Atonement
I realize that I have written on this before, pretty often. But it keeps being forcefully brought back to my attention, and needs to be, if for no other reason, for my sake.
Being a friend to me doesn’t atone for abusing my friends. Neither does being nice to me today atone for hating me yesterday.
I must forgive you for hating me for you to be atoned. My grace alone can atone for your grievous treatment of me. You can’t undo the past by being good from now on. You cannot prove yourself by present or future good treatment toward me because I’ve already seen your real feelings of me.
If you hated me once, there stands a good chance you will hate me again. Your past actions have revealed the true character of your heart. And you will not change your mistrust and displeasure in me unless I trust you and show you I love you. But how can I show you love when you have proven yourself untrustworthy?
Nevertheless, even though being my friend today can’t atone for past abuses, it is only by your seeking my friendship that I can bring you into a knowledge of the pain you have caused me. Once you see what you did then you can be sorry. And when I see that you admit to yourself the pain you inflicted, then I can justly forgive you because I know that you know and feel my suffering. You are truly sorry.
This was the right way for me to make everything better, because if I forgave you without showing you what pain you caused, I will be hardening you in your abuses. But with the truth out in the open and accepted in your mind, now I am safe to forgive you, and you are atoned; and reconciliation and redemption are accomplished.
We have rebelled against God’s kingdom and have proven ourselves noxious to the rest of the holy universe. How can rebels ever be reunited and restored to a holy God and His pure kingdom? Can we be restored to heaven’s truth by determining today, from now on, to never sin again? How will today’s obedience atone for our past malicious destruction of our Creator’s character? It simply can’t. We have proven our real selves and demonstrated our real intent.
When Moses struck out at the people with the foul, unsanctified words, “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” he revealed a trait of character the people had never seen in him—a hatred toward them (as they perceived it) that must have always been there. (Num. 20:10). They saw him diminished in their sight—less of a man. He had not only showed that he hated them, but he showed hyprocrisy in that he took the glory of God in claiming that he had been bringing water from sun-baked earth for them all that 40 years of wilderness wandering.
What could Moses do then, after proving himself evil that one time? He had negated all the previous decades of good works. He proved that all that time he had must been faking goodness—in the minds of the people. And God must be this way too because Moses represented God.
In the eyes of the angelic hosts we have infinitely proven ourselves unsafe to be restored to God’s eternal kingdom of sinlessness. Even today’s world knows they are not candidates of an eternal world of righteousness. “Why bother to even try to be holy?” they say.
But God wanted us in with Him forever. His home wouldn’t be the same without us. It’s true, our past cannot atone for any amount of good living today and forevermore. We must be forgiven of our past. And we could never produce good behavior without that knowledge of acceptance. There would be no incentive to try to be good. True good behavior only comes from true goodness. And we can’t have true goodness without seeing true goodness in God. True goodness springs from humility and unselfish love. This we must first see in God.
Jesus was the Word of God—God’s thoughts made audible. He had been revealing the Father in every aspect prior to the great controversy. As Son of God, He was the spokesman for the King of kings. Once sin entered Earth, He did not try to escape His role as revealer of God, and He assumed the burden of showing the love of God in a deeper way than He had ever done before—through the sacrifice of Himself. This because it has always been His greatest pleasure to reveal His Father.
He came to man when man was fleeing God. He stood in God’s place. If we would accept His friendship—His everlasting covenant—then we could be ushered into a training program in which He could show us what damage we had done to God, and then trust in our Advocate to not hurt us if we admitted to wrongdoing. Then He could baptize us with repentance and raise us up converted and reconciled to His Father again.
Thus atonement would be made, not by our “trying to be good from now on” (which even we know is a joke) but by seriously getting with Someone who could bring us to repentance for our past ugliness and wretchedness, and being led into humility and contrition. Love was the very beginning of the process to our redemption, and love is the governing principle in every step of our restoration.
Being a friend to me doesn’t atone for abusing my friends. Neither does being nice to me today atone for hating me yesterday.
I must forgive you for hating me for you to be atoned. My grace alone can atone for your grievous treatment of me. You can’t undo the past by being good from now on. You cannot prove yourself by present or future good treatment toward me because I’ve already seen your real feelings of me.
If you hated me once, there stands a good chance you will hate me again. Your past actions have revealed the true character of your heart. And you will not change your mistrust and displeasure in me unless I trust you and show you I love you. But how can I show you love when you have proven yourself untrustworthy?
Nevertheless, even though being my friend today can’t atone for past abuses, it is only by your seeking my friendship that I can bring you into a knowledge of the pain you have caused me. Once you see what you did then you can be sorry. And when I see that you admit to yourself the pain you inflicted, then I can justly forgive you because I know that you know and feel my suffering. You are truly sorry.
This was the right way for me to make everything better, because if I forgave you without showing you what pain you caused, I will be hardening you in your abuses. But with the truth out in the open and accepted in your mind, now I am safe to forgive you, and you are atoned; and reconciliation and redemption are accomplished.
We have rebelled against God’s kingdom and have proven ourselves noxious to the rest of the holy universe. How can rebels ever be reunited and restored to a holy God and His pure kingdom? Can we be restored to heaven’s truth by determining today, from now on, to never sin again? How will today’s obedience atone for our past malicious destruction of our Creator’s character? It simply can’t. We have proven our real selves and demonstrated our real intent.
When Moses struck out at the people with the foul, unsanctified words, “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” he revealed a trait of character the people had never seen in him—a hatred toward them (as they perceived it) that must have always been there. (Num. 20:10). They saw him diminished in their sight—less of a man. He had not only showed that he hated them, but he showed hyprocrisy in that he took the glory of God in claiming that he had been bringing water from sun-baked earth for them all that 40 years of wilderness wandering.
What could Moses do then, after proving himself evil that one time? He had negated all the previous decades of good works. He proved that all that time he had must been faking goodness—in the minds of the people. And God must be this way too because Moses represented God.
In the eyes of the angelic hosts we have infinitely proven ourselves unsafe to be restored to God’s eternal kingdom of sinlessness. Even today’s world knows they are not candidates of an eternal world of righteousness. “Why bother to even try to be holy?” they say.
But God wanted us in with Him forever. His home wouldn’t be the same without us. It’s true, our past cannot atone for any amount of good living today and forevermore. We must be forgiven of our past. And we could never produce good behavior without that knowledge of acceptance. There would be no incentive to try to be good. True good behavior only comes from true goodness. And we can’t have true goodness without seeing true goodness in God. True goodness springs from humility and unselfish love. This we must first see in God.
Jesus was the Word of God—God’s thoughts made audible. He had been revealing the Father in every aspect prior to the great controversy. As Son of God, He was the spokesman for the King of kings. Once sin entered Earth, He did not try to escape His role as revealer of God, and He assumed the burden of showing the love of God in a deeper way than He had ever done before—through the sacrifice of Himself. This because it has always been His greatest pleasure to reveal His Father.
He came to man when man was fleeing God. He stood in God’s place. If we would accept His friendship—His everlasting covenant—then we could be ushered into a training program in which He could show us what damage we had done to God, and then trust in our Advocate to not hurt us if we admitted to wrongdoing. Then He could baptize us with repentance and raise us up converted and reconciled to His Father again.
Thus atonement would be made, not by our “trying to be good from now on” (which even we know is a joke) but by seriously getting with Someone who could bring us to repentance for our past ugliness and wretchedness, and being led into humility and contrition. Love was the very beginning of the process to our redemption, and love is the governing principle in every step of our restoration.
posted by David | 6:59 AM
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