Easter Reflection 01

It Was Your Sin that Murdered Christ! 

Sometimes it does us good to consider the sheer sinfulness of our sin. Sometimes it does us good to consider what our sin has cost. Perhaps these words from Isaac Ambrose will challenge you as they did me.

When I but think of those bleeding veins, bruised shoulders, scourged sides, furrowed back, harrowed temples, nailed hands and feet, and then consider that my sins were the cause of all, methinks I should need no more arguments for self-abhorring!

Christians, would not your hearts rise against him that should kill your father, mother, brother, wife, husband,—dearest relations in all the world? Oh, then, how should your hearts and souls rise against sin! Surely your sin it was that murdered Christ, that killed him, who is instead of all relations, who is a thousand, thousand times dearer to you than father, mother, husband, child, or whomsoever. One thought of this should, methinks, be enough to make you say, as Job did, ‘I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Oh, what is that cross on the back of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is that thorny crown on the head of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is the nail in the right hand and that other in the left hand of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is that spear in the side of Christ? My sins. What are those nails and wounds in the feet of Christ? My sins. With a spiritual eye I see no other engine tormenting Christ, no other Pilate, Herod, Annas, Caiaphas, condemning Christ, no other soldiers, officers, Jews or Gentiles doing execution on Christ, but only sin. Oh, my sins, my sins, my sins!”


These words from Joseph Hart seem fitting:


Many woes had Christ endured,
 Many sore temptations met,
 Patient, and to pains inured:
 But the sorest trial yet
 Was to be sustain’d in thee,
 Gloomy, sad Gethsemane !

Came at length the dreadful night:
 Vengeance, with its iron rod,
 Stood, and with collected might
 Bruised the harmless Lamb of God:
 See, my soul, thy Saviour see
 Prostrate in Gethsemane !

There my God bore all my guilt:
 This, through grace, can be believed;
 But the horrors which he felt
 Are too vast to be conceived:
 None can penetrate through thee,
 Doleful, dark Gethsemane !

Sins against a holy God,
 Sins against his righteous laws,
 Sins against his love, his blood,
 Sins against his name and cause,—
Sins immense as is the seal
 Hide me, O Gethsemane !

Here’s my claim, and here alone;
 None a Saviour more can need :
 Deeds of righteousness I’ve none;
 No,-not one good work to plead:
 Not a glimpse of hope for me,
 Only in Gethsemane.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
 One almighty God of love,
 Hymn’d by all the heavenly host
 In thy shining courts above,
 We adore thee, gracious Three,—
Bless thee for Gethsemane.

The Living Bible

From the Living Bible Isaiah 53 which was written 700 years before the
birth of Jesus Christ.

...how few believe it!
Who will listen?
To whom will God reveal his saving power?

In God's eyes he was like a tender green shoot, sprout-
ing from a root in dry and sterile ground. but in our
eyes there was no attractiveness at all, nothing to make
us want him. We despised him and rejected him--a man
of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned
our backs on him and looked the other way when he
passed by. He was despised and we didn't care.

Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed
him down. And we thought his troubles were a punish-
meant from God for his own sins!
But he was wounded and bruised for our sins.
He was chastised that we might have peace;
He was lashed--and we were healed!
We are the ones who strayed like sheep!
We, who left God's path to follow our own.
Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one
of us... 

And when he sees all that is accomplished by the an-
guish of his soul, he shall be satisfied; and because of
what he has experienced, my righteous Servant shall
make many to be counted righteous before God, for he
shall bear all their sins. Therefore I will give him the
honors of one who is mighty and great, because he
poured out his soul unto death. He was counted as a
sinner, and he bore the sins of many, and he pled with
God for sinners. Isaiah 53: 1-6; 11,12

We commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection
of our Lord in just two weeks. It is not too soon to ponder
what our precious Savior did for us when He went to the
cross and became sin for us.

The Purpose of the New Covenant

The primary purpose of the new covenant was not for God to come and change our external behaviour. Rather it was God changing the way He relates to us.


Under the Old Covenant, God dealt with the external problem, namely people’s sins. They were punished and cursed when they sinned and broke the laws. But under the New Covenant, God dealt with the internal problem, namely our fallen sinful nature. He changed us from the inside, giving us the very nature of his Son, Jesus Christ, and credited the perfect obedience of Jesus to our account.


Our old sinful nature has been crucified with Christ, and our spirits made 100% righteous:


“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”. (2 Cor 5:21, NKJV)


And this is the way He now sees us: blameless and fully righteous in His sight:


21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight. (Col 1:21-22, NKJV)


6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. (Rom 6:6-7, NKJV)


Before we came into Christ, we were enemies of God, and we were alienated from Him in 2 ways:


1) We had a sinful nature inside us and we were slaves to this sinful nature, running after every evil thing to gratify the desires of our flesh:


“among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others”. (Eph 2:3, NKJV)


We were alive to sin (because of our sinful nature) and dead towards God.


2) We were also under the law, which utterly condemned us and showed us how sinful we were.


19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Rom 3:19-20, NKJV)


But Rom 6:6-7 says that we are now dead to sin. We are now friends of God, and we were united with Him in 2 ways:


1) Our sinful nature was crucified with Christ, and our spirits have now been made alive towards God. The perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ has been imputed to us, and all the benefits and blessings of His obedience has now been credited to us because of our faith in Him.


2) The law has been nullified, nailed to the cross with Jesus:


“having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross”. (Col 2:14, NKJV)


God now relates to people again like He did in the days of the Bible before the law was given, not imputing their sins against them, but instead delighting in us with the love and passion of a proud Father. God doesn’t just see us as if we’ve never sinned – He sees us now as if we have perfectly obeyed all the laws our entire life!


4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:4-6, NKJV)

- Johan & Tracy Olehäll

New Covenant

"The New Covenant says that God accepts you, loves you, favours you, accepts you not because of your performance but because of Jesus obedience and performance on your behalf. That is the New Covenant! Jesus is the superior Mediator! Where the ministry of death and condemnation finishes forever and the ministry of blessing starts forever!

The entire New Covenant can be summed up in this; Jesus is ENOUGH! All Paul's writings to Romans and Galatians can be summed up in this; Jesus plus anything equals NOTHING. Jesus plus nothing equals EVERYTHING!

The church world today is being challenged by the Spirit as to how they will align their relationship to God - a mixture of law and grace which is nothing at all or a pure atmosphere of grace of New Covenant.

I hate sin and I don't encourage sin! I hate it if it come(s) to me! I forgive it in you! As you do to me! I do not encourage sin at all! But the time you are under the most pressure to go back to the law is when you have just done something wrong! You think if I can do enough and pray enough then I may earn my way back to God! You do not earn your way back to God - Jesus already earned your way back to God! You are ALWAYS the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! If you have just sinned don't go into gloom or condemnation then thank the Father that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and;

My disobedience does not disqualify Christ's obedience on my behalf!" Rob Rufus sermon excerpt from Aligning Our Allegiances For The Anointing To Flow at Full Volume Preached on Sunday 10th June 2007 - the day that two angels arrived at City Church International!

Knowledge

"...by the time Jesus arrived to Israel - grace and the revelation to Abraham was almost completely gone. Abraham brought the key to knowledge - which is the nature of God.

What is the key to knowledge? I believe personally it is the nature of God. When the nature of God is revealed as goodness and grace - that is the key to knowledge!

…..- the revelation of the nature of God. Justification by faith that God is a good God that justifies the wicked and accepts them and loves them. That's where knowledge is! The nature of God and the revelation of God's nature is the key to knowledge. So once justification by faith came, that is when the church came out of the Dark Ages and you can trace from the Reformation advancements in science - because the religious church was wanting to put to death people that advanced in science!”

……2 Corinthians 5:9; "God was in Christ reconciling the WORLD to Himself - NOT counting MEN'S sins against them!". It didn't just say "the church's" sins against them. The world!
So we are involved with more than just sweet little churches that are happy because they are in grace. This is something that changes the globe. It is because of legalism that we have international wars, ethnic violence, religious wars.
Legalism makes people angry, harsh, mean, judgmental, full of selfish ambition, gossip, slander - you cannot trust legalists!” Rob Rufus sermon excerpt from the session "10 Ugly Faces of the Grace Hating Spirit"

- Rob Rufus

Silence in Arguments

And they were saying this, testing Him, in order that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground.--John 8:6

Arguments have their roots in pride and are calculated to prove intellectual superiority, but they lack power. I have personally won arguments against those enslaved to drugs and alcohol, but they went away still slaves. I have won many arguments concerning marriage, but those couples, too, went away to visit the lawyer. I have won countless arguments with philosophers, psychologists, evolutionists, atheists, and cult leaders. They all went away to worship the image they were seeing in the mirror.

Jesus divided His dialogue with men into two categories: argument and ministry. Argument He usually avoided.Some came requesting food or power, not ministry, and from those He withdrew. Some sought to draw Him into a melee, and we find Him quietly drawing in the sand rather than heatedly presenting His point. Why? His response would have only fueled more debate with those who had a vested interest in not moving at all from their position.Jesus came to minister.If by His own Holy Spirit He was made aware that ministry was not possible, Jesus simply withdrew or refused to speak. As an Indian friend says, “The refusals of Jesus define Him!” For we do, in fact, know more about Him from His refusals than from His accomplishments. He refused the best seats, refused to make a loud noise proclaiming Himself, He refused to hurt the one who was hurting, He refused to minister spiritual truth in the power of the flesh, He refused to defend Himself, and He refused to condemn the woman caught in adultery.

Like Jesus, we must have a goal of ministry, not dialogue. When we begin to talk to our child, friend, co-worker, or pastor and realize we are standing there alone, without the power and witness of the Spirit, it is time to be quiet and draw in the dirt. If He is not ministering, then neither should we. Remember, the issue is not who listens to us, but whether we are listening to Him.

Wonder

For God so loved the world, that he gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. 
John 3:16

Tell me what it means to perish, and enable me to
grasp the thought of a life that is eternal. Measure
for me the abyss of man's wickedness and guilt dur-
ing all the ages of his black and hateful history, that
I may realize in some degree what that world is
which God loved. Then, pausing for a moment in
wonder at the thought that such a world could be
loved at all, hasten on to speak of love that gave the
Son. And when you have enabled me to know this
love which cannot be known, for it passes knowledge,
press on still and tell me of the sacrifice by which it
has measured and proved itself--His Son, His Only-
begotten Son.

And when you have achieved this, I turn again to the
words of Christ, and I read that it was GOD who so
loved the world, and I crave to know Who and What
God is. When I come to know that it was GOD who
loved, that GOD was the giver, and GOD's Son the
gift, I stand as a wondering worshipper in the pre-
sence of the Infinite, and confess that such knowledge
is too high for me.   

- Sir Robert Anderson