Instead

“Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. ‘With His stripes we are healed.’” (E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p 25)

Go back and read that quote again…slowly…really think about what it means. Can you feel the weight of it? It is probably the best and clearest description of the plan of salvation that I know. Jesus paid the penalty for my sin, instead of me. Can you wrap your imagination around the enormity of it?

There’s a popular Christian song on the radio these days called, “Should’ve Been Me” and the chorus reminds us of that we haven’t been paying the consequences of our own sinful actions.

“It should've been meIt should've been usShould've been there hanging on a crossAll of this shameAll of these scarsShould've been stains that were never washedWhy do I hideWhy do you tryOver and over and over againI guess it just leaves saying thank GodIt leaves me saying thank God, thank GodFor the should've been”[1]

From the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, God has been covering our sins with the blood of a sacrificed Lamb so that instead of being permanently separated from God, we can live with Him for eternity. Instead of getting what we deserve, we get what He deserved. Instead of being a subject of Satan, we can be a friend of God.

I’ve been trying to think about the Old Testament sacrificial system, and I have to admit that it’s really hard for me to imagine. I’m thinking that if, like me, you live in a western culture, it’s probably hard for you too. Many of us live in a society that is mostly “sanitized for [our] protection.” The closest most of us get to actual blood shed is our own if we happen to accidently cut ourselves. Those few drops of blood are nothing compared to what the priests in the Jewish Tabernacle must have been exposed to on a daily basis. Killing an animal is not a neat process. The animal is struggling, probably making distressed (and distressing) sounds, and once the animal’s neck is cut, watching the animal die as it bleeds out must be horrifying.

Several times in my life, I’ve had to look into the eyes of a pet and make the decision to have it put to sleep. It has been absolutely heart-rending every single time even though I know that the death will be painless. I cannot imagine holding a terrified squirming animal down and cutting its throat.

As nightmarish as the whole process sounds, though, the Bible tells us that even the most horrible things can become routine. That’s what happened to the Jewish nation. They forgot that the sacrifices were not an end in themselves, there were object lessons to demonstrate that the price of sin is death. And if we don’t want to pay with our own blood, we must accept the payment of someone who is willing to take our place.

Amazingly, Jesus was willing.

“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Romans 5:6-8(NLT)

Jesus died instead of us.

I read an amazing story this week from the book, Hidden in Plain Sight, written by Mark Buchanan. The story is about a woman named Regine. She was from Rwanda and became a Christian as she read her sister’s Bible. Later she moved to Canada because of the genocide that was happening in Rwanda at that time.

In Canada, she met Gordon and they got married and then decided that they needed to go back to Rwanda to show Jesus’ love to people who had been her enemies.

It was in Rwanda that she met a woman whose only son had been murdered.

"She was consumed with grief and hate and bitterness. ‘God,’ she prayed, ‘reveal my son's killer.’“One night she dreamed she was going to heaven. But there was a complication: in order to get to heaven she had to pass through a certain house. She had to walk down the street, enter the house through the front door, go through its rooms, up the stairs, and exit through the back door.She asked God whose house this was.‘It's the house,’ he told her, ‘of your son's killer.’“The road to heaven passed through the house of her enemy.“Two nights later, there was a knock at her door. She opened it, and there stood a young man. He was about her son's age.“‘Yes?’“He hesitated. Then he said, ‘I am the one who killed your son. Since that day, I have had no life. No peace. So here I am. I am placing my life in your hands. Kill me. I am dead already. Throw me in jail. I am in prison already. Torture me. I am in torment already. Do with me as you wish.’“The woman had prayed for this day. Now it had arrived, and she didn't know what to do. She found, to her own surprise, that she did not want to kill him. Or throw him in jail. Or torture him. In that moment of reckoning, she found she only wanted one thing: a son.“‘I ask this of you. Come into my home and live with me. Eat the food I would have prepared for my son. Wear the clothes I would have made for my son. Become the son I lost.’“And so he did.”[2]

Could you do it? Could I? That’s exactly what God has done for each of us. Except He didn’t wait for us to come to Him, He came looking for us! “While we were yet sinners…” He put a plan in action before the foundation of the world so that, if we choose to, we can go into His home, live with Him, eat His food, wear the robes that He has prepared for us, and become His children.

What God did for humanity is unfathomable to the sinful, human mind. It’s not logical – it doesn’t make sense.

“It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit. If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross.” (E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p.83)

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[1] Should've Been Me, Citizen Way, Love Is The Evidence, Fair Trade Music Publishing (ASCAP)

[2] Mark Buchanan, Hidden in Plain Sight (Thomas Nelson, 2007), pp. 187-189

No Fair!

If you have kids, work with kids or ever been a kid, you know the phrase, "NO FAIR!"  Can you remember when you worried about who was going to get the left over cookie or the bigger piece of cake?  That was really important stuff!  And, of course, there was always the one kid who cheated at Monopoly or whatever game.  I have a cousin who cheated (or tried to) no matter what game we were playing.  He drove my brother (that other kind of kid: the fairness police) absolutely over the edge.  We didn’t finish a lot of games when that cousin came over.  Not only did his cheating take all the fun out of the game for everyone else, but my brother and I could never figure out how you could be happy about winning when you knew you’d won dishonestly.  Hmmm…still don’t get it.

Anyway, now that we’re all grown up, we are still acutely aware of the fairness (or unfairness) of certain situations.  How many times have you watched someone you work with cheat or lie his (or her) way to a promotion, even when he’s not the best person for the job?  Maybe you’ve been the victim of some workplace cheater.  Isn’t it infuriating to watch someone get away with something and not get caught?  Sometimes I feel like just standing up and yelling, “That’s No Fair!”

Solomon talks about the unfairness of life, (even though lots of people would say that he has nothing to complain about):   

There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous; I said that this also is vanity. Ecclesiastes 8:14

As humans, we take equity very seriously. Most of us want things to come out fairly at the end of the day.  But, somebody’s always gotta cheat, gotta get the bigger piece of cake…no matter what.

 

So, what is fair? What is equity?  Is it like what they were trying to do in the French Revolution where nobody was supposed to be higher socially or politically above anyone else?  Or is equity more about “getting what you deserve”?

How many companies can you think of that play on our sense of entitlement to sell us the product.  Do you remember the L’Oreal commercial that always ended with, “because I’m worth it”?  Is that what fairness comes down to?  Everyone getting what he (or she) thinks he deserves?  You hear lots of people say things like that all the time.  “I deserve a raise.”  “I deserve to be treated better at work.”  “I’ve earned a vacation.”  “I have the right to speak my mind.”

 

So, have you ever stopped to think about just exactly what we do deserve?  That can be a sobering experience, because if, in all fairness, God gave us what we’ve earned, what we have a right to, we would have to be destroyed.  Scary, huh?  Do we really want true fairness in the sense that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”?  Think about this:

“’There is none righteous, no, not one,There is none who understands,There is none who seeks after God,They have all turned aside;They have together become unprofitable;There is none who does good, no, not one.’‘Their throat is an open tomb;With their tongues they have practiced deceit’;‘The poison of asps is under their lips’;‘Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.’‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;Destruction and misery are in their ways;And the way of peace they have not known.’‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.  Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”  Romans 3:10-20

Not a pretty picture! Is it fair that Jesus was treated the way He was?  Nothing’s fair about that!

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.   Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:3-5

Okay, we can be glad that we are not treated at all as we deserve to be treated, as long as we accept Christ’s sacrifice on our account.  The thing to remember is that, no matter how things look now, it’ll all be fair when Jesus comes again.  It’s not what’s fair and not fair now, but for eternity, that’s important.

Remember Jonah?  He went and told the people to repent (finally).  He didn’t really expect them to and when they did, he got a little cranky.  He didn’t think they deserved to get out of being destroyed, even after they repented.

 

Hmmmm.  Are we a little bit like that sometimes?  Wait, be honest.  I’m not talking about the guy down the street who walks his dog in your yard or the woman at work who “borrows” things from people's lunches in the fridge.  If we saw them in Heaven we’d probably be okay with that.  But, careful now, what if we’re walking through Heaven and we see Jeffrey Daumer?  Or the BTK Killer?  Or Pontias Pilate? Stalin, Mussolini, Attila the Hun, Hitler?  What would we do?  Run up and congratulate them for accepting Christ’s cleansing blood for their sins?  Or frown and wonder if maybe there’d been some mistake.

True, if someone asked us if Jesus died for everybody, we’d answer a quick and sure affirmative…but really, deep down, do we really WANT it to be?  Tough question.  Do we trust God enough to know who gets to go to Heaven?

When we get right down to it, a sin’s a sin, right?  Maybe I haven’t killed anyone or been an evil dictator, but I have felt hate.  I have envied, lied, put something or someone before God. Maybe not outwardly, but in my heart, I have broken ALL of the commandments.  Am I any less a sinner than those notorious bad guys I listed before?  Did Jesus die for me more than He died for them?

I think that is the true miracle of God’s justice/fairness.  It’s big enough for every single person who ever lived, no matter how good or bad that person looks to us, God knows that person intimately, and loves him and sent His Son to die for him, and you, and me.

Okay, so let’s make a plan to meet in Heaven and check out who else made it…aren’t you glad it’s not up to us?