Category Archives: Atonement

Jesus died on the cross to bring salvation to all men and women

Jesus died on the cross to bring salvation to all men and women

Man, inspite of all his education, sophistication, finery, civilization and
technology, needs salvation. He was born in sin and cannot get communion or fellowship with God, nor go to Heaven when he dies. He has to gain salvation from the sin nature. Religion cannot save him from this sin. Organized religion is just a plethora of laws , rules and the sayings of prophets which have no power to save man from sin, for the very reason that no man can ever obey these rules and laws nor have these rules and laws made man a good person .“The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth, (Genesis 8:21 instructs us . Man was born with the nature of sin in him and will only do evil perpetually. Yet this was not the case when God created man. According to the Bible, Adam , the first man, was created in the image of God ( Genesis 1 : 26).
Since he was created in the image of God, he was imbued with true knowledge, righteousness and holiness ( Genesis 1: 31; Ecclesiates 7: 29; Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4: 24). By nature, Adam was good .The spiritual and ethical capacity was inside him to obey God. But Adam was told by God not to eat the forbidden fruit and if he did, he will surely die (Genesis 2 : 17). We all know the story. Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit (Read the whole of Genesis 3 ).

The consequence of this disobedience was that the sin nature entered Adam and he fell from his position of righteousness and could no longer commune or fellowship with God . Adam ‘s nature from spirit to soul became defiled by sin. This sin nature was passed on to all men. According to Romans 5 :12, Sin entered the world through one man, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. And Romans 3: 23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The psalmist laments : “ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). He also gives a graphic description of man in his fallen state :“The wicked are estranged from the womb;
they go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies” (Ps. 58:3).

Also, there is a penalty for sin and Romans 6 : 23 tells us that the wages of sin is death -Man who could have lived forever would now die and not only that he is also now spiritually dead and can no longer commune with God or enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Man has dabbled in all kinds of spiritual exercises to purge himself from sin. He has engaged in transcendental meditation and tried all kinds of religious rites and pilgrimages to become good, but the result has always been a disaster. Man cannot become good or rid himself of sin by his own will or religious rites and pilgrimages . The Bible says that “…. there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Eccl. 7:20). Man was lost and his only destiny was death and after that suffering in the Lake of Fire forever and ever.

But God is very good.His whole nature is goodness and he loves his creation. God loves man and is very merciful to him. Because of this, God found a way for man to gain salvation from Sin and his fallen nature and spiritual incapacity to commune with Him. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life ( John 3: 16 ) . He sent Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross so that by his death man would be saved. John 1 : 29 describes Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And Jesus Christ himself declares in John 14: 6 ” I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yes , indeed, Jesus Christ is the only way provided
by God for man to be saved from Sin, become the righteousness of God , be reconciled to God and enter the Kingdom of Heaven after death. People can argue and fight all they want but the Bible shows only one way for salvation and that is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Man has to be born again through Jesus Christ .

Jesus Christ himself tells us about man’s need for this new birth : “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born
again” (John 3:1-7).

Man is born again and saved by the grace of God. Man cannot buy salvation by money or a multiplicity of religious observances, rites and pilgrimages. Man is saved only by grace through Christ. Your own good works , your diligent and frenzied preoccupation with religious rites and education cannot save you and get you to Heaven. Only Jesus Christ can do it for you. Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches us that, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” This explains why it is so foolish for mortal man to boast about his own spirituality or godliness . There is no spirituality , goodness of man or godliness outside Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ who saves us by the grace of God and infills us with the Holy Spirit through whom we can then obey God, commune with him and be fit to enter the Kingdom of God by faith.

Romans 10 : 9 instructs us about how to be saved : “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and believe in the redemptive work wrought on the Cross of Calvary . Pray and believe and the Holy Spirit shall come and reside in you and you will become the Child of God and will never be the same again.

MAY GOD BLESS YOU FOR LISTENING TO THE WORD OF GOD AND MAKING IT BECOME REAL IN YOUR LIFE.

Infinite penalty

Infinite penalty

If you toss the trinity doctrine, then explain how a mere man, a created being, can pay an infinite penalty.

Christ’s death was said to pay an infinite penalty, after all. If he was deity, then he was infinite, and the penalty could logically be paid for in full, and he could cry ‘tetelestai,’ it is finished, paid in full.

Can this be true if anything other than God, tries to pay it? If so, you have the problem of explaining how a finite being paid an infinite penalty, right?

How were people saved before Jesus died for our sins

How were people saved before Jesus died for our sins

Question: “How were people saved before Jesus died for our sins?”

Answer: Since the fall of man, the basis of salvation has always been the death of Christ. No one, either prior to the cross or since the cross, would ever be saved without that one pivotal event in the history of the world. Christ’s death paid the penalty for past sins of Old Testament saints and future sins of New Testament saints.

The requirement for salvation has always been faith. The object of one’s faith for salvation has always been God. The psalmist wrote, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12). Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham believed God and that was enough for God to credit it to him for righteousness (see also Romans 4:3-8). The Old Testament sacrificial system did not take away sin, as Hebrews 10:1-10 clearly teaches. It did, however, point to the day when the Son of God would shed His blood for the sinful human race.

What has changed through the ages is the content of a believer’s faith. God’s requirement of what must be believed is based on the amount of revelation He has given mankind up to that time. This is called progressive revelation. Adam believed the promise God gave in Genesis 3:15 that the Seed of the woman would conquer Satan. Adam believed Him, demonstrated by the name he gave Eve (v. 20) and the Lord indicated His acceptance immediately by covering them with coats of skin (v. 21). At that point that is all Adam knew, but he believed it.

Abraham believed God according to the promises and new revelation God gave him in Genesis 12 and 15. Prior to Moses, no Scripture was written, but mankind was responsible for what God had revealed. Throughout the Old Testament, believers came to salvation because they believed that God would someday take care of their sin problem. Today, we look back, believing that He has already taken care of our sins on the cross (John 3:16; Hebrews 9:28).

What about believers in Christ’s day, prior to the cross and resurrection? What did they believe? Did they understand the full picture of Christ dying on a cross for their sins? Late in His ministry, “Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Matthew 16:21-22). What was the reaction of His disciples to this message? “Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!'” Peter and the other disciples did not know the full truth, yet they were saved because they believed that God would take care of their sin problem. They didn’t exactly know how He would accomplish that, any more than Adam, Abraham, Moses, or David knew how, but they believed God.

Today, we have more revelation than the people living before the resurrection of Christ; we know the full picture. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Our salvation is still based on the death of Christ, our faith is still the requirement for salvation, and the object of our faith is still God. Today, for us, the content of our faith is that Jesus Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Filthy Rags

filthy rags

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)

In the sight of God, even our best deeds are like filthy rags compared to the awesome purity of his holiness. His holiness is like a consuming fire that burns up all impurity in an instant.

So there is nothing we can do on our own to earn salvation

Forgiveness in the Torah

Forgiveness in the Torah

When somebody living under the Torah sinned they were responsible for what they had done, but if they repented they could be forgiven by a sacrifice that would bear their sin before God. The Torah explains this:

He must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect. He is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering. Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven. ” Leviticus 4:28-31, NIV

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. ” Leviticus 17:11, NIV

The Torah teaches individual responsibility and forgiveness through a substitute sacrifice that bears our sin. That exactly was what Jesus did, He died in our stead. He was the sacrifice for the whole world sins on that cross.

In the book of the prophet Ezekiel we see this idea as well.

(The priests) will put the most holy offerings (there) ” the grain offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings ” for the place is holy. ” Ezekiel 42:13, NIV

Therefore Muslims are not reading Deuteronomy 24:16 or Ezekiel 18:20 in their context (which is not news to me since that’s the only way for them to attack the Bible which by the way was confirmed by their own false prophet Muhammad to be authentic ” Qur’an 3:3). These verses are not saying there is no sacrifice that can bear our sin. Instead they are saying that we are individually responsible for our sins and need to seek forgiveness through God’s provision of a substitute sacrifice that can bear our sin. These verses do not support Islam at all; instead they confirm what Christianity teaches.

The blood of those animals, however, couldn’t permanently wash away sins; they could only cover their sins for a year, that’s why He offered His only begotten Son to shed His spotless, undefiled blood to be the ultimate sacrifice, not only for those who are under the Torah but also the whole world:

11. But Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12. nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption. 13. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh: 14. how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 15. For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 16. For where a last will and testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him who made it. 17. For a will is in force where there has been death, for it is never in force while he who made it lives. 18. Therefore even the first covenant has not been dedicated without blood. 19. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20. saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” 21. Moreover he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry in the same way with the blood. 22. According to the law, nearly everything is cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission. ” Hebrews 9:11-22, WEB

Forgiveness Without Retribution

Forgiveness Without Retribution

1). Forgiveness Without Retribution Is The Mark Of An Unjust & Thereby False God

2). The One True God Is Perfectly Just & Holy – Hence There Are Consequences And Penalties For Sin

3). Jesus Offered Himself To Pay The Penalty For Our Sin In Full, Which Alone Satisfies God’S Demand For Retributive Justice
#Challenges Arising:

You Cannot Show Mercy Without Justice. Moreover The Claim That Bad Deeds Can Be Magically Transformed Into Good Deeds (Surah 25:68-71), Is The Stuff Of Human Imagination And Fantasy, Giving Carte Blanche To Commit Crime. The More Crimes You Commit The More Good Deed Potential You Have

Atonement Of Sins Through Blood

Atonement Of Sins Through Blood

An Islamist made this comment: “……show me a single unambiguous verse in the complete Bible where God says that Jesus Christ pbuh will die on the cross for your sins…….”

OUR RESPONSE:

Luke 24:44-47 “Then he told them, “These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you”that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds so that they might understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is how it is written: the Messiah was to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and then repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”

Matthew 20:18-19 “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the high priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death. Then they will hand him over to the gentiles to be mocked, whipped, and crucified, but on the third day he will be raised.”

Matthew 26:28 “this is my blood, which seals God’s covenant, my blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Atonement by Blood & Significance Of Blood In Atonement Of Sins

Exodus 24: 5 Then he sent young men, and they burned sacrifices to the LORD and sacrificed some cattle as fellowship offerings. 6 Moses took half of the blood of the animals and put it in bowls; and the other half he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant, in which the LORD’s commands were written, and read it aloud to the people. They said, “We will obey the LORD and do everything that he has commanded.” 8 Then Moses took the blood in the
bowls and threw it on the people. He said, “THIS IS THE BLOOD THAT SEALS THE COVENANT which the LORD made with you when he gave all these commands.”

Exodus 30: 10 Once a year Aaron is to perform the ritual for purifying the altar by putting on its four projections the blood of the animal sacrificed for sin. This is to be done every year for all time to come. This altar is to be completely holy, dedicated to me, the LORD.”

John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

CASE CLOSED!

Nothing else matters apart from the atonement wrought by the Cross of Christ

Nothing else matters apart from the atonement wrought by the Cross of Christ

WHAT REALLY MATTERS

Nothing else matters apart from the atonement wrought by the Cross of Christ. Atonement means “the action of making amends for a wrong doing or injury”.

Our sins separate us from Holy God who cannot look upon sin or allow anything sinful into His presence. His justice demands that reparation be made for wrong doing. All sin is wrong. There is no such thing as “major or minor sins” a man made distinction that gives away the man made theology of Islam.

Surah 4:31 ““If you shun the great sins which you are forbidden, We will do away with your small sins and cause you to enter an honorable place of entering.” (Shakir)

It bears repeating; a holy and just God cannot just brush sins under the carpet by “doing away with them” as happens in the make believe world of Islam.

There is certainly no such thing as transforming sins into good deeds as if by magic (Surah 25:68-71). This too is delusional fantasy.

It took ONE sin to bring the Fall of humanity and eternal separation from God.

If our very best is as filthy rags to Holy God (Isaiah 64:6) is the pinnacle of our best, we don’t need to be told how God regards our worst. Scripture clearly teaches the doctrine of total depravity which is nowhere in the Quran.

The dark and sinister reality of sin infected mankind from the very opening moments of human history, and was swiftly unmasked as mankind’s rejection of God and our opposition to Him. Divine Revelation illuminates the source and origin of wickedness, which can be found in the course of the lives of our First Parents. It came from rebellion against God.

It cannot be attributed to behavioural mistakes, developmental flaws, inherent weakness or psychological illness, as Muslims suggest or would have us believe. Sin is a heart deficiency not just a behavioural or environmental deficiency. We are all born with a moral deficiency of “heart disease”, that is a predisposition and predilection to sin.

“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” (Matthew 15:19‭-‬20)

“Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. And He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.” (As a result, He made all foods clean.) Then He said, “What comes out of a person — that defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:15‭, ‬18‭-‬23)

Jesus just said that what we eat can never make us unclean. Its our hearts that make us unclean not what passes through the stomach. (Islam’s antithetical stance would have us believe its the opposite).

As the saying goes “we are not sinners because we sin (the Muslim position), rather we sin because we are sinners (the Biblical position)”.

All of mankind is adopted into the sin of Adam by birth, just as mankind is adopted into the Church through faith in Christ Jesus, and baptism in His name. By virtue of Christ’s Passion, we are offered restoration to a moral life full of obedience to faith as our first obligation. By daily living in remembrance of God’s gift of self-sacrifice we abide in hope and reveal His majesty to others in acts of charity, and are made whole. The Original Sin of Adam shamed Man with the inheritance of a joyless and frightful legacy. Christ emancipated His creation from the despair of separation from God and the degenerate presumption that salvation is attained through our own capacities.

There is only condemnation if you deny the cross and the crucifixion. Nothing we do will ever be enough to “earn” our way into heaven. You believe in One God, well even the demons believe in One God. Recognizing that God is one means nothing if you deny His Only-Begotten Son.

What separates the believer from the unbeliever is recognizing that Christ is the divine Son of God who took on flesh out of love for our salvation. Christ voluntarily took on human form for our salvation so that we could come before God without being condemned.

You just know this is important and destroys Satan’s power because of the resounding silence and total absence of this teaching about the seriousness of sin, our inherent sinful nature and the need for atonement in the Quran. Since denial of the crucifixion removes any basis for atonement, the Quran is forced to ignore it, because merely to mention it, opens a can of worms and would be an admission of a gross error of omission and denial.

Make no mistake: #OnlyTheCrossSaves