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Jesus Paid It All
Jesus Paid it ALL
Romans 6:23 says “The wages of sin is death.”
Why is the punishment death?
Leviticus 4:15 says “The elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the LORD, and the bull shall be killed before the LORD.”
Why kill the bull?
“Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” - Hebrews 9:22
Why does blood have to be shed?
Of all the things God could have required from us to remove sin, why does He require the taking of a life? Why is sacrifice, blood, and death required to remove sin?
What is God trying to teach us?
Last fall, on the way to work, I noticed a dead deer on the side of the road. It was late enough in the year that the natural highway cleanup crew (buzzards) had already flown south for the winter. Every day, I saw the dead deer there in the same place. It never moved, it just lay there day after day until it started to slowly sink into the soil. Six months later it is now mostly gone. Seeing this natural process taking place before my eyes in such a consistent manner got me to thinking about death. That deer lost his life. He has nothing left. He is gone. What I see every morning is nothing more than rearranged minerals that are slowly meandering their way back to the earth.
That deer’s life (although in this case an accident) was taken just like the lives of millions of animals used for sacrifice in the Old Testament. Animals that were killed. Animals whose blood paid the ultimate price for some person’s sin, animals whose blood was used to atone for sin.
Death. It’s required to remove sin. God is 100% light. In Him there is no darkness at all. God requires 100% obedience from us if we are to be in fellowship with Him. (1 John 1:5-7) He wants our ALL! Anything less than our ALL, demands 100% of something in return. That’s why the wages of sin is death. The Old Law required the very best of the people’s livestock to be sacrificed to atone for their sin. But, because they kept sinning, they had to keep sacrificing (Hebrews 10:1-3). God requires a better sacrifice than the blood of millions of animals. “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” - Hebrews 10:4
When we fail to give God our ALL, it costs us ALL. Since we sin, it costs us our lives. Our spirit is separated from our physical bodies, and our soul is separated from God. (Romans 6:23; James 2:26; Isaiah 59:2)
The good news is that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” - John 3:16
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” - Romans 5:6-11
“He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” - Hebrews 9:26
Even though we sin and deserve death because we haven’t “given it our ALL”, Jesus traded His ALL, His 100%, His righteousness for our sin! That’s why He had to die on the cross. He paid 100% of the penalty, for 100% of our sin!
“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” - 2 Corinthians 5:20-21
“What does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?” - Deuteronomy 10:12-13
Thanks be to God for His love and Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for our sin!
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe...
All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give... I surrender all...
