Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

God is holy (totally without sin). As such, the only way to abide in His presence is to also be sinless. In addition, the only ways to satisfy God's justice for human disobedience to God -- the violation of His commandments through the commission of sin -- is by the shedding of the offender's blood (that is, the offender's temporal physical death), and the offender's eternal separation from God.

Because of God's love for humanity (despite its universal sinfulness), He instituted a program of animal sacrifice to serve as a substitute for human sacrifice, and also as a foreshadowing of the time when He would bring about the incarnation of His Son (Jesus) as an individual who was both truly, fully human, and also truly, fully God.

Jesus was therefore able to live the sinless life of which other humans were incapable, and then (also because He was God) to offer His own life as a sacrifice that would fully bear the punishment and pay the penalty that all humans deserved for their sin -- in other words, to atone for that sin -- a sacrifice the sufficiency of which was attested by His subsequent resurrection from the dead, and that humans could appropriate for themselves through faith.

(The meaning of the word "atone" is sometimes expressed as "at one", as a means of indicating how Christ's death and resurrection -- and humans' faith in them (rather than in their own imperfect righteousness) -- once again made God and humans capable of abiding eternally in each others' presence.)

January 08 2023 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report