Hebrews 9 explains the heavenly legal arrangement for us to be forgiven. Forgiveness had to be declared – legally – by God through His justice system, or God would not have been just – and we would never have had a chance to be saved.
God, being holy, cannot accept sinfulness into His Kingdom, so all mankind was condemned forever. We are not born-killers (!) but we are born-sinners. And once born, then we live a little and prove that we truly cannot – not sin!
Jesus is The Way. God provided a way for us to be forgiven and made-right with God. Jesus was that way. Jesus is The Way. Hebrews 9:24-28 explains how Christ was the One who voluntarily sacrificed Himself in order to fulfill the legal requirements to be able to forgive us:
24 For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin [x]by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And inasmuch as it is [y]appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
The Old Testament Judaic system required that a priest offer yearly sacrifices. But Christ, the perfect Lamb of God, died once – for all of us, so that we might be saved (v.26): “but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
The next day he *saw Jesus coming to him and *said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God
who takes away
the sin of the world!
The sacrifice was made, the penalty was paid – now what will you do with God’s offer of salvation through faith in Christ?
John 3:3
“Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one is born again
he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
FOR MORE:
So, God sent His Son into the world. Do you know why?
Christ’s Death | by William Lane Craig | at reasonablefaith.org | Should We Think of Christ’s Death in Juridical Terms? – on the atonement of Christ’s death on the cross (*Romans 3:25, 4:25, 5:18).
Leave a Reply