Work has ended for the year. My company has an end of year shut-down which when added to a few vacation days amounts to a desparately needed couple of weeks off till the new business year begins.
As I begin my shopping, I am confronted with what the reality of what Christmas has become ... a strange mixture of pseudo-spirituality, emotionalism, commercialism, sentimentalism, personal anxiety over rising credit card balances and the gathering of recipes from The Food Network.
I have seen numerous reminders on posters and emails to not forget that "Jesus is the reason for the season", but it is my experience in talking with folks that most people (and especially church people) really have no clue why Jesus (a true historical person), had to be born!
He did not come so that we could be happy, healthy and wealthy. He did not come to teach us how to be "good people" so that God would like us more. He did not come so that we could somehow, in Him, find recovery for our stressful and dysfunctional lives.
No! No! No!
He came to propitiate God's wrath against His own people for their SIN and to supercede any atonements that had been made prior. The previous sacrifices only pointed to Him. He did not consider it a loss to take upon Himself frail humanity and to live, suffer and die for the sake of His people.
True Christianity teaches (Genesis 3) the doctrine of "original sin" or "the fall of man". When sin entered the world disease and death entered the world and since that time ALL are under the dominion of sin and death. Proof of this is seen when we examine our lives in light of the 10 Commandments. We are guilty ... everyone ... including all preachers and the pope and Billy Graham! "For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", Scripture teaches us. "There is no one who does good, no not one"! If we break any part of the Law (The 10 Commandments), then we have broken it all. We are guilty! Scripture teaches that "by the deeds of the law will no one be declared righteous" while simultaneously proclaiming the we must "be Holy as He is Holy"! Quite a dilemma, is it not? The Law was not given to us as a tool for us to use to forge out our own righteousness with our good works, but as an instrument to show us the Holiness of God and to totally remove any pretense that somehow we deserve God's grace because of our efforts.
Pick up a copy of today's paper. You will see evidence of "The Fall". War, murder, hatred, strife, crime, rape, mayhem, slander, lying, back-stabbing and that is just in your neighborhood not to mention the whole world. Our friends turn on us. We all know of those who forsake everything in order to get the buzz of alcohol or drugs. We are all one helpless bunch and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. Paul tells us in Romans 7: For I know that in me (in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Paul adds)
Christ did what we cannot do. He bore the wrath of God on our behalf. Through His finished work the Great Exchange took place. What should have come to us (God's wrath) went to Him and what should have come to Christ (God's grace) went to us. His righteousness is perfect and our righteousness before God is as filthy rags (used menstrual rags) according to Isaiah.
Never before had death been so unnatural because never before had death been so undeserved. The God-man, the Perfect Lamb, was taken outside the city and nailed to a cross over the town garbage dump. He was totally naked (not with a loin cloth as paintings depict) and bleeding from the scourging with whips laced with sharp pieces of bone to tear the skin into shreds. Covered with his own urine and feces that would be released as he died, he suffered on our behalf. Flies surrounded Him and sweat seeped from His pores while his foes jeered Him and gambled for His garments. His legs were not broken (as Scripture tells us) so his suffocation would take much longer than his two companions on either side of Him. He became increasingly weaker and weaker so that He was agonizingly less and less able to push up from his legs in order to inhale. A crown of thorns was pressed into his scalp and the blood rolled down His face. The God-Man, raised up between Heaven and Earth on that tree. The emblem of suffering and shame and lonliness as the Father turned His face from Him! "If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me", He uttered! It did not pass from Him! He drank the cup of God's wrath and he drank it to the very last dregs. "The cup that makes me stagger"!
In the face of all of this he exclaimed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"!
He remembers the words of His father, " I, Jehovah, will strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter"!
"IT IS FINISHED", the words flowed from his lips and He gave up his spirit and died.
"THIS IS MY SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED", the Father had exclaimed at the Son's baptism and I can certainly imagine that as the Father looked down from Heaven upon his beloved Son, He had to think, "That's my boy"! And all of Heaven rejoiced!
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!
We continue to sin, to fall short of and to overstep God's Holy Law, but our sin can no longer condemn us. It causes us to run to the Cross and to worship Him!
By faith, BELIEVE! Not do, but believe. HE has done all of the doing and now we can rest in his finished work. The gospel is not imperative but indicative. It is doctrine not law.
"To God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen"
Now go to the mall!
