Bob Cassell, Messenger

Most people are aware that the first Adam was the first man to sin. Adam sinned willingly (Eve did not, she was deceived) Adam knew better, but he did it anyway. Remind you of anyone? Yes, this is you and me! Adam yielded himself to the influence and power of Satan and as a result all who followed became subject to his influence and power. This subjugation placed mankind in a condemned condition. Left to himself and alone man would be eternally condemned!

“The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek.18:4).

This death refers to spiritual and physical death. The verse actually says “dying you shall die… dying physically, you will die spiritually.” In this state what is to happen to guilty and already condemned man? The answer… but God! God sees this lost and damned condition and planned in eternity past to deliver him. From what? In sinning man was cursed and needed to be redeemed, or there would be no hope. Let’s look at the bible’s description of man’s true and hopeless condition before God.  (In summary) “When you were born your navel was not cut, nor were you washed with water, suppled or cleansed. No one pitied you or helped you. They cast you into an open field and only disdained you. Your were considered as an unclean thing! But when I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said something to you from my voice of grace and mercy. LIVE when you were in your own blood, I said LIVE! Notice … Then, I washed you with water and thoroughly washed away the blood from you, and further more I anointed you with oil and then fully clothed you with amazing garments” (Ezek. 16: 4,5,6).

In reference to spiritual death as stated above in Ezek. 18:4, lost and unsaved human kind are in a similar hopeless and abandoned condition and must be rescued. If we try to come to God dressed in our works of righteousness, we will fail miserably because, “all our righteousness are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).

God must provide a covering for our filthy rags of self-righteousness, and the entire garment must be sufficient to hide all sins. It is not an accident that not only are all sins covered with garments of salvation but included in this wonderful salvation package is THE robe of righteousness. Only God can provide what he requires, and that is perfect righteousness. Man cannot on his best day provide perfect righteousness and the sad news is that the more he tries the deeper in debt he goes. Therefore, great is the need for man to step outside himself and look in total dependence on Jesus Christ and live. When Adam sinned, he stepped inside himself and away from all that came from God. Therefore, man’s attitude toward God was one of complete dependence upon Himself and of independence from God. This spiritually deprived attitude was nothing less than a rebellion against the sovereignty of God and His provision for needy humankind.

When we observe groups of people declaring their independence of the Government under which they live, it is a rebellion. If and when they are sufficiently able to establish their independence and exist as a separate entity then their actions are revolutionary.

Mankind has never been able to establish an independent existence apart from God. This may seem surprising, but when it is realized that mankind cannot exist without God’s sunshine, His air and His rain, man cannot claim to be independent of God. All independence of God by man is and always will be in the nature of a rebellion against Him. This rebellious human race is in dire need of reconciliation, and dependent man, by himself, cannot do it.

What voices are being listened to today? Are the most repeated or the loudest voices being followed? Are the quiet or even silent voices of truth being throttled by the error and inaccurate voices that simply have a greater platform. The listener tends to be in subjection to the voices he believes to be true or the ones that agree with his present thinking.

“Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves as servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness” (Romans 6:16, 20).

In listening to Satan’s voice all of humanity became subject to him and from this tragic result was alienated from God and became an enemy.

Notice human kind became 1) Subject to Satan, 2) Alienated from God, 3) An enemy to God. This is a deplorable and vacuous condition and screams of the need for humanity to be reconciled.

After Adam and Eve had sinned, they heard the voice of God walking in the garden, and what was their response? Did they hear God and then want to join him in walking in the beautiful garden?

This is what they had been doing, but all of a sudden what had been a delight had now become a dread. So, what did they do? They hid themselves. They hid behind a tree. Imagine, the folly of trying to hide from the sovereign and omnipresent God behind a tree. Foolishness indeed. Yet rather than approaching God they hid and were afraid. Why were they afraid? They had never been afraid before. They were as they had been all of their lives, no clothing and comfortable, even in the presence of God. All of a sudden, a change had taken place in them. They had become estranged from God and had alienated themselves from Him. Fear of God had taken the place of love for God, along with confidence and trust in Him. Instead of drawing near to God they drew away from Him.

As a result of these sins, they had become far away from God. The sweet fellowship, comfort and friendship with God and all closeness was lost and replaced with enmity and estrangement. I ask you to stop, look and listen to the voice of grace and love that never goes away… are you listening or are you hiding behind a tree of disobedience and guilt while you could be walking comfortably with God on the pathway of friendship, fellowship, and happiness. Are you afraid and hiding? What is worth holding on to when you can simply let go and obediently walk with God. He hasn’t left you! You have left him, and you need to wake up and return to Him. When you are in sweet fellowship with him you become likeminded instead of being discordant and disagreeable.

When you draw nigh to God things will certainly change. His holy word declares “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinner purify your hearts you who are double minded” (James 4:8).

When the sin nature passed from Adam to his posterity along with it came a state of alienation from God and a feeling of fear of Him. A quick reflection will give evidence that humankind is still in that estranged relationship to God. The clear evidence of mankind’s fear for God may be multiplied many times over. Every effort on the part of humans to appease God, and every effort to do something to gain his favor is a witness to humanity’s alienation from him. All fear of death and a coming judgment testifies to the broken relationship between God and human-kind.

This deplorable alienation of all people from God requires more than they have within themselves; it requires a work outside themselves which is a special work of God on behalf of all lost human beings.

The cost of redemption from the slave market of sin requires the shedding of blood by means of a perfect, impeccable, sinless substitute. This is the exclusive remedy that permits release from this damning slave market of sin. When a person is purchased out of the salve market, they are redeemed from the penalty of the law that called for death and eternal punishment. This blood bought redemption permits God to Justify a believer by imputing to them his perfect righteousness. They now have something they did not have before, and that is a perfectly imputed righteousness that is acceptable to God.

The imputation of perfect righteousness is what God does for man, and it is not what man does or can do for God. Man needs to be reconciled to God; God does not need to be reconciled to man. However, God must be propitiated or satisfied with the redemption purchase price, and Jesus pronounced in no uncertain terms “It is Finished!”

All that was required for redemption of our lost and condemned souls was the substitutionary and finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He did something on Calvary’s hill that no one who ever lived could do or has done, and that was to pay the full purchase price of our redemption by the shedding of his innocent blood for sin. The good news is…  in so doing, he fully satisfied the righteous requirements of God.

Please note: To be right with God, strictly on a legal basis, does not necessarily mean to be in close fellowship with Him.

If one of two persons who are on good terms commits an illegal act where the other party is aggrieved, it is possible that the legal aspect of the act could be settled without a restoration of the prior close fellowship. However, it is possible that they may forever remain estranged and out of fellowship from each other.

For restoration of meaningful fellowship, in addition to a legal settlement, there must be a reconciliation. Although sinful man has been redeemed from the curse of the law and is considered perfectly righteous in the sight of the law, he also needs to be reconciled to God as what was lost by Adam’s sin is a part of God’s work of restoring that which was lost to man by Adam’s sin.

Reconciliation to God is an essential part of salvation. Since the work of reconciliation is a work of God on behalf of man the Godward side of this work is perfect and cannot be improved by man. Man is out of fellowship with God, and it is he only who needs to be reconciled.

To reconcile means to be caused to be friendly again, to restore to fellowship, to cause to be no longer estranged. It was man that broke the sweet and close friendship with God. Man, by sinning, became an out of pitch note in God’s creation. It was what was in man that brought about the discord and the alienation from God that must be addressed. And that is just what God does in reconciling man to Himself, for

“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Cor. 5:19).

God justifies those who he redeems from the slave market of sin, and those who believe in Christ are forgiven because Jesus Christ paid the penalty on the cross and restored the believer to a righteous standing before God. Reconciliation deals with the trespasses of mankind which express his rebellion against God’s authority and provision. That which caused man to fear God, to hide from Him, to be at enmity with Him, and out of fellowship with Him is not counted against him. That which came from his rebellion is considered as though it never happened.

The awfulness of the separation and alienation of man from God by sin can best be understood by looking at the cost which was required for God to bring about reconciliation. It was nothing less than the death of the Son of God and is stated here in His word …

“When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10).  “And you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now has he reconciled in the body of His flesh, through death” (Col 1:21,22).

The penalty for rebellion against a human government is death. This penalty was well known by Benjamin Franklin when he stated, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” So also, the penalty for rebellion against God is death. Therefore, when Christ died on the cross to reconcile man to God He died in man’s place as a rebel and criminal.

When the Jewish leaders brought Jesus before Pilate, they charged that He had been found perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He was a king (Luke 23:1,2). All of these charges were for acts of sedition or rebellion and it was from these charges that Jesus was tried. Pilate, after examining Jesus said to the Jews. “I, have examined him before you, and have found no fault in this man touching the things whereof you accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for he sent him back unto us and, behold nothing worthy of death has been done by him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him. But they cried out all together, saying, away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas; one who for a certain insurrection made in the city, and for murder was cast into prison… And Pilate gave sentence that what they asked for should be done. And he released him that for insurrection and murder had been cast into prison (Luke 23:14-19, 24, 25).

He who had not committed rebellion, and murder died as though he was guilty of both charges, and he who had committed both of these crimes was set free and only because Jesus died. Had Jesus not died, Barabbas would have been crucified. Please stop, look, listen and carefully consider…. Barabbas was not alone in gaining his freedom through the death of Jesus Christ. Jesus, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man (Heb.2:9), and this was in order that man who was an insurrectionist against God might become reconciled to Him.

You have heard, I am sure that men are called upon to make their peace with God. To the contrary the Bible says nothing about this kind of effort or appeal. These statements are in fact contradicted by statements that declare Christ is our peace.

“He (Christ) is our peace” and that He in his flesh has abolished the enmity and made peace (Eph. 2:14, 15).

Man cannot make his peace with God; all he can do is to accept the peace that has been made on his behalf by Jesus Christ on the cross which is freely offered by God. Reconciliation is the work of God for man and not the work of man for God.

Sinful man cannot make his peace with God he must look outside himself and accept the peace that Jesus Christ has made for him.

“And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall garrison you hearts and minds through Jesus Christ (Phil. 4:7).

There is no other trustworthy place to go, all else is folly and emptiness, there is no peace until you know the Prince of Peace who is none other than Jesus Christ the righteous judge and the exclusive giver of eternal life and peace.