Monday, April 29, 2024

PT-3 "The Means of Reconciliation" (Col. 1:20b,22a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/2/2017 8:15 PM

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-3 The Means of Reconciliation

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 1:20b, 22a

            Message of the verses:  “having made peace through the blood of His cross…He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death”

            We have been talking about the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Bible states in verse 20b which has made our peace through His blood, and have made mention that it is not literally the blood, but the blood being a symbol which speaks of the awful death that He died on the cross.  Let us now look at Romans 5:9-10,

            “9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

            Notice the highlighted sections in these verses as one speaks of the blood while the other speaks of the death of His Son.  MacArthur writes “The critical element in salvation is the sacrificial death of Christ on our behalf.  The shedding of His blood was the visible manifestation of His being poured out in sacrifice, and Scripture consistently uses the term ‘shedding of blood’ as a metonym for atoning death.  (A metonym is a figure of speech in which the part is used to represent or designate the whole.)”

            He goes on to write “Bloodshed was God’s design for all Old Testament sacrifices.  They were bled to death rather than clubbed or burnt.  God designed that life being poured out (‘the life of the flesh is in the blood’).  Nevertheless, those who were too poor to bring animals for sacrifices were allowed to bring one-tenth of an ephah (about two quarts) of fine flour instead (Lev. 5:11).  Their sins were covered just as surely as the sins of those who could afford to offer a lamb, goat, turtledove, or pigeon (Lev. 5:6-7).  Christ’s blood was precious—but as precious as it was, only when it was poured out in death could the penalty of sin be paid.”

            There is only one major group to insist that the application of the blood is literal which is the Roman Catholic Church.  It was the death, the difficult and painful death of Christ that has paid for our sins, for as earlier mentioned in another SD there is not enough of Christ’s blood to be applied to all believers, for Christ did not even bleed out when He died as once His sacrifice was complete He was the One who caused His death as He had said earlier that no one takes His life, and no one did but Him for as mentioned Christ came to do the Father’s will which was His being payment for those who had and will accept His sacrifice for payment for their sins.

            Now only did Christ die as a sacrifice, but also as a substitute.  Christ not only died for us, but He died in our place so when we sin after being saved God looks at what Christ did for us as a sacrifice and a substitute and we are not condemned because of that.  Romans 8:3-4 “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”  “He condemned sin in the flesh.” “He took the place of sinners, dying a substituionary death that paid the full penalty for the sin of all who believe.”  We know that this death satisfied the Father because Christ was raised from the dead. 

            What we see here is not only Biblical truth, but Paul was also using it to hammer away at the false teaching of the heretics, the ones who were trying to make Christ a split being.  Paul argues and insists the He died as a man for men, and if this was not true then there would be no reconciliation possible.

2/2/2017 8:42 PM

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