For if when
we were enemies
we were reconciled
to God through
the death
of His Son,
much more, having
been reconciled,
we shall be
saved by His life.
Romans 5:10
For He made Him
who knew no sin
to be sin for us,
that we might
become the
righteousness of God
in Him.
2Corinthians 5:21
There is no common sense to be arrived at when a person seeks to rationalize that God, the Father, would send into a virgin His Wisdom, the Word of God so that man who was liable to death due to the corruption of his nature, would come and die upon a cross. It is true, Jesus Christ surrendered His body to death instead of man. That which man could not do for himself, for it was impossible for man to do so because of their being totally depraved, to have paid for them, this death of sin, by means of the offering of Jesus' body on the cross; it is unfathomable. We try to make sense out of this and fall far short of any answer other than what the Scriptures teach us. This God did for His sheer love of us, that in the death of His Only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the One who had the authority to do for His creation who had no power to help themselves, He abolished the Law of death. We can, those who are His children, rejoice and give God our worship because He tempered His justice by His Grace and Mercy. It is not that His justice would be satisfied, and that all that He stated would occur, that is death, He placed into that virgin Mary, Himself, the Wisdom of God that through this ignoble death all might die and this He did so that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption. He would make death disappear from men. On judgment day death will be thrown into the Lake of Fire: "The Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. this is the second death. And anyone not found written in the book of Life was cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:14-15).
The Word of God seeing that corruption could not be gotten rid of other than through death and that possibility could not exist in Him as He was immortal, and the Father's Son; he could not die. You may be somewhat confused as it may seem that we are speaking of two separate individuals. I am not: Jesus is God, yet He is a separate Person in the Godhead. Let me take just a moment to help clarify this fact. An example: Are not your thoughts separate from your person inasmuch as you can think one thing and do another with your body? Cannot you have a power that is part and parcel of you yet be something separate as in person from you and be as your thoughts are all the essence of yourself? Wisdom is part of you and is all of you in essence yet so often it goes against the grain of what you do. It is separate in that fact but has not become something different as if it was totally a separate thing from yourself. It is of no effort for God, as the Father to cloth His Wisdom in the body of a human, and to place that Wisdom in the womb of a virgin. Wisdom was not separate from the Godhead, yet as a separate Person operating as a second Person, He was given a human body so that the justice of God, by means of God's mercy and grace, to come and die for all of God's children. Therefore, it was God, the Second Person of God, Wisdom, the Word of God, the Son of God, from all moment in time existed and came to this earth, that which He created to assume a body that was capable of death. That which as the Wisdom of God, immortal and incapable of death He was now able to accomplish. A human body was needed to pay this debt of transgression. No other body had the right to die for man. Only the body belonging to the creator, the One who had to have justice served, that God could not be in contradiction to His Own Law. With this body there would be a sufficient exchange for all, all that God would draw and enable to be able to choose Him and be saved from this Law of Death. This body itself must be incorruptible through His dwelling on this earth that this death of a human body in exchange for the justice demanded by God so that there would be an end to corruption. This would occur by the grace of God through the resurrection.
Why could it not be another creation such as an angel or another man? This body needed to be free from every stain. There could be no possibility that this offering would have the possibility to choose another manner, another way, and not do what God the Father had purposed: to save His children. So by means of this body, the Wisdom, the Word of God, the Son of God, being placed in the womb of Mary the virgin He would abolish death for His human brethren. This was the equivalent needed. The Word of God was above all things, as God this is true so that when He offered His Own body as a temple and instrument so that it would suffice as a substitute for the life of all His children, then by His death He fulfilled all that was required.
Let this Scripture be to you a wake up call so to speak for Jesus did not just come and die so that we could have a free pass into heaven because God chose you before the foundation of the world. No! We have work to do in ourselves so that our nature having been renewed is yet in need of sanctification and causes us to live for Him: "For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge this: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again" (2Corinthians 5:14-15). We live as though this is the only life we have; that this life is our happiness, that we should find our happiness in this life. In fact we forget that this life is temporal, that there is an eternity ahead, an eternity with God, therefore we should be compelled to live for Him. We hang on to such things that are only temporal, such as our jobs, our homes, our cars, the accessories that we have come to believe to be necessary, that we have forgotten that this is not our home and as that old gospel hymn so aptly states: "This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through, my treasure is laid up somewhere in the blue..." Is this how you live? Do you see this life as temporary? You better for no one, at least I know of anyone other than Jesus Christ that has died and come back to life. Death reigns and anyone who is alive knows that this is a fact. What if all you own, this is a fiction for unless we paid cash that is not borrowed, such as a loan company, or bank, we do not own our cars, or homes, or computers, etc, they are on a rent to own contract. If you don't believe me, stop paying for them and see how soon the collectors come and take it all away. Will you, this is the question, live for God if all was taken away? Did Jesus Christ die for you? Did not God plan this salvation before you were even born? It is grace and mercy that has been given by God to all who will believe and this not of yourself for it is a free gift: "But the free gift s not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, muchmore the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many" (Romans 5:15). Paul now adds: And having beset free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness" (Romans 6:18). Jesus came in the manner that He did so that we might be set free from sin, and the Law of Death. This being so ought we not to live as if it was so? When we do not live according to His Word than all we are doing is becoming a practical atheist; we have put our desires above God and dehumanized the work of the cross. May this not be true of you, and if so, that you turn, repent and live for Him, no matter what, no matter how tested you faith may have to endure, if you truly believe on the propitiation of Jesus for your sins, this is what you will do. (Me too!!).
For I delight in
the Law of God
according to the
inward man.
Romans 7:22
May Your Feet Be Beautiful Of Peace
Richard L. Crumb
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