Dealing with Sin

https://odb.org/MY/2022/03/30/god-cleans-the-stains

In ancient times, during the time of Israel and Judah, God initiated the ritual of a sin offering to atone for the sins of children of Israel. It was a corporate act and the sin offering was needed as man on his own was unable to meet the exact standards of the Law, to be righteous before God. It was done for and on behalf of the nation, the various tribes but limited to those who were descendents of Abraham. Other nations didn’t have that privilege then.

When Jesus came and died on the cross for the sins of mankind, He became the Lamb of God, the final sacrifice to cleanse the sins of man. So the Second Adam rectified the sin of the first Adam, the original sin at Eden that separated man from God and brought in mortality to human beings. Since then, we were denied access to the Tree of Life. With Jesus in our lives though, even though we die, we will live as He is the resurrection and the life. It is now opened to the Gentiles i.e. the rest of the world, all the other nations and tribes. Through Jesus we have the hope of eternal life and one day in the new heaven and new earth with God dwelling among us, we will once again be able to partake of the Tree of Life and live forever in a new glorified body. Even as both my mum and dad have passed on from this world, I know I will meet them again on that day, the day of resurrection. We will all be reunited with our loved ones who had departed if we remain in the faith until the very end – if we had fought the good fight and completed the race.

The thing is whether in ancient times or in the contemporary, the sin offering only works in conjunction with the right attitude of heart. Like what was written in Isaiah 1:2-4, they rebelled against the LORD, they had forsaken the Law. The externals must be consistent with the internal, the heart. We cannot offer the sin offering to cleanse us of our sins if we remain in sin, in rebellion towards God. If we had turned our backs on Him, what use is the sin offering? God is not pleased, in fact God gains no pleasure, it is detestable to Him, it is meaningless. Even in ancient times, the LORD sought a relationship with His people, not the sin offering or the worship. Make yourself clean, stop doing the evil deeds, the wrong stuff. Do the right thing, defend the oppressed, seek justice, take up the cause of the fatherless, the widows.

Therefore, even as Jesus has justified us by His blood, we will be like the ancients of Judah if we continue to sin and then plead the blood of the Lamb. God like in Isaiah 1:18, is compassionate and forgiving. He is forgiving, particularly with the sacrifice of His son on Calvary. But our hearts must be turned towards Him. We must do what is right. We must fight for the oppressed. We must seek justice. In other words, we must be a living sacrifice. With the Lamb having paved the way, we are to be a living sacrifice for His glory, for His pleasure, day in day out, every day so long as we still have breath in us. What’s in our hearts must be the same as what’s outside. We cannot harbour evil, hatred and vengeance and yet claim the blood of the Lamb. Being a believer and remaining in the faith is never just about saying the sinner’s prayer. It’s about Christ transforming our lives, making a change in us. It’s about not conforming to the pattern of this world by the transformation of our minds so we may test and approve the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.