Terror Rules

What an absolute mess. One third of God’s mighty angels established the Kingdom of Hell; Satan seduced noble Man into eternal slavery; earth’s perfect order was destroyed by the flood. Compatibility between God and man was destroyed. Rebellion became the norm, moral and physical chaos reigned. Satan, who was now “the god of this world,” (2 Corinthians 4:4) as well as “the spirit at work in the disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2), was elated. This deceiver knew that God always honors His own word. So he used God’s gift of delegated authority, stolen from Adam through deception, to enslave mankind, legally preventing God from fully enjoying His own creation.

God’s Strategy

But this disaster was not destined to last forever. This Omniscient God was not surprised by such a turn of events because He knows the end from the beginning. He declared on the very day that Adam rebelled in the Garden that He would crush His Adversary’s head who had deceived Adam. He had a long-range plan in mind to reverse the effects of Adam’s rebellion and offer redemption to mankind. In the mean time, ever-increasing evil on earth deserved punishment and even annihilation. But God spared Noah and his family from the Flood through a grace-based covenant to keep the drama afloat. Later on, Abraham also accepted a grace-based covenant which included a new set of promises. God mercifully did not impute sin to those under these two covenants because they were not based on law-keeping but on receiving His promises by grace through faith.

 God made Himself known to Abraham, led him to a new land and He promised to make this old, childless man a “father of many nations” His cooperation enabled God to legally regain a foot hold on the earth to prepare the way, through Abraham’s descendent, Jesus Christ, to justly offer total forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration to mankind, according to 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. But another step was needed in this redemption process to reveal man’s need for a savior.The root cause of all sin needed to be exposed. Though it proved to be a painful experience for Jews under the covenant God made with Moses, it would serve a vital purpose in God’s overall salvation plan.

Moses reluctantly accepted God’s commission to mercifully lead Abraham’s seed, the Jews, out of Egyptian bondage during which time God demonstrated His kindness, power, protection, patience and faithfulness to them – despite their constant rebellion, whining and stubborn unbelief. When they reached Mt. Sinai near the Red Sea, God offered a covenant of blessing or punishment, based on their obedience to a code of Law. This was the direct opposite of the covenant of “grace through faith” that God had made with Abraham – which, presumably, the Jews could have held on to. But, in all likelihood, they forgot about it during their 400+ years of Egyptian slavery. And, worse yet, they foolishly agreed to this Law-based covenant before they knew its terms. Apparently, they were pridefully confident in their own ability to merit God’s favor by their good behavior- despite their dismal track record in the desert. Bad idea.

The Core Problem

So why did God an all-wise present to them a covenant full of both blessings and cursings, according to their good or bad behavior respectively, when He full well knew they could not keep it? Without knowing that God’s true nature is selfless love, which Jesus demonstrated while on earth, one could erroneously conclude that He is a cruel taskmaster, eager to judge and punish people when they step out of line. This is where Big Picture revelation is needed to see what God was purposely doing to benefit the human race as a whole.

God used this “Divine Experiment” to mercifully reveal the ugly truth of the “human condition,” inherited from Adam. Man’s sinfulness is not merely a habit of bad behavior; fundamentally, bad behavior comes from an incurable nature problem. In fact, the Bible reveals that man is spiritually “of Darkness” and, therefore, at enmity with God who is described as “Light.” This is serious stuff. All of Adam’s descendents are “in Adam” and, therefore, part of the Adversary’s Kingdom and depraved at the core level. This spiritual condition – being in Adam –  made life in heaven with God impossible. Only escaping from Satan’s enslavement and somehow getting a new nature and having all sins forgiven would restore man back to approximate Adam’s original state of grace. Israel’s inability to keep a performance-based covenant proved to all mankind that, if there was a way to get to heaven, only God Himself could provide it. The Good News is that He could and He DID.

God’s Protagonist – The Challenge

Jesus, the Christ, fully God and fully Man, was God’s eternally planned Solution to resolve mankind’s monumental dilemma. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, the legal heir of Abraham, born of a virgin, was God-come-to-earth in the flesh, the prophesied Messiah, the Garden Promise. Yet, so great an Answer to so great a problem, conquered all Darkness, not by His own power and might but by obedience to His heavenly Father. And the problem was far larger than it appeared. Again, man’s nature, acquired when Adam rebelled in the Garden was of Darkness (Ephesians 5:8). Man’s evil core “in Adam”, now allied with Satan, made oneness with God impossible for us by our efforts to do good. But fortunately with God, all things are possible.

Victory through Defeat

A new spirit and a new heart, promised in Ezekiel 36:26, would make intimate fellowship with this holy and perfect God possible again. But on what legal basis that would satisfy the Justice of God could such a miraculous transaction happen? One bible verse says it all: “He (Jesus) became sin who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Yes, Jesus agreed to the unthinkable! In order to legally eradicate all sin and kill death forever, the spotless Lamb became sin, with all its hideous and insidious consequences. This ultimate act of sacrificial submission as the “last Adam” was an infinitely worse punishment than the physical horrors of scourging and crucifixion. Jesus Christ, the Man, relinquished His rightful, covenant-relationship with heavenly His Father for our sake when He was rejected for becoming our sin as our substitutional Lamb (2 Corinthians 5:21). In despairing anguish, He cried out “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). The torturous answer: Light can’t fellowship with Darkness.

Sin and Death Crucified

Yet, the cross was the wisdom of God, His “divine trap,” which lured Satan into his ultimate demise. By orchestrating the crucifixion of mankind’s Scapegoat, Satan unknowingly crucified sin itself. God’s ingenious trick ended Satan’s diabolical death grip on every sinner who, by grace through faith in Christ’s atoning death, is crucified with Him. By being reborn of the Holy Spirit, the old Adamic nature is instantly replaced by a new heart and a new spirit-self. The believer is now alive in Christ instead of being dead to God in Adam. Jesus, God’s sacrificial Lamb, became mankind’s promised Way out of bondage – when there seemed to be no escape.

But is any human being worth the extravagant ransom of the blood of God’s own perfect Son? God thought so. Together, they were gaining an eternal family. Jesus paid the debt for all of mankind’s sin in general – and for yours in particular – so that you could choose to accept His offer of eternal oneness with God Himself. That is the proof of how good God really is. Again, He arranged for the permanent justification of any already-condemned “sinner” to receive a brand new Nature in Christ – by the New Covenant of grace through faith in Jesus Christ’s Finished Work on the cross. This gift of Jesus’ divine exchange as described in Romans 10:9-13, with anyone who asks to be saved from being in Adam and, therefore, destined to hell, 13

The selfless, sacrificial love of God’s fatherly heart required infinitely more of Himself than of helpless mankind. For only God Himself could overcome the curse of man’s Slave master and fully pay the just debt of all Sin. Only the God of heaven could defeat the god of this world.

Yet, only another Man – the last Adam – could invalidate Satan’s legal dominion over mankind and reconcile mankind with God. Only Christ Jesus, the submissive Son of Man, could undo all the effects of Adam’s prideful rebellion.

He (God) made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  2 Corinthians 5:21

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NEXT WEEK: The mystery of the Finished Work of Jesus explained!