"And That Light Was For All People..."
Thursday, December 14 2006 @ 10:31 PM PST
Have you ever wondered how - in practical terms - the blood of Christ sets and keeps the sinner right? Darkness has attempted to sweep aside the meaning of God dying on the cross and replacing it with romantic and mystical notions- in fact, to even suggest lifting the shade of mystery off Calvary has been looked on by some as profane or blasphemous. Is it? Shall we seek real answers from a real God? Our God is a practical God and a Person who uses real evidence to help us understand better how to be healed. He deals straight with us no matter how painful and has run great risks that naturally accompany decisions that involve life, love and liberty. The following article was contributed by a friend of God who tells all who will listen just how deep God's love runs - even those in Djibouti (Eastern Africa) where Dr. Gerald Reynolds served as part of a global mission service. Presently he applies his dentistry skills in partnership and service to law enforcement where he specializes in forensic dentistry. He says his greatest pleasure though comes from leading out in a study group on Sabbath afternoons titled, "Getting to Know Jesus Better." The following article deals with changing paradigms and stepping into the reality of just how approachable our God truly is. Get ready to be challenged. He writes:
God is forgiveness personified and blood is not what it takes to persuade Him to forgive (Luke 15, Lev. 17:11, and 1 John 1:2). Remember the story in the gospels about the paralytic who was let down through the roof for Christ to forgive him of his sins? What did God require of the paralytic before he was to be healed? Trust! This idea of God doing all He can to win us back to trusting Him directs the mind to God - the Life Giver- and the measures He has taken to restore peace and harmony throughout His universe. (Eph. 1:4,8,19 and 20; Col. 1:20, 3:10 &12 and 4:1,2. See also ST Dec. 1889; and ST Jan. 20, 1889, God Made Manifest in Christ.”)
This stimulates our thinking to go back in time and find out what went wrong in the first place that prompted this urgent need for reconciliation - the drawing of all men unto God. (See Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, Rev. 12, Genesis 2:17 and 3:1-15.) God has always been an ever present Friend leading and patiently working all things to the good of His children. It is not He who has strayed and needs direction. That is why the trust healing model hammers home time and time again the dire straits condition of the human race - as if it had the capability to mend its own brokeness! Healing can only be achieved one way - healing can only be achieved one way - by the intervention of a creating, restoring, healing God. Consequently our growth in Him comes out of an appreciation for His healing capability by study and emulation of God's character rather than focusing on man's sinful depravity. In Genesis 2:16,17 we read, " The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" from which some will either hear God's statement as an imposed penalty rather than a loving warning of consequence. Seeing that God cannot be changed or persuaded somehow (for the good or bad) by our behavior, the trust healing model underscores sin as doing more harm to the sinner than to God. God does not want to let His precious creation go, instead He Himself seeks mankind, willing to give Himself in death rather than allow even one of His beloved creatures to suffer the consequences of sin’s wage, which is the awful separation from God that results in a never ending conditioning of death. The entire universe is working under a cause to consequence framework. Paul’s statement to the Galatians sums it up, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Jesus Himself had earlier stated this fundmental principle of Creation in His Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 7:16-20
Yes, the idea of an “eye for eye” was given Moses for those recently freed slaves who didn’t know how to relate to each other. Now however, that Christ has come among mankind, we can now see how God really wants us to treat each other - like going the second mile with those who would misuse you, sharing what you have with others who have less than you, being kind to your enemy instead of kicking dirt in his or her face, or worse! It is an entirely different way of life and of looking at life, but it works and builds trust in each other.
Mediation is intended to reveal the infinite love of God toward his wandering children. It turns the concepts of intercession around in the opposite direction and does reveal the character of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit to fallen mankind even as it does to the intelligent creatures of the Universe. There is no need for the Son to plead with the Father for those things we both ask and need, for the Father Himself loves us even as Christ does(John 16:26). Thus in the Heavenly Sanctuary Jesus is working with the Father and the Holy Spirit to defend us against the Accuser (see Zechariah 3:1-4) Satan is the Accuser who desires us to be destroyed along with him. His warped reasoning pegs God as being unfair to him in misjudging his very motives.(See story of Job)
This concept of God drawing us by lovingkindness sees in Jesus the model Man! God is faced with a crisis of a breached relationship, and what the sanctuary service was intended to convey is God's seeking to heal that breached relationship. Not only has that relationship been damaged by mankind’s fall, but by all the lies Satan told the rest of intelligent creatures of the entire universe. Christ’s work in the Sanctuary is to save the relationship, to cleanse away the lies Satan has charged against God and what exactly would need cleansing? Not just in the minds and the hearts of fallen humankind, but even in heaven itself. Thus, the sanctuary in heaven needs to be restored to its original right relationship with the Universe.
The cross is seen in this concept as the means by which God can be shown to have told the truth when He said that distrust leads to death. It is seen as the ultimate answer to Genesis 2:17, and it applies not alone to mankind but to the Universe at large. Distrust in God always and forever will have as its consequence: disobedience, disordered thinking, disease, and finally death. But this death is not at the hands of an angry God, but is the inherent consequence of sin.
This stimulates our thinking to go back in time and find out what went wrong in the first place that prompted this urgent need for reconciliation - the drawing of all men unto God. (See Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, Rev. 12, Genesis 2:17 and 3:1-15.) God has always been an ever present Friend leading and patiently working all things to the good of His children. It is not He who has strayed and needs direction. That is why the trust healing model hammers home time and time again the dire straits condition of the human race - as if it had the capability to mend its own brokeness! Healing can only be achieved one way - healing can only be achieved one way - by the intervention of a creating, restoring, healing God. Consequently our growth in Him comes out of an appreciation for His healing capability by study and emulation of God's character rather than focusing on man's sinful depravity. In Genesis 2:16,17 we read, " The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" from which some will either hear God's statement as an imposed penalty rather than a loving warning of consequence. Seeing that God cannot be changed or persuaded somehow (for the good or bad) by our behavior, the trust healing model underscores sin as doing more harm to the sinner than to God. God does not want to let His precious creation go, instead He Himself seeks mankind, willing to give Himself in death rather than allow even one of His beloved creatures to suffer the consequences of sin’s wage, which is the awful separation from God that results in a never ending conditioning of death. The entire universe is working under a cause to consequence framework. Paul’s statement to the Galatians sums it up, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Jesus Himself had earlier stated this fundmental principle of Creation in His Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 7:16-20
Yes, the idea of an “eye for eye” was given Moses for those recently freed slaves who didn’t know how to relate to each other. Now however, that Christ has come among mankind, we can now see how God really wants us to treat each other - like going the second mile with those who would misuse you, sharing what you have with others who have less than you, being kind to your enemy instead of kicking dirt in his or her face, or worse! It is an entirely different way of life and of looking at life, but it works and builds trust in each other.
Mediation is intended to reveal the infinite love of God toward his wandering children. It turns the concepts of intercession around in the opposite direction and does reveal the character of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit to fallen mankind even as it does to the intelligent creatures of the Universe. There is no need for the Son to plead with the Father for those things we both ask and need, for the Father Himself loves us even as Christ does(John 16:26). Thus in the Heavenly Sanctuary Jesus is working with the Father and the Holy Spirit to defend us against the Accuser (see Zechariah 3:1-4) Satan is the Accuser who desires us to be destroyed along with him. His warped reasoning pegs God as being unfair to him in misjudging his very motives.(See story of Job)
This concept of God drawing us by lovingkindness sees in Jesus the model Man! God is faced with a crisis of a breached relationship, and what the sanctuary service was intended to convey is God's seeking to heal that breached relationship. Not only has that relationship been damaged by mankind’s fall, but by all the lies Satan told the rest of intelligent creatures of the entire universe. Christ’s work in the Sanctuary is to save the relationship, to cleanse away the lies Satan has charged against God and what exactly would need cleansing? Not just in the minds and the hearts of fallen humankind, but even in heaven itself. Thus, the sanctuary in heaven needs to be restored to its original right relationship with the Universe.
The cross is seen in this concept as the means by which God can be shown to have told the truth when He said that distrust leads to death. It is seen as the ultimate answer to Genesis 2:17, and it applies not alone to mankind but to the Universe at large. Distrust in God always and forever will have as its consequence: disobedience, disordered thinking, disease, and finally death. But this death is not at the hands of an angry God, but is the inherent consequence of sin.
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