For thought and meditation

[rl69]

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship— it is not wrong doing, but wrong being— it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins— the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son “to be sin” that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us…” and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life.

[USMC87]

Amen and thanks for a great start of the day.

[Wayne Smith]

Wow - that is an amazingly limited definition of sin. Sin is the human condition - "For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God" and that is the best I can do and be. Isaiah, man of God and righteous - in the presence of Holiness fell on his feet crying "Woe is me" - even the angels cover their faces in the presence of the Holiness of God. Sin is being less than God Himself - and that is my condition. THAT is why I need Christ - His death removes the penalty and distance - and I will one day be there but not yet.

[Blackwater]

Great post. Any time we separate ourselves from God (He NEVER separates himself from us!), and go our own way rather than His, we are sinning and virtually always, messing up BIG time! It takes time and some significant experience to really understand and appreciate the Bible, and all it has to teach us, and most experience is derived through our mistakes. Is it not wonderful that God usually has such a soft and loving hand to put us back on track again? He truly looks after us, even when we don't do that for ourselves. What a wonder is our Lord!

[Newboy]

So, do you think Jesus was lying when He said that God had forsaken/separated from Him on the cross?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[rl69]

No sir ????

[Wayne Smith]

If Holiness is the perfect hypostatic union between and within the Trinity, and did exist and was enjoyed for an eternity past, then "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani"(SP - I don't have my Bible in front of me) echos down through the centuries as the true cost of our salvation. The breaking of the perfect union, God turning away from the Son, was greater suffering by far than anything His body suffered. This can never be diminished, but is often missed or ignored. We focus on the bodily suffering and ignore the spiritual suffering.

[Blackwater]

Newboy, indeed, God DID for a few moments, have to turn his face away from Christ while he hung on that old cross. But He's never turned away from me, or anyone I know. We may indeed separate ourselves from the full realization of His wonders, but that's on US, and not Him. At the time Christ said what you refer to, he had indeed, literally become Sin itself, and thus, God could not look upon Him. But look what else God did for his only Son! There was no love lost between them, even when Christ was Sin for all time, even if briefly. It's a new day, now, and God looks after us even when we can't, don't or won't look after our own selves! That's my take on it, anyway. YMMV?