4.
BELIEVE THAT JESUS CHRIST IS OUR REDEEMER AND SAVIOR
The
fourth important thing we need to know and believe about Jesus Christ, is to
believe that He is our Redeemer and Savior, because He took our place in death
by becoming sin for us. For, “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our
sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken (wounded) smitten by God and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are
healed.’
It
is stated that, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to
his own way: and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Yet it was
the will of the Lord to bruise Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord
makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His
days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After the suffering of
His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My
righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.’
“Therefore
I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with
the strong, because He poured His life unto death, and was numbered with the
transgressors, for He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors” (Isaiah 53:4-6;10-12).
Believing
in Jesus Christ as our Redeemer and Savior entails that we that we were under
the dominion of the kingdom of darkness, but God the Father delivered us from
the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Now,
having been purchased by His blood, we are no longer our own but should
consider our body as the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us, whom we have
from God, for we were bought at a price; the price of Jesus' blood therefore,
we are to glorify God in our body and in your spirit, which are God's.
This
necessitates believing that while we were still weak, at the right time Jesus
Christ died for the ungodly and that God demonstrated His love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He took our place in death,
and we are therefore convinced that, if one has died for all then all died, and
He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but
for Him who died for them and was raised again. And so, having been set free from
sin, we became slaves of righteousness
This
is the liberty and freedom that the Lord has given us, freedom from the wages
of sin which is death. For since He created everything and everything belong to
Him, and lived a perfect sinless life, His death is sufficient to pay for the
sins of all mankind, all we need to do is to believe and obey Him.
This
then is the true definition of not being under law but under grace. Being under
law, the wages of sin would be death, but being under grace, if peradventure we
sin and confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness: And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation
for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
Therefore,
the instruction is, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that
you may not sin,” because whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin
is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and
in Him there is no sin.
Whoever
abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is
righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins (transgresses the laws of God)
is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose
the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he
cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3: 4-9).
For
if by the one man's (first Adam) offense death reigned through the one, much
more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will
reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as through one man's
(first Adam) offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even
so through one Man's (last Adam) righteous act the free gift came to all men,
resulting in justification of life: For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made
righteous” (Romans 5:17-19).
This
righteous act and free gift which came to all men is the Lord´s death paying
the penalty of sin in our stead, redeeming us from the powers of darkness, His
resurrection from the dead giving us a new life in the Spirit and giving His
flesh and blood in the form of the bread and wine to eat and drink for the
forgiveness of our sins. If therefore, we truly believe in Jesus Christ as our
Redeemer and Savior, we will express and demonstrate this belief by practicing
righteousness which is the keeping of His commandments, and practicing the act
of righteousness which Jesus Christ performed for the remission of sins and
glorify God in our body and spirit which belongs to Him.
To be continued
Lucius Joseph
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