Questions

Posted: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Morgan in
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So we have been talking about heresies about Jesus in my Christian Foundations class. Someone asked why God didn't find "an easier way" than to sacrifice Jesus to bring us salvation. Someone else said He sent His son to die for us simply because we as humans can relate better to Jesus than some impersonal spiritual vehicle of salvation.

My first reaction was this: who are we to question God?

I remembered that Job did just that. He questioned God's justice, power, and sovereignty. In Job 38-41, God has that same reaction and Job realizes his foolishness, saying,
"I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know...I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefor I despise myself, I repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:2, 5-6
At the same time, there are things God has revealed to us. He is a speaking God. He speaks through His Word and the Holy Spirit (and nothing the Holy Spirit reveals to us will contradict what He said in scripture). I believe that the bible is the ultimate source of knowledge about God and that it contains everything we need to know about God in this life.

My second reaction was this: There is a reason behind God's method of salvation.

By sending Jesus to earth as a sacrifice, God was not choosing a method of salvation out of the blue, but rather he was upholding His own standard of justice that He set up in the beginning. Jesus' sacrifice was the fulfillment of the Old Covenant that is revealed in the Old Testament. A good example of the aspects of the Old Covenant in question can be found in Numbers. Chapter 8 explains the purification and atonement that is required of the Levites for their priestly service, and Numbers 18 explains the Levites' priestly duty of bearing the iniquities of the people. I encourage you to read them because there's too much to quote in this space.

The book of Hebrews focuses on the supremacy of Christ and his sufficiency for salvation, so it seemed like a good place to go to find how Jesus's death fulfilled the Old Covenant. All throughout the book, the writer speaks of Jesus Christ as making purification and propitiation for sins. In Hebrews 7:27, when speaking of Jesus as the perfect high priest in comparison to the high priests of the Old Covenant, the author says:
"He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself."
And again in Hebrews 10:14:
"But whenChrist had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
So, Jesus was sent as a sacrifice because He is the only one who could serve as our high priest and because He is the only perfect sacrifice that will cover all sins for all time. Nothing else would do.

God does things for a reason, but whether or not we can understand it is another matter. In this case, the method of salvation, it seems that God has seen fit to reveal His plan and reasons to us through His Word. When we can't understand God's design, we probably aren't meant to understand it. That's ok. He's God. We aren't.

"God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." Exodus 3:14

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