So many Christians and churches today are being carried away with various opinions about what the purpose of the Church and the message of the Gospel is. I would offer that the Gospel is clearly seen from Scripture and beings from the Fall itself. The problem that the Gospel addresses (the bad news) is not social discord, injustice, the state of the environment, or war. These are all symptoms of the problem, but not the problem itself.
The problem (bad news) to which the Gospel speaks, is the problem of sin; that man is spiritually dead and can do no good toward God. Since the fall, man has been separated from his Creator and is at enmity with the very One he was created to commune with. The Gospel speaks of atonement in Christ alone for the sin that has created this gulf.
This very message was clearly demonstrated in the first act of God after the Fall. He slays animals to cover the nakedness (shame of sinfulness) of the man and the woman. The leaves were not enough, not sufficient, because there was no shedding of blood involved. And it was not that the animal's blood itself atoned for the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, but it represented the Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent by His bruised heel.
Even the second generation of humanity demonstrates the centrality of a bloody substitutionary atonement for sin. Abel's sacrifice was accepted because it followed the model God has established and pointed toward the future Redeemer. The offering of the fruit of the ground was not sufficient. And now, in Christ, we have a better word spoken to us than the blood of Abel because the atonement for sin is complete and finished in Christ.
With great confusion and lack of clarity for the central message and essence of the Gospel, one can examine the first four chapters of the Bible. Here we find the necessity for blood, for sacrifice, for substitution, and the great promise of the Redeemer who has sealed our redemption by His shed blood in our place.
1 comment:
Very good insight Josh. To see the comparison of God and man in the fall and how atonement is really central. Man sins and attempts to cover himself and his sin, but when confronted with the holiness of God he hides himself afraid and shamed with his sin. Man made the fig leaves but God is the one who provided them the covering through the shedding of blood. That is crucial to the arument in Hebrews as it cries out the need for a Mediator between God and man & that Mediator throughout the OT points to Christ.
Post a Comment