"To Bleed"

To create us, God spoke. "And God said, Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26). To redeem us, He bled. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh" (I Peter 3:18).


As our Lord spoke us into existence, He knew that He would have to bleed to redeem our existence. The Lord Jesus Christ is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). In His perfect foreknowledge and infinite understanding, the cross stands as an eternal reality in the heart of God. We have no frame of reference for such a sensibility, or for the love that motivates it. "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God" (Psalm 90:2). The cross and the Lamb slain form a vast portion of this "everlasting to everlasting" nature of the Divine, bringing the mind and heart of man to its knees in awe and adoration.


I have often considered how I would answer the question, "If you could only say one thing about God, what would it be?" While I don't like the question itself, and believe it to be impossible to answer, I would likely state the above if I had to respond. From everlasting to everlasting, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have know that creation would lead to the Incarnation, which would lead to the cross of sorrow, pain, forsakenness and death. Our Lord created us nevertheless, and loves us nevertheless despite the cost our existence meant for Him, and means for Him. A Being of perfect joy and fulfillment became a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" for our sakes, and "was made to be sin for us" (Isaiah 53:3; II Corinthians 5:21). Yes, if I had to answer the question, this would be my response. There is a cross in the heart of God from everlasting to everlasting, and it is there for you and for me.


"God spoke, and the world was created.
He speaks, it continues to be.
The majesty of the mountains reveals His glory.
The power of His might is in the sea

But to save our souls, and to make us whole,
Our Lord had to bleed."


"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."
(Acts 2:23)