Thursday, June 25, 2015

"One Sacrifice"


"One Sacrifice"

  
     As our memory verse for this week suggests, the sins of born again believers will never be imputed to us.  "Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Romans 4:8).  They were rather placed on the account of the Lord Jesus Christ when He suffered and died on the cross of Calvary.  "Christ… bore our sins in His own body on the tree" (I Peter 2:21; 24).  To the degree His sacrifice atoned for our sins, our relationship and acceptance with God forever abides in grace and security.  "But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God… By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified" (Hebrews 10:12; 14).

    Our Lord does not place sin on our account because His Son's sacrifice looms so large in His sight and so satisfactory in its effect.  Nothing can convince God to condemn those whom Christ  justifies.  No double indemnity, as it were, can exist in the judicial ethic of our Heavenly Father.  When He passes righteous judgment and executes appropriate sentence on the guilty party, that party cannot suffer again at the bar of Divine justice.  Such legal implementation took place at Calvary, where the Lamb of God bore our sin and its accompanying guilt.  In God's sight, we were spiritually in Christ when He died, and thus we cannot suffer again at the hands of His justice.  "Our old man is crucified with Him" (Romans 6:6).

    Of course, we still sin as believers, and our Father deals with us as a Father when we do.  Rather than placing sin on our account, He seeks to restore us to fellowship with Himself if we disbelieve and disobey Him.  Referencing the matter of sin in the experience of Christians, the Apostle John wrote, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (I John 1:7).  Moreover, the Lord may discipline us, as necessary.  "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6).  Never, however, does He view our sins in terms that contradict or minimize the fact of Christ's all encompassing, perfectly adequate sacrifice.  Again, to the degree He bore our sins, we never will.  And He bore them in their entirety.  "By Him, all that believe are justified from all things" (Acts 13:39).

   Such truth greatly motivates the heart of sincere and humble believers.  Knowing the direct relationship between Christ's suffering and our justification elicits grateful appreciation in all who sincerely embrace the blessed truth that "He hath made Him to be sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).  This leads to the loving relationship with God for which the Savior died - "we love Him because He first loved us" (I John 4:19).  Nothing less satisfies the heart of the Heavenly Father who made us for us fellowship, as based upon His complete satisfaction with the redeeming work of His Son's sacrifice on our behalf.  Moreover, nothing less motivates and transforms the hearts of believers than the growing understanding of the cost of our eternal place in God's favor.  "One sacrifice for sins forever" - thereby God deals with His trusting children in Christ as a loving Father who "will not impute sin" to those "justified from all things."

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
(Romans 5:1)

Weekly Memory Verse
    Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin.
(Romans 4:8)
         












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