Tag: atonement

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Numbers Devotionals

What cannot be forgiven

Unforgivable sin

In these chapters, we see some harsh punishments that God laid on the Israelites.

For a lot of people, including Christians, that’s hard to understand, but it comes down to a truth that God laid out in chapter 15.

There is a huge difference between unintentional sins and willful, and more importantly, unrepentant rebellion.

There were sacrifices that could be made for the former.

There were no sacrifices for the latter.

Where there is unrepentant rebellion, any sacrifices would be totally meaningless. (Numbers 15:22-30)

We see this truth played out in the person who willfully and unrepentantly broke the Sabbath. (Numbers 15:32-36)

We see it also in Korah and his followers. (Numbers 16)

A rebellious heart is an ugly thing.

But when it is combined with a heart that refuses to repent, it becomes unforgivable.

All of us sin. But let us never get to the point where we willfully and unrepentantly rebel against God.

Instead, let us have the heart of David, who certainly knew willful sin, but also knew true repentance as well.

Who perceives his unintentional sins?
Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins;
do not let them rule me.
Then I will be blameless
and cleansed from blatant rebellion.

May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:12-14)

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Numbers Devotionals

Defiant

Numbers

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the story of the man violating the Sabbath directly follows God’s instructions found in verses 27-31.

In those verses, God makes a clear distinction between those who sin unintentionally and those who sin defiantly.

For those who sinned unintentionally, atonement could be made and the person was forgiven.

But for the person who sinned defiantly, there was no forgiveness.

That seemed to be the case with the Sabbath-breaker.

It wasn’t that he had simply forgotten it was the Sabbath. When his sin was pointed out, he wasn’t saying, “Oh, no! I messed up. What should I do?”

Rather, he simply didn’t care.

He despised God’s word and by his defiant action blasphemed God.

The result? Death.

For the submissive, repentant heart, God is gracious, and there is always forgiveness.  

But for the defiant, unrepentant heart, there is no forgiveness.

Let us always keep hearts that are soft to our God.

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Genesis Devotions

How can we plead? How can we justify ourselves?

Genesis

“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “How can we plead? How can we justify ourselves? God has exposed your servants’ iniquity.” (Genesis 44:16)

Aren’t those words representative of us all? When we stand before God, and God opens up the books that show our entire lives, there will be nothing we can say. No defense we can give.

Judah’s words to his father Jacob in verse 32 also strike me.

If I do not return him to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against you, my father. (32)

It seems to me there was a double meaning there, although Jacob didn’t see it at the time.

It was Judah who had suggested selling Joseph as a slave. (Genesis 37:26-27)

And we see in this chapter how heavily he wore the weight of that guilt.

He had sinned against his father by selling Joseph. There was nothing he could do to change it. And I think he was trying to atone for his sin by guaranteeing Benjamin’s safety.

I think his hidden message to his father was, “If I do not bring Benjamin back to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against you by selling Joseph.”

But the truth is, even if he had brought Benjamin back safely, it would not have truly paid for his sin.

How often do we try to do what Judah did? We try to “make up” for the wrong we did.

But nothing we do can take our sin away. God exposes our iniquity and there is no way to justify ourselves.

But the good news is that Jesus lifted the weight of our sin, put it on himself, and paid for our sin at the cross.

All we have to do is trust and rest in what Jesus did for us.

And so Paul tells us,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)

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Jeremiah Devotionals

Is God punishing us?

Jeremiah

In the midst of this Corona virus crisis, I occasionally hear from Christian circles that this is God’s judgment on people for their sin.

Is that true? Is God punishing us?

I wouldn’t rule out that there is some aspect to God’s judgment in all this. He has used plague in the past as judgment (see Egypt in the book of Exodus, for example), and he will use it in the future (see Revelation).

That said, I wouldn’t dogmatically say, “This is God’s judgment on the world!”

What I will say is that we Christians, as God’s people, should never think that God is punishing us in order to destroy us.

One thing you see in this passage is that there is a clear distinction between judgment to destroy and judgment to discipline. God will sometimes punish his people in order to discipline them. 

That he makes clear in verse 11 where he says,

I will bring destruction on all the nations
where I have scattered you;
however, I will not bring destruction on you.

I will discipline you justly,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished. (Jeremiah 30:11)

Here you see the clear distinction between those who are God’s people and those who are not.

Just as God ultimately judged Israel’s conquerors Assyria and Babylon for all their sins, so he will judge all those who reject him.

But God’s promise to Israel, and to all who are all God’s people, is that though he may discipline us, he will not destroy us. And ultimately, he will restore us. (17)

How is it possible that he shows us such grace? Because of Jesus. And in this passage, we see the promise of his first coming.

God told the Israelites,

Jacob’s leader will be one of them;
his ruler will issue from him.

I will invite him to me, and he will approach me,
for who would otherwise risk his life to approach me?

This is the LORD’s declaration. (Jeremiah 30:21)

The interesting thing about this leader is that he would act not only as king, but as priest.

The language of approaching God is the same that God uses of a priest approaching him.

With rare exception, none but the high priest ever did dare approach God in the Old Testament.

And as the high priest did on the Day of Atonement (Levlticus 17), Jesus approached the Father with blood to atone for all our sins.

But Jesus didn’t come with the blood of bulls and goats. He came with his own blood shed on the cross.

And because of that, God can now say the same thing of us that he said of the Israelites,

You will be my people,
and I will be your God. (Jeremiah 30:22)

One final thing on God’s wrath. Jeremiah said concerning the nations that had conquered Israel,

Look, a storm from the LORD!

Wrath has gone out,
a churning storm.

The LORD’s burning anger will not turn back
until he has completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart. (Jeremiah 30:23-24)

Again, both Assyria and Babylon faced God’s full wrath and were overthrown.

But remember this: the Lord’s burning anger did eventually turn back when he completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart.

God’s wrath turned back after the full storm of it was poured out on Jesus on the cross.

And when it was done, Jesus said, “It is finished. All your purposes have been fulfilled, Father. I have paid the price for sin.”

So as God’s people, even if you may be struggling in these difficult times, remember that God is not punishing you. Jesus took all of the Father’s wrath on himself, and there is no wrath left for you.

God may discipline you, and you may go through the fire of refinement. But remember the words of Job, and hold on to them.

Yet he knows the way I have taken;
when he has tested me, I will emerge as pure gold. (Job 23:10) 

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Leviticus Devotions

Atonement

Leviticus

Some things strike me here as I read this passage.

First, the Holy Place, the tabernacle, and the altar were considered stained by the sin of the people.

Some people wonder why God can’t just allow anyone into heaven. The reason is that sin stains whatever it touches. That’s how powerful it is.

But the blood of Jesus is even more powerful, purging away even the deepest sin.

Second, the High Priest had to be specially clothed when bringing the blood into the tabernacle. On his turban, was written, “Holy to the Lord,” as he took the guilt of the people upon himself (Exodus 28:36-38).

And on his shoulders and over his heart, he wore the names of the people whose guilt he bore (Exodus 28:9-21).

In the same way, Jesus, when he entered the true tabernacle in heaven, was Holy to the Lord, set apart for his Father’s purpose, taking our guilt upon himself.

On his shoulders and over his heart, he bore the names of all he died for. And his was a perfect sacrifice. As such, it was never to be repeated again. As Peter puts it, it was a “once-for-all” sacrifice. (1 Peter 3:18)

And our atonement, the purging of all our sin, was all accomplished by him.

We don’t atone for ourselves. Atonement is made for us. Our high priest goes into the Most Holy Place, and does all the work for us. All we can do is rest in the work Jesus has already done for us.

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1 John

When we fall

1 John

We saw yesterday that though we are children of light and are called to live that way, we do fall at times. And when we do, if we confess our sins and repent, God will forgive us. (1 John 1:9)

Here in these two short verses, we see the basis of that forgiveness.

John tells us,

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense — Jesus Christ the Righteous One.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

Again, John emphasizes here that as children of light, we are not to live in darkness. But he then comforts us by saying that if we do fall into darkness, we have someone who defends us. That Jesus himself stands before the Father as our defense attorney.

What is the basis for his defense of us? His atoning sacrifice for us on the cross. What does that mean exactly?

For a lot of pagan cultures, they made sacrifices to appease the wrath of the gods and regain their favor.

John uses the same picture here…with one huge difference. It is not us who makes the sacrifice that appeases the wrath of God and makes him see us with favor once again. Rather, it is God the Father himself who sent his Son as a sacrifice.

As Abraham once put it in a story that foreshadowed his heavenly Father’s work,

God himself will provide the lamb for the [sacrifice.] (Genesis 22:8)

And so God did on the cross. He provided the lamb, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. Jesus who never sinned or did anything wrong, took the punishment for our sins. And as Jesus was on that cross, God poured all his wrath on him.

The result? Jesus now stands with us before the Father and says, “Father, I have paid the price for their sins and failings.”

And the Father answers, “That’s right.” And not only does he dismiss our case, he pours out his love upon us once again.

That’s mercy. That’s grace. It belongs to all who are truly his children. And it comes to us through Jesus Christ.

How then can we not live lives of gratitude for the one who saved us? How can we not want to be like him?

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Hebrews

Why all this blood?

Hebrews

One of the key points for this passage that we’ve been talking about is shadows and copies.

And in the midst of all this, we’ve been talking about all the sacrifices of bulls and goats that were made as a shadow of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus would make on the cross.

But that begs the question: why do we need a sacrifice at all? Why couldn’t God simply just forgive our sins without the need for blood? Couldn’t there have been another way?

Really the only way I can answer that is to look at what Jesus went through. To look at Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane when he cried out, “If there’s any other way, please take the cross from me.” (Matthew 26:39)

If there truly was another way, wouldn’t have God found it?

But for reasons that are truly known only to him, a sacrifice was needed. The writer of Hebrews tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (9:22)

We see the seeds of this from God’s commands in Leviticus 17:11. There, God said,

For the life of the creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

The idea is that blood represents life. And so for one person’s life to be spared, another life had to be taken.

In the Old Testament, it was the life of a bull, sheep, goat, etc. But as we’ve seen, they were imperfect sacrifices.

For one thing, an animal’s life does not have the worth of a human’s life. For another thing, the animal’s death was not voluntary on its part.

But when Jesus came, he was not just fully human, he was fully God, and thus his life was sufficient to pay for our sins. And as we saw yesterday, it was a truly voluntary act on Jesus’ part. He told the Father,

“Here I am — I have come to do your will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:9)

There are two other things, however, that the writer of Hebrews points out that may help us to understand the need for blood in our atonement.

First, he calls Christ the ransom that set us free from sins we committed by breaking God’s law (Hebrews 9:15).

In other words by dying on the cross he paid the price necessary to set us free from the domain of darkness and bring us into God’s kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:13)

Second, he compares the new covenant with a will (the words for covenant and will are actually the same in Greek, so there seems to be a wordplay here).

And just as a will does not come into effect until the one who makes it dies, so the new covenant could not come into effect until God the Son died.

However you look at it, God deemed it necessary that Christ die in order for us to live. And now that Christ has done so, the Holy Spirit comes into those who put their trust in Christ and he transforms their hearts.

He writes the law of God in their hearts so that it become only natural that they start to do the things that please him. And as for their sins committed in the past, he says,

Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. (Hebrews 10:17)

And so the writer of Hebrews concludes,

And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. (Hebrews 10:18)

As Jesus himself said, “It (the work of salvation) is finished.” (John 19:30)

I don’t know about you, but I marvel at it all.

Did Jesus have to die? In a sense, no. He could have let us perish and saved himself. But he loved us so much that he sacrificed everything you and me.

So let us always look upon the cross and the blood Jesus shed with awe. Jesus paid a terrible price, but he did it out of his love for us.

As one song puts it,

Amazing love!
How can it be?
That you my king should die for me?

Amazing love!
I know it’s true.
And it’s my joy to honor you.

In all I do, I honor you.

— Chris Tomlin

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Romans

To be accepted by God

Sitting at the cross

Our deepest need, whether felt or not, is to be accepted. And not just by anyone. But to be accepted by God.

When we are accepted by God, and we understand this in our souls, our life changes. We find contentment, joy, and peace. We find life.

But how can we be accepted by God? One thing Paul makes clear: it won’t come from following the law. In verse 23, he writes,

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

The word for sin in Greek is a very interesting one. It’s an archery term that means “to miss the mark.”

But it’s not just a picture of missing the bullseye. It’s a picture of completely missing the target.

In other words, we’re not even close to perfection. We fall far short of God’s holiness.

Let’s put it this way. Imagine you sin three times a day. That’s not too bad right?

But multiply that by 365 days in a year. Then multiply that by your age. Suddenly, depending on your age, you’re talking about the tens of thousands.

God can literally read off a list against you that would take hours to complete. And that’s if you’re relatively “good.”

Because of this, we all stand condemned. None of us can stand before God and say, “I’m good enough to be accepted by you. I’ve kept all your laws perfectly.”

The good news? In verse 21, Paul tells us,

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. (Romans 3:21)

How do we get this righteousness? Paul tells us in verses 22-25.

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Romans 3:22-25)

What is Paul saying? We have a lot of what I call Christianese here.

First he talks about redemption. What is redemption?

Redemption is the buying of someone’s freedom out of slavery. All of us were in slavery to sin and the kingdom of Satan. But Jesus bought us out from all that. That’s redemption.

How did he buy us? Through his blood on the cross.

Paul says that God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement.

Atonement simply means a covering. That through Christ’s death on the cross, he covers over our sin and forgives it, drawing us to himself.

Perhaps a better translation of atonement would be another 50-cent word, “propitiation.”

The idea is that God poured his wrath for our sins on Jesus, and now that wrath toward us is appeased.

However you translate it, the point is clear. It is through Christ’s work on the cross we are accepted, not by our works.

And through his death we have now been justified. That simply means that with our sins paid for, God no longer looks upon us as sinners.

You can look at it this way. “God sees me just as if I’d never sinned.”

So now, we are accepted by grace.

Grace is simply the receiving of something that we don’t deserve. We deserved wrath because we turned our backs on God. But instead, God accepts us as his sons and daughters.

All we have to do is have faith, putting our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins.

Have you done so?

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Ezekiel

Setting apart our hearts for God

Ezekiel

In these two chapters, God gives the people instructions for when they return to the land.

A lot of this (as well as the things in chapters 43–44) are repetitions of instructions God had originally given Moses.

But as I look at this, two verses struck me.

God told the people,

When you allot the land as an inheritance, you are to present to the Lord a portion of the land as a sacred district…the entire area will be holy…

In the sacred district…will be the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. (Ezekiel 45:1, 3)

One of the first things the people were to do when they returned to the land and divided it among the tribes was to set apart a certain part of it to the Lord for his sanctuary.

God was basically saying to the people, “When you return to the land I’ve given you, set apart space for me. Remember that I’m dwelling among you and that I am your Lord.”

It reminds me of what Peter said,

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. (1 Peter 3:15)

What does that mean?

Part of it is making sure he has the throne of your heart. That you set apart the throne of your heart for him, and him alone.

But God gave other instructions to the people. To the princes, he said,

You have gone far enough, O princes of Israel!

Give up your violence and oppression and do what is just and right. (Ezekiel 45:9)

God tells us the same. In setting apart Christ as Lord, we are to give up our evil practices and do what is right before God.

He then told the priests to sacrifice a bull and use its blood to purify the sanctuary. This was not a one-time thing, either. It was done every year.

We too are to make sure that we keep a pure sanctuary, and we do that by confession. Praying for forgiveness for our sins and asking that the blood of Jesus cleanse us.

God told the priests to make atonement for people who sinned unintentionally or through ignorance.

We may not have meant to sin, but even so, all of our sins must be atoned for and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. And so as David prayed, so should we:

Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. (Psalm 19:12–13)

The people were also to remember the Passover, their deliverance from the land of Egypt.

We too should remember our deliverance from sin and Satan’s kingdom.

Too often, we forget why we set our hearts apart for him. It’s out of our love for him and all that he has done for us. As John wrote,

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Chapter 46 repeats these themes as it goes over all the offerings that were offered. I’ve touched on this in another blog, but it’s worth repeating.

The burnt offering was used for atonement for sin, and it also showed a complete surrender to God (the offering was completely burnt up).

The grain offering was an offering of thanksgiving.

The fellowship offering again had the idea of atonement, with the animal taking on the guilt of the offerer, but also had the idea that with our sins taken care of, we now have fellowship with God.

One last point. When the people came to worship, they had to enter one gate (north or south) and exit the opposite gate.

To me this symbolizes that as we enter his presence to worship, we cannot help but come out changed.

Having been washed by Jesus’ blood, with hearts that have been justified and sanctified, and Jesus sitting on the throne of our hearts, we have become new people.

As Paul wrote,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

As God’s new creations, let us set apart our hearts for him each day.