If you've been reading through all the articles in this section like chapters in a book as I recommended, you've worked your way through the evidence for God's existence and specifically come to see how the Christian conception of God is the correct one. So now we shift gears a bit and start to answer the question, "So what does this all mean?" As a practical matter, what does believing in the Christian God entail?
The last article in this series is going to be on the most important topic you will ever read about; "How can I be saved?" But before we get there, a brief interlude is necessary. You see, in order to understand how salvation works, you first need to understand a little bit about the role Jesus played. That role is called "Messiah". I do not claim to have the exclusive view on how this whole process (called "atonement") works, and I will be the first to admit that there are different viewpoints on this. But no matter which path you follow, the punch line is the same. So pretty much everyone (at least everyone within the reformed tradition) reaches the same conclusion, but we may get there in different ways. The punch line is what is in the next article. So in order to be a Christian, you don't need to be "married" to everything I say in this article. But I personally think that this explanation makes sense, and it helps you understand the significance of what I'll have to say in the final article coming up next.
So what is a "Messiah"? Well, the word "Messiah" in Hebrew literally means, "anointed one". In Old Testament times, God would appoint the next king of Israel by having his prophet lay hands on the new king and pour oil on his head in a process called "anointing". It was through this process that God would appoint the kings of His kingdom Israel.
So in one sense, every king of Israel was an "anointed one". But throughout Israel's history, there was also an understanding among the Israelites that one day "the anointed one" would come. This man was to be the "Messiah".
So what distinguished this Messiah from all the other anointed kings? Actually, we could learn a lot about the one true Messiah by looking at the standards God set for His ideal earthly kings (to which no king lived up). But the one Messiah's role was far greater than any earthly king.
In order to understand the Messiah's role, you first have to understand something called "substitutionary atonement". Let the Bible lesson begin.
The Nature of God
Bear with me for a few moments. It may seem at first that what I'm telling you has no relevance to the Messiah. But if you stick to it through the end, the connection will become clear. In order to understand the role the Messiah would play, you first need to understand a little bit about the nature of God.
If you've never cracked open a Bible before, let me give you some brief information about how Bible passages are cited. The Bible is actually a collection of books, all with their own names. Each book is divided up into numbered chapters. All the information within those chapters is divided up into smaller sections called "verses". So if you want to refer to a particular phrase in the Bible, you list the book, chapter and verse in the following format:
John 3:16
This citation means I am talking about the book of John, in the third chapter and the sixteenth verse within that chapter.
Okay. With that being said, let's get on with the details. 2 Samuel 22:31 states, "As for God, his way is perfect." Matthew 5:48 says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Not only does this tell us that God is perfect, but it also tells us that we are also expected to be perfect. Now don't get too discouraged just yet. I know you are probably thinking, "Oh boy, I'm in trouble. I am far from perfect." It's good that you're thinking that, and you're right. Nobody's perfect. But keep reading, because God knows that too.
Genesis 21:33 refers to God as "eternal". He has always existed and He always will exist. See the very first article in this series called "Why should I Believe God Exists in the First Place?" for more information on how exactly this works.
Leviticus 11:45 says that God is "holy". As a matter of fact, it says "I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy." So this is yet another attribute of God that we are supposed to emulate. "Holiness" has been defined differently in different contexts, but I think it is safe to say that it includes exhibiting virtue and obedience to God's law.
Deuteronomy 32:3-4 says that God is "just", meaning He acts justly. When He punishes or rewards, it is in accordance with justice.
But remember that the first trait we learned about God was that He was perfect. So if He is perfect, and He is also holy and just, this means He is perfectly holy and perfectly just. And we are supposed to be just as perfectly holy and perfectly just. If you think that is a standard that nobody can live up to, you're right. You are also beginning to understand the need for a Messiah before you even fully understand what that concept means. You are probably in a very similar position to the patriarchs (i.e., the people who followed God faithfully in the book of Genesis, long before Jesus ever came to Earth). But let's keep looking.
Deuteronomy 32:6 refers to God as our "Father". Now think about this for a moment. Suppose a human father finds out that his child has misbehaved. What would you think of that father if he did not punish that child? Would you describe that father as "virtuous"? Would you describe him as "just"? Probably not. Justice requires punishment in return for violations of the rules. So if a human father, who is far from perfectly holy or perfectly just, is still required to punish his children when they misbehave, how much more so does our perfect heavenly Father have to punish us for our sin in order to be just. If He did not punish our sin, He could not be described as perfectly just. He is perfectly just, so we know He must punish sin. Knowing that, let's take a quick look at how sin began.
The Fall of Man
In order to understand how sin entered the world, we need to go back to "the beginning", quite literally. We're talking about Genesis here; Adam and Eve. Now pastors and theologians may disagree about whether the Adam and Eve story is literal or figurative, but that's really not the point. The theological lesson is the same either way.
Most of us are pretty familiar with the story. God told Adam, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17.
Later Satan, in the form of the serpent, approached Eve and asked, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Eve replied, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." Then came the deception. As Satan always does, he wrapped his lie up in bits of truth in order to make it sound appealing. He told Eve, "You will not surely die, ...For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:1-5.
If you know the end of the story, you know that Eve went ahead and ate the fruit, as did Adam. In doing so they committed grave sin. First, and most obviously, they ignored a direct command from God. God told them not to eat. They ate. Any of you who have children can probably sympathize with this. I love my daughter more than you can imagine (she's four years old as of the date I'm writing this), but I'll tell you that one of the most annoying things she does is when she directly defies me to my face. For example, when she is doing something she is not supposed to be doing, she seems to think that "stop" means "hurry up and finish what I'm doing before Daddy can tell me to stop again." So here I am telling my daughter to stop doing something, and there she is still doing it right in front of my face. Boy does that get to me! And yes, she gets punished for being so defiant.
Now picture how God must have felt when Adam and Eve directly defied Him. I guarantee you He wasn't happy. But Adam and Eve's sin was even deeper than that. Look exactly at what Satan said to Eve. What was the promise he made to her that convinced her to defy God? He told her that if she ate the fruit she would "be like God."
The sin that tempted Adam and Eve is one that continues to tempt us today. Ravi Zacharias has often said that one of the consequences of atheism is that if you take God out of the picture, something has to take His place. The only thing left is man. So in an atheistic worldview man becomes God. Let me give you an example. Christians claim that the source of all morality is God's character. But if there is no God, He cannot be the source of morality. So if He is not, who is? Morality must be derived from somewhere. The only alternative is that morality is derived from man. Man takes the place of God. This same analogy could be used for any of God's qualities that beg for an explanation with God out of the picture.
Mankind is constantly trying to take God's place today, most often within our own minds. Imagine the confident security we feel when we build a huge dam and alter the path or the depth of a waterway. We can predict the weather. Nowadays we can even clone living beings. Who needs God when we have so obviously mastered all of creation? Just look at us! We can control nature! We are in control.
But then the dam bursts. Or a tornado comes ripping through the countryside without warning killing dozens of people. Ultimately we are confronted with shocking reminders that no matter how technologically advanced we have become we are not ultimately in control of this universe. You see the tendency of man is to become so confident in his own abilities that in his own mind he "becomes like God" and does not see the need for belief in God anymore. This has been going on forever. Just ask the people at the Tower of Babel, or the Pharaoh who thought he was a god and would not let the Israelites go, or the people who built the levies around New Orleans and insisted they would not burst.
For those of you that are new to all this, you should know that the first two of the Ten Commandments are, "You shall have no other gods before me" and "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Exodus 20:3-4. This was directly targeted against many of the surrounding nations who believed in many gods and even carved little statues and bowed down and worshipped them as gods.
When we try to take God's place, we have set ourselves up as an idol. We ourselves are the little statue that we are worshipping. We have worshipped our own abilities over God's. Make no mistake about it. You do not need to bow down to a literal statue to be committing idolatry. Our idol can be " in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below," even ourselves.
That was Adam and Eve's mistake. They committed the ultimate insult to God by trying to take Him out of the picture, even after all He had done for them, and become gods themselves. That was a sin that simply could not go unpunished.
But the consequences of this sin were far broader than you may realize. You see Adam and Eve were the first humans who lived in communion with God. They were the spiritual parents of everyone. Sin had not entered the world prior to Adam and Eve, but after they introduced it, it did not just make an easy exit. Because they are our spiritual parents, we inherit our spiritual state from them, just as you inherit genetic traits from your biological parents. As Paul explained in Romans 5:12, "sin entered the world through one man", i.e., Adam. So because Adam rebelled against God, we are all born into rebellion against God as well. It is our spiritual inheritance. And if we were to be left to our own devices, we would all continue to rebel against God.
Do you want proof of this fact? Just take this simple test.
(1) Have you ever (i.e., in your entire life, not just recently) stolen something, no matter how small? This can include taking paper clips from your office, or food from the restaurant you work for.
(2) Have you ever used the Lord's name in vain (i.e., used the name "God" or "Jesus" as a curse word or to express exasperation)?
(3) Have you ever told a lie?
(4) Have you ever looked at someone lustfully, regardless of whether you acted on those feelings?
I would imagine that almost everyone, if they were honest with themselves, would have to answer "yes" to all four of those questions. Congratulations, you've just confessed to breaking four of the Ten Commandments.
One of the most powerful passages in scripture on this point is Romans 3:10-18.
As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know." "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
So we are in quite a pickle. Thanks to Adam, we all inherited this inevitable trait of rebellion against God. As a result, we will all inevitably sin. But because God is just, He must punish that sin. And the punishment we have inherited is death and separation from God (not only did God warn Adam that death would result from eating the fruit, but as a result of his disobedience God also cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden where they had enjoyed communion with Him). So how can we possibly get out of this jam we're in? The answer is, "we can't." Only God can help us out.
Substitutionary Atonement
Not only can God help us out, but He did. Allow me to give you a brief illustration to help you understand the concept before we get into the specifics. This example is based on one from Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron in their TV show The Way of the Master.
Imagine for a moment that you are charged with a crime. You go to court and the judge finds you guilty. He gives you a suspended sentence, but if you don't pay your fine, you will go to jail for a very long time. You cannot possibly pay the fine and you are in a lot of trouble. You're just about to kiss your family goodbye when a complete stranger steps in and pays your fine for you. You deserved the punishment, but someone else stepped in and took it for you.
That's the basic concept behind "substitutionary atonement." One person deserves punishment, but something or someone else takes that punishment instead. To "atone" for something means to pay for it. So if sin is "atoned" for, that means the punishment or debt owed as a result of that sin has been paid. The question we have to answer is, "What punishment have we earned?"
God answers this question several times in the Bible, and you won't like the answer. As I mentioned briefly above, the answer is death. Remember the punishment God told Adam and Eve that they would receive if they disobeyed Him. They would "surely die." The punishment for their sin was death. Not immediate death, mind you, but rather mortality as opposed to immortality.
If you think this seems kind of harsh, walk your way through this logical progression. Should people be punished for offending Satan? I would hope that most of you would say "no". After all, I guarantee that when we do God's will, Satan is not happy about it. Now, should people be punished for offending their fellow man? Again, I would hope that most people reading this article would at least say, "yes, sometimes." This means that there is a difference in the degree of punishment for offending Satan (i.e., none) and the degree of punishment for offending a fellow man (i.e., at least some).
Who can you offend who is greater than God? The answer is no one. God literally created you and everything around you. You owe not only your very existence to Him, but also the fact that you live in a world that can continue to sustain you day after day. So if there is a difference in the degree of punishment for offending man and that for offending Satan, shouldn't there also be a difference in the degree of punishment between offending God and offending man? An offense against the ultimate authority demands the ultimate punishment.
So because we all sin, and are all deserving of punishment, we all deserve to die. God gave us our life, so only He has the right to take it away. But God is also love. He loves us and does not want us to die. He does not want us to be separated from Him. So He created a means for someone (or something) else to take our punishment for us. Substitutionary atonement.
Before Jesus came to earth, this process involved a system of animal sacrifices. God chose a particular group of people, the Israelites, through whom He would initiate this system, with the eventual purpose of spreading His message to the whole world. The purpose of these sacrifices was not like the sacrifices of the Pagan nations surrounding Israel. These nations believed that their gods were somewhat bloodthirsty and used the sacrifices for sustenance. For Israel, it was a matter of paying a debt to God.
Under this system, a "clean" animal was brought to the altar. This meant it had to be an animal without any defect. There the priest or the individual Israelite would lay his hand on the animal. The purpose of this was for the person to transfer his sins to that animal (or sometimes in the case of the priest for him to transfer the sins of the entire community). Once the sins were transferred to the animal, the animal was now under the death sentence instead of the man. Thus, the animal was sacrificed instead of the man.
The idea behind the system was that it allowed mankind to live while still requiring of them a repeated reminder of their sins. But it was not without problems.
Problems with the Old Covenant system
How can a sacrificial system set up by the perfect God have problems? Did God make a mistake? Of course not. The Old Covenant system (i.e., the system in place before Jesus) was never meant to adequately atone for sins. It was simply meant to (1) get the people to recognize their need for a substitute, and (2) foreshadow Christ so people would recognize Him when He came.
So what were the problems with this system? Hebrews 10:1-4 tells us about two of them.
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming - not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Hebrews 10:1-4
As I said, there are two problems pointed out here: (1) Annual sacrifices can never cleanse someone of their sins for all time, so they inevitably have to be repeated over and over again; and (2) the death of a bull or a goat is not the same as the death of a person. Because the substitute is not a "fair trade" the debt is not truly paid. Allow me to explain these in more detail.
Picture this. You have just made your annual sacrifice and are feeling nice and clean. As you walk off the temple grounds, you see a very attractive member of the opposite sex walk by. Immediately, your brain starts having impure thoughts. Uh oh. You're not clean anymore. You just sinned! I guess you'd better go and make another sacrifice really quickly. After all, you sure wouldn't want to trip on a rock and break your neck before you atone for that sin. You'd be dying with unatoned sin still on your head, and we know what the punishment is for that! No heavenly afterlife for you! We all sin repeatedly, even when we try very hard not to. This means that the old covenant system had to be repeated over and over again in order to cover our repeated sinning. In fact, God knew this and set up an annual "Day of Atonement" so that people would take care of their sin at least once each year. But even then, what happens if you die six months into the year? You've got six months of sins you haven't atoned for yet! That's a problem!
The other problem with the old covenant system lies in the nature of the substitute. In Genesis 1:27-28 we learn that man was made in God's image. But in Genesis 9:6 God tells us that man has been appointed steward over His creation, including the animals. We are caretakers of the earth. There is a definite hierarchy established here. Man is made in God's image. Animals are not. Man is given authority over the animals. So if the price that is owed is the death of a man (i.e., a creature made in God's image), how can that debt ever be repaid by the death of an animal, a creature that does not have equal "value" in the eyes of God? It's not a fair trade.
In order to prevent us all from dying with unatoned sin on our heads, we needed a savior. God promised us we would get that savior in the Messiah. The Messiah is the one who would be able to fix these problems and make sure our sin would be forever atoned for. So who is He and how would He do this?
The promise of the Messiah
How is it possible to fix these problems? Well, think back to what the problems were. The first was that after a sacrifice was made, we would inevitably sin again. So in order to fix this problem we need to find some substitute that would be sufficient to atone for all our sins, past, present and future.
The second problem was that the death of an animal was not a "fair trade" when the price demanded was the death of a person. Theoretically, if we could find a person who was without sin, that would be a sacrifice of sufficient worth to atone for the sins of one sinful person. But of course this is wrought with other problems. (1) As we already know, there is not one single person on the face of the earth who is without sin, so we have nobody to sacrifice. (2) Even if such people did exist, it would take a pretty heavy toll on the human race if we had to keep sacrificing people every year. (3) Sacrificing people would itself be a sin, so it would be impossible to ever cleanse people from their sin because the process of atonement would be a sin in and of itself.
So we need a substitute who has more worth in God's eyes than all believing mankind past, present and future. Not only that, but this substitute must give himself up willingly so that we are not sinning by participating in this sacrifice.
In the article, "THIS WAY, THAT WAY, OR YAHWEH? Why should you believe in the 'Christian' God? - Part 3" I walked you through a lot of fulfilled Biblical prophecies in order to demonstrate the divine inspiration of the Bible. I said at that time that I wasn't mentioning any Messianic prophecies, not because they haven't also been fulfilled, but because I would be discussing some of them later. Well, we've reached that point in time.
The point of this article is not to get into a detailed debate with modern day Jews about the meaning of the plethora of Messianic prophecies (modern Jews do not believe Jesus was the Messiah). While that is a very important topic, it probably would not hold the interest of people who are not overly interested in debating Biblical details and the meaning of Hebrew phrases. Perhaps in the future I will write an article on the topic for anyone who is interested. The main point of this article, though, is just to discuss what the purpose was for the Messiah. Now modern day Jews will disagree with me on this issue as well (they believe the Messiah is to be an earthly leader, not a divine substitute sent to atone for our sins). So I will be mentioning some of the Jews' objections to the Messianic prophecies to the extent they bear on this issue.
Perhaps the most famous prophecy of the purpose the Messiah would serve is from Isaiah chapter 53.
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:1-12
We could spend eons going through this prophecy line by line to show all the ways it points to Jesus, but then we'd never get to the main point of this article. Let's look at what this passage says the Messiah will do.
He will not be attractive to the Jewish people. Jesus was born the poor son of a carpenter, not a member of any of the elite ruling classes. The Jews would consider him to be "stricken by God." Jesus was killed on a cross, hanging between two robbers. The Jews considered that if someone was killed on a cross he had been cursed by God. Anyone who died on a tree was considered cursed, and the Jews saw death on a wooden cross as the equivalent.
Then we get to the really important part. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Does this sound familiar? It is describing substitutionary atonement, just like the Jews were used to. But instead of the substitute being an animal, these passages describe the Messiah as the substitute.
Modern day Jews deny that this passage refers to the Messiah. Instead, they claim that the person in this passage is actually a personification of Israel as a whole. We don't have to look any further than just a couple of the comments Isaiah makes to see that this interpretation doesn't make sense. For example, take the phrase, "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Keep in mind that whenever Isaiah used the words "our" or "we", he is talking about the people of Israel, of which he was a member. That's the same group of people modern Jews say is symbolized by the words "he" and "him" in this passage. So if we transpose "Israel" into this passage, what do we get? "Israel was pierced for Israel's transgressions, Israel was crushed for Israel's iniquities; the punishment that brought Israel peace was upon Israel, and by Israel's wounds Israel is healed." Does that make any sense anymore? How is Israel given peace if they themselves are the ones being punished? How can Israel be "healed" when they themselves are the ones being "wounded"? By definition, if you are "wounded", you're not "healed."
Even more so, what about the phrase "he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth"? Does this really strike you as an accurate description of the nation of Israel? Do you really think this is something Isaiah would have written about Israel? Let's look at how he described Israel elsewhere in the same book.
"The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress." Isaiah 5:7
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." Isaiah 10:1-2
Does this sound like a nation that has "done no violence" and does not have any "deceit" in its mouth? Hardly. Israel repeatedly fell short of the standard God set for them, which is why they were eventually exiled from the promised land. It is frankly pretty ridiculous to claim that this person who "had done no violence" and had no "deceit in his mouth" actually refers to a nation that has fallen so short of God's expectations that He is kicking them out of the land.
So did the Jews always think that this passage referred to Israel as a whole? No, they didn't. In fact, this interpretation of Isaiah 53 didn't arise until after Christianity grew in popularity and it became known that the Christians were pointing out how eloquently this passage pointed to Jesus. Historically, the Jews have always believed that this chapter referred to the Messiah. Only after the Christians began to show how clearly Jesus fulfilled these predictions did Jewish scholars come up with an alternative interpretation.
The Babylonian Talmud says, "The Messiah -- what is his name? ... The Rabbis say, the leprous one; those of the house of Rabbi say, the sick one, as it is said, 'Surely he hath borne our sicknesses.'" There are a plethora of other references to Isaiah 53 and the Messiah written by Jewish authorities from everywhere from the 3rd to the 20th centuries.
So not only have the Jews historically believed Isaiah 53 referred to the Messiah, but even the most popular explanation they came up with after the rise of Christianity doesn't make any sense. We are left with the obvious conclusion that this chapter tells us exactly what the purpose of the Messiah will be. He will "bear our iniquities." He will be our substitute who will atone for our sins.
But remember the problem we talked about before. If the Messiah was merely a man, even a perfect man, at best he could atone for the sins of one other man. The Messiah needs to be someone who has enough worth to atone for the sins of all believers, past, present and future. How is this problem going to be fixed? The answer to that lies in one of the most famous passages from the Bible.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6
Look at the names Isaiah says the Messiah will be known by. I'll draw your attention to one in particular, "The mighty God." If the Messiah was nothing more than a man, why would he be called "the mighty God?" He is called "the mighty God" because he IS "the mighty God." Sometimes the simplest answers are the best. The Messiah is God.
Now the point of this article is not to get into a detailed discussion of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Suffice it to say there is one God who exists in three "persons", the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's an imperfect analogy, but it may help you to think of it like parts of a body, each with its own function but there is still only one body. The Father would be like the brain (the ultimate authority on what the body does), the Son is like the mouth (the part that speaks for the body) and the Holy Spirit is like the hands (the part of the body that does the handiwork). It is an imperfect analogy because the three persons of the Trinity are all wholly God, not just parts of God, but that is a topic for another day.
For the purposes of this article, the point is simply that the Messiah is God (specifically Jesus, the Messiah, is God the Son). Remember what we learned earlier about the nature of God. He is perfect in every way, including His virtue. He does not sin. God Himself obviously has far more worth on a moral scale than any man. But does he have enough worth to atone for the sins of all believers for all time?
The answer to this lies in the fact that God is infinite in all His attributes, including His morality. Think of it this way. Picture a "scale of morality." The scale starts at zero, which means you have absolutely no good moral attributes whatsoever. The further you move up the scale, the more moral worth you have.
Now picture someone you believe to be a pretty moral person and assign them a number. Let's say you give them an "8". Now think of someone you know who is just a little bit more moral. We'll say they score a "9". Is it possible to think of someone who is just a little bit more moral, and would score just a little bit higher? Of course. It's always possible to conceive of someone who would score just a bit higher. Regardless of whether you actually know such a person, it's always possible to conceive of such a person. Then after you conceive of that person, it would be possible to conceive of someone who is even a little bit more moral. Our "scale of morality" could literally keep going up forever.
God, by definition, is the most perfect being conceivable. This means that it is impossible to even imagine someone who is more holy than God, more just than God, or higher than God on the scale for any of His attributes. The problem is that the moment we assign God any number whatsoever on this scale, it is possible to conceive of someone with a higher score. The only way for Him to be the most perfect being conceivable, He must be at the top of the scale for every single one of His attributes. Because the top of the scale is infinity, this must be God's rating. So God literally has infinite merit.
Because God has infinite merit, there is no end to the number of sins He can atone for. He has more merit than every man, woman and child who has ever walked the earth. This does not necessarily mean that Jesus actually DID atone for the sins of everyone (we'll talk about how to make sure your sins are included in the next article), but He had enough merit so there is no end to the number of sins He COULD have atoned for.
Jesus Christ died on the cross 2000 years ago. This death was an atoning sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world, just like the death of the animal under the Old Covenant system was supposed to atone for the sins of the person offering it. That was the function of the Messiah, God's anointed one. He made it possible to reconcile us to God by paying the price for our sins so that justice could still be done.
So now that you know that the sacrifice has been made, how can you be sure that your sins are included so that you can be forgiven and again have fellowship with God? Remember that under the Old Covenant people's sins weren't just automatically forgiven by killing an animal. First, they had to place their hand on the animal in order to transfer their sins to it. Obviously, we cannot all literally lay our hands on Jesus. So how do our sins get transferred to our "sacrificial lamb?" That is probably the most important question you will ever ask in your life, and it is the topic of the next, and final article in this progression.
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