness; it isn’t that God’s holiness is greater than His love, His mercy and His justice, but that holiness is the character that encompasses all the other attributes of God. His love is defined by His holiness. His justice, His mercy, His grace, they are all defined by His holiness. Perhaps we can make it clearer by saying that holiness is godliness, or God-likeness.

His justice is equal to His love and so He had to do it this way to satisfy both. God’s mercy did not nullify His justice; He had to be propitiated as our text plainly declares. If you redefine the atonement to remove the idea that Christ suffered the judgment for sin in our place, you destroy the heart of the gospel (1 John 4:10 / Romans 1:17 / 1 John 1:9). If that payment had not been made, there would never have been any forgiveness whatsoever (Hebrews 9:22).

One of the truths of the gospel is that God saved us in a way that upheld His justice. Justice was neither compromised nor set aside; it was completely satisfied. One of the great mysteries not revealed in the Old Testament but fully revealed in the gospel is how forgiveness is possible without compromising the justice of God. The bloody mercy seat showed the truth that sins must be paid for because of the holiness of God. His love requires justice to be done, but animal blood cannot pay for human sin, and human blood alone cannot pay for offense against God. Only Jesus was worthy enough to pay. Christ offered a full atonement that included payment in full for all the sins of every sinner who would ever believe (2 Corinthians 5:21 / Romans 3:25 / 1 John 2:2). Our salvation is therefore grounded in the justice of God as well as His mercy, which is in perfect proportion because of His holiness. In other words, the gospel is not only a message about the love of God. It is that; but it is more. The true gospel magnifies His justice as much as it magnifies His love, because in doing that it magnifies His holiness.

Why do we need to understand this, why do we need to discover and develop our thinking this way? In order to become better grounded in Christ (Colossians 2:7 / Ephesians 3:16-19); this is greater than simple understanding but not simply a feeling. Rooted and grounded in love, which we see more clearly as we have been discovering in 1 John 4:7-10 and Romans 3:25-26, etc. The breadth and length and height and depth, in other words, the encompassing nature of His love, which is most clearly understood through His holiness.

You want a faith that is getting richer, deeper, and stronger, and we find this in the Bible, it is not merely an intellectual pursuit, as this passage says, it is a knowledge but it goes beyond knowledge, it is sight beyond sight (Ephesians 1:16-20). We cannot naturally envision holiness, but when we endeavor to rightly understand God, He grants us the power to do just that. This is why you can receive a word, and want it for your life and love it, but if you don’t dig deep enough, there is no root and it will wither away. The seed gets planted but you must be working on your soil. What I am trying to do is to get you to understand the love of Christ more fully.

Convince yourself and deepen your faith, Coach others and develop their faith, Contend for and defend the faith. 2 Peter 12:1-2, 3:18 – This is what knowing and understanding Jesus is, becoming more and more familiar with just how righteous He is and beautiful and holy and that is worship and looking at Him and that is how we are changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).

When it says God is love that includes all aspects of His love including justice. Love without justice isn’t love it is favoritism. Simple pardon is simply preference. God’s love is much deeper than that, His love satisfies justice and upholds His character. His own holy being demands that payment be made, or justice would not be served, and He would not be a holy God. He is a holy God, and He Himself makes the payment to satisfy justice. He doesn’t just find a way to get you out of it; He makes a way that can never be taken back (Romans 8:33).

The power of God is to be able to take something broken and make it better than before, a new thing, a redeemed thing, bought with a price, infused with the Spirit of God, made lovely, given grace, given value, given God. Made holy. From the holiness of God springs our justification, but it also leads us to a moral change from darkness to light. "To sinners God says, "Ye must be born again," to the saved, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16).

We think love is His most beautiful thing, but it is holiness; the Bible says we are to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29 / Psalm 29:2, 96:9), to praise the beauty of holiness (2 Chronicles 20:21), we are to give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness (Psalm 30:4), walk on the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8), and be working to bring our holiness to a more complete place (2 Corinthians 7:1). God’s all-encompassing attribute, the one from which all others flow, and flow perfectly, is His holiness (Isaiah 6 / Revelation 4:8). It is what makes everything else in perfect proportion. That is why we can trust His justice, His goodness, His mercy, His love, and so on, because He is holy.

The New Testament is centered on Christ, and its exhortations on the holiness of believers. This is not a simple call to obedience, but to holiness. Holiness is not righteousness, righteousness flows from holiness. Holiness isn’t simply obedience; it is being set apart for God and depending on God by drawing your boundaries as God would have them. Obedience flows from holiness, and holiness is cultivated by a right understanding of God and what He has done for us in Christ. To understand Christ more fully is to be made more holy in practice. That is why we are studying this as intensely as we are. This is the highest privilege that we can experience this side of heaven, and it should be the center of our preaching and goal of living. If you understand what we have been teaching for several weeks now about God, His own righteousness, the gospel, and justification by faith, then you will come to understand this. We are already made holy (Hebrews 10:10), we do not work for it; we work from it.

This is the difference between being God entranced and self-entranced. The self-entranced person says I want God to help me, so I will be more obedient. He tries to make it happen. He tries to be righteous. The God entranced person says I want to be more like Christ, and therefore he is more obedient. God makes it happen. Don’t put God on your agenda, get on God’s agenda and you will see the results He wants for you. Listen, He paid the ultimate price for you to be redeemed, to place value in you, the value of Himself. No, you weren’t worth it, He was, but He incorporates us into Him. Now don’t you think He wants great things for you (Romans 8:32)? Romans 8:29 – all things are from Him, and you can trust Him, because He is holy.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Love and Holiness

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
(1 John 4:9 – ESV)

The power of God is to be able to take something broken and make it better than before, a new thing, a redeemed thing, bought with a price, infused with the Spirit of God, made lovely, given grace, given value, given God. Made holy. From the holiness of God springs our justification, but it also leads us to a moral change from darkness to light. To sinners God says, "Ye must be born again," to the saved, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16).

We think love is His most beautiful thing, but it is holiness; the Bible says we are to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29 / Psalm 29:2, 96:9), to praise the beauty of holiness (2 Chronicles 20:21), we are to give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness (Psalm 30:4), walk on the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8), and be working to bring our holiness to a more complete place (2 Corinthians 7:1). God’s all-encompassing attribute, the one from which all the others flow, and flow perfectly, is His holiness (Isaiah 6 / Revelation 4:8). It is what makes everything else in perfect proportion. That is why we can trust His justice, His goodness, His mercy, His love, and so on, because He is holy.

The New Testament is centered on Christ, and its exhortations on the holiness of believers. This is not a simple call to obedience, but to holiness. Holiness is not righteousness, righteousness flows from holiness. Holiness isn’t simply obedience; it is being set apart for God and depending on God by drawing your boundaries, as God would have them. Obedience flows from holiness, and holiness is cultivated by a right understanding of God and what He has done for us in Christ. To understand Christ more fully is to be made more holy in practice. That is why we are studying this as intensely as we are. This is the highest privilege that we can experience this side of heaven, to know Christ, and it should be the center of our preaching and goal of living. If you understand what we have been teaching now about God, His own righteousness, the gospel, and justification by faith, then you will come to understand this. We are already made holy (Hebrews 10:10), we do not work for it; we work from it.

This is the difference between being God entranced and self-entranced. The self-entranced person says I want God to help me, so I will be more obedient. He tries to make it happen. He tries to be righteous. The God entranced person says I want to be more like Christ, and therefore he is more obedient. God makes it happen. Don’t put God on your agenda, get on God’s agenda and you will see the results He wants for you. Listen, He paid the ultimate price for you to be redeemed, to place value in you, the value of Himself. No, you weren’t worth it, He was, but He incorporates us into Him. Now don’t you think He wants great things for you (Romans 8:28-29)? Romans 8:32 – all things are from Him, and you can trust Him, because He is holy.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Love Understood

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
(1 John 4:14 – ESV)

One of the truths of the gospel is that God saved us in a way that upheld His justice. Justice was neither compromised nor set aside; it was completely satisfied. One of the great mysteries not revealed in the Old Testament but fully revealed in the gospel is how forgiveness is possible without compromising the justice of God. The bloody mercy seat showed the truth that sins must be paid for because of the holiness of God. His love requires justice to be done, but animal blood cannot pay for human sin, and human blood alone cannot pay for offense against God.

Only Jesus was worthy enough to pay. Christ offered a full atonement that included payment in full for all the sins of every sinner who would ever believe (2 Corinthians 5:21 / Romans 3:25 / 1 John 2:2). Our salvation is therefore grounded in the justice of God as well as His mercy, which is in perfect proportion because of His holiness. In other words, the gospel is not only a message about the love of God. It is that; but it is more. The true gospel magnifies His justice as much as it magnifies His love, because in doing that it magnifies His holiness.

Why do we need to understand this, why do we need to discover and develop our thinking this way? In order to become better grounded in Christ (Colossians 2:7 / Ephesians 3:16-19); this is greater than simple understanding but not simply a feeling. Rooted and grounded in love, which we see more clearly as we have been discovering in 1 John 4:7-10 and Romans 3:25-26, etc. The breadth and length and height and depth, in other words, the encompassing nature of His love, which is most clearly understood through His holiness.

You want a faith that is getting richer, deeper, and stronger, and we find this in the Bible, it is not merely an intellectual pursuit, as this passage says, it is a knowledge but it goes beyond knowledge, it is sight beyond sight (Ephesians 1:16-20). We cannot naturally envision holiness, but when we endeavor to rightly understand God, He grants us the power to do just that. This is why you can receive a word, and want it for your life and love it, but if you don’t dig deep enough, there is no root and it will wither away. The seed gets planted but you must be working on your soil. What I am trying to do is to get you to understand the love of Christ more fully.

Convince yourself and deepen your faith, Coach others and develop their faith, Contend for and defend the faith. 2 Peter 12:1-2, 3:18 – This is what knowing and understanding Jesus is, becoming more and more familiar with just how righteous He is and beautiful and holy and that is worship and looking at Him and that is how we are changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).

When it says God is love that includes all aspects of His love including justice. Love without justice isn’t love it is favoritism. Simple pardon is simply preference. God’s love is much deeper than that, His love satisfies justice and upholds His character. His own holy being demands that payment be made, or justice would not be served, and He would not be a holy God. He is a holy God, and He Himself makes the payment to satisfy justice. He doesn’t just find a way to get you out of it; He makes a way that can never be taken back (Romans 8:33).

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

The Fountain of Love

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(1 John 4:10 – ESV)

People say all sorts of things about love today, and there are all sorts of notions about what love really is. But how does God define it? What does God say it is, and where does it come from, how can we see and know it, in truth? Believers, unbelievers, and make-believers alike quote the last part of 1 John 4:8, God is love, and then try and make it say whatever they want it to, and use it as an excuse to do or believe just about anything, but that isn’t what the Bible is teaching here. Only what God means is what counts. So what does the Bible teach? God is love, yes, but God further defines that in the following verses, as we see propitiation declared here once again (1 John 4:10). We have gone into detail about that already elsewhere.

You cannot change it around here; John does not say that love is God, but that God is love. In the Greek, the two terms are not interchangeable. This same book declares God is light (1 John 1:5), and John writes in his gospel that Jesus said God is Spirit (John 4:24). Yes we want to declare His love, but it is even better understood in its proper perspective, it is an unfailing love because it is grounded in His unfailing character, not in everyone else’s ideas.

Now we can see that God defines His love here through Christ on the cross, and we can relate that back to many passages, including Romans 3:25-26. God’s righteousness flows from His holiness, His love flows from His holiness; it isn’t that God’s holiness is greater than His love, His mercy and His justice, but that holiness is the character that encompasses all the other attributes of God. His love is defined by His holiness. His justice, His mercy, His grace, they are all defined by His holiness. Perhaps we can make it clearer by saying that holiness is godliness, or God-likeness.

His justice is equal to His love and so He had to do it the “cross” way to satisfy both. God’s mercy did not nullify His justice; He had to be propitiated as our text plainly declares. If you redefine the atonement to remove the idea that Christ suffered the judgment for sin in our place, you destroy the heart of the gospel (1 John 4:10 / Romans 1:17 / 1 John 1:9). If that payment had not been made, there would never have been any forgiveness whatsoever (Hebrews 9:22). But forgiveness springs from the unfailing fountain of God’s character.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

EVERYTHING!

Christians do not observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Asking for an “Atonement Offering” flies directly in the face of Jesus' atonement for our sins on the cross of Calvary. Offering God money for atonement is a form of denying Christ's sacrifice.

The old covenant was with the Jews, not with “you’s”.

People think that modern day Judaizing doesn’t happen today but here we have a clear example of it. No it isn’t asking for circumcision to become a Christian, but that isn’t all Judaizing was about, it was also about doing Jewish works in order to be a better Christian as we see typified here. When Paul was writing Galatians, some were saying that you had to be Jewish to be saved, or that you had to do Jewish customs to be an advanced disciple. Wrong, dead, damningly wrong. Jesus was and is the substance that filled in the shadows. The tabernacle, feasts, and all those ceremonial trappings, customs, rituals, and offerings were all symbolic of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:3-4 / Luke 24:27 / John 5:39, 6:29-58 / Galatians 4:9-10 / Colossians 2:17 / Hebrews 10:1,14). They were types, and Christ is the antitype. You don’t go back to the type when the antitype has come. You don’t then go back to the type or try and reinvigorate or reinvent the type as a new form of blessing. Feasts, etc., don’t bring a new or extra blessing. “Jesus plus” types of false gospels elevate man and diminish God. If we have to do something then Jesus’ payment wasn’t enough, His value wasn’t great enough to fully pay for my sin, or to secure blessings or sanctification.

Yes, we can give the benefit of the doubt and say they aren’t trying to get you to give for forgiveness of sin, but they are trying to get you to give to them in order to receive a special blessing, and they are doing it based on a false teaching, false teaching of the worst and first sort to the Christian world, Judaizing. We don’t go through the steps anymore that is the old covenant which pointed to Christ, and to do it again, that is to retrace and rework the steps Jesus fulfilled, that isn’t what following Christ is about.

Those seven blessings, whatever they are, have been obtained in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). To go back and try to get them now for yourself is blasphemous and again saying Christ’s atonement was insufficient for you to have them, or that you must “work” to obtain them (which would be modern day Judaizing). Christ is the fulfillment of the tabernacle and IS our tabernacle; He is the real Tabernacle in heaven (Revelation 21:3).

You will not honor God with your atonement offering, and you will not receive some extra seven fold blessing other supposedly less informed or less spiritual believers will not get. Instead you will blaspheme His Son, Jesus Christ, and if, like this sign, that atonement is money well, then Acts 8:20 speaks plainly to you. Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Of course they might say, “no we love God, it is all about Jesus, that is why we are doing this!” Look at the teaching at face value. It is as if they believe that Jesus has given them all the spiritual, or eternal blessings, but they obtain the material, or temporal blessings by their works. And they believe that if they have faith in them they will get what they think they are promised. You do NOT please God apart from Jesus, and Jesus does NOT go back with you to try and re-fulfill the types and shadows. If you turn back to types, you have turned away from Christ.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©