Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Around the world today (the holy Sabbath) millions are studying in the Bible about the “atonement.”
That is not a Latin word; it’s a plain old Anglo-Saxon word that means simply two estranged, alienated people become “one” again. A happy experience.
But think of the heavenly joy that comes to us as we realize that this gulf of alienation from God has been bridged by an “at-onement” with Him again.
In our case, our natural state is estrangement from the Lord, for “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). It’s a condition of never-ending ill-at-ease; it puts you out of synch with the universe itself, which means you are an alien from the blessed kingdom of God.
Atonement 101 is the realization that the bridging of the gulf of alienation is 100 per cent the work of the Lord Jesus; it required His coming close to us. We sinners had nothing to do with the atonement; it was all done outside of us.
That meant that the divine Son of God must step down from His high and holy place to where we are, that He might bring us into one-ness with Himself. As Philippians 2 says He “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a servant [slave], and was made in the likeness of men” (vs. 7).
Contemplating this, we see the nuts and bolts of the “atonement” taking shape; “made in the likeness of men” means that He took upon Himself the poor fallen nature of humanity, coming as close to us in our fallen state as it was possible for Him to do. If anyone lets himself doubt that Reality, He is frustrating the atonement at its very beginning.
Step number two: “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself” (vs. 8). It simply means that as the Baby Jesus grew up, He continued to renounce His original exaltation as the Vicegerent of God, and accepted in Himself the subjective judicial verdict of condemnation that the fallen Adam has given to all of us; and in so doing, Christ as the “second” or “last Adam” has transformed that judicial verdict of condemnation into a judicial verdict of acquittal for “every man.”
It was done for you and me before we came along; it is left for us to be thankful for it eternally.
And then the most marvelous something happens in our alienated human hearts: we are reconciled to God and to His law of righteousness; the ill-at-ease alienation is healed and bridged: we are “at-one” with Him and therefore with His great unfallen universe.
Oh sinner, do not “frustrate” this “grace of God.” Paul said he would not do it (Gal. 2:21), and thank God, neither can we if we have begun to appreciate the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the agape of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:17-19).
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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