My hope was to give a short overview of who the Puritans were and what they accomplished. Well, I’m not there yet so I figured I would add a short Bible lesson that I wrote a while back for a group in India. I was pleased to be asked to write lessons, and did 5 or 6, but eventually I slacked off. Not proud of that but I do plan to pick it back up soon.
So for now I will leave you with the lesson in the hopes that it will possibly be a blessing to you and cause you to do a further study of the topic.
The Just for the unjust
1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit”
If we go all the way back to Genesis 3:21 we see the first sacrifice, God covering Adam and Eve with skins after their sin against Him. Sacrifices fill the Old Testament, the main one being the Day of Atonement. The time once a year when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies to offer up a blood sacrifice for the sins of the Israelites. The Day of Atonement was such an important part of the lives of the Israelites that it was given an entire chapter in Leviticus to explain it. We also see many other sacrifices and offerings being made by the Israelites in order to approach God in a way that honored Him as He demanded. In Leviticus 16 we see Aaron bringing two goats before the LORD. He casts lots for the goats, one lot for God and the other for the scapegoat (Azazel).One goat would be slain to satisfy the justice demanded by God for sin, and the other would be sent into the wilderness to show the remission of sin by the loving mercy of God.The blood of bulls and goats once covered the sins but they also pointed to something else, someone else.Christ covers all aspects of the Day of Atonement now.
1- He is our High Priest that lives forever (Heb 4:14-16)
2- He is the one slain to satisfy the justice demanded (John 1:29, Rom 3:25)
3- HE was our scapegoat by taking our sin and removing them forever.
Christ’s sacrifice, unlike the Levitical sacrifices, only needed to be done once. As the Great High Priest, He went to the cross having committed no sin, and gave His life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28). Christ the just, perfectly righteous holy Son of God became sin (2 Cor 5:21) for His people “so that in Him we might become the righteous of God”.This is the doctrine of Imputation. Not meaning that Jesus became a sinner or that He became actual sin itself or even that He was guilty of actual sin he committed, He was sinless and had our sin ascribed to Him. He was regarded or considered guilty, paid the price and took the punishment and in return Christ’s righteousness was imputed or ascribed to us. Without this Double Imputation we would never have any righteousness of our own.
Without that one time sacrifice we would never be able to be right with God.Without a Great High Priest that lives forever, who is fully God and fully man being able to live a perfectly righteous life, we would have no hope because “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4)
No King but Christ 