April 16, 2017 - "He Is Risen!"

Chaplain’s Corner

Sunday, April 16, 2017

HE IS RISEN!

For most of my life, I have been rather proud of the fact that I am able to use the English language correctly, and speak with proper grammar. When I was young, it used to irritate me to hear people say, “He is risen!” on Easter Sunday. I kept thinking that there were other ways to proclaim that wonderful event. You could say, “He has risen!” “He was resurrected!” “He rose from the dead!” After all, that wonderful event is now in the past, and I figured that we should speak of it in the past tense. Little did I understand the real reason we use what may appear to be improper English when we speak of Jesus and His resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday.

It helps to understand the great impact that His death and resurrection had on the human race, and how it was fulfillment of many prophecies and scriptures (over 400 in the Old Testament referred to the life of Jesus). When we look back at the way God dealt with original sin in the Garden of Eden, we see that even though justice had to be served, mercy was able to transcend the death verdict for Adam and Eve, and a way of redemption and salvation was already planned for, and in the works.

In Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, we see the first prophecy in the Bible, where it is spelled out that Jesus would come into the world, and even though the serpent (Satan) would bruise him in the heel (temporary physical earthly death), Jesus would crush the serpent’s head (eventual complete destruction of Satan and all of his wicked influence in the earth).

When you look at the promises that God made to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the nation of Israel, and the system of life and worship that He established with that nation, everything about it is prophetic. The Old Law Covenant with that nation was never intended be the “end game.” It was never supposed to be permanent. The system of animal sacrifices on the altar in the temple and provisions for regular forgiveness of sins was all simply pointing the way to the Perfect Lamb of God that would be sacrificed, once and for all, for complete payment of our sin debt. The imperfect sacrifices that the priests performed were simply a shadow of things to come. The more we look into it, the more fascinating it becomes, as history reveals how God’s plan and purpose for redemption of all of mankind worked out on the Cross of Calvary, and was followed with the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the tomb on the third day, and was finally finished when He ascended into heaven to act as our High Priest and offer the perfect blood of His perfect sacrifice to cover the sins of all mankind.

As I study, I am amazed by the little tidbits of trivia that come to the fore, and solidify my deep and overwhelming awe of our Great God, and how He worked out every single detail with such precision. Small things that most people would never see or appreciate. For instance, when the nation of Israel was lost in the wilderness for 40 years, and they were camping out in tents, there was an order that they followed even in how and where they set up camp. The Tabernacle, where the Ark of the Covenant rested, signifying God’s presence and throne room, was always in the very center of the camp. The camp was always divided by family tribal groups, and they were assigned areas to set up their tents, and it was all really very organized. Interestingly, if you were to go back in time, and take an aerial view of the camp, you would see the camp extending out in four directions from the center, in an orderly, clustered fashion. What you would see from an aerial view would be the sign of the cross, with God’s Holy Tabernacle right in the center. A prophetic picture of what was to come. Who knew?

Even when the High Priest would enter into the Tabernacle to offer sacrifices for the sins of the nation, he had to purify himself and the altar. The blood of the lamb was considered holy, and the High Priest would purify the altar and make it holy and acceptable in God’s sight by taking that holy blood of the lamb and he would splash all four corners of the alter with it, thus marking it for pure and clean worship of God. The sacrifice that would be offered on that altar then would be acceptable for the temporary forgiveness of sins for the nation of Israel. Temporary? Yes, because the life of an innocent lamb, though precious, was not on an equal plane with the lives of fallen humans, and was not a complete price to pay for total redemption from the guilt of inherited sin (missing the mark of perfection). If we look at the Cross of Calvary, the actual cross was a filthy, disgusting, and unclean instrument of torture and death used by the Romans of the time as a means of cruel punishment and intimidation of the populace. That filthy cross was to be the altar that the Lamb of God would be offered up on, and needed to be cleansed and made holy. How appropriate that there was holy blood on all four corners of that cross! Yes, all four corners. We readily remember the hands and the feet being nailed and bleeding, but don’t forget that crown of thorns. Precious blood was pouring from our Savior’s head and marked that fourth corner, thus sanctifying and making holy that cross, that altar of sacrifice.

According to God’s arrangement, it was not simply putting an innocent lamb to death that made for the temporary forgiveness of sins. It all involved the ceremony, and all of the holy acts involved in it. It was an act of reverence, submission, and accepting that a price had to be paid, and acceptance from God came at a price due to our own inherited sinful condition. His mandate was that the Israelites could not approach God on their own, but had to go through an intercessor. God named the tribe of Levi to be priests, and their whole lives were devoted to temple duties and working toward holiness and pure worship to a pure and holy God. Even the average Levite, though being in a priestly clan, could not just go into the tabernacle, much less the Most Holy, which was reserved for the High Priest, himself. The sacrifice for the nation as a whole was to be taken into the Most Holy and into the presence of the Ark of the Covenant and the Shekinah Light, which was constantly shining in a completely sealed and darkened room, which was miraculously provided by God as a sign of His presence. This awesome ceremony was done as a picture and a sign of what was to come later. Forgiveness of the sins of Israel was not accomplished until this part of the ceremony was complete. That High Priest had to go through all of the pomp and circumstance and fulfill every little bit of the rules leading up to the ceremony, and the most important part was this, where he offered the blood of the lamb before God’s presence as payment for the sins of the nation of Israel. That was the key moment, when God would look upon the pure innocence of this blood of the lamb, and be able to put aside and forgive the sins of the nation. Though there was not real healing power in that blood of an earthly lamb, there was powerful significance in the ceremony surrounding it, and the future that it pointed to. God’s plan and purpose was to be carried out in a most wonderful and powerful way.

The immaculate conception of Jesus, His earthly life without sin, His ministry pointing the way to salvation and a “better way” to know and worship God, His fulfillment of every prophecy of Scripture dealing with His life, and His eventual death on that Cross of Calvary, were all leading up to the most important thing of all. His death, though so important, was not the end of it. To fulfill all of the standards necessary to truly forgive mankind’s sin, more was necessary. We still needed a High Priest to approach God in the Most Holy of heaven, the very presence of God Himself on His throne of righteousness, and that High Priest had to carry the value of that perfect, sinless blood that was offered as a ransom payment for the sins of all mankind. Jesus himself was raised from the dead in his physical body on that third day. He appeared to His disciples several times to encourage them and commanded them to wait for the Holy Spirit that was to be poured out on them very soon (at Pentecost). He prepared them for what was to come, said his goodbyes, and physically ascended into the heavens while they watched. It is unknown how He approached God with the precious shed blood, but we know that He did so as our High Priest, and that God’s Holy Spirit that was poured out on those in the upper room at Pentecost gave them what was needed to spread the Good News of the Gospel to all nations. Forgiveness of our inherited sin  was now a real possibility for all mankind, and any and all of those who wanted to take advantage of that arrangement were encouraged to do so.

Which brings us back to my original statement about saying, “He is risen!” Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was more than a perfect human being who walked the earth without sin. He was and is the perfect sacrifice to pay the debt of our inherited sin. But more than a slain Lamb of God, He is also our High Priest, who stands between us as sinful creatures in our flesh, and the pure and holy God the Father, who cannot look upon sin. As we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and as we ask for forgiveness of our inherited sins, we ask Jesus to be our High Priest and offer the value of His righteous blood on our behalf, so that the pure and holy God the Father sees us through the filter of a perfect blood sacrifice, and God only sees the pure, perfect righteousness of The Lamb when he looks upon and communes with us. Our High Priest is in the Most Holy pleading our case before God, and giving us access to the very throne room of God Himself! That living High Priest is essential to our relationship with God. So, when we say, “He is risen!” we are not speaking of a past event in history. We are actually speaking of a state of being. We are speaking in the present tense. We are accepting and celebrating that Jesus “was” that perfect God/man Who died for our sins, but we are also accepting and celebrating that He is no longer the baby Jesus in the manger, and He is no longer the rabbi who gave the Sermon on the Mount, and He is no longer the innocent Lamb of God who was slain on the Cross of Calvary. He is NOW risen, and in that state of being, He now serves a purpose in heaven, as He sits at the right hand of the Father, and pleads for us daily with the value of His blood. His being resurrected from the dead is more than a historical event. It is also now a state of being for Jesus. He is RISEN! Thank you, Lord!

May we all seek him in our lives. May we all accept the free gift of salvation. May we all give ourselves over to a relationship with the God of the universe through the merits of the finished work of love on that Cross of Calvary, and the Risen Lord we love and worship.

God bless you, every one, and:
God Bless America!
Stephen King
Chaplain@3upi.com