Okay, so I included yesterday's text, in addition to today's verses, in order to keep the context of verses 25 and 26 clearly intact. So, without further ado, let's dive in!
Remembering that we're looking at the redemptive plan of salvation being fulfilled through Christ, let's look at God's purpose behind Christ's death on cross... verse 25 says, "whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;"
Once again we will review our necessity for a savior... Verse 23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." Thus, all of us are incapable of pleasing God in our own strength or efforts. Christ's death was the atoning sacrifice on our behalf, so that there might be a way for us to be reconciled to God. Therefore, as we see in verse 25, His blood was shed on Calvary as the propitiation (The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person - dictionary.com "Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996") of our sins, before a holy and righteous Judge. The penalty of our sins was blood and Christ paid that penalty, once and for all.
Now... the reasoning behind this sacrifice on man's behalf? Well... I could sit here and type for hours about how all things that have ever happened and will ever happen are caused, by God, to bring glory to God. The thing that we will look at today, though, is how God's character is revealed through the entering of sin into the world and then, through the death of Christ.
First, God's character revealed through the entering of sin into the world. Before sin entered into the world, here's what we know about God:
We know Him as Creator. In Genesis 1 we see that God made everything that exists out of nothing. This gives us an understanding of God's authority over all creation. We see His power to create matter, an ability that God exclusively posseses.
We see Him outside of space and time. We understand from Genesis that God existed before all matter. He is not bound by the same laws that bind us as finite beings.
We see Him as the Author of good. In each part of creation, we read that God saw what He created and called it "good."
We see Him as the Provider. He provides Adam with all of the necessary things of life in order to demonstrate His ability to completely satisfy all of man's needs.
Now, enter sin! What do we now see about God's character?
We see Him as Holy. His character is such that, once sin has entered into the world, perfect communion with His now stained creation is no longer possible.
We see Him as Judge. He pronounces judgment against the offenses commited towards His commands. (Gen. 3:14-19)
We see Him as compassionate. God does not completely forsake His creation because of their sins, but rather provides the first blood sacrifice as the atonement of their sin, and uses the skins to clothe them!
We see His faithfulness. Genesis 3:15 gives us the first glimpse of a Savior to come."And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." This is God's first promise of the redemption to come, through His Son!
Now... enter Christ! The Savior of the sinful world!
We see God's Mercy! Mercy can be defined as "not receiving the punishment I deserve." Christ paid our debt... and with that act of mercy, we now have a Perfect High Priest who intercedes for us before the throne of God Almighty!
We see the Grace of God. Grace can be defined as "the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God" - (dictionary.com Random House)
Eph. 2:1-10 describes this grace in a very poignant manner.
We see the Love of God. God's love is made evident in His effort of restoration between us and Himself. We have nothing to offer God, but He gave up His only Son in order to restore our relationship with Him.
Finally, looking again at Romans 3, we see His righteousness displayed through the death of Christ. His righteousness was displayed towards mankind in order that we might be justified, by God, through our faith in Jesus. (v. 26) God alone is the Justifier of our souls. This is an attribute of the character of God, revealed through Christ's death. Does it seem like I'm going in circles? Perhaps I am, but somewhere in these circles I'm trying to make certain that we understand this incredible glimpse into the character of Almighty God! I'll try to make my point a little easier to understand...
God, through the death of Christ, allowed us to understand His love, mercy, grace, and compassion, to name a few attributes. These would have otherwise gone as unknown characteristics if we did not have the death of Christ as the demonstration of these attributes of God. Now, of course we see glimpses of His patience, mercy, grace, etc... throughout the Old Testament, but not to the perfect extent which we see in Christ Jesus.
Now! The final point. All of these attributes of God are put on display so that God might be glorified in all things. God, as perfect and holy, is the only One who is able to exalt and glorify Himself in a righteous manner. We as humans cannot rightly exalt ourselves, but for God it is perfectly right and just for Him to cause His name to be lifted high, because He alone is Holy, Holy, Holy!
So, all things that exist are in existence for the final and utmost reason of glorifying God. This is a point which we could spend literal DAYS looking at and marveling about! I'll try to boil it down a little: If we live lives of Christ-likeness and in pursuit of God, bearing witness to His name and loving Him in all that we do... we bring glory to His marvelous love, grace, mercy, compassion, kindness, faithfulness and strength. On the other hand, if we live in selfish ambition and in rebellion to His Word... we bring glory to His justice, judgment, righteous anger, holy jealousy, and perfect wrath. So, in a nutshell, "You cannot escape your purpose in the glorification of God, no matter what side of the fence you're on!"
Well... that was a mouthful! Er... a "whatever-ful" it is when you blog for a long time on a very small set of verses! And I'm not even sure if any of it made sense! Hopefully, this will prove helpful to someone, in some respect. Otherwise... well... we'll just move on!
Grace and Peace, dear friends!
Questions or Comments? E-mail me at afflquestions@yahoo.com .
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