Monday, March 9, 2015

It has always been a Choice


Isaiah 53:10-12

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

This is such an important message God the Father was willing to crush His Son, His only Son, so that you and I could have the choice of redemption.  The Holman Study Bible on page 1211 has this to say on verses 10-11, “That God was pleased to crush the Servant sounds mean-spirited, but His pleasure is explained by the fact that the Servant’s suffering will justify many.  What seems harsh will turn out to be gracious.  The Servant’s pain, suffering, and death will function like a restitution offering (Lv 5:14-6:7; 7:1-10) – a sacrifice offered when there was a “transgression against the sacred things of the Lord” (Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, p. 99).  The sin of God’s people was such a transgression.

For years the enemy would say in a voice that sounded much like my own, “Bob Jesus is God, and Jesus did this not as a man but as God,” it was not true, for we are told that Jesus the God man never acted as God while in the flesh but went to the Father for everything.  He was without fault as a man, He was pure and yet as man God the Father took His full fury of sin out on His Son, the Servant, Isaiah is telling us about.  Many a person has been crucified but none of them for the sins of the world.  This is made clear to us in Ephesians 1:7-10, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

The crucifixion without the resurrection leaves no hope, a dead Servant but no Redeemer, no Salvation.  Or as stated in 1Corinthians 15:13, But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.”  In fact, the apostle Paul goes on to state in verse 17, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”  I am so glad Paul does not leave us with that as the last word, but in verse 22 states the following; “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”  It comes down to this, will you choose life or death?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

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