THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST - THE FANTASTIC GOOD NEWS!

 

              THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST- THE FANTASTIC GOOD NEWS!  

  Mankind has been striving since the dawn of time to regain contact with God our Maker. Through countless sacrifices, laws, rituals, and regulations, we have been striving to reach out to Him, to hopefully please Him, to connect with Him, and to reconcile with the One with Whom we will have to give account. Often we have convinced ourselves that we have succeeded due to our confidence in our religious traditions, practices, and rituals, but in the end, we find ourselves the same old sinner and no closer to Him than in the beginning. After all, that is the reason for all the striving, to connect with Him and be a godly, holy, person. It is good to be earnest and wholehearted, especially toward God, but something is wrong. We were missing something, and we need God Himself to step in and do what we can not.  

  God did initiate an amazing connection with a man and a people. The person was a man called Abraham and his descendants.  Through Abraham, He established a covenant with him that would bring a blessing to all the families of the Earth (Genesis 22:18). Then through Moses, He further revealed Himself by giving the people His Laws, statutes, and judgments, and He established His covenant with them. But how does that fit in for the rest of us?

THE WEAKNESS OF THE OLD COVENANT/TESTAMENT

   The first covenant which we call the Old Testament, was established on the basis of works, our performance regarding God's moral and sacrificial laws and regulations. Through these, He revealed Himself more perfectly by establishing His Laws - the Ten Commandments and the concept of atoning and reconciliatory sacrifices, along with many other things thus giving mankind a glimpse of what is required to connect with Him, but still at a sort of close distance. Although perfect in truth and justice we could not keep these laws due to the weakness of our flesh, nor could they cleanse us from our sins or change our sinful nature. "For the Law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. FOR IT IS IMPOSSIBLE THAT THE BLOOD OF BULLS AND OF GOATS SHOULD TAKE AWAY SINS." Hebrews 10:1-4.

  Before Adam disobeyed God, the Lord forbade him to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that the day he ate of it he would die (Genesis 2:16-17) thus establishing that "...the wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23 Moreover, through the sacrifices that God established through Moses, a blood/life sacrifice is what is required to make payment for sin. The only problem is that the blood sacrifices of animals could not really pay for man's sin let alone be sufficient to cleanse a person from their sins. They were only a shadow of what is really needed. Man sinned, so only by man could sin be atoned for BUT, "No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him - for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever - that he should live on eternally; that he should not undergo decay." Psalm 49:7-9 NAS 

 This is huge! Man's sin needs to be paid by man, but man cannot pay for another man's sins to cleanse him simply because "There is none righteous, no not one...For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:10,23 So we are lost sinners and cannot save ourselves. We truly need God's divine intervention and mercy, and merciful He is, but He is also just, and the debt of sin had to be paid for us to be reconciled to Him, but how???

  Still, on the basis of this Old Covenant that God established through Moses, the Spirit of God did dwell among the people of Israel, but in a separated situation in a Tabernacle, in a room called the Holy of Holies, over the Ark of the Covenant which was in the Tabernacle in the wilderness.  Later on, the Ark of the Covenant was moved into the Temple that Solomon had built for sacrifice and a dwelling place for the Presence of the Lord. Anyone entering the Presence of God being unclean/unholy would die. One does not enter the presence of a Holy God defiled by sin. This is why we as sinners cannot approach God. Only the high priest could enter in once a year, and only after he perfectly underwent the entire gamut of washings and atoning sacrifices.  At that, it was still brief and safely distant. To this point, this was the only place where the Spirit of God would dwell among men because our sins had not yet been atoned for. Remember, it is our sins that separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2): therefore, the relationship that Adam and Eve had with God still could not be re-established under the Law of Moses even though all the Laws and ordinances of the Old Testament are holy, because they depended on our performance of laws that we break so easily, and imperfect sacrifices which could never perfect us nor eradicate sin Hebrews 9, 10.

THE GLORIOUS DIVINE INTERVENTION - THE GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST - THE NEW TESTAMENT/COVENANT!

  Our weaknesses and failures were God's opportunity to step in, and through His unfathomable love for us do what we could not. This is where God took over through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin, born under the law, and as a man, He fulfilled the law perfectly, and then finished His mission by taking on our deserved penalty for our sins - death. All that which we could not do, Jesus did for us! He lived a holy/sinless life, He paid for our sins by shedding His blood on the cross, and because He is the sinless Son of God, He rose from the dead.  Not only did that confirm that He is the Holy Son of God, but that His sacrifice on the cross was accepted by God our Heavenly Father. Furthermore, by it, He put an end to the need for ritual sacrifices. And much, much greater, He gives us the hope of the resurrection and promise of eternal life to all who put their trust in Him. By His death and resurrection, He put an end to the assumed and impossible need to work for our salvation. We cannot erase even one sin, let alone be pure and holy in His sight. What is more, because that barrier of sin has been removed in Christ Jesus, God can now dwell in us By His Holy Spirit. In Christ, we are now His tabernacle. How amazing is that!  IN JESUS CHRIST WE CAN NOW BE RECONNECTED TO GOD OUR CREATOR!  THROUGH FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, HIS WORK ON THE CROSS - HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION, the intimate relationship between us and GOD OUR CREATOR has now been made once again possible through the sin-cleansing blood of Christ. This is how it should be and what we were created for! Our part of the covenant is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that God has raised Him from the dead, confess Him with our mouth (Romans 10:9-10), then take up our cross and follow Him. Through new birth in Christ, we have been adopted as God's own children and have become citizens of the Kingdom of God! How awesome is that! This is the COVENANT that God has established for us through the sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ! This is the matchless good news of the Gospel! Believe on Him, receive Him, surrender to Him. In Him, you can only win. He loves you so much!!!