Friday, June 7, 2019

"The Most Terrible Consequence"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…


"The Most Terrible Consequence"


     Why does God hate sin so much?  Why must we join Him with the same revulsion regarding unbelief and disobedience to Him?  Many Biblical answers address this question.  One, however, surely provides the primary reason our Father finds sin so reprehensible, and why we must share His view.

    "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all… We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God… My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Isaiah 53:4-6).

   Sin not only resulted in humanity torturing the Lord Jesus Christ to death on the cross of Calvary.  It also led God the Father to pour out the fury of His wrath on His eternally beloved Son.  Moreover, God abandoned His Son to suffer and die utterly alone for our sins.  "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).  Little wonder that our Father despises the sin that resulted in His acting completely contrary to His love for the Lord Jesus.  Indeed, we do well to consider the loving affirmations from Heaven that sounded at our Lord's baptism and transfiguration: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17; 17:5).  Then, ponder the wrath that descended upon our Savior as He died on the cross.  How could God not hate that which led Him to smite the Son He so loves?

    A further consideration takes the matter even further into both the light and the darkness of our Lord's suffering death at the hands of God and man.  "It hath pleased the Lord to bruise Him" (Isaiah 53:10).  How can such a thing be?  How can the Father who finds so much pleasure in His Son also have found pleasure in pouring out wrath upon Him?  The Apostle Paul provides a possible answer:

   "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).

   Paul reveals that the Lord Jesus not only bore our sins on the cross.  He also became sin - "made to be sin."  What does this mean?  Only God knows.  Somehow the Lord Jesus became everything He was not as He suffered and died at Calvary.  Only thereby could His Father have been "pleased... to bruise Him."  Moreover, what did our Savior who so loves righteousness experience as He suffered not only the bearing of sin, but also the be-ing of it?  We will never know.  "He is... a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).

   Why does God hate sin?  Why must we share His utter rejection of unbelief and disobedience?  Look no further than Calvary for the answer that most explains the horrors of sin, and its most terrible consequence…

"Christ died for our sins."
(I Corinthians 15:3)
"Ye that love the Lord, hate evil."
(Psalm 97:10)


Weekly Memory Verse
   "Not unto us, o Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy and Thy truth's sake."
(Psalm 115:1)




  






















5617

No comments: