Alive in Christ Part 2

John 1:16 From His abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.

INTRODUCTION

We are starting back on our study on Alive in Christ.

So to be able to understand the nature of salvation, we must consider the atonement.

Atonement is a word which gives the idea of enemies being brought together to make peace.

It refers to reconciliation, which is the change from a enemy of one of friendship.

In salvation it speaks of the action by which the sinner is reconciled, or brought back to God.

So we need to look at one more definition of the meaning of atonement:

Atonement is to cancel or cover.

Because of Jesus Christ suffering and death, people’s sins are covered by His blood and the penalty of their sin is cancelled.

To get a clear understand of this let me tell you a story:

A father and his son had a violent argument. As the result the son left home, vowing to never return home as long as the father lived.

The mother suffered greatly for she loved both her husband and her son. After many months the son received an urgent message to return home his mother was sick and was not expected to live.

The son walked into her hospital room and he saw his sweet dear mother almost dead.

The father and son looked silently at the one they both loved so dearly.

The mother with her last strength reached out and with one hand she took the father’s hand and the other hand she took the son’s hand.

And her final act of love, she brought the hands of the father and her son together on her breast and she died.

Christ’s death on the cross was the means of bringing a holy God together with sinful people.

Through the cross we have atonement for sins; That is, sins have been covered by the death of a substitute, the penalty has been paid, and God and people have been brought together.

Many wonder why God didn’t just abandon people in their sins, or simply declared them good and make them upright.

But the Word of God shows that God is holy and loving as well as righteous.

God is not willing that any person should be lost, but God could not excuse people’s guilt or accept them in their sin.

So in order to restore people to Himself, God provided a solution through the atonement.

The answer was in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

In Christ all the requirements of righteousness were met, both in His life as He kept the Law perfectly in our place and in His death as He died under the penalty of the broken law.

In the atonement people were set free from the power and guilt of sin and restored to fellowship with God.

So the atonement was necessary because:

God’s holiness cannot overlook sin.

Exodus 34:6 The LORD passed in front of Moses, calling out, "Yahweh! The LORD! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

Exodus 34:7 I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations."

Now look at the New Testament:

Rom 3:25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past,

Rom 3:26 for He was looking ahead and including them in what He would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He Himself is fair and just, and He declares sinners to be right in His sight when they believe in Jesus.

Sin had to be covered, cancelled.

So the atonement was necessary because:

2. God’s law, which reflect God’s nature, made it necessary for Him to require satisfaction of the sinner.

Deut 27:26 Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.

When you look at the Word of God then you will see the truthfulness of God requiring atonement.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, so He does not lie. He is not human, so He does not change His mind. Has He ever spoken and failed to act? Has He ever promised and not carried it through?

Now let’s look at the New Testament:

Rom 3:3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

God plainly said to Adam and Eve that they would die if they disobeyed His commandments.

Now I want you to compare some scriptures here:

Look at:

Gen 2:16 But the LORD God warned him, "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden

Gen 2:17 —except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die."

Now look at this one:

Ezekiel 18:4 For all people are Mine to judge—both parents and children alike. And this is My rule: The person who sins is the one who will die.

One more:

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

So God’s truthfulness demanded that God uphold His Word and required that His penalty be carried out on either the offenders or their substitute.

So the atonement was necessary. God would not have required the death of His Son unnecessarily.

Heb 2:10 God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that He should make Jesus, through His suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.

Heb 9:22 In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

Heb 9:23 That is why the Tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals.

The Bible teaches that man fell into sin by disobedience and that Christ by obedience in the sinner’s place paid the penalty which the sinner had brought upon him or herself.

Rom 5:12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

Rom 5:13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break.

Rom 5:14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come.

Rom 5:15 But there is a great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and His gift of forgiveness to many through this other Man, Jesus Christ.

Rom 5:16 And the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation, but God's free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.

Rom 5:17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ.

Rom 5:18 Yes, Adam's one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone.

Rom 5:19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.

This means that Christ died as our substitute. He died in our place. His sacrifice for sins makes God favorable toward us.

Isa 53:4 Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own sins!

Isa 53:5 But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

Isa 53:6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on Him the sins of us all.

These verses teach the atonement by substitution.

Jesus said this about Himself:

Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many."

Apostle Paul wrote this:

Gal 3:13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

These words can only be interpreted to mean that Christ, the sinless one, took upon Himself the penalty that sinners should have rightfully suffered the cost.