jackpickel

April 29, 2012

How do we know God loves us…and to what extinct?

Let’s begin with …

1)  God’s holiness.  God is holy.  Holiness seems to be his premier attribute in the Scriptures.  We can’t fathom God’s holiness.  People who say “I am a good person” have no understanding of the depth of the holiness of God.   Our sin offends God’s holiness.  Offending God is not like offending your boss, neighbor, or parent.  Sinning against the holiness of God brings his …

2)  God’s wrath.  Because God is holy, ever act of unholiness gets its deserved punishment.  God’s wrath is not like our wrath/anger.  It is not capricious or arbitrary.  God doesn’t fly off the handle in to a rage at every trivial provocation.  But be assured, God judges sin.  if he didn’t, we’d have to call his holiness into question.  But that leads us to …

3) God’s  propitiation.  To propitiate means to satisfy the wrath of someone you’ve wronged.  To understand this we must go back to the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant that was found in the Holy of Holies in the Temple.  On top of the Ark was a covering called the Mercy Seat.  This is where the High Priest would apply the blood of the sacrificial animal to make (temporary) atonement for the sins of Israel.  This atoning sacrificing averted God’s wrath against their sin.  It’s parallel is found in the New Testament in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus became our propitiation.  The same word used for Mercy Seat in the Hebrew Old Testament is used for Jesus’ work of propitiation in the New Testament.  Jesus’ death on the cross provided his blood to (permanently) cover our sin before a holy God.  God’s wrath, therefore, is averted.  But why would God send his own son to be an atoning sacrifice for us? Here’s why …

4)  God’s love. 1 John 4:9-10 says, “This is how God showed his love among us:  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love;  Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice (propitiation) for our sin.”  God is holy yet God is loving.  There are many manifestations of God’s love to us everyday, but the premier manifestation of deep love for us is found in the biblical doctrine of propitiation in which he sent his own Son to be the atoning sacrifice for us.

Therefore, every follower or Jesus can say courageously and with head held high:  “I am deeply loved of God.”