Extending Hope: God's Part (Part II)

Sacrifice:
The greatest manifestation of God’s love for man was His sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Through his sin, man was in a state where he could not save himself . . . nothing he could do on his own would reconcile him back to his Creator.

It is true that God had commanded the Israelites to make sin sacrifices under the Old Law. However, these sacrifices served only as a reminder of sins from year to year, they could not take way the sins of the people:

“For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” (Hebrews 10:1-4)

The other thing about the sin sacrifices is that they were part of a covenant with a specific people: the Israelites. Even if these sacrifices could take away sins, they would only do so for those who were under the covenant.

In order for man to have the forgiveness of his sins and to have the hope of an eternity with God, it would take a perfect sacrifice. It would take the sacrifice of a man, a perfectly sinless man.

Why did the forgiveness of sin require such a sacrifice? Paul tells us why in Romans 6:23, when he says “the wages of sin is death.” While it is true that we have a loving God, we tend to forget that we also have a just God. God has decreed that the penalty for sin is spiritual death. Since each and every accountable human being on earth has/does/will sin, spiritual death is what we deserve. Again, something that humbles me about God is that He is both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). This means that God not only requires that the penalty for sin be paid, but He also provided a way for it to be paid without requiring the death of every sinner on earth.

Consider several passages that sum up the beauty of God’s sacrifice:

• For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)


• Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:
  “ Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
  But a body You have prepared for Me.
  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
  You had no pleasure.
  Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
  In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
  To do Your will, O God.’”
  Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them ” (which are offered according to the law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:5-10)


• And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. (Hebrews 9:27-28)


• Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)
  

If God had stopped manifesting His love at the sacrifice of Jesus, that would have been more than enough. However, Almighty God, whom Paul refers to as “He that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), didn’t stop there.