Christ's Death and our Sin

Christ's Death and Our Sin
By Given O. Blakely
"Our reconciliation to God required death – not just A death, but the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were reconciled to God in the fleshly body of Christ WHEN He died. That is precisely why we are "baptized into His death" (Rom 6:4), and are being "made conformable to His death" (Phil 3:10). We are, in every sense of the world, "reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom 5:10). It is why, in the Lord's table, we "show the Lord's death till He come" (1 Cor 11:26).

This is the ultimate revelation of Christ's humility. For Him to enter the world as a "Babe" required profound humility. In order for Him be "subject" to Mary and Joseph required humility (Lk 2:51). What marvelous humility was displayed in our Lord being in a state where He "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Lk 2:52). In order to be tempted, He had to be humble (Heb 2:18; 4:15).

However, all of that was not the ultimate humility. It was death on the cross that most thoroughly exhibited the humility of Jesus. Thus it is written, "And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross"(Phil 2:8).

That is what it took to bring God and man together – to reconcile us to God. If Christ's death had not taken place, we would have forever been cut off from the "Father of spirits" (Heb 12:9).

If we sin, we do have an Advocate the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One (1 John 2:1). However, His advocacy is effective because He died, bearing our sins in His body on the tree (1 Pet 2;24). When we confess our sins, it is good – even necessary – to remember those sins required to death of the Lord Jesus. That recollection will help us to take transgression seriously – seriously enough to avoid it, and, should we sin, to quickly resort to the Lord for forgiveness." --GivenB@aol.com