The Good news
Having looked at how God created everything perfect for us, how sin destroyed, how bad sin is and the reward of sin - we will now start looking at the GOOD NEWS, so here comes point 65-94 of 285.
We finished previous part with this:
64.
So we have now seen from the Bible that it is abundantly clear that we all have sinned, and according to God’s holy law, rightly deserve the death penalty and an eternity in the lake of fire.
So continuing…
65.
You might say; “Man, this looks bad. I thought this was about good news, but this is certainly not good news.”
66.
The truth might be hard, but now we come to the good news.
“You mean that there is hope for me?”
67.
Yes, God knew that there was nothing that we could do, and even though He by no means had a duty to help us, He decided to help, even though it came at a very high price for Himself.
The price for this was so high that the human brain cannot understand such an enormous level of love, as it is written;
“to know what is the love of Christ, which love passes knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19)
68.
None of us deserved any help, but “God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son,
that none that believes in Him should perish, but should have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
And “God sets out His love that He has to us, seeing that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
He loved us so much, that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!
69.
You might say; “Can you explain this in more detail?”
Again, this cannot be explained in just a few sentences, but as this is the most important in our lives, time has to be spent on it.
70.
We have already seen that we all have sinned and deserve the death penalty.
So how could God save us from our well-deserved judgment without breaking His own laws?
71.
The first thing to understand is the basic fact that only an innocent person could take the penalty for a guilty person.
Why?
If someone is sentenced to life in prison, he is already in prison for life. He cannot take a life sentence for another person.
Only a free, innocent person could take the life in prison sentence on behalf of another person. (Given that the law opened for another to take the penalty of the guilty person.)
72.
As we all are guilty, none of us could have taken the penalty for any other person.
The only solution was for an innocent person to be born to earth, to live the life on earth without doing any sin, and then die in our place.
73.
No ordinary human could ever have done it, so the only option was for God Himself to come to earth and die for us lawbreakers,
and that God Himself took our death penalty – so we can go free.
74.
This is such a great love that our human brains cannot comprehend.
It is a greater love than anyone could ever dream of.
No wonder that the apostle John writes; “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and how true it is.
75.
Let’s now look into more detail what God did to take our sins on Himself, and take the penalty that we so rightly deserved.
God's wonderful rescue plan, so we could be saved and not have to spend eternity in hell.
76.
It all started at the very beginning.
As soon as our great, great, great grandparents had sinned, God promised to send a Saviour when saying to the serpent;
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.
He shall crush your head, and you shall sting His heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
77.
Normally when talking about children, the Bible talks about the seed of the man, but here it is the seed of the woman,
and that is for a reason, as a virgin around 4000 years later would give birth to Jesus, our Saviour, with no man involved.
78.
We know that when Eve gave birth to her first son, she must have thought that this was the Saviour as she said; “I have gotten a man of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:1)
Little did she know that it still was many thousand years more to go, before the Messiah, our Saviour would be born in Bethlehem.
79.
We see that His heel would be stung and we do know that it happened on the cross when Jesus died for our sins,
and we know that Jesus indeed at the same time crushed the head of the serpent.
80.
Shortly after Adam and Eve had sinned, the first animal had to die as a result of their sins, when
“the Lord God made Adam and his wife garments of skins and put them on them.” (Genesis 3:21)
Since then millions of humans and also millions of animals have died, which would never have happened, had it not been for sin.
81.
Every book in the Old Testament points to our wonderful Saviour, but I will only mention a few examples.
82.
We know that God made a covenant with Abraham and that later Isaac was born. (Genesis 15 and Genesis 22)
Later “God did test Abraham and said unto him; Abraham. And he answered; Here am I.
And He said; Take your only son Isaac whom you love and get yourself unto the land of Moriah and sacrifice him there for a sacrifice upon one of the mountains which I will show you.” (Genesis 22:1-2)
Why did God ask Abraham to do this?
83.
We know that God did not want Abraham to actually offer Isaac, seeing what happened;
“And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to have killed his son. Then the Angel of the Lord called unto him from heaven saying; Abraham, Abraham. And he answered; Here am I.
And He said; Lay not your hand upon the child, neither do anything at all unto him, for now I know that you fear God, in that you have not kept your only son from Me.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked about, and behold there was a ram caught by the horns in a thicket. And he went and took the ram and offered him up for a sacrifice in the stead of his son.” (Genesis 22:10-13)
84.
So what was the reason for this test?
We know that God planned to send His own Son Jesus to die for us.
To me it seems that for God to have the legal right to send His Son Jesus to die for us, He needed that the person with which He had a covenant, and whose great, great, great granddaughter Mary would give birth to Jesus – that he was willing to give his only son Isaac to die.
85.
Abraham did his part and God instead provided a ram.
We know that Abraham “offered” his only son Isaac at a mountain in Moriah land which today is Jerusalem.
Around 2000 years later God would let His only Son Jesus die for us at a mountain in Jerusalem called Calvary.
The same place as where Abraham had “offered” his only son.
Please keep also in mind as we go along that it was a ram (a male sheep) that was offered in place of Isaac.
86.
Later, when the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt and God was delivering them, we know that God instituted the Passover.
Here a lamb was sacrificed for every family, and the blood of that lamb served to save them. (Exodus 12:1-28)
Many years later during the Passover – Jesus – the Lamb of God, would give His life to save us, and His blood has opened the door to salvation for everyone that wants.
87.
Moving even closer to the birth of Jesus – around 800 years before it – God is again pointing out that our Saviour will be born by a virgin with no man involved when saying;
“Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
88.
And using the same prophet God is telling us about His great plan of salvation and how God Himself is going to take the penalty for our sins when telling about what Jesus will do.
Yes we see that Jesus “has taken on Him our infirmity and borne our pains, yet we considered Him as though He was plagued and cast down of God and punished.” (Isaiah 53:4)
But we see that what really happened was that He “was wounded for our offences, and smitten for our wickedness.” (Isaiah 53:5)
Yes He took the punishment so that we would have peace, and by “His stripes are we healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)
89.
And the prophet points out that;
“we have gone all astray like sheep, every one has turned his own way,” (Isaiah 53:6)
And continues;
“but the Lord has thrown upon Him all our sins.” (Isaiah 53:6)
90.
And points out that Jesus indeed was innocent when saying that He has done no “wrong, neither has there been any deceit in His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:9)
And we see that He was the offer for our sin when pointing out that Jesus gave His life as “an offering for sin,” (Isaiah 53:10)
And further that Jesus, the Righteous, through His knowledge shall justify many “for He shall bear their sins.” (Isaiah 53:11)
91.
Yes even the famous prayer of Jesus on the cross when Jesus said; “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34)
is already here foretold when saying that Jesus prayed “for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:12)
92.
This is the plan, now revealed around 800 years in advance.
God Himself will come and die on a cross for our sins.
He will bear our iniquities.
He is going to take our penalty.
93.
Words comes to an end when seeing such a love.
No wonder that the apostle John almost 900 years later exclaims; “Behold what love the Father has showed on us, that we should be called the sons of God.” (1 John 3:1)
94.
Moving even closer with just around 600 years to go, God even points out the very year when Jesus is going to die on the cross when saying;
“Seventy weeks are determined over your people, and over your holy city, that the wickedness may be consumed, that the sin may have an end, that the offense may be reconciled, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, to fulfill the visions and the prophets and to anoint the Most Holy One.” (Daniel 9:24)
Weeks are to be understood to be weeks of years, i.e. one week = 7 years, so 70 weeks = 490 years, and counting 490 years from when Ezra brought the Jews back from the Babylonian captivity, we find ourselves at the very year 33-34, and Jesus, the Messiah, died on the cross for all our sins.