When I first catch a glimpse of Christ on the cross, I think as to why He was subjected to such a great ordeal in His young 33 year life on earth. I really am startled at times as to what may be that reason for which God had to deliberately take human form and die for the sakes of all mankind. Why alone His dying would ensure me deliverance from the clasp of sin and from the fetters of death is perhaps a supplementary thought that came in my mind. Adding to these speculations, I also did feel uncomfortable as to why He had to die with such a disgrace - almost naked, broken, bruised, torn, struck, pierced, mocked, crucified as though He were a criminal.
Then, through His grace solely, I found the answers - A view quite distinguishing and sometimes overlooked as too preachy. A few of those startling facts are as mentioned below:
- God is Love. He created man to share His love. Man hence, was made in God’s own image. Although man lacked one thing – the capability to abhor sin and its practice.
- God couldn’t tolerate His own children do spiteful things under His purview. He asked men then to cast their sins of commission (but not that of guilt) on mere animals. These animals were burnt offerings to God, whose incense was a symbolism of man’s sin offering to God. For only blood could cleanse what is of blood. We are people governed by the flow of blood in our bodies. We survive on account of its circulation in us. If the heart stops beating, there is no/scanty blood causing it. Directly speaking, our lives as a whole are dependent on blood. Back then, people started using this ceremony too mechanically and their guilt was never seen off by God.
- God wanted to discipline man every time he erred. But He was just waiting for His people to turn to Him. With the burnt offerings turning meaningless, God thought of a permanent solution – that of redeeming mankind once and for all of all sin and guilt.
- Now only blood can replace blood. No man ever who lived had pure blood in Him to be the sacrifice for mankind’s sins.
- But God alone being Holy decided on one thing. He took His own creation’s form (HUMILITY), struggled through His stay on earth (POVERTY, SICKNESS, TEMPTATIONS, TEARS.) and then did one thing – EXCHANGED HIS PURE BLOOD AS A RANSOM FOR OUR SINS.
- This pure blood is now a part of every single human being and as a result is precious in the sight of God. But this process is for those who “BELIEVE THAT CHRIST IS GOD AND CAME TO TAKE OUR SINS AND WHO ACKOWLEDGE HIS SACRIFICE EVERYDAY OF THEIR LIVES AND LIVE IN THANKSGIVING OF IT.”
- He had to endure that gruesome painstaking endeavor for us so that we could believe that God as a human overcame all of that without sinning. He set before us a blueprint to lead lives on our stay in this earth.
- Without the core, nothing survives. Without the heart no one survives. God replaced your heart with a specially coated one – one that is immune to sin and guilt. In each man is this special heart. But God gave every man a choice to opt it (for his benefit) or reject it (for eternal punishment)
- God once annihilated the world by flooding it because of surging sin. He could have done it time and again to bring sin to an eternal halt. But He regards men’s lives as precious. He had to give His all for mankind’s betterment and deliverance from the slavishness of sin.
- This is what makes this Friday, a Good Friday!! It not just marks God’s love being exemplified on that cross, but it also gives us a hope and assurance of guiltless, sinless, blameless lives to live on this earth. He is good all the time; we need to be good – in heart, in mind and in soul. Jesus Christ is the ONLY ANSWER!!! :D :D
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