We Never Get Past Faith

The Christian life begins with faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Often we think now we have mastered the basics of the faith now we will move into the deeper substance.

But you see we are very forgetful and the basics of the Christian faith are everything. We do not start the Christian life by faith and continue by works. We start by faith and must continue by faith at every moment.

There is never a time when a Christian can move past the basics. We are weak. But when we are weak in Christ we are strong. If we feel we are strong we deceive ourselves and are weak.

You see all strength is found in God alone. In our weakness we can rest in grace. We were saved by grace and live each moment by grace.

If we do not see this we are blind to the depth of the law. The law is so deep and our weakness of heart so strong we are blind if we do not realize that we need grace each day.

Infinite grace flows from God. It is grace and focusing on the goodness of God by which we grow in sanctification. That is why often teaching on law and how to live well has no impact.

You see we usually know right and wrong very well and it does us little good. It is by looking to God in love that we are changed to be who we were always meant to be.

Old Testament Sacrificial System

There is a great importance to the Sacrificial System in the Old Testament. One importance that comes up immediately is that there is a guilt which man possesses.

This guilt must be paid by a price. The price is the sacrifices that were brought before God. These were to be animals which were without blemish.

The most interesting thing about the sacrificial system is that it was futile. One brought a sacrifice one was forgive and made clean. One sinned and was unclean necessitating a future sacrifice.

The sacrificial system is interesting because it could bring no ultimate peace with God. In the opening scene of Jesus’ ministry John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit cried out “Look the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the word.”

In the first moments of Jesus’ ministry he is pictured as a sin offering for the world. The Lamb reference is about the essential aspect of Jesus’ ministry, he is here to pay the price of sin.

Jesus did pay the price for sin after fulfilling all the righteousness that is expected of men. And his death was vindicated in his resurrection in that the powers of the grave could not hold him.

Really the ministry of Jesus is not separate from the Old Testament law but a fulfillment of it, once and for all since his sacrifice was so great that no other sacrifice was needed.