The Judgment

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. (Hebrews 09:27-28, NKJV).

There is nothing more repugnant to fallen human nature than the thought of final judgment. And there is nothing more inevitable, regardless of all the protestations, railings and blasphemous objections. To be brought before a superior authority and evaluated solely on the basis of our performance is the guaranteed climax of every human life. And without Christ it is equally guaranteed to go badly. Very badly.

Further, the Bible slams the door on the doctrine of reincarnation as a hope for second chances, as explicitly stated here: it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.

A personal Judgment Day is a concept embedded in the very fiber of our being. Every known culture has its particular version written large in mythology, archetypal stories, and societal expectations. It is as human as an opposable thumb. 

It was put in our existential fabric by God Himself, as an act of both warning and mercy. We can attempt to deny it; by rebellion, try to purge it from our thinking, or we can do our best to attempt to "buy off" the judge by temporally bargaining against an eternal outcome. But it is a futile tactic doomed to failure.

Every word, every deed, every thought will undergo judgment in the fiery eyes of Christ, and nothing will escape notice. Every thought and intent of the heart will be brought to light. Nothing will remain hidden.

This should terrify every defendant (and we are all defendants), but in the majority of the cases, either because the outcome is so unthinkable, or the necessary submission to a higher authority is so repulsive, the modern strategy is to proclaim disbelief.

It doesn't work, though, especially in the "wee hours of the morning", alone, sleepless, steeped in guilt. We know, we just know, that judgment is coming, and for those who are not in Christ, whether they profess belief or not, the anxiety is virtually unbearable.

The "head in the sand" remedies abound. Compulsive eating, drinking, promiscuity, denial, outbursts of wrath, or any other profligate activity that distracts from the core revelation will do, as long as the thought, and attendant feelings, that "the judgment is coming" is, at least temporarily, overlaid.

Yet, as mentioned, this inherent, indomitable guilt is both mercy and culpatory evidence.

Mercy because it inflicts us with unease and motivates us, perhaps, to seek expiation.

Culpatory because even within our own God-bequeathed conscience we know we are inexcusably guilty.

Ignored, this double-edged impetus eventually diminishes in power and influence until our conscience is seared beyond any sensitivity, and we find ourselves saying or doing things that would previously have been unthinkable.

In the end, if left untreated, the patient not only dies,  but enters into eternity defiled with guilt and iniquity.

At that point, there descends upon that immortal soul an infinite weight of hopelessness and despair. All that was possible before death - repentance, coming to real faith in Christ, forgiveness - becomes utterly impossible.

This stiletto-sharp warning in Hebrews is meant for those who have yet to admit their own sinfulness. It is especially directed at those who mistakenly consider themselves righteous before God. For know this, without receiving Christ as your Savior (truly and sincerely):

…“There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18, NKJV).

Once at the End of the Ages

Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another-- He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 09:23-26, NKJV).

Evolutionists and Old-Earth advocates divide earthly history into epochs, ages, and eras.

So does Scripture, except the stratigraphic criteria is vastly different. The former focus on the physical, attempting to interpret geographic and radiometric data according to preconceived notions of how things "really are".

The latter does so based on infallible revelation provided by the Manufacturer, whose focus is on the spiritual, and who has the distinct advantage of being eternal and transcendent, outside of both time and space, from where He is the indisputable cause of both.

From that divine perspective, the division of history is both simultaneously simpler, and infinitely more profound. It boils down to four eons, from Creation to Christ's First Coming, from His Ascension to His Visible Return, Christ's Millennial Kingdom, followed by Eternity, also called "The Age to Come".

As you can see, the demarcation lines are all Christo-centric, eminently fitting since He is the agent of Creation, the Redeemer of the Fall, the King of Kings, and the Son of God. To believe this is to believe the gospel in its deepest and most satisfying form. 

Deep because it takes all the treasures of God's Word for what it purports to be, revealed Truth, and satisfying, because it answers the most ancient cry of the bereaved human heart: How long O Lord?

Everything in Hebrews is meant as encouragement to understand the superiority of Christ - He is superior to angels, to Moses, to Joshua, to the ancient priesthood of Israel, and especially to the temporary atoning animal sacrifices established by the Law to foreshadow that one, ultimate cleansing sacrifice of the Son of God.

His death, much more than His birth, is the single most significant event in time and space. By coming to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, He purged our sins once, for all, and made available the undoing of the devastation of our specie's rebellion against the Creator.

This occurred in what the Bible terms the fullness of time, and here as the end of the ages. And its efficacy was such that it need never be repeated. In fact, any attempt on our part to add to the atoning power of that single unique act is, at bottom, a declaration of unbelief.

Make no mistake, until His death on the Cross, the ongoing and repeated Temple sacrifices were necessary to comply with God's decrees. Without them, the nation of Israel would have suffered severe temporal judgment, a result clearly understood by the people and the religious authorities for all their long history prior to Jesus' Incarnation as the Suffering Servant.

But after His death, these same foreshadowing rituals were fulfilled and rendered redemptively obsolete for all time. Christ once at the end of the ages… appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

What does that mean for those of us who have been born since that fateful day in Judea?

It means that there is only one approach to God, and that is through complete dependence on His Son's terrible, yet glorious, work on the Cross.

We can not save ourselves. Nor can we add to His righteousness by our own works.

Indeed, if there is any act that humans can undertake besides complete faith in His singular sacrifice, than Christ's death would have been unnecessary.

To even contemplate this is utter blasphemy.

We are either made clean by trusting in His sacrifice alone, or we are still dead in our trespasses and sins.

Nothing else - nothing else - will suffice.

This does not mean that we are not to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Nor does it mean that we are to avoid those good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

No, it signifies something far more difficult than either of those alternatives: humble, sincere, loving service to God, rather than easily disguised self-service.

Sometimes this service requires us to forgo earthly pleasure, or even earthly life itself.

Always it requires casting aside all the hypocrisy of self-righteousness, and outward, superficial obedience, and surrendering to His rightful sovereignty over each moment we live and breath we take.

But it starts with simple faith in Him, and finishes with faith in Him. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17, NKJV).

And it is by His empowerment that we do this, not our own prideful striving, for it is ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the LORD of hosts.

In short, it all begins and ends in Him, who, at the precise preordained moment in time, in grace, mercy, love and filial obedience to the Father, went to the Cross to put away sin, once, for all.

The Presence of God for Us

Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another-- He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 09:23-26, NKJV).

All of Creation, Heaven and earth, was twisted and cursed at the Fall. Mankind's rebellion disqualified him from being in the presence of God, and in some unfathomable way, sullied all of existence.

We are shown by this the importance we have to God. We are perhaps the primary reason why God created things and beings that were other than Himself in the first place.

So, because of us, the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs until now. This makes sense if it was all made for us.

The priesthood of Israel was established to symbolize the way back into God's presence - through the shedding of blood for purification from sin. This powerful paradigm offends our modern sensibilities precisely because of its primitive rawness. Pools and splatters of cleansing blood are not easily ignored.

But even more offensive is the idea that only sacrifice of the innocent can somehow remediate the break in fellowship between man and God. It seems unfair that the guiltless should be required to pay the blood-debt of the guilty. Such a system automatically undermines our "natural" sense of self worth because it speaks loudly of our culpability. And after all, whatever did all those poor innocent animals do to deserve such a brutal end? Barbarous! 

Yes we are. How else would you describe a sentient species that itself sacrificed all that was glorious and good for the sake of enacting the impossibly futile statement of "my will, not Thy will"?

And that is the point. Sin and its result are just exactly that: barbarous. Having forfeited unfettered access to God, having been rightfully exiled from His pure and holy presence, declares plainly that we are unworthy. And cruel.

And it's not just us. Our sin makes everything else that was made for us unclean, as well. Even Heaven. All of it, every last corner of everything, must be purified in order for that Creator-creature relationship to be restored. It is that, or utter separation from His presence for all eternity - a fate we call Hell.

That needed purification is what Christ accomplished by His death on the Cross. The Book of Hebrews rams this point home unequivocally, over and over again, to both declare the magnificence of Christ's work, and decry the barbarous nature of our sin. While it will always be a noble and heroic picture of the Lord, it will also remain forever a testament to our helplessly depraved self-will.

Having everything, we chucked it away through an insanely toxic act of self-aggrandizement, and by doing so, we cast ourselves from the very source of Life: the presence of God.

Thus, in anticipation of that single momentous restorative death, animal sacrifices were established to provide for mankind an unforgettable picture of how far the Fall took us. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these all during that long period of grace and mercy whereby God allowed sinners to be born and come to repentant faith in His Son's future sacrifice.

In going steadfastly to the Cross, Christ also accomplished much more than the cleansing of our souls. He also began the restoration of that realm that will be our eternal home. Those heavenly things themselves [were purified] with better sacrifices than [their earthly symbolic counterparts], by our Great High Priest entering that heavenly holy place and sprinkling His own purifying blood. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God… for us.

Beloved, do not overlook that. Christ did what He did... for us.

If you stumble at the thought that the universe was made for our delight, to render back to God our adoration and praise for His power and wisdom and love, then consider how much more He did to enable us to re-enter His presence. He sent His magnificent, worthy, and innocent Son to die.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8, NKJV).

When the Lord Breaks You Down

And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 01:21, NKJV).

Pain is personal and concrete.

As C.S. Lewis wrote a generation ago, there is no such thing as a sum total of pain, no matter how many individuals are suffering, each suffers only their own, and not another's agony. There is no one being who suffers additive pain. There is perhaps one exception to this law, and that is God Himself, but we don't know that for sure, and perhaps never will.

What we do know is that theory and philosophy, generalities and nuance, are all annihilated in the fiery furnace of one's own pain.

Pain is ultimately inexorable.

No matter what form it takes, physical, emotional, or spiritual, it is a thing - an experience - of substance that can transform everything about a person's life. It can do this slowly, or at the speed of light. It can be expected, or assail us like a thief in the night. In the end, pain wins.

The minions of pain - disease, injury and loss - can be perceived a mile away, or emerge explosively from ambush. The attacks can come in brief breath-taking (literally) episodes, or lay siege to us like a well-equipped army around the walled-city of our mind and body.

Again C.S. Lewis from The Problem of Pain: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world… [Pain] removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul… Tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless… Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself…Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness… Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal… God has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense."

Some of the most poignant, tragically bereft, and heart-stoppingly flawed heroes of Scripture knew all about being broken by the Lord of Heaven. 

For make no mistake, God takes full responsibility for everything that happens in the life of every one of His creatures, especially the agony of life in this fallen world. And we are all, every one of us, most emphatically, His creatures. 

He may not be the author of every event, in the sense of being the instigator, but He makes no bones about being accountable for allowing these to happen, and often, more often than we might like, micromanaging each excruciating detail.

It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17, NKJV).

Adam, Abel, Noah, Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ruth, Esther, Naomi, David and Mary are just a few of God's beloved who were refined in the crucible of pain. Adam forfeited Paradise, Abel lost his life to fratricide, Noah his world, Job his children, prosperity, and health, Ruth her home, Esther her royalty, David his kingdom, and Mary, the love of her life.

That pain serves a divine purpose is a conviction of the deepest faith in the child of God. That very conviction is what gives Christians hope and meaning even in the deepest well of the most prolonged agony, and makes our suffering absolutely distinct from the world's suffering.

But pain still hurts, sometimes so profoundly that we cry out in helpless wonder and horror at our having to abide even a nanosecond of what can befall us.

And of all the pain in the world's vast inventory of that which hurts, perhaps the pain of grief is the worst.

And it is in this, above all else, where Christ reveals just how much a Savior He is, for His death - His and the Father's unspeakable loss - gives us that sustaining hope of impossible reunion.

I do not pretend to fully understand the will of my Father in Heaven. I do not comprehend why a beloved child must suffer and die, or why a man or woman in the prime of life must meet a tragic end, or why, after a long and faithful life, a godly elder must fade away in the ignominy of senility. And a life lived, however long or brief, in chronic pain or disability is beyond my tolerance to even contemplate.

But neither do I fully understand the blessings of eternal reward in a realm of unimaginable satisfaction in that existence we are promised in the life to come.

But this I do know, that my Lord is good and loves me with an everlasting love. He has shown me His mercy and grace more often than I can number, even though I know beyond doubt that I deserved not even the least of one of His gifts. And this knowledge, if not strength or noble stoicism,  gives me an escape from utter despair, and enables me to crawl, however falteringly, into the light of His hope. Thus,

...brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4, NKJV). 

Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. (James 5:11, NKJV).

And I know this, as well, that there will be a time and a place of safety for us. 

“And God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4, NKJV).

Blood and Remission

For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives. Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. (Hebrews 09:16-22, NKJV).

Death and blood are mentioned more than a 1000 times in the Old and New Testaments. The Bible is a blood-soaked book precisely because it deals frankly with human history, human nature, sin, and salvation. It could be no other way, and this offends many people.

It was meant to.

Jesus Himself said that the gospel is an offense to the Gentiles and a stumbling-block to the Jews.

Gentiles (those not Jewish by birth or culture) are offended largely as a matter of pride. How dare God deem that His displeasure toward us can only be remedied with the shedding of blood. How dare He judge our behavior as worthy of death. In short, how dare He pronounce any judgment whatsoever upon vaunted humanity. Who does He think He is?

To the Jews, more acclimated to the idea of blood sacrifice as propitiation for God's righteous wrath against sin, the gospel was offensive because it took this divine condemnation an infinitely greater step forward, declaring that not only was sin blood-worthy, but for it to paid for once and for all, God Himself had to die.

This too was intended by God from the beginning, a fact made clear by the dual pervasive messages proclaimed in the Old Testament regarding God being the only Savior, and blood being the only currency of salvation.

As a rebellious race of created beings, we humans are indescribably arrogant in our self-centeredness and delusions of worth. We are born with the default potential and tendency to believe that we are something apart from God. It is part of our inheritance through our fallen forefather, Adam.

We don't want to agree with God about much of anything, but especially with His evaluation of who and what we really are, and with what needed to be done in order to make us acceptable in His sight.

Everything about the gospel of Christ shouts to us that we are helpless and hopeless and condemned. It is a fire of humiliation meant to stoke us into repentance, or burn us in Hell. It announces our inability and disability for the whole Universe to see, and then casts us even further into abject shame, because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Repeatedly, God revealed to His Chosen People that the life in the the blood. Since He is the creator of all life, the blood is His, and without that life's blood being shed, there is no remission of sin. This is true because the soul that sins must die, for the wages of sin is death.

That word remission has such a profound connotation, especially in regard to an otherwise fatal affliction, and that too is intentional.

How parochial! How regressive! How indomitably primitive! How utterly ridiculous that some "sky god" would make such a pronouncement, and how unbelievable that any thinking person would swallow the premise whole!

That is the unregenerate human reaction, in itself a declaration of war against God. In itself, another fatal self-indictment.

Nevertheless, there is something unavoidably compelling about bloodshed. Deep in our inherent makeup we know beyond doubt that it is powerfully significant. 

Most of us are repulsed by the sight, some to the point of sickness or fainting. Others are revoltingly fascinated by it, experiencing something akin to a twisted and perverse passion. And yet, over time and repeated exposure, still others condition themselves against any strong reaction at all, but by doing so they develop callouses on their souls.

God, in His infinite wisdom and compassion, has painted the picture of both our depravity and our salvation on a sweeping canvass depicting a raging sea of deep red blood, impossible to ignore.

He meant to.

Even the ancient ritual of sprinkling the blood of innocent animals using scarlet wool and hyssop foreshadowed the horridly compelling and momentous murder of God's Son on the Cross.

All for one purpose: to lead us from the blackness of darkness forever into the wondrous light of the Kingdom of His love.

God is a consuming fire unless we are purified with blood - the blood of our Magnificent Savior that washes us from all unrighteousness.

Offense is what it was designed to be, so we would take notice.

Offense is what it was designed to be, so that by taking notice we would choose, much like Adam and Eve had to choose, to either humbly accept and embrace the offense by an act of repentant faith, or go pridefully, and screaming our arrogant defiance, into the deepest pit of Hell.

For without shedding of blood there is no remission.

By Means of Death

And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 09:15, NKJV).

In Romans, the Apostle Paul writes this:

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7, 8, NKJV).

When I come face to face with the realization that I needed someone to die for me so that I might live, it undermines any illusion I might harbor about my personal worthiness. That is a good thing.

When I further understand that the Someone in view is the perfect and righteous Son of God, who knew no sin, and came to this planet precisely for the purpose of saving me, it emphasizes the truth about my helplessness and Christ's unspeakable heroism.

It is by means of death, His death, that I am redeemed from my transgressions against God's perfect Law, and through that redemption I become eligible to receive eternal life. It is not mine by anything other than inheritance, a beneficiary of Christ's Last Will and Testament - the New Covenant in His blood. It is certainly not mine by anything I have done other than heed the call, the invitation, to believe.

And it is only by inheritance that I could receive it, since I could never earn such a treasure, nor could anyone but He, who has been granted authority over all flesh, bequeath it to me.

Like any other Will and Testament, the testator - the author of it, had to both own what is being handed down, and had to die in order for the provisions to take effect.

So, my Savior had to die. For me.

His death was not of natural causes, nor was it in any way untimely. It was a deliberate act of sinful men according to the preordained counsel and foreknowledge of God.

Unlike human material inheritance, what is mine by Christ's death is more like genetic inheritance than anything else - it determines who I become. It changes who I would have been otherwise. It gives me His likeness, and empowers me to take on His traits and character. It changes me fundamentally and forever.

But like human inheritance, I can do nothing to forfeit this gift, or be disqualified as a recipient, because it is unconditionally mine by means of His death. There is a finality to the bequeathment that is irreversible because, in that legal sense of inheritance, His qualifying death is irreversible. 

The only thing that will prevent me from appropriating my inheritance is my willful rejection of the offer. I can refuse it, but if I sincerely receive it, I can't lose it, nor can it be taken from me.

No matter who I am or what I have done.

And in receiving my eternal inheritance, I am necessarily transformed by it. Who I was before receipt is very different from who I become afterward, and that transformation involves yet another death - my old sinful self. That part of me the Bible calls the natural man.

Thus, by means of death I am made alive, a new man, a new creation. I am no longer a son of Adam, but a son of God by faith. I am born again into a new family.

This is the greatest example I can conceive of God working all things together for good; even the most egregious enemy - death itself.

Without Christ, human death is entry not into annihilation, but into a horrific realm as far from God, and therefore as far from all that is good, as it is possible to be.

With Christ, through belief in Christ, human death is entry into His presence, and into a place prepared especially for my everlasting joy.

But make no mistake, the gift was not free. It cost God the life of His Son.

The God-Man

Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. (Romans 01:01-04, NKJV).

The strangest thing about Jesus is that He is both fully human and fully God. He is, and was, and will forever be, God - with no beginning or end, the Great I AM, all-powerful, all-knowing, in perfect and eternal loving relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He exists because He exists, and everything we know and think of exists because of Him. 

But the unexpected thing about Him, the surprise of all surprises, was that this Second Person of the Holy Trinity did something just for us that was more remarkable than we can really wrap our tiny brains around: He took on an additional nature - a human nature - and became a Man.

And from that momentous point in time onward, He is forever the God-Man.

Right now, there is a Man - our King - on the Throne of Heaven awaiting the Father's command to return to earth and first judge, and then set up His Kingdom from the ancient city, Jerusalem.

The Bible tells us this is true and what will happen, and most of the world knows something huge and important is coming but they don't really want to believe it because they don't know who Jesus is, and they want to rule themselves. They don't want to have to answer to God, or have Him in authority over them, and underneath all the other ugly, horrible things about sin, that is the root cause of it.

It doesn't matter though, because Christ, the Son of David and the Son of God, is returning regardless of how the world thinks or feels about it.

He has waited this long because when He was born as a human, and grew up to be an adult 2000 years ago, He did something even more amazing and wonderful than becoming a human - He died on the Cross in our place. 

He took the punishment of sin on Himself so that we would be spared, and that is what saved us because His sinless death paid the devastating and eternal penalty for our sin. And He is waiting for all those who will believe to be born and come to faith. Then He is coming back.

Without the Crucifixion, the rest of humanity before and after His death, could never escape punishment. And because God planned before even time began that this would be how we are saved, everyone who died before and after Jesus believing in God's promise of a Savior, is declared innocent and can enter Heaven because of the Cross.

Jesus proved all this to be true by not only being born and dying, but by His resurrection from the dead.

You see, death came into the world through Adam's rebellion in the Garden of Eden. And from that moment on, all of Adam's descendant's (everyone alive since then - except Jesus) were born in sin, and instead of living forever as God intended, they were doomed to die after their puny and troublesome life on this earth was done.

Not only that, but everything else bad that happens in life - pain, sorrow, aging - can be laid at Adam's feet because Adam, by sinning, decided that he, rather than God, was in charge. Adam could not save himself. Or us.

And as in Adam, all men must die and suffer in Hell, so in Christ, all who believe must live in Heaven with God and each other. For now though, until Christ returns, our bodies die, but our souls escape Hell and go to be with Jesus. If we believe in Him.

In some ways, it seems almost too simple to be true, but that's only because we don't really understand how horrible sin is, and how miraculous and loving Christ is. But one thing is certain - if we were not all in Adam when He sinned, we could not all be in Christ when He paid for our sin. We would have to pay the penalty ourselves, and because He was without sin, death could not keep Him.

It would keep us though, forever, just as it will keep all those who breathe their last in unbelief.

That's why Paul writes what He does, reminding us thick-headed humans that without faith in the God-Man, there is no hope. It would be much better never to have been born at all.

But because of Him, by faith in Him, this Son of David and Son of God, becomes our Lord and our Savior.

And He proved it by what He said and did, and most of all by that Empty Tomb.

To Serve the Living God

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 09:13-14, NKJV).

Dead gods abound. The gods of wealth and youth, of power and prestige, of renown and influence. These are dead gods by their very nature - they leech life rather than give it. And in the end they are as ephemeral as snow flakes in the heat of the sun.

Yet, all of human history is a corporate chronicle of two diametrically opposed pursuits: the false idols of this fallen world versus the true and living God.

Without miraculous intervention, the human heart is doomed to seek that which appears alive and meaningful, but is merely a thinly disguised tomb full of decay and dead men's bones.

Christ came to die so that the door to life could be opened, once for all. His entire purpose was to provide a means of escape from our default destiny of eternal darkness. That He had to suffer on the Cross to accomplish this speaks of His unutterable love and our utter depravity.

He offered Himself in our place, taking upon Himself the accusations and punishment of our offenses so that we could be cleansed of our unrighteousness and become pure in Him.

But He doesn't just wash us clean if we let Him, He goes far beyond that by inculcating His nature into us, and providing us with the power, ability, and prerequisites to achieve the greatest avocation conceivable - service to an infinite, perfect, good, righteous, powerful, loving and living God.

This vocation is all mercy and grace on His part. He in no way needs our service, just as He does not need our worship, adoration and devotion. He desires us to have and do these things not for Him, but for us.

It's a simple equation really. He, being fully aware of His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, His godhood and power, and self-existing as the very definition of right and good - He made us for Him. He, being who and what He is, is the greatest reward we could possibly receive, and He has offered that reward as a gift, and enabled us as free moral agents to choose to accept or reject that gift.

Knowing ahead of time that our Creation would result in rebellion, and that our redemption would cost the excruciating death of the priceless human incarnation of the second person of the Trinity - His eternal Son - the Father in perfect cooperation with the Son and the Holy Spirit, created us anyway.

It is impossible for me to fully express in words alone what service to Him means. I can point to the magnificent glory of creation, the vast and intricate complexity of the material universe and say, "See! He made that for us."

I can paint a picture of the transformational love possible between husband and wife, and between parents and children and say, "See! This is for us, as well."

I can allude to the glories of eternal life in a new, immeasurably superior earth and heaven, in intimate fellowship with Christ and each other and say, "See! This is the everlasting home and family He has lovingly and painstakingly prepared for us, adopting us into His household, not because of us, but because of His beauty and goodness."

But these, while real and true, are mere pictures and hints at what it means to serve Him.

In the end, all that can be said is that we were made for Him, to delight in Him, to be with Him, to glory in His unspeakable goodness, and when we, through His grace, achieve that goal by believing in His Son, our life will forever afterward be fulfilled in increasingly profound and wondrous ways that “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9, NKJV).

To serve the living God is the opposite of pain and death. It is the opposite of sorrow and loss. It is the opposite of being enslaved by sin and fear. It is, instead, the restoration of all things.

In Christ, all things become new and nothing is lost.

All for us.

Cleanse Your Conscience

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 09:13-14, NKJV).

Anxiety and guilt are closely related, but originate from different sources.

In a certain sense anxiety is amoral, or at least morally neutral. It just is, however painful it may be, and while it is often due to lack of faith, it is not necessarily the direct result of some sin.

Guilt is inescapably moral. Guilt is the function of that God-given part of the mind, called the conscience, that inflicts you with unease or shame when you go wrong. The conscience has gotten a bad reputation over the last 150 years, starting with the advent of Freudian psychology and culminating in modern modes of therapy founded on the propagation of self-esteem. 

The product of the conscience, guilt, has been relegated to the ash heap of culture. It has become the first casualty of the feel-good epidemic that has wiped out the absolutes of morality (the "you shall nots" of the Ten Commandments), and replaced them with puff and situational vapor. 

Guilt has been relabeled Toxic Shame, and like all sustained and appealing marketing efforts, this propaganda effort has rebranded a once venerable commodity into something worthy of manufacturer recall. Inflicting guilt under all circumstances is now a thought crime. In the near future, I suspect it will become an actually crime, especially when perpetrated against someone who is actually guilty of some tangible crime.

Unless, of course, the alleged perpetrator is a conspicuous Christian, then he or she will be deemed GUILTY no matter what.

Such is the way of the world for now, but try as it might, grit its teeth and strain as mightily as possible, the world will not ever completely eliminate conscience, nor its progeny, guilt. They are part of our original equipment, like personhood and intestines.

Even before God codified His moral laws to the Children of Israel, He gifted fallen man with a conscience. It is our inbuilt moral sensor that sends a jolt of perception to even the most hard-hearted miscreant that SOMETHING IS WRONG. The message can be subverted, the conscience can be seared into virtual disfunction, but the underlying framework of guilt generation remains. Thank God.

Because at some point, if a human heart is sufficiently softened by life or love (a work of the Holy Spirit), then it is the conscience that will relentlessly drive a man, woman or child to seek its cleansing.

And the only effective solvent is forgiveness.

This is a hard nut to crack in the modern world. We have been conditioned by the culture, education, our intellectual betters, and our own flesh, to pretend we are accountable to no one morally except ourselves. This, despite being a guaranteed recipe for societal disaster, is the snake oil we have imbibed almost since birth. And it makes the work of the conscience that much harder.

But when it does start to work, the torment of a guilty conscience can be intense. Thank God again. At full force, it drives us to seek some kind of remedy, some kind of guilt-easement. We can "try to make up for things", or "attempt restitution", or "begin to tip the scales so that our good works outweigh our bad". 

In fact, it is quite common in the annals of human history to discover a person who has gone from practicing demonic evil to selfless philanthropy - from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll. I wonder how many Nazi Death Camp doctors became angels of mercy after World War Two? Probably more than we know.

But in the end, despite Herculean human effort, the guilty conscience remains stained and smelly because there is only one means of true cleansing - forgiveness. And the only true forgiveness is from God, because it is against Him and Him only that we sin. Yes, others are damaged and hurt by our sin, sometimes whole nations, but it is the Holy God Himself, the Eternal Lawgiver, who is the sole target of our sin.

We know this inherently, like we know how to breathe or sneeze.

It is only the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, [that can] cleanse your conscience from dead works. It is only through your acceptance of that fact that you can obtain forgiveness, the kind that lifts the burden of guilt from your heart, mind and soul forever.

And while that acceptance may seem too easy, too good to be true, it is, in fact, one of the hardest things a human can do, for it entails the setting aside of ALL thought of self-worth and self-reliance, and acknowledging God's Lordship over your life, and your absolute dependence on Him for everything - especially forgiveness.

Unless you have experienced the lifting of this burden of guilt for yourself, all these are just words, like imagining a new color.

But Christ came to give this world a gift that only He could give for the express purpose of obtaining your forgiveness.

Remember that and praise Him with all your heart.

But it doesn't stop there. Forgiveness is only the miraculous beginning. It is the opening of the door into a life of joy and hope no matter how bleak a future on this earth is before us.

It is the beginning of the greatest vocation imaginable: to serve the living God.

Not of this Creation

But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (Hebrews 09:11-12, NKJV).

For now, Christians are bi-dimensional. Simultaneously, we live in two realities, with two natures, under two very different regimes, operating under two very different sets of rules. 

Alive and active in this world, we are also citizens of the next. We are at war within ourselves - flesh and spirit - and which one is in ascendancy at any given moment is dependent on which one we have been feeding. Our daily lives are immersed in both the natural and supernatural - walking both by sight and faith, navigating between the realms of what is seen, the temporal, and what is not seen, the eternal.

Without a doubt, and due to absolutely no effort or will on our part, we are one of the most interesting creatures in existence.

We do not emerge from the womb this way, of course, but this bi-dimensional dichotomy is a function of being born again, and the entire purpose of our time on this planet is to be fully transformed into beings who are not of this creation.

Not surprisingly, this metamorphosis begins and is sustained by the power of God - the One who is the author and finisher of our faith; the Eternal King who has begun this good work in us and promises to complete it to the end.

This belief, this way of life founded on divinely inspired revelation in conjunction with existential transformation, seems crazy to those who are still citizens of the world. At least that was true for me before I became one myself. At the time it all sounded like so much fantastical gibberish to me, but that is understandable because I was looking at things not of this world through lenses of perception and thought that were.

That's very much like a shortsighted man trying to make sense of something too far off to really see, and the vague shadows and shapes he does perceive appear nothing at all like they are in reality.

The indescribably tragic thing about all this is that the greater realm we are no longer a natural part of was the original sphere in which humans were intended to thrive. 

Our ancestors rebelled and were exiled - an act of mercy since the real penalty was death, not banishment - and ever since then our Creator has done everything necessary and possible to reinstate our citizenship; even sending His own Son to die in our place so that we could be transformed and live in Him.

Again, to those still outside, these truths don't make sense, But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come so that they could make sense, at least to those who were willing to listen. And He came with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, which was, in a very real and tangible sense, His own physical Person. 

In a way not readily comprehensible by earth-bound minds, His Presence as a Man tore open the veil between the merely temporal and created realm, and the uncreated eternal realm of the Creator Himself. And that tearing aside of the barrier was no mere symbolic act, but was accomplished Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood.

Look, there are laws of the material universe that we humans barely comprehend, and there are others, like Quantum Electrodynamics, that our most lofty scientific minds can describe, but cannot admittedly "make sense" of in terms of the underlying reasons and purposes. These rules of materiality just are, from our current perspective.

Will we ever discover and be able to understand the illusive and supposedly elegant physical Law of Everything? That's a question great intellects have been pursuing now, officially, for close to a hundred years, and the more data that is discovered, the more questions emerge.

If that is true of the merely physical realm, why do we think it strange that the same level of mystery exists in that greater realm not of this creation?

We may never know why God's Plan of Salvation had to be played out the way it is in the Bible, certainly not while still barely through the foyer from this realm into the next, but we can know and trust in the results, in the very same way we can know and trust the results of the laws of light, and gravity and nuclear forces.

And the singular, most momentous and significant result of Christ's ministry on our behalf is this: He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

His sacrifice made it possible for each one of us to live forever.

Is it possible to fully understand why that is so? Maybe not in the way you want to, but face it, you really don't understand why the sky is blue, or why the proven and repeatable probability of a single red photon traveling through a given photon-sized pinhole is 4 instead of 16, either. But you can believe it nonetheless.

So the writer of Hebrews provides us with the facts in a way that emphasizes the magnificence of what Jesus did on our behalf. Can you fully understand it? Maybe not in the way you want to.

But you can believe it nonetheless.

And when you do, you are granted citizenship into this other, larger, and more substantial realm that is not of this creation.

Until the Time of Reformation

Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance; the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience-- concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. (Hebrews 09:06-10, NKJV).

The Tabernacle and Temple precincts, its partitions, implements, vessels, and priestly services were highly significant, especially in foreshadowing the saving work of Christ. The passages above deepen that picture, emphasizing the continuous separation between God and sinners, broached only symbolically, and then only through the constant sacrificial shedding of innocent animal blood.

The available access to the sanctuary versus the Holiest of All painted a solemn picture of the drastic break in fellowship between creature and Creator, and the extent to which God went to make at least a temporary reunion possible. Even so, that place designated as God's earthly seat, the Most Holy Place, was barred from entry except when the the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance.

This graphically illustrates the almost inconceivable heinousness of sin, even unintentional sin (sins committed in ignorance). It is akin to a living creature purposely or stupidly denying itself the breath of life, only to have the Giver of life go to extreme lengths to prevent the resulting suicide.

We really have no clue just how bad we are, nor how good God is, and we would remain blinded beyond hope of sight unless the Holy Spirit-inspired Scriptures provided us with the truth about our despicable condition.

The provision of atonement established by the services of the Tabernacle were more intimate than their later counterparts in the Temple, precisely because of their lack of cultural inculcation. It was a new thing for the wandering Children of Israel to be required to ritualistically and routinely slaughter animals for the express purpose of escaping their own just punishment for sin.

By the time of Solomon's Temple, nearly half a millennia later, the symbolism was farther removed from the actuality, and the formal practice of Judaism became, not a humble supplication for mercy, but a supposed work of righteousness in and of itself.

We thick-headed humans do that all the time. We ascribe delusional credit to ceremonial cleanliness as if it were meant to be something more than a ceremony. Rather than expiating sin, the sacrifices were reminders of sin. Every bleeding and bleating lamb, goat, or sheep was a piteous reminder of how far humanity was fallen. But that reality became obscured over time by the very sinfulness it was meant to temporarily cover.

As written in the verses above, there was no actual way to draw near to God. The rituals were billboards indicating that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. As long as their remained a need to be cleansed, true fellowship with God could not be restored. Instead,  [it] was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience-- concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances…

What was required, and what could be made possible only by Christ's once-for-all sacrifice on the Cross, was an inward cleansing; the creation of a new heart, a new nature that could only occur when the way to the Throne of Grace was thrown open by the shedding of the Lord's blood. Without Jesus it was a hopeless Catch-22. Only by drawing close to God could the real transformation take place, but that drawing closer could only be accomplished, not by the covering of sin, but by it being taken away in Christ.

These temporary measures were imposed until the time of reformation, which began to take place with Christ's saving work, and which will continue throughout this present age, individual by individual, until the consummation of this age, and the ushering in of Eternity.

All of it, every single drop in the ocean of blood prior to Christ pictured the need for a Savior.

All of it, every single drop in the ocean of blood prior to Christ pictured the horror of sin and the holiness of God.

All of it, every single drop in the ocean of blood prior to Christ pictured His indescribable love in coming to save us.

The priesthood, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices could never be sufficient to repair the breach between God and sinful man. 

Only God Himself, reaching across that unbridgeable chasm in Christ could restore the relationship. And then only because Christ set His face like flint to go to Jerusalem and took upon Himself the penalty of sin.

For us.