We may accept that we are not under the Old Covenant Law, but when we read the New Testament we find many new instructions there. Jesus gave many commands of his own, culminating in a new command:
As I have loved you, so you must love one another
(John 13:34).
Further, he states that those who obey his commands are those who love him (John 14:21).
He commanded many other things including to love even enemies, forgive and not judge others, trust God, not worry, and go and make disciples of all nations. The epistles too have many exhortations to godliness. How should we view all these commands? Are they like the Law? Have we been set free from the Law only to be given a new set of commands that are even more onerous?
No. He has given a new command, to love, and the others can be seen as different ways of expressing this love to God and man. Notice that the starting point is
his
love:
As I have loved you
.
The response he seeks is that we love him in return and love others. Further, he states that
If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching
.
This shows that such obedience is a consequence of loving him. He goes on:
My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him
(John 14:23).
We know that the Father loves the Son
(Matt 3:17, John 15:9).
Now we discover that the Father loves those who love the Son. This means that the love that the Father has for the world, shown by his giving his only Son (John 3:16),
becomes amplified for us when we love the Son, to the point that the Father makes his home with us.
It's a love feedback loop.
All this is on a higher plane than the commands of the Law, for example
You shall not steal
(Ex 20:15).
God is inviting us on to this higher plane. It's where He lives, and he wants us there with Him. It's New Covenant Life. It's the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22).
It's walking in the Spirit
(Gal 5:25 NKJV).
It's a
response
to the love of God, rather than a condition of receiving that love, and we should see it in this light.
The Way of Escape
But there is a further issue with the commands of Jesus. He did not simply preach his principles. He stressed the importance of following them. He drove home his message, saying that to do these things was like laying a foundation that would preserve a house intact when the
torrent
came
(Luke 6:47-48).
What torrent is this? The most important such torrent that could assail anyone is the day of judgement, and the prospect of hell. It was Jesus himself who on other occasions taught about the existence of this place. So this is a very serious issue, and it is why Jesus regarded it as so important that people should hear him. Jesus wanted to both warn his listeners about hell, and also show them the way of escape. What is the way of escape? To obey Jesus' commands!
Jesus talked of this judgement in his last week before the crucifixion, when he talked about the sheep and the goats. Again, the blessed are those who
do
right:
whatever you
did
for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me
(Matt 25:40).
But all this does not seem to square with the gospel we preach:
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved
(Acts 16:31)
- i.e. from the torrent, the final judgement. So which is the real way of escape: to obey or to believe?
The key to help us to understand this dilemma is to realise that Jesus was constrained in what he was able to reveal at the time. He did not go around preaching to the crowds that he was going to die on a cross as a sacrifice for sin, like a lamb or goat on the altar. That would have dismayed his followers; been ridiculed by onlookers; and construed as engineering his own fate. But he did say just enough so that we, looking back, can put the pieces together and see that Jesus knew exactly what his mission was. He predicted his own death to his disciples on a number of occasions
(e.g. Matt 16:21, 17:23, 20:19),
but when he did so, he didn't specify the reason for his death, which was to atone for sin. His disciples didn't understand what he did tell them. The night before his crucifixion he said
I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear
(John 16:12).
He went on to tell them that he was going back to the Father. This much the disciples claimed to understand, replying,
now you are speaking clearly
(John 16:29).
But did they understand? Even now, in this long discourse, Jesus couldn't explain about the Atonement. He who revealed so much divine truth, nevertheless could not expound on his own role in the plan of redemption. The Atonement was, as it were, veiled. It was prophesied in the Old Testament, explicitly in Isaiah 53, and also by John the Baptist, who called Jesus
the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
(John 1:29).
But Jesus himself gave hints only, not the full explanation. He once spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, a message which sent a lot of his disciples away (John 6:66).
In hindsight we can see to what he was referring, but the people at the time were baffled, and Jesus did not fully clarify his remarks, even to his disciples. He explained parables to his disciples (Mark 4:34),
but not this. One of the hints that Jesus gave was when he declared to the Jews
Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days
(John 2:19).
This, as with the other hints, was only understood by the disciples
after
the resurrection (v22).
Similarly he referred to the forgiveness of sins through his blood at the last supper (Matt 26:28),
but not in the context of his crucifixion. He didn't say then that he was going to be killed as he had before, or even that he would die the next day.
They wouldn't have been able to bear it.
So Jesus did not and could not preach the gospel openly as we now know it, with Jesus presented to us as the sacrifice of atonement (Rom 3:25).
But he did preach a gospel:
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people
(Matt 4:23 NKJV).
So what is this
gospel of the kingdom
that Jesus brought? It must be good news, because that is what the word gospel means. It is also about a kingdom, being the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven. We have Christ as king, but to have a kingdom something else is required - subjects! A king on his own cuts a lowly figure. Proverbs agrees:
A large population is a king's glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined
(Prov 14:28).
Jesus taught about the people who were in the kingdom: they were
greater than John
.
He spoke about the good seed standing
for the people of the kingdom
(Matt 13;38).
The kingdom needs people! It fulfils the new covenant prophesy of Jeremiah
I will be their God, and they will be my people
(Jer 31:33).
The news Jesus brought is that there is such a kingdom, with people in it. The good news is that because of the kindness and mercy of God it is a kingdom of blessing. This kingdom was coming, and in fact was already visible in the ministry of Jesus who went about doing good and healing. He taught a lot about the nature of the kingdom, including in parables. But one thing he could not explain was this: how was it all possible? He could not preach on the Cross, which is the central part of the Gospel message as we know it today, because, obviously, the Cross had not yet happened. So this was like learning, and benefiting from, all the features of a new powerful car, but being ignorant of how an internal combustion engine works [indulge me, electric car drivers]. There was no explanation, at the time, of how a holy, righteous and just God could bless the crowds that came to Jesus, or indeed any sinner, nor how a sinner could be saved on the day of judgement. It lacked the knowledge of the blood, and
without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness
(Heb 9:22).
The full gospel message is that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, and that believing this truth acts as a key to bring us salvation and all kinds of blessing as a result. This did not become clear until after the resurrection of Jesus, and the Atonement itself could not be expounded upon and presented as a way of salvation until then.
In the meantime, there needed to be at least one other trigger available that would activate the favour and mercy of God. During the ministry of Jesus, this was simple faith in Jesus himself. We can see how this was sufficient to procure healing and other blessings from him. He asked no questions. There was no lifestyle questionnaire to fill in. Blessing was available to all who sought him out and had faith in him. There were no other requirements.
But there are other triggers also, which involve faith in God or obedience in some form. Paul describes one such of the latter kind, namely that those lacking the message of Christ should be doers of the law, whether as Israelites under the law, or Gentiles taught by their conscience (Rom 2:13-15 NKJV). Another trigger, as we are considering now, is obedience to Jesus' commands.
These two triggers, which require
doing
rather than believing, only work by appealing to the mercy of God. God is God, and he is perfectly entitled as Judge to be merciful, but only if he can do so while being consistent with his own standards of righteousness and justice. This he can do, unbeknown to the supplicant, by invoking the true key, the Cross. It is only through the mechanism of activating the Cross that such triggers could be ways of escape from
the torrent
.
We know that no-one can do these things perfectly, so no-one can be justified by so-doing, but doing them is enough to release a merciful God to look to the Cross. Out of his mercy, God sees the trigger, and turns the true key, the Atonement of Christ. This opens the door, releasing an abundant flow of mercy and forgiveness. So although obedience to these various standards cannot save
per se,
yet the God it describes, being a merciful God, can. Yes, God will judge, but he will judge with mercy. The real foundation for that mercy, as we now know, is the Cross. It is because of the Cross, and only because of the Cross, that God can be lenient justly
(Rom 3:25,26),
that is, without adversely affecting his own holiness and righteousness. Indeed, it is because of the Cross that God has been able to exercise that mercy throughout history, even before the Cross, even during the time of the Law:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger for ever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities (Ps 103:8-10, see also Ex 34:6).
There are many instances of the grace of God in the Old Testament, such as the treatment of Adam and Eve, and Cain, and the limitation of the Exile to seventy years. They are examples of grace that result from the Cross. It is as if the Cross happened outside of time, since in God's eyes the Lamb [Christ] was
slain from the creation of the world
(Rev 13:8).
As Paul explains when comparing Christ to the Levitical priesthood, Christ did not have to sacrifice himself after Adam sinned, and repeatedly ever since. His one sacrifice at the
end of the ages
is sufficient for all time. In other words, the Atonement was backdated, to apply from the beginning of history!
Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself (Heb 9:26).
So the commands of Jesus were a new and better way of escape than had existed previously. Such ways of escape existed in the past, continued to exist, and exist today. They are default positions in the absence of the [full] Gospel, and available for any who have not received, or have not followed, this Gospel. Before the Cross, so including the time of the ministry of Jesus in the flesh, the Gospel as we now understand it was not yet revealed. The only way of escape available was to be obedient to some standard and rely on the mercy of God. So all who never acknowledge Christ as Redeemer, whether before the Cross or since, nevertheless still have a chance on the Day of Judgement. They do not know it, but if they do receive that mercy, it is through the redemptive work of Christ that they can be saved.
Returning to the passage about the sheep and the goats at the Judgement, notice how Jesus refers to a third group, being
these brothers of mine
(Matt 25:40).
Again, Jesus does not here explain, and could not do so before the Cross, how people could become his brothers. These brothers are neither the sheep nor the goats. Who are they? Hebrews tells us:
Those who are made holy
[i.e. believers], since
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers
(Heb 2:11)!
When did he do that? After the resurrection, speaking to Mary Magdalene, he said:
Go instead to my brothers, and tell them
(John 20:17).
So according to the discourse about the sheep and the goats, Jesus is saying that unbelievers can be classed as
sheep
and receive mercy, or
goats
,
and receive no mercy, all depending on how they have treated his brothers, i.e. believers. Indeed this passage presents all three groups clearly:
brothers of the Lord, i.e. believers;
those who have treated the brothers well, and are also saved;
and those who have not, and are condemned.
We know of other yardsticks by which people will be judged, including how much people have laid a foundation as Jesus taught, or how they have been obedient to the Law, whether explicitly, or because it was
written on their hearts
(Rom 2:15).
These are the triggers or ways of escape I have mentioned previously. Now in this teaching there is yet another yardstick, which this time is based on the treatment of believers! Jesus had given a similar message previously, saying that if anyone would not welcome his disciples then that home or town would fare worse than Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement
(Matt 10:14,15).
It may seem really amazing that Jesus uses the treatment of his brothers, believers in Him, as such a yardstick. But it is entirely consistent with the fact, mentioned above, that the Father loves those who love his Son (John 14:21).
It should also be of some comfort to us concerning those we know who have died, but never acknowledged a belief in Jesus, as far as we know. God is Judge, but a merciful judge. Not all will be saved, but many will. Some say
But we can only come to the Father through Jesus Christ
(John 14:6 & Acts 4:12).
Yes, and God is well able to bring such people to himself through Jesus Christ, even if they never confessed him during their lifetime. John the Baptist tells us similarly that God can raise up children for Abraham from stones (Matt 3:9).
How else could anyone dying prior to the Cross be saved? Indeed, this applies to people of other religions. They can be saved too, on the day of judgement. Proof? The men of Nineveh will be better off on that day than some of those who heard Jesus personally, according to Jesus (Matt 12:41).
The Ninevites weren't Christians, obviously. Nor were they Jews. Jonah didn't try to proselytize them either. He just pronounced judgement (Jonah 3:4).
They worshipped other gods, and yet will have their chance on that day. We have Jesus' word for that.
John does state that
whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son
(John 3:18).
But this cannot be a permanent condemnation, because this applies to everyone before they believe. We all come into the world as unbelievers, and so have the status of being condemned. But this can be solved by believing, a process called salvation. Those who never believe in this life, not even on their deathbed, remain condemned until Judgement Day. But that day really is a judgement day, when they will be judged, and all the ways of escape we have learned about can be explored. In effect, they are guilty until proven innocent, but a merciful and just God can pronounce them innocent on the basis of the Cross.
I asked originally:
which is the real way of escape: to obey or to believe?
.
The answer therefore is that obeying Jesus' commands, or following other yardsticks or
ways of escape
mentioned above, does allow our merciful God to invoke the Atonement and save the sinner. But ever since the Cross there has been the new and living way (Heb 10:20)
available to all who believe in the full gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those that do so, i.e. believers, are even called followers of
the Way
(Acts 24:14).
They have many advantages over those who can only rely on those other yardsticks. Assurance for one, blessed assurance; the gift of the Holy Spirit; prayer in Jesus' name; abundant life; adoption as a son; fellowship with God. Plus, did I mention - assurance? It is assurance of salvation that takes away the depression and despair about the future life. It removes the fear of death which holds us in bondage all our lifetime
(Heb 2:15 NKJV).
All of this in
this
life. Those who don't know Jesus miss out on all these things, even though they may
escape the torrent
on the day of judgement.
You may wonder why the believer should receive so many blessings, blessings that are denied to others, even others doing their best. As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the Father loves the Son and loves those who love the Son. That is why. We only have a limited appreciation of the depth of that love. As I also said, it is enough to cause God to judge others by how well they treat believers. God's message to the whole world is the same as he spoke on the mountain top
This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!
(Mark 9:7).
God wants this message known; and this is why the church is to go into all the world and make disciples.
Christ Our Rock
Jesus said in the passage quoted previously that to obey his teaching was like laying a foundation on a rock against the torrent (Luke 6:47-48). What he was unable to elaborate on plainly, for the same reasons that I've mentioned above, was the nature of the rock on which the foundation is laid. Christ himself is the Rock, as Paul expounds:
They all ate the same supernatural food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:3,4).
The physical rock that Jesus described, which can withstand a torrent, is itself a picture of the real rock which is Christ. He is the Rock that on the cross endured the torrent of judgement poured out on him because of our sin. Our foundation now is Christ and his work on the cross. When we believe in Jesus
we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure
(Heb 6:19).
This Rock enables us through the Spirit, and motivates us by his grace, to build this foundation of Christlike living that Jesus talked of. It is the Rock who gives us the means [the Spirit] and motive [his grace] to follow him, and we surely do have opportunity daily to do so.
Jesus himself invited those who are thirsty to come to him and drink (John 7:37). The Israelites drank from water that came directly out of the rock, after it was struck by Moses (Ex 17:6). Jesus suffered on the Cross so that we can now drink of the Spirit that he sent after his subsequent Ascension (John 7:39,40). As Peter said on the Day of Pentecost:
Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear (Acts 2:33).
It is good to remember that Jesus is the one who sends the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Spirit, we are coming to Jesus to drink. Jesus is the Source. He is the supplier of all our needs. Apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:7). So we have not been left on our own with a list of commands that we have to obey, being a list of dos and don'ts just like the Law. If we read it like that, there is no qualitative difference from the Old Covenant. Jesus knew that there was something better in prospect. He knew the plan of redemption all along, with his death and resurrection, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Those commands he gave, however, do serve three purposes:
For believers, they describe the different ways we can operate in love.
For unbelievers, they give, in he same way as the Law before them, a Way of Escape, a foundation against the torrent [the day of judgement], to those who follow them, which is dependent on the mercy of God.
But for both believers and unbelievers they have another purpose still, which is to drive us to Christ our Rock for help.
The Law has this last purpose too. We are told that it was put in charge to lead us to Christ (Gal 3:24).
In the same way I believe the commands that Jesus gave, being even tougher than the Law, were designed to lead us to Him and show us our need to depend on Him. Paul realised this truth. He counted himself as being blameless under the Law, yet he considered this feat rubbish compared to receiving righteousness by faith (Phil 3:6-9).
Jesus couldn't preach about this coming benefit of his crucifixion, but it is why he said things like
And anyone who says,
(Matt 5:22).
He deliberately clarifies the seriousness of the smallest sin in order to persuade us that we can't rely on our obedience to the law. We need him.
You fool!
will be in danger of the fire of hell
Paul also declared the extent of his zeal, even to persecuting the church. He considered that to be rubbish too. He was not saying that persecuting the church was rubbish. That was bad, yes, but in this passage he is referring to the zeal behind it. He was acknowledging that zeal was not the basis upon which he would be acceptable to God. That is why Jesus spoke somewhat sternly to the apparently zealous ones, clarifying what real zeal is like. He needed to combat the
I can follow you, Lord, no problem
attitude of some. This can explain his instructions to cut off a hand, gouge out an eye, or hate one's father and mother. I don't believe Jesus wanted his followers to actually do any of these things. Rather they are extreme examples of what his aspiring disciples would need to consider doing in order to train themselves from their own resources to become totally committed like their teacher. The aim of a disciple is to be like his rabbi. Some thought it would be easy to follow this rabbi called Jesus and be like him. But he said no, they could not, unless they took up their cross first. He had to break the idea, which some had, that they had what it took to follow Jesus in their own strength. In fact Jesus had to deal with all sorts of people. The hasty he had to restrain, and the reticent he had to encourage
(see Luke 9:57-62).
It is important that we read whichever response of Jesus is appropriate for us personally. If we think we are good enough to follow Christ, then we need restraining until we realise our need, and seek to follow him because we need him.
He warned his disciples that
Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me
(Matt 10:38).
Peter thought that he had the zeal which Jesus demanded:
Peter replied,
Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.
Truly I tell you,
Jesus answered,
this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.
But Peter declared,
Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.
And all the other disciples said the same
(Matt 26:33-35).
Peter failed, and so did the other disciples. They all deserted Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and fled (Matt 26:56). Peter made amends by following later to the courtyard, but that is where he denied his Lord (vv 69-75). The lesson is that we cannot rely on our own zeal, which is why Jesus set such a high standard for it. In fact, it was out of love that he did so. If we thought we were up to his standards, we would become self-reliant, and end up missing out on receiving from Christ. Don't let the demanding words of Christ to the legalistically minded, or his stern words to the zealous, deter you from reaching out to the Christ who really does love you. In the same passage where he spoke those stern words about denying oneself, he also says that those who give a cup of cold water to his disciples will not lose their reward (Matt 10:37-42). These were ones who were not claiming any virtue of their own: neither by their obedience to the law nor by their zeal in following Christ.
Is obedience good? Yes! Is zeal good? Yes! They both act as triggers which can attract the mercy of God. And, they both follow for believers as a result of receiving God's grace through the Cross - our new nature desires them. But, our status as children of God is based on one thing only, the Cross.
In the next chapter, Jesus says:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt 11:28-29).
Jesus wants us to come to him! He is our high priest, in the order of Melchizedek
(Heb 7:11-22).
Such a high priest meets our need
(Heb 7:26).
We need him! He is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30).
We are to live by the Spirit (Gal 5:16).
We were never meant to live the Christian life on our own. We can read the gospels, or the second half of some of Paul's epistles, or hear preaching on such passages, and see only the commands that we have to fulfil. If we do, we should review the three purposes of those commands listed previously, and lean again on the Rock. He is our high priest not just once, but forever:
because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood
(Heb 7:24).
He has this permanent office because we have a permanent need! To find life, we need to come to Jesus himself (John 5:40).
We should let each command that we find challenging be one that leads us into the arms of Jesus. He said
Apart from me, you can do nothing
(John 15:5).
We cannot bear fruit by struggling; only by abiding in the vine. We read in Hebrews
for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his
(Heb 4:10).
Let us stop struggling, lean on Jesus, and enter the rest he promises in complete dependence upon him, our Rock.
The Gospel Service
One church I went to some years ago [OK, decades ago] held a Gospel Service each Sunday evening, as well as a morning service for believers. The Gospel Service was similar to a Billy Graham Crusade, but on a somewhat smaller scale [OK, a lot smaller]. In such a meeting there would be a gospel message, and songs like
Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me
.
The hope was that outsiders would attend and turn to the Lord [which in the case of Billy Graham, of course, they did, in large numbers]. This concept of a separate meeting to preach the gospel has prompted me to imagine the following scenario, though I am not saying that this was actually the case in my old church. I attend both types of meeting, but gradually notice that in the morning we don't sing
Just As I Am
.
Also the message isn't a gospel message. It is
deeper
,
for believers. Although it may be excellent in itself, there seems to be something missing. The Cross has disappeared. Without the Cross the message isn't the same, and I begin to wonder if God is the same. I would get the impression in the morning that God was a bit disappointed with me. I don't measure up. The same God who welcomes newcomers in the evening just as they are, had examined me very closely in the morning and found me wanting. It seems to me that the Gospel Service is a bit of a fraud. It's purpose is to get people in, a sort of loss leader, but if they start to attend the morning service, they will find out what God is really like.
Of course there is a time when we need to be challenged, especially when we have become complacent. We should all aspire to the legitimate teachings of scripture on the Christian walk. But when these are presented as cold instructions they can be a heavy burden which we find that our flesh cannot carry. Some of Paul's epistles start with doctrine and conclude with instructions on holy living. In between is the crucial word
therefore
(Rom 12:1, Eph 4:1 NKJV, Phil 4:1, Col 3:5).
We live the holy life
because
of the doctrine we have just read. When such instructions are presented by themselves, without the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we sense only the demands that God is placing on us. Without a Christ to help us, we become tired and heavy laden. That is the God I perceive in my imagined visit to the morning service. It's not that there is a problem with having special meetings for newcomers. The problem is if, as a consequence, the Gospel is taken out of the believers' meeting. This gives the impression that the Gospel is
only
for newcomers, and doesn't apply to us, any more. We've done that bit.
This dichotomy can occur within a meeting if the sermon is entirely an exhortation to holiness or service with no reference to the love or grace of God. Even if there is a hymn about the deep deep love of Jesus, or his amazing grace, then the sentiments in hymns like this can be negated by the message. The hymns will then seem to be fairy tales or wishful thinking. If only they were true!
But they are true! The Gospel is the good news that though we are sinners, by faith we are redeemed (Rom 3:24), made righteous (Rom 3:22), made holy (Eph 1:14), strengthened (Eph 3:16), blessed (Eph 1:3) and armed (Eph 6:11). All this is by faith in Christ, and apart from him we can do nothing. Exhortations for character improvement are essential, but need to be in this context. They should recognize that love and other virtues are fruit of the Spirit, and realize that the motivation for change comes from a true understanding of the grace of God. Exhortations to forgive should be founded on the magnitude of God's forgiveness towards us. We should impart grace because of the abundance of grace we have received. Exhortations to service are effective because it is God who works in us to will and to act according to his good purpose (Phil 2:13).
We need the Gospel on a daily basis. The Gospel is for life, not just for conversion. It is Good News. Good news is not just for new believers. It is only the Gospel which maintains our right standing with God and our relationship with him, and so enables us to come up to the mark when it comes to following the Lord. Jesus instigated communion to be a continual reminder of him and his work on the cross (Luke 22:19). This shows that he understood that we need reminding! Paul preached nothing other than Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). So when we come together it is important that the Gospel is an integral part of any message, implicitly if not explicitly. It shouldn't be relegated to a special service for unbelievers, or be given what may appear to be just token acknowledgement in a song or two. We all need it! Daily!
Isaiah 53 describes the Atonement wrought by Christ and the scale of suffering involved. In the next chapter there is a section describing the fruit of all this:
For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed (Isa 54:7-10).
Here we see first a moment of abandonment and anger. This was fulfilled on the Cross, when Jesus said:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
(Matt 27:46).
Jesus suffered this surge of anger on our behalf. Since we are united with him in his death (Rom 6:5),
then we also, being in Christ, were abandoned by God for a brief moment. But the promise which follows is there for us too, as solid as his promise to Noah about not flooding the earth a second time. He will never rebuke us again. He may correct us, out of love, but it never amounts to a rebuke! He has compassion on us. The Lord really is like the shepherd who searches for a lost sheep and carries him home (Luke 15:5).
He doesn't make the sheep walk back home, beating it with a stick. He carries it. He really is like the father of the Prodigal Son, who welcomes him, without upbraiding him for his misdemeanours (Luke 15:20).
He accepts us, even after failure. We can still come to him, just as we are. The love of Christ is indeed so wide, long, high and deep that it surpasses knowledge
(Eph 3:18-19).
It is
only
when we know this love that we can properly pursue this wonderful adventure which following the Lord should be. It is when we know this love in all its depth that we can love our neighbour as ourselves. Knowing how much we are forgiven, we will be able to forgive those who have offended us. And we will want, if we could, to wet His feet with our tears and dry them with our hair in thankfulness to Him.