Christ Your Savior

John 1:29 NIV

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

What Should You Do About The Sin in You?

When I was a kid, my friend and I were playing baseball in the back of our elementary school.  Suddenly a large gang of kids surrounded us and as I tried to get away, one of them pulled me off my bike, separating my shoulder and several started punching and kicking me while I was on the ground.  Others beat up my friend and just as quickly as they came, they vanished.  We did not know any of the kids nor did we have any idea why they attacked us.  My shoulder was permanently damaged and both of us were left with lasting memories of what happened to us.  Did it scar us psychologically?  I do not know.  Is the terror we felt that day still etched in our minds and does it impact us today?  I cannot say.  I do know that it was an example of how Sin is present in our world and how we are affected by its universal reach.

I recently watched a movie whose central character was beaten up by his cruel and perverse father when he was young, both his eyes being swollen shut by his dad’s furious fists.  As a result he left home when only a young teen.  How did his father’s sin affect him?  The boy became a thief to stay alive, was sent to prison for killing a man, later cheated on his wife and became an alcoholic who was unable or unwilling to show either of his sons the love they desperately craved of him.  What would you say about this man?  Would you speculate that the sins of the father impacted the later behavior of the son?  Are the sins of our parents passed along to the following generations?  What we now call alcoholism, child abuse, unfaithfulness, broken families and domestic violence is cast in the Bible as Sin, the destructive force that wrecks humanity and the universe.  What impact does one person’s sin have on the lives of others?  More importantly, what should be done to stop the damage sin causes?

Just to see what the Scriptures might have to say about this topic, I did a quick search in the Bible of the phrase, “for their sins”.  It is found seven times in the Old Testament and twice in the New Testament.  The way it is approached in the two parts of the Bible is significantly different.  Here are the verses where “for their sins is found.  In the Old Testament we have the following.  They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. (Leviticus 26:43b NIV) He will repay them for their sins and destroy them for their wickedness; the Lord our God will destroy them. (Psalm 94:23 NIV) I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. (Isaiah 13:11 NIV) See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. (Isaiah 26:21 NIV) So the Lord does not accept them;he will now remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins." (Jeremiah 14:10 NIV) The punishment for their sins rested on their bones, though the terror of these warriors had stalked through the land of the living. (Ezekiel 32:27 NIV) God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins. (Hosea 9:9 NIV)

Do you see the common thread between the verses?  “Their sins” are to be punished!  In each case, the sinners will pay for their sins.  Never is it considered any other way in the Old Testament.  We of course have seen the effect of sin upon individuals, families and society.  We certainly do pay for sins.  There is a degradation of personality, a corruption and degeneration of relationships and damage to our circumstances when sinners sin.  It is the coin of the realm; you pay for your sins one way or another.  Sin wrecks you and damages the lives of others impacted by the sinning.  Of course there is more importantly the eternal component to sin, you pay for it fully when you meet God face to face.  Sin brings its own punishment and God makes sure it hits us squarely.

In the New Testament, there is a dramatic shift in how “for their sins” is addressed.  Only twice is this phrase used in the New Testament, both times in the book of Hebrews.  Unlike the other high priests, he (Jesus) does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (Hebrews 7:27 NIV)  The sinners do not pay for their sinning, Christ offers Himself for the sins of the sinners.  What makes sin, sin is that there is a Law which determines what is right and wrong, a standard that is universal and unbending.  This is the Law that God has established as Lord and Creator of the universe.  It is firmly in place and we are bound by His decision of what is right and wrong.

In the Old Testament we are tied to the Law by its punishment.  We don’t keep the Law, we violate it and so its relationship to us is judge and executioner.  We cannot live up to the Law and eventually the Law destroys us.  With Christ having been crucified, the Law becomes completely different for us. The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming — not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.  If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. (Hebrews 10:1-2 NIV)

Here is a revelation that must be considered carefully.  The Law is a shadow, it is not the actuality of things once Christ was crucified.  The reality before the Cross was that all people were condemned by the Law.  Now it is different.  Christ is Savior and that means He takes away the sin of the world.  The Law which always pointed out our corruption and condemned our soul is not what determines the course of our lives any longer.  It is Christ crucified who now decides now our fate and how we can live.

If Christ were not crucified, then all we could do would be what sin in us determines.  We can only go so far in love and joy and contentment because sin limits it all.  Sin is like a filthy filter that reduces the amount of good that can flow into your life and that can come out of your life and the Law always made it clear you were broken and without hope of being any more than a corrupted and lifeless soul.  But what Jesus did for us was take the sin out of us so that there is now no limit on the goodness and joy we can possess and our effect on others can be just as good as what Jesus brought to each life He encountered.  Heaven is the great society of living souls filled with the vast unlimited supply of love and peace and joy that is found only in God Himself.  You must never think that our Lord died to make you a better form of yourself; one who makes something of his or her life.  No!  He died to put His own life in you and make you into a perfect child of God without fault or blemish.  This cannot be emphasized enough.  The crucified life of Jesus Christ is the new law of your life, Him living through you and putting within you all the joy and holiness and peace and contentment He, Himself possesses.

The Law is no longer your curse and the mirror that reflects back all the bad in you.  It has become the way your life operates with Christ a part of you, taking away from you the damage caused by sin and giving you a standard that corrects your actions and way of thinking.  You do what the Lord tells you to do because that is how you are now made.  It is not due to some external law that has to be kept or some standard that you must approach that drives you but that the Love of Christ Himself has been poured into your heart and through His love, you choose to do what the Lord tells you to do.  …God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5 NIV) You live according to the Law Christ has placed within you and you no longer make sacrifices to do what God tells you to do because you have nothing to sacrifice, it always is just a matter of whether you love God or not and if you do, then whatever He says to do, either through the Scripture or by His prompting of you, you do that very thing.

When you choose to disregard the Law built within you, the Law of Christ living as part of you, you will grow more and more miserable, discontented and disoriented.  Once you do what God tells you to do, His joy gets worked into you a bit more and His peace gets established.  You never again, with your faith in Christ to save you worry about what God will do with you.  That is settled.  He will make you sin free and joined with Him forever.  To enjoy that life with Him, you obey Christ at every turn.  Life is quite simple for you now.  Just do what the Lord tells you to do and everything you care about will fall into place according to God’s plan for you and you can count on this every moment of every day.  God loves you and His love for you is how He decides to treat you.  That is a great comfort regardless of the circumstances you face.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. (1 John 4:16 NIV)

Internal Healing

Depression is not corrected by an ongoing inward exploration of damaged systems within.  We can gaze internally for decades and never get any further than a thousand different psychological wounds that have festered because we keep looking at them and refuse to turn away.  Unlike physical injuries, psychological injuries do not improve with increased concentration upon them.  Whenever Jesus healed, whether it was the lepers or the blind, He did not give them instructions for continued care to the damaged body part.  He made the blind man wash the mud out of his eyes and be done with it, told the lepers to go to the priest and have their clean skin verified by the priest, ordered the paralyzed man to pick up his mat and walk.  All focus was upon the new life that had come, not the old life that had been a plague of sorrow.   The injuries done to the personality are, if they are not physical in nature, the result of Sin and its penetrating corrosive work.  Whether it be the "sins of the fathers" or "the sins of the sons", we cannot say.  Sometimes we are wrecked by the sins we commit, other times it is the sins committed against us that take us apart.  Regardless, it is the Cross of Christ that must be worked into us if the psychological damage caused by Sin is to be worked out of us.  Even the most disturbed among us can be brought into joy by an ever growing trust in God that He is good and His love for us in Christ unceasing.  The simple prayer, "Jesus, you are good and I trust now in your love for me" if voiced again and again during the day will begin, perhaps slowly, to heal our personalities of the harm done to them; not because it is a magical prayer but because it opens us to the touch of Christ at points where we have not before given Him access.  Jesus asked the odd question, "Do you want to get well?" not because He was trying to draw out of the paralyzed man a profound statement of faith but because our Lord will only work in us where we give Him permission and it was not clear that the paralytic was open to God dealing with him.  If we want our personalities to get well, at some point we must take our eyes off the damaged parts of us and look squarely at Jesus and keep our eyes fixed on Him long enough for Christ to enter the inner courts of our personality and make us new.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.              Romans 6:4 NIV

Sin Unbound

We see that there is a deep advantage to being hurt by the badness of people.  It awakens us to just how profound the ramifications of Sin are.  Sin strikes at the core of every relationship we have and impacts every thought we possess.  Sin runs deep into our unconscious and percolates up into our dreams and odd reactions to circumstances...tempers we don't expect, lusts we thought we didn't possess, depressions and anxieties that seem unfounded.  The world is permeated by Sin and the cruelty and rudeness that exists is mind shattering if we give it much thought.  Even school-age children are severely damaged by the prevalence of Sin in the classrooms that we would like to believe are sanctuaries for them.  Thank God He did not close His eyes to the cruelty and corruption of Sin.  Our Lord took it on His own back and wore the brutality of it in His muscles and skin and He absorbed it fully until it was clear, "it is finished".   When we feel the weight of Sin upon us and it's cruelty marks us too, we can at that moment recognize the assignment God has given us to intercede for those about us.  Pray for the ones you see suffering from the agony of Sin induced sorrow and pain.    No heartache or wound is too deep for Jesus Christ to heal and redeem.  No fury is too great for Him to calm and no lust too powerful for Him to tame.  The Cross of Christ brings victory at every point where Sin has had its way.  The Cross is God accepting in Himself each outcome of Sin within His own body and thereby making every sin we commit and face  a broken chain that once bound us but does so no longer.  Sin still wrecks lives and brings misery but Christ Crucified gives the peace and joy of God  entrance into every human heart that looks to Him for salvation.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2 NIV