Same Things Another Way, Only Shorter

I’m not sure what can be said this morning on atonement that wasn’t said yesterday on propitiation.  Forgiveness has been purchased by God at the price of the life of Jesus.  So the grace and mercy of God is shown not only in that He did not exact the punishment I deserved, but also in that He poured out that punishment on His Son.  The item missing perhaps is the emphasis on wrath.  It is unmistakably implied though.  Punishment is wrath without using that word.  So forgiveness has come through a substitutionary application of the wrath of God.  A further treatment of this idea is found in yesterday’s entry.

So, now I’m off to have some coffee, breakfast, and a day of prayerful worship.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 20

Losing Who I Am, Gaining Who He Is

One of the questions I have not heard but I’m waiting for is this, “Why, if Jesus died for the whole world, do some still go to hell?”  This question is one that has rattled around in my head and I have answers for it, but I still realize I’m not likely to hear it. 

 

I ask it from time to time because I have accepted two other things.  First off, Jesus didn’t die in my place or for me per se.  Jesus died as atonement for the sins of the world.  That is different.  In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul says that God made Jesus sin (the noun sin, not the verb).  Literally that is what Paul said.  It is as if the Father transforms the Son into the sins of the world, and then sacrifices Him on Mount Moriah.  That is how Paul describes the Atonement of Jesus.

 

Since Jesus didn’t “die for me” or as is popular, “take my place” my response is just, “Wow! Thanks!” and then carry on my merry way.  I see that and have done that, but that does not match what Scripture presents.  The other half of 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that the Father made Jesus into sin “so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  In other words, the Father made Jesus into sin so He could then make me into His righteousness in Jesus.  I’m going to be made into something I am not now.  I will be different.  So, how do I get a chance to participate in this transaction?

 

What I see in Scripture is that my Master initiated my relationship.  As Chambers put it yesterday and refers to today, He reveals to me what He has already done on my behalf, and I believe that.  I don’t bring anything of my own making or accomplishment to the party, it’s all the Master of the universe.  I respond to what is revealed, and I suppose in that sense I have a choice to believe or not.  What I am believing in is my Master’s identification with my sin and atonement for it, and then that I will be remade into His righteousness.  I accept His solution to my problem (which requires me to accept His definition of my problem), and I accept that He will change who I am into something else; I choose to loose my identity that I have worked so hard to establish.

 

I want to bargain, negotiate, and offer alternatives for both the atonement and my transformation.  I want partial credit for the work of Jesus, and I want to retain part of my personality.  That is not how the exchange works, and it is therefore difficult to accept in this culture.  Thankfully, my Master does not require me to understand it all up front.  It is in some ways like making an uninformed decision, but really, once I accept His definition of my problem, accepting His solution is obvious, at least on the surface.  The transformation He works in me requires me to love Him and be devoted to Him only.  That is really pretty simple.  I make it hard by focusing on what I’m loosing, rather than on my Master who I am gaining.

 

The reward is that my Master forms His righteousness in me… actually no, what happens is that I become His righteousness.  That is a personal transformation into righteousness, not just a relocation of righteousness.  I don’t “contain” the righteousness of my Master, I become the righteousness of my Master.  Something contained within me can be relocated elsewhere and I can misplace it and so on.  When I am transformed into something else, that is not so easy to “lose”.  That would require another transformation to negate.  The work of my Master is not so temporary as my own.  My work is fairly shoddy, His work is masterful workmanship that lasts for eternity.

 

How is such an amazing result not worth giving up my identity?  How is it that I can require more of the One having Atoned for my sin along with the sin of all human existence?  What is my identity worth compared to being the righteousness of my Master?  He forms stars, traces quarks, and forms me into His righteousness.  Is that not enough?  Do I want more?  Is there something about my identity among my fallen fellows that is so precious that is becomes more valuable to me than the righteousness of the Master of all creation?  I can’t think of anything.  So, why is it so hard for me to let go of it?  It’s not like my Master is asking me to accomplish some great task, He asks that I believe and accept His transformation of me.  As much as I don’t really like hard work, you’d think I’d be all over such an offer.

 

The solution for me is become a fool among my fallen fellows, and not before my Master.  Okay, it’s really not so far to go to become a fool before my fellows.  It is much longer to stop being the fool before my Master.  The choice before me is life or death, blessings or curses.  Relating to my Master is life and blessings, not relating to Him is death and curses.  Today, I will practice choosing life.

 

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 29

Why Is God So Interested in Blood?

The entry for today is based out of 1 John 2:2, and it relies on a word which most people in this day do not understand.  Even reading the definition doesn’t bring home the significance of it.  The word is propitiation, and it is important because of that often overlooked part of the life with the Master of the universe, His wrath.

The Greek word is only used twice, and only in 1 John.  It is related to a word used for the “Mercy Seat” in the Hebrew Temple.  That relation is where the trail of blood is typically lost.  The Mercy Seat was where the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled to atone for the sins of the nation of Israel.  It took blood, and it had to be repeated every year. 

That practice of blood on the Mercy Seat was what Jesus overly fulfilled in His death on the cross.  In that event, the blood of a perfect sacrifice was used, God provided it, and it was not just for the nation of Israel, but for the whole world (actually for the entire created order, cosmos).  In other words, God, Creator of matter and energy, had to be appeased.  Appeasement implies a threat, and the great threat of the Universal Master is His wrath.  This is not a comfortable place for believers to hang out.

Unfortunately, not hanging out in that truth means it isn’t communicated to this world, and much of the world then falls into the wrath of God.  It’s like standing in the middle of the street hoping that if the speeding bus is ignored it won’t hit me.  Reality is quite different.  The good news is that the terror of the wrath of God is met and removed in the work of Jesus’ blood.  He Himself is the blood sacrifice that appeased the wrath on our failures to measure up, and not ours alone but also the whole created order.

This is one of those areas where I have had to wrestle with and offer up the ideas of what I want my god to be like, and accept in its place what the God of the Universe describes Himself to be.  Just because my Master has revealed Himself as the Son and the Spirit, does not take away the consistent truth that there is a Father.  But even in the descriptions of Jesus in Revelation is fairly terrifying.  He rides a white horse, and His robe is dipped in blood.  He leads an army into battle and the destruction of that war rearranges the entire created order.

I am a knight of the realm, servant to the King, and my King wields a mighty sword.  His wrath is impossible for His creatures to appease on their own, so He made the sacrifice Himself.  I serve a powerful King, a Destroyer King, but also a Creator King.  He has created the means to survive His coming destruction; but it is coming.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 15

Every Sunday is Atonement Sunday!

Today’s MUFHH post is perfect for a Sunday.  This is the day of the week where I am most easily aware of the work of my Master.  Sunday’s are the easiest day to remember the Atonement for my deepest problem, my hereditary problem.  Each Sunday, our church holds communion.  It was a bit strange at first, and is a task to keep it fresh each week, but the pastor does a wonderful job by getting different men to share a devotional before we  partake.  It is fresh for them, and so, it is fresh for us.  And each Sunday I am reminded of the work of my Master on my behalf, and I share that remembrance with a hundred others.

I can do nothing for my own salvation.  Even my choice of my Master was part of what I was designed with from before birth.  I was wired that way, and I was placed in that environment.  It isn’t fair when I consider so many who weren’t given that environment.  I pray that they were at least wired to receive from the Universal Master, but I also have a responsibility to share what I have been given.  I have a responsibility to go after those who were not given the environmental advantage I had.  I go after them with the intent of displaying what my Master has given me, and might be giving them.

I play a video game based on movies but with Lego characters.  There is no dialogue, instead they play a form of charades in short video vignettes as segues to the next game area.  In some sense my sharing of my faith is like those charade vignettes.  What I do means more than the  noise I make doing it.  It all should be communicating the Atonement.  As Chambers asks, “where is the discernment of the Atonement in this thing, and in that?”

If the work of my Master takes center stage in my life, then it forms the cornerstone for the rest of the building of my day.  All the people I touch in the various parts of the country and world should be somehow impacted by the work of my Master on their behalf.

I translated the passage for this morning from Romans 6.  The message of that passage is that I am a slave to something, but I am free to choose my master.  I can choose either the Universal Master, or I can choose to serve my fleshly nature of desires and emotions.  In it is verse 20 where Paul says that while the Romans were slaves to sin they were also free to righteousness.  I had to really think this over until I realized that they weren’t free to both, nor enslaved to both.  They had, at some point, chosen being enslaved to sin.  So in verse 21 he asks what benefit they derived from their choice. 

I have lived like that for years.  Until I finally surrendered my need to be “healthy” and my need for independence from whatever, I was enslaved to my fleshly weaknesses.  Once I gave up that “need” I found freedom I have never known before.  It took surrendering something I never expected to have to surrender.  I wanted to surrender my sin, my attitudes toward others, and so on.  Instead it was my fear of falling into the diseases of my family that had to go.  I have a family that has suffered multiple sclerosis, dementia, heart disease, and, so it seems, depression.  It was my fear of those that led me to avoid health issues, fear them and doctors.

The way our world goes, I will probably die of some sort of cancer, but I will only go, by whatever means, at the time appointed by my Master.  If, before I go, I suffer dementia, or multiple sclerosis then I will receive from my Master’s hand as I have received the other blessings He has given.  I have often wondered where those with dementia and Alzheimer's go before they die; perhaps I’ll find out before I die. That’s a brave face on a terribly frightening thing for me.  But perhaps my prideful hold on my own mind is one of those things I will need to learn to let go of.

Whatever my destiny in the mind of my Master, I am redeemed by the Atonement paid by my Master.  He has made up what I could not in His own requirement of justice and holiness.  He made it possible for me to relate to Him and has drawn me to Himself.  The degree to which I swim against the currents of His Spirit is the degree to which I suffer spiritual exhaustion.  When I swim with the current in the river of His Spirit, I am exhilarated and invigorated.  Why I try to swim upstream I have no idea.  What is it I think I missed up there that makes me want to go back?

Well, I have a day to jump into.  My family returns today and I have a little work to do before they arrive.  Blessings on you, and I pray you are reminded of the Atonement you have received this Lord’s Day.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 9