Tag Archives: atonement

Don’t be fooled. Stay in the light!

Everyone knows that stumbling around in the dark can be dangerous. Things seem to be different from what they are. There are no reference points. And we don’t like being confused.

The same is true about being ‘in the dark’ about God. It is impossible to know where we are unless God himself is the light.

We not only need this light, we need to be walking in it. But there are false stories around that may keep us walking in the dark. So, John tells us what the light is, and explains how certain lies keep us in the dark (1 John 1:5—2:2).

What’s happening here is like a child who’s done something wrong and is lying to his or her parents about it. There’s no relationship happening! But then, the whole matter comes out into the light, and is dealt with. True fellowship is restored—often to the delight of the child as well as the parents.

So, here is what Jesus came to tell us.

God is light, with no darkness anywhere.  In other words, God is always true, and wholly good. There is nothing in him that isn’t. Jesus is telling us about God as only he can.

And Jesus doesn’t just teach this. He demonstrates it. He is this light for everyone (John 9:5), showing that God is true and good. And he also reveals what is not true and good.

Many avoid what Jesus reveals, or they oppose it, because they live in their own bubble of being religiously correct and don’t like this exposure.

Here’s where the false claims begin. We may say that how we live doesn’t matter. We only need to have an ‘experience’ of God, or feel that he is near. If this is what we think, we are in the dark.

Or, we may say we are basically good—a few failures perhaps, but nothing that should be added up against us. Again, we fool ourselves.

Again, we may say we don’t do anything wrong. In this case, we’re saying God is wrong, not us. There won’t be any fellowship here.

These claims, or something like them, can keep us from seeking a Saviour. Or, they can keep us from seeing anything special about having fellowship with God.

John gives us a very different way to walk—in the light of God revealed by Jesus. God himself walks in his own light. He has total integrity. And he calls us to join him. Here’s how it works.

First, if we let Jesus show us who God is, and walk in that, and admit the mess it shows we are in, we have fellowship with each other. Self-deception keeps us from God and also from being real with other people. But confession brings us to God (Revelation 3:20).

Second, we are forgiven. Our sins are washed clean—all of them. It’s not our blood that is spilled to make up for what we’ve done wrong. The blood of Jesus washes them away.

Think of Peter getting his feet washed (John 14:3-10). He wanted to be in charge but Jesus must wash his feet. Only Jesus can make Peter clean. This is what we all need to hear.

When God brings us into his light, he’s not wanting to make us squirm but to gain our company. We think exposure will damage our self-respect and confidence—that we’ll be condemned.

The opposite is true. Jesus says that whoever does what is true comes to the light, and is not condemned. What we do of ourselves is false. What we do in God—including confessing our sins—is real (John 3:19-21).

Third, we are forgiven so we won’t sin again (John 8:11). But then, we do. And the faithful and just God has this covered. This walking in the light is not something we do alone.

Jesus is our Advocate—and he is utterly righteous in who he is and in what he does.

He has deflected the wrath that was falling on us by becoming our sin, and then receiving in his body all that should have happened to us. That’s what propitiation means. It was not comfortable for Jesus to walk in the light of God’s righteousness. But he’s made it a welcome place for us.

So, this is the message we have heard from Jesus. God is light—the most wonderful light we could ever know. Here, confusion about God, about ourselves, and where we fit, are all resolved.

This is the Father who wants our company. And he has created a family in which we have fellowship with one another.

God gets it right

When something hideous happens these days, we are accustomed to reactions of outrage or pity. But neither of these reactions suit what happens to Jesus.

His death on a cross hardly seems right. But everything that takes place here is what God wants to happen (Acts 2:23).

It’s by announcing the news of Christ’s death and resurrection that God is revealing his righteousness. It’s how he is exerting his power (Romans 1:16).

If you’re asking the question, ‘What is God doing about all the evil in the world?’ here’s the answer. He’s looked at it, summed it up and dealt with it. All of it. Including what you and I have done.

Let’s have a look at this. First, the clues Jesus gives us about what happens to him. And then, what the apostles tell us after the event.

When Jesus is born, an announcement is made that he will save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). This must mean more than him just teaching us better ways to live. There’s a weight we carry that needs to be lifted from us.

Jesus does teach many things, but everything leads up to his great work—what he has come to do. He talks about going to Jerusalem and being killed there. His life will be a ‘ransom for many’—that is, he will pay a price to save others (Mark 10:33-34, 45). He is claiming to do what a Psalmist said is impossible—redeem the soul of another person (Psa. 49:7-9).

In fact, Jesus says if we don’t let him pay what we owe, we’ll die (Mark 8:37-38). The stakes are high. If he doesn’t die for us, we will. Offending God is not a light weight offence. Who can stand if his anger is roused (Psa. 76:7; Nahum 1:6)?

What Jesus says is very much what God has already promised to do through his suffering Servant: ‘the Lord makes his life a guilt offering’ (Isa. 53:10). Jesus knows he is this Servant. He is bearing the griefs of others (Matt. 8:16-17). He will be numbered with transgressors (Luke 22:37).

The day comes for all this to happen. Jesus asks his Father to be spared drinking ‘this cup’ (Luke 22:42-44). This term describes judgements from God on sin (Psa. 75:8). Jesus knows this, and the terror of it makes him sweat blood. He asks if there is another way. He doesn’t flinch from his task but reveals the horror of what is going to happen.

Then, when Jesus is being led out to be crucified, he says, ‘Don’t weep for me. Weep for yourselves…’ (Luke 23:28-31). This is an astonishing statement in the circumstances. He has in mind how awful it is going to be for anyone who doesn’t believe in what he is doing for the world.

And then, from his cross, Jesus cries, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ He is bearing our sin and what ought to happen to us. ‘The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all’, and he is ‘wounded for our transgressions’ (Isa. 53:4-6).

As he dies, Jesus says, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30)! God has done to sin and sinners what sinners deserve. Jesus is no victim. He has done what he was given to do, what he wanted to do, and what we need. Through him, God has done what is right—for him, and for us.

Now, Paul shows us what is meant by God’s righteousness, or being right—particularly in his letter to the Romans.

For a start, God judges what is wrong (2:2). He wouldn’t be God if he didn’t! And he certainly wouldn’t be right. But this is just the beginning.

God’s made a world and still loves it. He has plans for it, and importantly, loves it. So, he’s made promises about what he will do. And he’s keeping them. He’s not a legalist who’s only interested in him being right.

So, he reveals his rightness by doing something for us. If we trust his Son, he judges us to be righteous (1:16-17; 4:1-25; 5:17; 8:4).

This is why the death of Jesus is so important. God can’t call black white, or bad good. But his Son has owned us as his own. Our wrong has become his. All of it.

And when God made him to be sin—someone who’d never thought of doing wrong—God poured out all the rightful distain and condemnation and rejection on him. All of it.

God hasn’t swept anything under the carpet but sent his Son to bear it in our place—and its penalty. That’s what we call propitiation. Christ averts wrath from us by bearing it himself.

If you’re wondering about all the things God lets us get away with, Paul says that, up until Jesus died, he had ‘passed over’ earlier sins. But not now. What sin deserves, it gets.

And God approves and accepts what Jesus does and raises him from the dead. He’s the beginning of something entirely new—a new creation. If we acknowledge we can’t justify ourselves, and trust in Christ’s offering for us, we are credited with the rightness Jesus showed in his life and in his death. All of it.

There’s nothing as exhilarating as this (Romans 5:1-5). It’s then we realise how unconvincing our self-justification has been.

And now, there’s another way God reveals his rightness. We who are grateful recipients of God’s gift in Christ, are eager to do what is right because we have been made right with God (6:16-18).

People who don’t have this gift of righteousness are hobbled and can’t live truly. They remain self-focused and self-justifying. They call right whatever the life-style is that they have chosen.

But God shows he can get things right by pointing us to what his Son does on the cross. Here’s something that’s true, and works. It comes straight from God. It takes us to God. And it sends us out into life with delight, and with an eye for what others need from us.