Where Chains Are Broken

Jesus Christ fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies in his life, his Ministry and his resurrection. To help us comprehend the staggering odds of the probability that one man, born hundreds of years after 300 prophetic utterances were made about his life, one mathematician proposed this example: Take silver dollars and lay them two feet deep across the state of Texas. Now mark one of the silver dollars that would represent the life of Christ and stir up the entire mass of coins. Then blindfold an enthusiastic volunteer and tell him that he can travel as far as he likes across Texas, but that he must pick out in one attempt the marked silver dollar. The reality is that the likelihood of that happening is inconceivable. And this compares to the likelihood that one man would fulfill these 300 prophecies. Unless of course he did so through divine appointment.

Here are just a handful of those prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in His coming as the Messiah: The messiah would be born in Bethlehem; He would be “preceded by a messenger” (John the Baptist); He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey; He would be betrayed by a friend who received thirty pieces of silver; He would remain silent before His accusers; and He would die in the manner Romans used for executing criminals with His hands and feet being impaled.

The Prophet Isaiah not only foretold some of these prophesies seven hundred years before Jesus was born, he included the reason why the prophecies would be fulfilled. In Isaiah 53: 4-6 we read these Words:

“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities;

The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. (Jesus Christ, The Messiah!)”

It is crucial to understand that Scripture reveals that God did not destroy the nature of sin, but that His Son Jesus took upon Himself the sin of the entire human race and erased it for ever for all who would believe on Him. In other words, it is in my nature to claim my rights to myself and my actions or being. This is an infinitely profound revelation.

My “being” should reveal that I have a Creator who is my owner with absolute rights over everything in my life. But because I fail to give my Creator this absolute right, I create an inherent separation of my life from Him. It is in our nature to garner this right for ourselves, thus denying God as our Creator the ownership that He not only deserves, but that He requires. In fact, it is impossible for us to give our Heavenly Father/ Creator this absolute ownership because of our sin-nature. And sin, (which is “separation from God”), has so twisted and distorted our lives and the world to the point where we could not give our God this absolute ownership, even if we wanted to! This is why God sent Jesus, (John 3:16), to pay the penalty of our sin as THE sacrifice which reveals our desire to be restored in relationship with our Heavenly Father. But this restoration must truly be our desire.

When Jesus died He fulfilled a legal obligation required by God for a blood-sacrifice to be made in order to receive forgiveness of sin. Previous to Jesus, the sacrifice of a “clean” or unblemished animal had to be sacrificed. The life-blood of Jesus, once and for all, was spilled out to fulfill God’s legal requirement once and for all. No more sacrifices needed. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was the perfect sacrifice so that all who want to be restored to the Heavenly Father need only to come to the Father while claiming the blood of Jesus for the atonement for separation (sin) from The Father. 

When we consciously realize our separation from our Creator God/ Heavenly Father, and grasp the eternal consequences of that separation, it should invoke a soul-filled desire for restoration that overcomes that separation. And God made this restoration possible through Christ alone. He created a pathway for the cleansing of our lives physically and and consciously on every level. This is the clear message of Hebrews 9: 11-28.

“But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here,he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. ¹² He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. ¹³ The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. ¹⁴ How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,so that we may serve the living God!

¹⁵ For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.”

¹⁶ In the case of a will,it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it,¹⁷ because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. ¹⁸ This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. ¹⁹ When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. ²⁰ He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep. ^]21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. ²² In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

²³ It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴ For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. ²⁵ Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.²⁶ Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷ Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸ so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

If we’re not careful we can misunderstand the nature of salvation and why we are in absolute, desperate need for Jesus to be our Savior. Our temptation is to believe that the nature of sin is immorality and wrongdoing. It is not. The nature of sin is a desire in life, disguised as it may be, which leads us to say, “I am my own god and I am in control of my own destiny.” We tend to proclaim our goodness, kindness, compassion and all the niceties of life that we can muster are evidences that we deserve God’s forgiveness. But we do not. God’s forgiveness comes through the payment of one price alone – the blood of Christ for all who will believe. 

When it comes to sin, I’m separated from God not because there is a lot of sin in my life, but because there IS sin in my life, period. I can’t MOSTLY have salvation while someone else has less salvation. Jesus has either come and applied His blood to my life or He hasn’t. And if He hasn’t, it’s because I have not desired to be restored in my relationship to my Heavenly Father/ God nor have I asked Him to apply the blood of Christ to my life. 

Natural human nature and our will may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis— my claim to my right to myself. Jesus interacted with people who possessed all forces of evil and people who were moral and upright because of their adherence to societal standards. He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one nor to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see and addressed a need that most do not understand. That is the separation of all humanity from the Holiness of God and the need for restoration through redemption that ONLY He can offer.