A Pure, Holy Sacrifice

May 7

We tend to think of Jesus in one of the two sides of His nature. He is either totally human in our mind—just a good man who said a lot of wise things and demonstrated kindness and tolerance and love wherever He went—or He is God, the Creator of all things who, though He walked a while in human flesh, can’t possibly have a credible idea of what mere mortals go through.

If He is just a man, He can hardly be our Savior. We may respect Him, we may acclaim Him to be the most worthy of individuals to ever walk the earth, but we certainly can’t expect Him to make a difference in where we’ll spend eternity. If He is God, His sacrifice on the cross is hardly worth the nails required to hang Him because God has all power and He hung there only because He chose to do so.

Our dilemma is compounded when we read Hebrews 2:18 which says, “Because Christ Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to succor those who are being tempted.” If He can indeed come to our aid when we face temptation, He must be more than just a man, but if He is God, why does He allow our temptation? For our answer, we must return to the garden.

In Genesis 3:15 we discover the enmity between man and God’s mortal enemy that can be resolved only by a pure, holy sacrifice (see Hebrews 9:12). Because Jesus entered the Holy Place with the sacrifice of His own blood, we are able to be free from sin eternally. The serpent may claim man because he is corrupted by sin, but that claim is negated because man is redeemed by the blood of the Man who is fully God.