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Read this verse:
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:25-26
God’s solution to the problem of man’s sin is in the last three words of this verse: Faith in Jesus. But notice how this happens in the verse. God doesn’t solve the problem by just ignoring or winking at our sin. He can’t let sin go unpunished continually. As we saw in the last lesson, that would be contrary to God’s nature.
Instead, Jesus himself takes the just penalty for our sin through his willing sacrifice. He takes the penalty in our place and God counts Jesus’ righteousness as ours. That is the good news of the Gospel.
Do you ever find yourself taking your salvation for granted? Do you get caught up in the everyday occurrences of your daily life and forget about your eternal salvation? This is easy to do because we don’t see, while we are here on earth, the depth of what happens when we are saved.
We don’t comprehend just how lost and in need of God we were. The truth is, our sin had separated us from God by a distance that couldn’t be measured in light-years.
I hope you will understand the following three truths about how you are saved.
Salvation is not by works but by Grace
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.“
If we were able to get to heaven based on something we had done, there would have been no need for Jesus to come, and we would spend all eternity boasting about how well we did it.
Not only do we not do anything upfront to earn God’s salvation, but we also can’t do anything afterward to pay God back. Salvation is a gift graciously given by God.
Salvation is not initiated by us but by God
Salvation is not man reaching up to God, it is God reaching down to man. Romans 5:6, 8 (NCV) says, “When we were unable to help ourselves, at the moment of our need, Christ died for us, although we were living against God… But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.“
You may think that your salvation was your idea, but it was not. God initiated the contact and made forgiveness available to you – before you ever asked. God reaches down to us in the most dramatic and loving way possible.
Jesus came to show us that he is the way to salvation. He paid the ultimate price for our sins. We desperately needed God to give us a way back to him and he did it through Jesus.
Salvation is not an afterthought but God’s Eternal Plan
2 Timothy 1:9 (NLT) says, “It is God who saved us and chose us to live a holy life. He did this not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan long before the world began – to show his love and kindness to us through Christ Jesus.“
God knew before he ever formed Adam from the dust that he would sin and need a way back into a relationship with him. Salvation through Jesus was not God’s plan B. The Old Testament is not an example of a way of salvation that didn’t work. The sacrificial system that you read about in the Old Testament was put in place to look forward to God’s ultimate plan: Salvation through His Son.
Think of it this way: the Old Testament is filled with big bright flashing signs that point the way to Jesus. The sacrificial system is a big flashing neon sign pointing to Jesus. The tabernacle in the wilderness points to Jesus. The Passover lamb, a flashing arrow pointing to Jesus. The words of the prophets all flashing Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Below are seven pictures of your salvation painted with words. Most of these you have heard lots of times, but I’m afraid that they become background noise for those of us who have been in church all our lives. It becomes part of the language that we speak and we forget what it actually means.
I would like you to look at each of these pictures and think about what salvation means. If you have experienced it then this should be a remembrance of what has happened in your heart and life. If you haven’t then I pray that God would draw your heart to himself.
1: Substitution: Jesus died in your place
- The righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18)
- He was made to be sin for you (2 Corinthians 5:21)
- He bore your sin in his body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24)
- He suffered to bear your sin (Hebrews 9:28)
- He was tortured for your sin (Isaiah 53:4-6)
- He was made to be a curse for you (Galatians 3:13)
- He gave himself for you (Galatians 2:20)
2: Justification: Jesus makes you right with God
- Justification is a picture from a courtroom. Jesus made it possible for God to bring the gavel down and declare us eternally not guilty.
- Acts 13:39
- Romans 4:25
- This means that God no longer holds our sins against us. It’s as if they never happened.
3: Reconciliation: Jesus made peace with God possible
- Reconciliation is the restoration of a broken relationship.
- Jesus gave us the ability to have our relationship with God renewed and restored.
- 2 Corinthians 5:19
- Romans 5:10
- Jesus is the bridge between God and Man.
4: Adoption: Jesus makes us part of God’s family
- We were outside of God’s family, but because of Jesus’ death on the cross, believers are adopted and given the status of being children of God.
- Ephesians 1:5
- Romans 8:15-17
- Through salvation, you are God’s child by God’s choice.
5: Redemption: Jesus purchased your salvation with his blood
- This one is hard for us to see because we thankfully don’t live in a world where people are openly sold into slavery, but that is the picture here: a slave market.
- You are up on the block, and as the bidding occurs you see the cruel faces of those who would enslave and use you.
- Just as the auction is winding to a close, a stranger with a friendly face calls out his bid and it is a thousand times higher than any other bid that has been given.
- As the auctioneer accepts his generous bid, you look at his face and recognize that he is not bidding to use you, rather he is paying to set you free.
- Colossians 1:13-14
- 1 Peter 1:18-19
6: Propitiation: Jesus Satisfies God’s Justice
- This is the most unfamiliar word, but it simply means that Jesus satisfied all of God’s righteous demands and turns God’s wrath away.
- It often gets translated in our Bible as “atoning sacrifice.”
- It is deeply rooted in the Old Testament sacrificial Day of Atonement.
- It sees Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb, the high priest who makes the sacrifice, and the place of mercy where we find forgiveness.
- Romans 3:25
- 1 John 2:2
- 1 John 4:10
7: Forgiveness: Jesus sends our sins away from us
- This comes from the Old Testament picture of the Scapegoat.
- After the sacrifice was completed on the Day of Atonement, a second lamb would be brought before the people as a visual representation of their sins.
- The lamb would be sprinkled with blood and it would be send out into the wilderness never to return.
- God put’s all of our guilt and shame on Jesus and we never see the guilt again.
- Ephesians 1:7
- Colossians 2:13
- Psalm 103:12
- Micah 7:19
Which of these pictures stood out the most to you? Do you understand any of them in a different way than you did before? I encourage you to share your thoughts and questions below. If you need to talk more about how this salvation can be yours, please call, text, or email me and I’d love to talk with you.
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It’s pretty humbling to know that I didn’t do anything to deserve Christ but he still did it for me anyway.Its also amazing to know that reconciled, justified, and sends our sins away from us.
its good to know that even when we mess up as humans Jesus will be there to catch us
I learned that propitiation means that Jesus paid it all, and that means that we don”t have to be perfect.
It’s a big word and it encompasses a big idea, but there is comfort in knowing it even if it makes our brain hurt.
i found it interesting that even when everything is flashing Jesus we are so caught up in ourselves and our lives that we don’t even notice it.
You hear it all the time “Jesus died for you” but it’s really an amazing thing that he would do. The Romans had excruciating techniques for torture and Jesus took it all and our sins and bore it.
I think its cool to know that Jesus died for us so we could be with God. We always say this but it’s hard to realize what he did for us, redeeming us so we could be with God. We can only praise and thank him for giving us this chance.
I feel very lucky to have a father like Him. Jesus died for our sins. He could’ve live a great life and do what ever he wanted to, but he chose to die for us so we could have a second chance. It’s only fair we choose to follow Christ. That way Jesus didn’t die for nothing.
I think its cool that God’s gift to us was actually a gift. The way I think of it is that God’s like a cosmic rich guy, and we’re the cosmic homeless guy. He has no reason whatsoever to give us what he does, but he does anyway, because of his love.
That’s a good picture. Glad you were able to share.
It is amazing that God sent his son down from heaven to die for us. And even when God made us he knew we would sin and need a way to have a relationship with him. Jesus was not a plan B.
To me I like the Reconciliation section. We have a broken relationship with God cause of sin but Jesus died for us to give us Salvation. Salvation helps restore our broken relationship with God!
I think we take for granted just what Jesus went though and what he could have had. He was stressed to the point of sweating blood. He did NOT want to go through with the cross, but instead of just refusing and sparing himself all that pain and suffering, he endured being nailed by his wrists and feet onto a cross and hanging there, bleeding out, being flogged and stripped of his clothes all along the way. This was the sinless son of god, who never made a single mistake in his life, suffering like a wanted criminal for OUR sake, and we shouldn’t take that for granted.
“Reconciliation is the restoration of a broken relationship.” we can have reconciliation with God by praying and asking for forgiveness.
We are extremely selfish and often do not look to the best interest of others. We would most likely not give our lives for someone else, however, Jesus willingly took the penalty for an entire world of sin, even when he was the only perfect one.
i think we take it for granted about how much pain jesus took for us he saved us because he loved us and his love is infinite for us.
I think its crazy how much Jesus went through for our sins and surfed very much
Thanks for the comment Dalton, but this is not your class.
haha
I think we are really lucky to have a god/father that I merciful and doesn’t just want to make us human2.0 and throw away our original selves
I think we have been blessed! knowing no matter what sin or thing we do wrong, God will still love us no matter what!
also, we didn’t have to earn God’s love…as I previously said he will love us no matter what we w]do, no matter sin we commit! God, loves us and always will.