Thank God for Jesus

I had imagined times without number what it would be like if we were still living under the law. When we would have to obey all the laws God gave from the book of Exodus to Deuteronomy. Where turning away from any one of them could cost us our life. I could imagine a priest going in to make sacrifice and he will have a bell tied to his waist with a rope extending out so the people can pull him out when he drops dead.

  

"When an ordinary member of the congregation sins unintentionally, straying from one of the commandments of GOD which must not be broken, he is guilty. When he is made aware of his sin, he shall bring a goat, a female without any defect, and offer it for his sin, lay his hand on the head of the Absolution-Offering, and slaughter it at the place of the Whole-Burnt-Offering. (Leviticus 4:27-29, MSG)

Are these your thoughts…? I have tried everything and nothing helps. I am at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? The answer, thank God, because Jesus Christ can and does provide the only way. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. A new power is now in operation. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He did not deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right for the last time. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as an offering or serving as a temporary or expedient remedy or solution instead of a deep healing of it. Now what the law code asked for but we could not deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Since Jesus "ever lives to make intercession for" us, and since He is "an Advocate with the Father" (I John 2:1, 2) for us all, we need no other mediator. There is no need to pray through Mary or any of the "saints". Jesus, our Mediator, will present our requests to God for us. He alone is sufficient.

We need an example – Christ is our perfect example. We need a sacrifice – Christ is our perfect sacrifice. We need a high priest – Christ is our perfect high priest. We need a mediator – Christ is our perfect mediator. What more could you want? What more do you need? Nothing! We need nothing more; yet anything less would be insufficient. Then truly, Jesus Christ is an All-Sufficient Saviour.