II Corinthians 5:15
"And that he died (again for how many?) all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."
The point I want to make is that when He died, He didn’t die just for a fraction of the human race. He died for ALL. And that’s why, when the lost get to that Great White Throne, there is going to be NO real argument. Because they’re going to understand that the only reason they’re missing glory is their UNBELIEF. Lawlessness and wickedness. Because They refused to receive or to believe. They refused to take it by simply trusting. And like I said earlier, this plan of salvation is so complex that I can’t begin to fathom all of it. But on the other hand it is so simple that six and seven-year-old kids can enter in. They can believe it (Him, Christ who is its center) and they don’t have any problem because they don't have years of false teaching to over come.
Hebrews 9:28a
"So Christ was once (there it is again, once) offered to bear the sins of many."
As we studied, "many" is the whole human race. Christ as we see here is the center of all that is called "the or this Gospel" for God's Salvation is Christ alone and this is also seen in Paul's Epistles as the central message. Which is also the answer or the bases of the Lord's prayer found in John chapter 17.
Hebrews 9:28b
"…and unto them that look for him, he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation."
Now of course, what most theologians tell us is that, what Paul is referring to is, when Christ returns at the end of the Tribulation, those that have embraced Him throughout the Gospel of the Kingdom in that seven years of Tribulation and have survived – they’re going to see Him coming, and He will come "without sin unto salvation." I feel what Paul is addressing here is, that, at His first advent, He came for what purpose? To die for the sins of the world, then also to show us the old path way of Jeremiah 6:16 which had been lost or hidden in scripture. The key to entry into the kingdom life while still here on earth, the secret of death into Life. The reverse of what Adam had done, when he fell from Eternal Life into death through sin and placed all of mankind under the yoke of its bondage and the curse. The secret of eternal life which can be seen in the plant life, animal and yes even human life all around us, if we'll but look at it and think about what it says to us. And then II Corinthians 5 says so plainly that He was ‘made sin for us.’ Though He Who knew no sin.
He’s not going to come to pay any sin debt when He comes the next time. First He'll come in the clouds unseen to remove, with a shout or thundering that vibrates all things, those who are His promised heirs of this greater salvation. Which He now is working in the sons of obedience His Body, His Family or Church (assembly, the called out and set apart ones, the Christ-ones). When He comes the second time it will be in wrath and judgment (which begins in the house of the Hebrews, referred to as the house of God) for so they were in their beginning until sin dominated them – and then establishing His Heaven-on-earth Kingdom. And I think that’s what’s referred to here, that He’ll come the "second time without sin unto salvation." Now let’s move on into chapter 10, coming right back again to the Mosaic System.
Hebrews 10:1a
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come,..."
Remember I gave you an illustration of shadows (about a big beautiful tall tree. And it casts a shadow but you can’t get all that much from the shadow. It can give you an idea but that’s about all). Well that’s what the Levitical Law was. The Law really didn’t have anything of intrinsic value for us or anyone else except that it was a foreshadowing of that which was and is to come again. The person whom Saul of Tarsus meet on the road to Damascus, the great illumination around about him, the Law in the person of Christ in whom is found God's Grace and Truth into Eternal Life.
Hebrews 10:1a
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of things,…"
You know I probably upset people once in a while and I don’t do it purposely. But you know when it comes to the Old Testament believers, some like to tell me that these believers understood or foresaw the resurrection. How could they? Adam knew these things as he passed them on to Seth and Seth passed them on to his sons as they all knew God. For it says that they walked with Yehovah and worshiped the Most High God. How about Abraham for one? Abram was sent to Shem and Eber and hidden by them for a number of years and they taught him the ways of the Most High God. Abraham sent his son Isaac to them for safe keeping and they likewise taught him the ways of the Most High God. Abraham believed God, what has to have taken place for any one to believe a person? They have to have a knowledge of that person in order to place your trust in him. And his believing was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham and Isaac understood this that Christ would die? He saw Isaac and Isaac saw himself as the sacrificial person. How could he? The Cross was a Roman invention and didn’t come for hundreds and hundreds of years later. But what God revealed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they believed! And God accounted it to them for righteousness.
And so here again, the Law was just a shadow of good things to come. Oh, even the Rabbis and the Priests understood that there were things here that they weren’t comprehending. A verse just comes to mind that we need to look at. We’ve looked at it before, but it’s been a while. Come all the way to 1 Peter. And Peter again is addressing the Hebrews who had gone into dispersion. He’s writing to the ‘strangers scattered abroad,’ which are Hebrews. But as we come into chapter 1, and this is what we mean by ‘it was just a shadow.’ Oh, there were things back in that Old Testament that the religious leaders of Israel just knew there was something that they weren’t comprehending. For they diligently searched the scriptures and argued them back and forth to gain the understanding but for hundreds of years the secret alluded them just as it does to this very day. The church as we know it is trapped in the same trap because of unbelief and personal choice because of the religion's legalism which holds it as the mystery Babylon as shown elsewhere.
How? You may ask is this true, it is true because it has moved away from a Christ centered Gospel or the good news to one of their own creation just as Paul warned the Galatians and the Hebrews in this Epistle.
I Peter chapter 1? Let’s begin at verse 7 and lead up to the main verse.
1Peter 1:7-9
"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls."
No comments:
Post a Comment