Friday, April 6, 2012

Why two, not one?

Cannot really think of a better title for this entry, thus, I'll just have to name it as that. To fellow believers, I think I do not have to explain too much on today's significance. I'll delve more into the "redemption offering" to write off our sins part. When preaching the gospel to our oikos, I'm sure any believer knows the "Jesus died on the cross for our sins" pars because of the "All have sinned and fall short of the glory part". Straightforward and simple enough. Thus, upon acceptance our Jesus Christ as personal Lord & Saviour, we have been redeemed of punishment for our sins when facing judgement, the ultimate penalty across the board being death. However, despite assurance of eternal life in Heaven with Christ, the "what now" question has always been the one nagging at me. Thankfully today's sermon at church has helped me answer this spot of bother. Kudos to Pastor Low of New Life Baptist Church! :D

During the precise moment of Christ's death, the curtain in the temple tore cleanly into two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:44), clearly heralding the new era of reconciliation between man and God without the need for any intermediaries. This is further substantiated by the arrival of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). However, between the period and journey from acceptance of Christ till reuniting with Him in Heaven, what then? Here we have to examine the Old Testament again, specifically the ritual of the offering for the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16).

The ritual for the Day of Atonement applies for all mankind, including even the priests themselves. It involves two goats, and not just one, without blemish. They are selected at random, one allocated for slaughter as a sin offering (vs. 15), the other to be prayed upon to confess all the sins of mankind and then sent away to the wilderness to fend for itself (vs. 20-22). The necessity of having two, instead one one goat, for the ritual was a minor puzzle for me then, as I did not grasp the full concept and extent of redemption till today. The goat for slaughter is actually the redemption from death part, whichI fully understood, was aware and accepted. Meanwhile, the goat for exile symbolises redemption from the burden of our sins while still on earth...

Last year during a major quarrel with someone (non-believer), he had said the line "no one owes you anything and neither do you owe anyone anything". I was very bothered by the line then, though more of due to other factors. Fast foward the situation to a new year, and those factors have long since worn off, but the line still lingered in my mind, aka Lady Macbeth's "out out damned spot" style, and I only realised the reason today. Despite having accepted the entire redemption package deal from Christ, I still insisted on carrying the sin baggage around on my back, with Jesus the lamb baa-ing away at me, shaking his head. Yes indeed, what took me so long to realise, no wonder I always complain of backache...

In retrospect now, I think my friend's statement was not phrased correctly. Its is not about any human owing any other human being more or less. We all owe God, but He decided to write it all off, because He doesn't believe in book-keeping. Matthew didn't quit his job for nothing after deciding to follow Jesus. :p However, I still enjoy buying big bags, especially the Crumpler types which I can dump loads of stuff I want in. They are definitely not baggage and burdens. Amen!

No comments:

Post a Comment