We were in danger of harm and even death, although perhaps we were oblivious to it.
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Although I am not a shepherd or farmer, I understand that God did not do us a big favor by comparing us to sheep. Domestic sheep are some of the dumbest animals around. They must be under the care of a shepherd or they will fall prey to carnivorous beasts. If they get lost in bad weather, they are not smart enough or hardy enough to survive. Why do sheep do that? This patch of grass looks good enough.
The only way they come back to him is if he takes the initiative in going out looking for them. This means that none of us can boast in our smarts in coming to Christ.
If you have not yet come to Him, you cannot save yourself. But the Shepherd is seeking you, even today. He wants to deliver you from the power of sin that causes you to stray from His loving care and protection. There had to be a death of our old man toward sin and a resurrection to new life in Jesus Christ: That when Christ died, we who believe in Him died with Him.
We were identified with Him in His death. When He rose from the dead, we, too, were raised to newness of life, so that the power of sin over us was broken. The same evil lusts which formerly controlled my life rear up and entice me with the same force as they did before my conversion.
What does the Bible mean? Two things, as I understand it. First, being dead to sin is an accomplished fact that takes place the instant I am united with Christ at conversion. The moment you trusted in Christ as Savior, you were identified with Him in His death on the cross, so that all the benefits of His death became yours. As Paul puts it Rom.
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be rendered inoperative [lit. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So how can I believe something contrary to my experience? When you die physically, your soul is separated from your body. To be identified with Christ in His death means that I am separated from the power of the old nature and from this evil world system.
I am now separated from that which formerly had a stranglehold on me. I can choose to obey God rather than the lusts of the flesh. This idea of separation is brought out by the word Peter uses for death, which occurs only here in the New Testament. It meant to be removed from or to depart, and thus was used euphemistically of death, much as we speak of a departed one.
Thayer Greek lexicon, p. You can rev up the engine with the car in gear, and the wheels spin like crazy. The second aspect of death involves something I must do, not something that is already done by virtue of my union with Christ. We see these two aspects in Colossians 3: By this he means that we must take radical action to separate ourselves from various sins that tempt us. It points to the decisive and often painful action of denying ourselves in obedience to God. It must start at the thought level if we want to live in holiness before God. If you as a believer in Christ are continually defeated by sin, then you need to enter in a deeper way into the meaning of His death on the cross, which separates you from the power of sin.
Thus the power of sin caused us to stray continually as sheep; it required death and new life for deliverance. Peter tells them that they are under the tender care of the Good Shepherd, who has the welfare of all His sheep in view. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, watches over the souls of His sheep. Does the fact that Jesus is watching everything you think, say, and do make you uncomfortable or comforted? But if we seek to follow Him, we can know that He will feed, lead, and guard us as our Shepherd and Overseer.
But we must turn to Him. And yet, at the same time, we are responsible to turn from sin to God Isa. It involves, according to 1 Peter 2: True conversion is not just intellectual assent to the truth of the gospel. Saving faith always involves an exchange of masters, from self to Jesus Christ.
While we spend a lifetime growing in our submission to Christ, if we are not seeking to live under His Lordship, our claim to faith is suspect. A mother of three children went to a counselor. You love all three just the same? When one of my three children is sick, I love that child more. When one of my children is in pain, or lost, I love that child more. When one of my children is confused, I love that child more. And when one of my children is bad--really bad--I love that child more. But except for those exceptions, I do love all three of my children just the same.
The cross says that God especially loves those who are hurting--those who are under the penalty and power of sin. He wants to be your Shepherd and Overseer. He loves you just as you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way. He wants to heal you from the devastating effects of sin. Will you turn to Him? Handing Off the Baton 2 Timothy 4: They are a wretched lot, justly exposed to divine vengeance, and rightly devoted to eternal destruction.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the last thing that the accursed sinner should and will hear when he takes his first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because He has rid the earth of him. Such language is a gross offense to the world and to much of the contemporary evangelical community. Nevertheless, it is biblical language and it must be said. The truth conveyed in this text is what made Jesus Christ and His Gospel such a scandal to the Jews of the first century.
To entertain such an idea was more than scandalous, it was outright blasphemy! And He did it all in the place of His people! In the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters of Deuteronomy, God divided the nation of Israel into two separate camps and placed one on Mount Gerizim and the other on Mount Ebal. Those on Mount Gerizim were to pronounce the blessings which would come upon all who diligently obey the Lord their God.
THE SEVEN WORDS OF JESUS ON THE CROSS
From behind the closed doors of heaven the Father crushed His only Son with every terror that should befall those for whom He died. The Lord sends upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly As Christ bore our sin upon Calvary, He was cursed as man who makes an idol and sets it up in secret. However the curse did alight upon the Branch, not because of some flaw in His character or error in His deeds, but because He bore the sins of His people and carried their iniquity before the judgment bar of God.
The psalmist David cried out,. How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! Yet on the Cross, the sin imputed to Christ was exposed before God and the host of heavens. He was placarded before men and made a spectacle to angels and devils alike. If a man is counted blessed because iniquity is not imputed to Him, then Christ was cursed beyond measure because the iniquity of us all fell upon Him.
Then the LORD will single him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in this book of the law.
It is referred to as the Priestly or Aaronic blessing:. Though beautiful and gracious, this blessing presents us with a great theological and moral problem. How can a righteous God grant such blessing to a sinful people without compromising His righteousness. The answer again is found in the Cross. The sinner can be blessed only because the Holy and Righteous One was cursed. It is not uncommon to hear a preacher declare that the Father turned away from His Son because He could no longer bear to witness the suffering inflicted upon Him by the hands of wicked men.
As we have learned, such interpretations are a complete distortion of the text and of what actually transpired on the Cross. With such an illustration, the Scriptures fully agree.
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As the prophet Isaiah cried out:. But your iniquities have made a separation between you God and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. According to this text, and countless others, all men should live and die separated from the favorable presence of God and under divine wrath. Only then could divine justice be satisfied, the wrath of God be appeased, and reconciliation be made possible. What terrible thing did it contain to caused Him such anguish that His sweat was mingled with blood? It is often said that the cup represented the cruel Roman cross and the physical torture that awaited Him.
That Christ foresaw the cat of nine tails coming down across His back, the crown of thorns piercing His brow, and the primitive nails driven through His hands and feet. However those who believe these things to be the source of His anguish do not understand the Cross, nor what happened there. In the first centuries of the primitive church, thousands of Christians died on crosses. It is said that Nero crucified them upside down, covered them with tar, and set them aflame to provide streetlights for the city of Rome.
Throughout the ages since then, a countless stream of Christians have been led off to the most unspeakable tortures, and yet it is the testimony of friend and foe alike that many of them went to their death with great boldness. Are we to believe that the followers of the Messiah met such cruel physical death with joy unspeakable, while the Captain of their Salvation cowered in a garden, fearing the same torture? To understand the ominous contents of the cup, we must refer to the Scriptures. There are two passages in particular that we must consider — one from the Psalms and the other from the Prophets:.
Crucifixion of Jesus
They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them. As a result of the unceasing rebellion of the wicked, the justice of God had decreed judgment against them. He would rightly pour forth His indignation upon the nations. He would put the cup of the wine of His wrath to their mouth and force them to drink it down to the dregs.
He would be like us in all things, and tempted in all ways like us, but without sin. The perfect Son of God and a true Son of Adam together in one glorious person would take the bitter cup of wrath from the very hand of God and drink it down to the dregs. He would drink until it was finished, and the justice of God was fully satisfied. Imagine an immense dam that is filled to the brim and straining against the weight behind it. All at once, the protective wall is pulled away and the massive destructive power of the deluge is unleashed. As certain destruction races towards a small village in the nearby valley, the ground suddenly opens up before it and drinks down that which would have carried it away.
In similar fashion, the judgment of God was rightly racing toward every man. Escape could not be found on the highest hill or in the deepest abyss. The fleetest of foot could not outrun it, nor could the strongest swimmer endure its torrents. The dam was breached and nothing could repair its ruin. But when every human hope was exhausted, at the appointed time, the Son of God interposed.
He stood between divine justice and His people. He drank down the wrath that we ourselves had kindled and the punishment we deserved. When He died, not one drop of the former deluge remained. He drank it all on our behalf! Imagine two giant millstones, one turning on top of the other. Imagine that caught between the two is a single grain of wheat that is pulled under the massive weigh. First, its hull is crushed beyond recognition, and then its inwards parts are poured out and ground into dust.
There is no hope of retrieval or reconstruction. All is lost and beyond repair. Thus, in a similar fashion, it pleased the Lord to crush His only Son, and put Him to grief unspeakable. Thus, it pleased the Son to submit to such suffering that God might be glorified and a people might be redeemed. We should not think that God found some gleeful pleasure in the suffering of His beloved Son, but through His death, the will of God was accomplished.
No other means had the power to put away sin, satisfy divine justice, and appease the wrath of God against us. Unless that divine grain of wheat had fallen to the ground and died, it would have abided alone without a people or a bride.
Forsaken of God
God would be revealed in a glory yet unknown to men or angels, and a people would be brought into unhindered fellowship with their God. The beloved Puritan writer John Flavel once wrote a dialogue between the Father and the Son regarding fallen humanity and great price that would be required to obtain our redemption. It beautifully illustrates the true agony of the Cross, and the love of the Father and the Son which moved them to embrace it.
My Son, here is a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice!
Lesson The Meaning Of The Cross (1 Peter ) | theranchhands.com
Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them: What shall be done for these souls? And thus Christ returns. O my Father, such is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety; bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe Thee; Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckonings with them; at my hand shall thou require it.
I will rather choose to suffer their wrath than they should suffer it: But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite, expect no abatements; if I spare them, I will not spare thee. Content, Father, let it be so; charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it: It is sometimes thought and even preached that the Father looked down from heaven and witnessed the suffering that was heaped upon His Son by the hands of men, and that He counted such affliction as payment for our sins.
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