I’ve been writing this April about God being the same from the beginning. He has loved us even before He breathed life into Adam. He freed the slaves from Egypt and led them in the wilderness to the Promised Land because He loved them.
From the beginning, God also wanted us to have the freedom to choose. This freedom meant Adam and Eve chose to make the mistake of eating from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. Israel wandered in the wilderness an extra 40 years before taking over the Promised Land because despite all the wonders they had seen as God freed them from Egypt, despite knowing God’s ability to do mighty, miraculous things, they still lost faith and even built a golden idol to replace the real God!
God has always been holy, holy in a way that surpasses all our human ability to understand. He longs for our ability to be in His presence. For Israel, that meant God revealed in detail what He wanted and expected from them–the dos and don’ts of Godly living that all of us who believe should strive to follow. God lived among Israel, and yet they would not always obey Him. Imagine how lax the rest of us can get. That’s why Paul tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Breaking even one of God’s laws puts a person outside of the law and unable to stand in God’s Holy Presence. Before Christ, all sin and uncleanness required ritual and sacrifice to atone for the sin and to redeem the sinner. The life of a body, man or beast, lies in the blood, God tells Israel, which is why they were not to eat the blood of any animal. It is why, ultimately, Jesus had to spill His lifeblood in order to atone for our sins and redeem all who believe. Yet Jesus’ mercy and grace does not negate our need to come before God in purity.
God provided a path back to Holiness and obedience. He taught the Israelites how to atone for their sins and redeem their broken souls. Through sacrifice, through the lifeblood of a stand-in for the punishment they deserved, sinners might become holy again and draw closer to God.
Before Christ came, only one person in Israel, the High Priest, might enter the very inner sanctum of the tabernacle, where the ark of God rested. Even he could never be sure of his reception–did he have a sin he had not acknowledged? was he otherwise standing before God less than holy?–so that he would have a rope tied around his ankle to pull him out from the inner veil should he die upon looking at the power of God where it rested over the ark between the two cherubim. If he did not have the rope attached, no one could enter the sanctum and remain clean, since a dead body defiled any person who came into contact with it. Coming before God was/is a very serious proposition indeed.
Luckily for us, God’s love extends to His mercy and grace, as ultimately offered to us through Jesus’s perfectly-lived life and ultimate sacrifice once and for all to cover us in His holiness. For those who believe Jesus is LORD, we are able to come into God’s inner sanctum, His high throne, with Jesus as our High Priest and mediator. When we acknowledge our sin and truly repent, we can come before God in joy and without fear. Paul explains,
“Long before he [GOD] laid down earth’s foundations, he had us on his mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago, he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. . . . Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people–free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Absolutely free!
(Ephesians 1:3-10 the Message)
Because Jesus had such a gentle approach, we tend to fall victim to thinking Jesus negates the God of the Old Testament. But close study of the Bible in total will reveal that God and Jesus are one in love and in their expectations. God as Jesus expects us to obey every bit as much as the God of Moses. Just because Jesus made a sacrifice of Himself so we might be redeemed once and for all does not mean we stop needing to ask for cleansing of our sins before we can expect to come before God. At the core of each covenant, the covenant Jesus made living and dying for us and God’s covenant with the people of Israel, is the idea of obedience to God:
As Moses went up to meet GOD, GOD called down to him from the mountain: “Speak to the House of Jacob, tell the People of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to me. If you will listen obediently to what I say and keep my covenant, out of all peoples you’ll be my special treasure. The whole Earth is mine to choose from, but you’re special: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.'”
Exodus 19: 3-6 the Message
Jesus’ gift of atonement once and for all does not release us from the need to be obedient. “If you find the godless world is hating you,” Jesus tells us, “remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you” (John 15: 18-19 the Message). Again, Paul puts it this way:
I ask — ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory — to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of his glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust in him — endless energy, boundless strength. . . . Wow God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 1:15-19; 2:7-10 the Message
Despite all the ways this world keeps changing, we Christians can grasp onto the truth that God loves us. He loved us in the distant past. He loves us now. He will love us in the future. Making Him a priority in our lives only draws us nearer to the greatest love of all, a gift from God that may make us stand out from the ways of this world but that will lead us to store lasting treasure in the only place where treasure never tarnishes or goes away, the heavenly home God has prepared for all who believe.
In Christ,
Ramona
Photo by S Migaj:
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