Monday, August 27, 2012

The Reason for the Atonement

 Just about every one knows the answer to this question: If God told you to do something and you do not do it, is that disobedience to God called Sin?

Of course it is. So why do people believed that Adam did not commit sin in the Garden, when it is so blatantly clear that Adam disobeyed God?

Did God forgive him? Yes, he did, however that is not the question that needs to be answered. The real questi
on is how did God forgive Adam? The answer: He covered Adam's sinfulness. So how do people believe that God will accept or hear them without their sins covered at the throne of judgment?

People are praying without the atonement that Adam needed to be forgiven with, they are praying in a sinful state. Even Job knew that atonement was necessary as he prayed for his own, covering the sins they might have done as well as his own.

Ok some people say that I am reading things into the the Garden Event, but here are the facts that everyone agrees occurred in the Garden: God commanded, Adam disobeyed, sin was born.

The next logical question needed to be asks is: How does a Holy God deal with Sin? Answer: He judges it. So why didn't God, being Holy, destroy Sin when Adam committed it? Because He in His Righteous and Holy judgment would have to destroy Adam along with it. The Human race would have ceased to exist. So what did a Holy God do? He covered the sin of Adam and made them depart from the Garden.

That is how a Holy God forgave a sinful Adam. He covered his sinfulness. He atoned for his sin. Adam taught his sons about the atonement principle. How since the Garden,  everyone had to offer up an atonement sacrifice to fellowship with God, because no matter how good a person is, he still needs his sinful nature covered and atoned for. If He did not then how did Abel and Cain know when and how to offer it up at all, if it was not necessary  to be offered?  Adam must of told them both that an atonement offering was necessary to have fellowship with the Creator.

Many people believe that Adam's sin was his own, that his disobedient nature, his sinfulness does not transfer to the next generation. If that was so, why did Abel offer up an atonement sacrifice? Why did Noah when he first got out of the Ark, after the flood, offer up an atonement sacrifice? Why Abraham customarily went to a mount to offer up an atonement sacrifice? If sinfulness is not transferable, then there is no need for an atonement sacrifice to be practiced. However the scriptures are full of stories that show that the atonement sacrifice practice was still needed. The practice of offering an atonement sacrifice continued and was codified under Moses, that is made into Law. This means if you did not have your sinfulness covered, you were in worse trouble because now you were condemned by the Law of God. If the atonement sacrifice was still needed all the way up to Moses' time, then sinfulness, represented by the outward disobedience of mankind to the commands of God, then even though God forgave Adam in the Garden,  Adam's sinful nature was transferred to all mankind. In fact the practice of atonement offering continued all the way up to Jesus' time.

So I ask those people who pray to God without their sinfulness covered and atoned for: Do you want to know how to get your sins washed away, so that you can fellowship with God and He with you as God originally designed? Because no matter how good you are, you still need your sins atoned for.  If you answered Yes, then I have Good News for you! All you have to do in this day, is accept God's atonement offering that He provided for your sins. Just like when God provided an atonement sacrifice on the mount for Abraham and his son, God has provided an eternal atonement sacrifice for you. God created a means to have all your inherited and inbred sinfulness washed away. So that you can pray to God with your sins covered. All you have to do is receive it by faith. What is this eternal atonement sacrifice? The atonement sacrifice provided by God for all who will receive it by faith is the Death of Jesus, the Christ, His only begotten son, upon the Cross. Why Jesus? For God, not finding any better atoning sacrifice on earth that would put to an end the sinfulness of mankind forever, He sacrificed a part of himself, represented in the life of Jesus, his only begotten son, allowed Jesus to be born, live, teach, preach and die for us all. So that now if we do disobey God, whether it be intentional or unintentional we have the atonement in Christ forever for our sins. For God's forgiveness is for all who believe in His son complete  atoning death upon the cross.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life"- Jesus quoted by John, the beloved Apostle, an eye witness of the life and death of Christ. (John 3:16)

What great news!  You do not have to pray in a sinful condition anymore. You can pray to God through Christ's righteousness.  It is your choice, it is no longer God's choice, for He made a way for every person to be saved and the door is open.  The question is now, do you have enough faith to make the choice to believe in Jesus and his atoning death upon the cross?

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