The Blood of Bulls and Goats

Leviticus 1:3-5

A priest in Israel had many important duties during the course of a day while working in the tabernacle. One of the most significant tasks was the pouring of the sacrificial blood onto the brazen altar, which sat near the door of the tabernacle. The blood was a foreshadowing of the blood of Christ, which would be shed at Calvary for the removal of our sin debt. The door is Christ, the only way to get to the Father (John 10:7).

The role of the one who had sinned was quite simple, but very important as well. If you sinned, you were to take a male from among your cattle and offer it of your own free will as a sacrifice. The priest inspected it to make sure that it was spotless and without blemish and then you laid your hand on its head as a type of the transference of your sin onto the body of this animal. Only then did you kill it, for it was now a sacrificial animal, bearing your sins in its body.

Notice that the priest did not inspect the sinner, but rather the sacrifice. The man was the one who had done wrong, not the animal, yet it was the animal that went through the full inspection to see if it qualified as a sacrifice. It was not that God did not recognize sin in the man, but the whole point of the sacrificial system was that God could be appeased while His prized creation could live. God thoroughly inspected His Son’s life and found Him to be spotless (2 Corinthians 5:21) which qualified Him to bear in Himself the sin of the entire human race; past, present and future. When the man symbolically transferred his sins onto the animal, it could then die. When Jesus bore our sins at the cross, He was ready to cry “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Not until Jesus cried “It is finished”, could He die! In that moment, He had fully made the payment for our sins, “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). When you accept Him, you are accepting the one who did what bulls and goats could never do (Hebrews 10:4), for they could only cover up sin. These animals brought God no pleasure (10:6) while He was constantly pleased with His beloved Son (Luke 3:22).

The death of Jesus on the cross satisfied the wrath of God and now you can face this day with a clean conscience (Hebrews 9:14), knowing that you need not bring an animal into Him, for He has taken care of this once and for all. There is no longer a need for bulls and goats for we have our redeemer!

Be at peace today in the knowledge that since God has thoroughly inspected Jesus, He is not thoroughly inspecting you. When He sees into your life, He sees the finished work of His Son and that satisfies God. Fear not, this won’t lead you to a life of sin and shame. You are born-again, and your heart and desires have changed accordingly. You have been made righteous because your Lamb was made to be sin.

The Old Man is Dead

Romans 6:6-10

This is not the only time that Paul refers to our “old man”, meaning our old, corrupt nature of sin. He mentions it again in Ephesians 4:22, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts”. Again, he writes of the old nature in Colossians 3:9 “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds”.

In both the Ephesians and the Colossians reference, Paul is encouraging the church to put off the old ways, while his statement in Romans 6:6 shows the position of the believer, independent of his or her works. We are being encouraged to make the position that we have in Christ become evident by the lifestyle that we lead. Romans is the standing; Ephesians and Colossians are the application.

When we realize that we are dead to the old man, we see a new freedom from sin. The old man was led by his lusts and passions, and sin come second nature to him. Being dead to that old man through the finished work of Christ, we are now free from serving sin blindly. Does this insinuate that the believer will never sin again? Of course not, but it does promise us that we are free from living under the power of that sin.

Our death to sin is in Christ and His death as our substitute on Calvary. Sinners become saints by identifying with His death and accepting Him as their payment for sin. The moment that we accept this by faith, we are baptized into the same death, meaning that God now sees us exactly as He sees Jesus. Since we are dead with Him, then we have His resurrection power in us to bring life every day. Our new lives as believers are now lived with Christ leading the way; not with us trying to please God and do the right thing.

We have knowledge that Christ “dieth no more” (Romans 6:9). If we are dead in Him, and He is not going to die anymore, then we need not die every single day. There is no “re-crucifying” that needs to happen in the believer, for this cannot happen to our Savior. Our daily picking up of the cross is the knowledge that every day we stand to lose our life for the sake of the gospel, not the need to lose our spirit man in waves; a bit more tomorrow that we did today. You are completely and totally saved the moment that you accept Christ. Stop viewing the finished work as finished on His part, but unfinished on yours.

Verse 10 promises us that when Jesus died, He died to sin. He had no sin of His own, so whose sin was He dying out to? It was our sins and iniquities! Jesus had our sins condemned in His body (Romans 8:3), so that we would never have them condemned in ours. If He died to your sins once, then you need to give Him your heart once, and let His work do the rest.

The glorious final promise of this portion of scripture is that now that we are saved, we are living “unto God” (Romans 6:10). Our lives are no longer about living according to our lusts and desires, but are lived according to His perfect plan and will. Only Christ living His life through us can possibly bring about this perfection and glory, which is why the resurrection of Jesus is so vital and so awesome.

He whom the Son sets free is free indeed!

All Things Are Lawful

1 Corinthians 6:12

This was a watershed scripture for me so to speak. When I began to be shown the revelation of God’s grace and mercy, this verse was one of the first verses to jump off of the page at me and force me to reevaluate my beliefs about the usage of the law in both preaching and in living.

When Paul wrote the 6th chapter of 1 Corinthians, he addressed two major problems in the Corinthian church. First was the issue of Christians taking one another to court over civil matters (6:1-8), and the second was believers committing fornication with harlots (6:13-20). Sandwiched between these two important matters are four very interesting verses that show us the preaching style of the Apostle Paul.

When dealing with the first issue, Paul reminds the church of who they are in Christ, asking them, “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?” (verse 2). This appeal to who they are, not a diatribe on what they have done, is classic Apostle Paul. He states the problem, shows them that they are better than to act as they have acted and then moves on.

What he moves on to is another appeal to knowledge, asking them if they realize that unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God (verse 9). Many have preached this passage to mean that Paul was warning them that if they continued in this pattern that they were going to miss heaven, but within context it is not what Paul is saying at all. He is reminding them of the class of people that they are going to court in front of and wondering why they would accept the civil decisions over spiritual matters from people who are not part of heaven’s inheritance (verse 10). To further the argument he reminds them, “Such were some of you”. Notice that they used to be like those sinners but now they “are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). These are present states, having remained that way in spite of some pitiful living.

Paul’s statement of “All things are lawful unto me” is his way of showing the church that they have been set free from the letter of the law. There is no law that binds the believer to live a certain way, for Jesus has fulfilled that law through His perfect lifestyle (Matthew 5:17), and then He took it out of our way, freeing us to live (Colossians 2:14). A “good, old-fashioned preacher” should have said “THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY” in this passage to set up the forthcoming passage on fornication, but Paul steers clear of the 7th Commandment, opting instead to introduce freedom from the law, and a new way to live right. By declaring us free from the law, Paul puts the believer on the path of God’s grace which will teach them how to live right (Titus 2:11, 12).

Notice that just because all things are lawful does not mean that Paul encourages all things. Some things “are not expedient”, meaning that they are not profitable. Other things are so binding that Paul knows that if he starts doing them, he will be brought underneath their power. Though he is free to live how he chooses, he wants that life to reflect the change that has taken place in his heart, so many things will be avoided because of this fact.

This appeal is used to keep the Corinthian church from fornication, reminding them that their bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost (6:19). Though they are under no trappings of the law, why would they want to fornicate knowing that they are God’s purchased possession and that they are sons and daughters of God? Grace appeals to the better angels of our nature, and truly makes us free.

Condemnation Leads to More Sin

Titus 3:10, 11

If someone is in a “Catch 22” then they can’t get ahead no matter how hard they try. Every action will only worsen the problem, while inaction is often not an option. This principle applies in life as well as in the spirit realm, where believers want to be victorious but do not always know how to bring it about.

Most people in the church would tell you that to avoid living in sin you should memorize God’s laws and principles. The common knowledge is that if God’s law is right and you are wrong, then you should get to know what is right so that you will not be wrong, but that assumes that knowledge of the law leads to righteousness. Paul said the opposite: “…for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).

What you dwell on eventually determines who you are. If you concentrate on one thing day and night, aiming all of your efforts at that, it begins to shape your lifestyle and the decisions that you make. When you dwell on the law and how to keep it, you become more and more knowledgeable about sin, while learning nothing about how to avoid it.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is to blame for this phenomenon. We know what is right and wrong but that tree provided us with no ability to stop the bad and start the good. The tree that we need was standing nearby; the Tree of Life. Fortunately for us, Jesus died on a tree and became our perpetual Life, so that we do not live by our knowledge of good and evil, but by His finished work.

Paul told Titus that if someone is given an admonition about what the effects of their lifestyle will be, and they still continue to live therein, warn them again and then part ways with them. This is not a condemnation of their soul but of their lifestyle, noting that it will bring ill-repute to the church and to the brethren while causing heartache for the man himself. After teaching us how to deal with the man, Paul gets to the root of the problem, explaining to us what is wrong with the man.

“Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself” (Titus 3:11).

“Subverted” is another word for “perverted” or “to change for the worse”. Notice what causes the man to live in this perversion and sin; “being condemned of himself”. The text does not say that God condemns him, for Romans 8:1 tells us that this is not possible for those who are in Christ Jesus. We can’t say for sure that the man in Titus is a brother, for Paul does not specify, but it is natural to assume as much since he has been talking about things that “are good and profitable unto men” (Titus 3:8).

When you condemn yourself, the natural course of events becomes sin then perversion. Your condemnation of yourself causes you to lose hope and dwell under a weight of guilt. Sin is soon to follow as you have opened the door for the enemy to attack you, having removed the finished work of Jesus Christ. Repeated sin leads to perversion, where eventually, even the most educated Christian begins to grow hard against the gentle voice of the Savior, turning wholly to a sinful lifestyle.

If condemnation leads you to sin then the lack of condemnation will lead you to righteousness. See yourself as forgiven and never condemned and you will see the weights and the sins fall off in Jesus’ mighty name!

The Old Man is Dead

Romans 6:6-10

This is not the only time that Paul refers to our “old man”, meaning our old, corrupt nature of sin. He mentions it again in Ephesians 4:22, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts”. Again, he writes of the old nature in Colossians 3:9 “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds”.

In both the Ephesians and the Colossians reference, Paul is encouraging the church to put off the old ways, while his statement in Romans 6:6 shows the position of the believer, independent of his or her works. We are being encouraged to make the position that we have in Christ become evident by the lifestyle that we lead. Romans is the standing; Ephesians and Colossians are the application.

When we realize that we are dead to the old man, we see a new freedom from sin. The old man was led by his lusts and passions, and sin come second nature to him. Being dead to that old man through the finished work of Christ, we are now free from serving sin blindly. Does this insinuate that the believer will never sin again? Of course not, but it does promise us that we are free from living under the power of that sin.

Our death to sin is in Christ and His death as our substitute on Calvary. Sinners become saints by identifying with His death and accepting Him as their payment for sin. The moment that we accept this by faith, we are baptized into the same death, meaning that God now sees us exactly as He sees Jesus. Since we are dead with Him, then we have His resurrection power in us to bring life every day. Our new lives as believers are now lived with Christ leading the way; not with us trying to please God and do the right thing.

We have knowledge that Christ “dieth no more” (Romans 6:9). If we are dead in Him, and He is not going to die anymore, then we need not die every single day. There is no “re-crucifying” that needs to happen in the believer, for this cannot happen to our Savior. Our daily picking up of the cross is the knowledge that every day we stand to lose our life for the sake of the gospel, not the need to lose our spirit man in waves; a bit more tomorrow that we did today. You are completely and totally saved the moment that you accept Christ. Stop viewing the finished work as finished on His part, but unfinished on yours.

Verse 10 promises us that when Jesus died, He died to sin. He had no sin of His own, so whose sin was He dying out to? It was our sins and iniquities! Jesus had our sins condemned in His body (Romans 8:3), so that we would never have them condemned in ours. If He died to your sins once, then you need to give Him your heart once, and let His work do the rest.

The glorious final promise of this portion of scripture is that now that we are saved, we are living “unto God” (Romans 6:10). Our lives are no longer about living according to our lusts and desires, but are lived according to His perfect plan and will. Only Christ living His life through us can possibly bring about this perfection and glory, which is why the resurrection of Jesus is so vital and so awesome.

He whom the Son sets free is free indeed!

Condemnation Leads to More Sin

Titus 3:10, 11

If someone is in a “Catch 22” then they can’t get ahead no matter how hard they try. Every action will only worsen the problem, while inaction is often not an option. This principle applies in life as well as in the spirit realm, where believers want to be victorious but do not always know how to bring it about.

Most people in the church would tell you that to avoid living in sin you should memorize God’s laws and principles. The common knowledge is that if God’s law is right and you are wrong, then you should get to know what is right so that you will not be wrong, but that assumes that knowledge of the law leads to righteousness. Paul said the opposite: “…for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).

What you dwell on eventually determines who you are. If you concentrate on one thing day and night, aiming all of your efforts at that, it begins to shape your lifestyle and the decisions that you make. When you dwell on the law and how to keep it, you become more and more knowledgeable about sin, while learning nothing about how to avoid it.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is to blame for this phenomenon. We know what is right and wrong but that tree provided us with no ability to stop the bad and start the good. The tree that we need was standing nearby; the Tree of Life. Fortunately for us, Jesus died on a tree and became our perpetual Life, so that we do not live by our knowledge of good and evil, but by His finished work.

Paul told Titus that if someone is given an admonition about what the effects of their lifestyle will be, and they still continue to live therein, warn them again and then part ways with them. This is not a condemnation of their soul but of their lifestyle, noting that it will bring ill-repute to the church and to the brethren while causing heartache for the man himself. After teaching us how to deal with the man, Paul gets to the root of the problem, explaining to us what is wrong with the man.

“Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself” (Titus 3:11).

“Subverted” is another word for “perverted” or “to change for the worse”. Notice what causes the man to live in this perversion and sin; “being condemned of himself”. The text does not say that God condemns him, for Romans 8:1 tells us that this is not possible for those who are in Christ Jesus. We can’t say for sure that the man in Titus is a brother, for Paul does not specify, but it is natural to assume as much since he has been talking about things that “are good and profitable unto men” (Titus 3:8).

When you condemn yourself, the natural course of events becomes sin then perversion. Your condemnation of yourself causes you to lose hope and dwell under a weight of guilt. Sin is soon to follow as you have opened the door for the enemy to attack you, having removed the finished work of Jesus Christ. Repeated sin leads to perversion, where eventually, even the most educated Christian begins to grow hard against the gentle voice of the Savior, turning wholly to a sinful lifestyle.

If condemnation leads you to sin then the lack of condemnation will lead you to righteousness. See yourself as forgiven and never condemned and you will see the weights and the sins fall off in Jesus’ mighty name!

The Blood of Bulls and Goats

Leviticus 1:3-5

A priest in Israel had many important duties during the course of a day while working in the tabernacle. One of the most significant tasks was the pouring of the sacrificial blood onto the brazen altar, which sat near the door of the tabernacle. The blood was a foreshadowing of the blood of Christ, which would be shed at Calvary for the removal of our sin debt. The door is Christ, the only way to get to the Father (John 10:7).

The role of the one who had sinned was quite simple, but very important as well. If you sinned, you were to take a male from among your cattle and offer it of your own free will as a sacrifice. The priest inspected it to make sure that it was spotless and without blemish and then you laid your hand on its head as a type of the transference of your sin onto the body of this animal. Only then did you kill it, for it was now a sacrificial animal, bearing your sins in its body.

God thoroughly inspected His Son’s life and found Him to be spotless (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then He placed upon Him the sin of the entire human race; past, present and future. When the man symbolically transferred his sins onto the animal, it could then die. When Jesus bore our sins at the cross, He was ready to cry “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Not until Jesus cried “It is finished”, could He die! In that moment, He had fully made the payment for our sins, “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). When you accept Him, you are accepting the one who did what bulls and goats could never do (Hebrews 10:4), for they could only cover up sin. These animals brought God no pleasure (10:6).

The death of Jesus on the cross satisfied the wrath of God and now you can face this day with a clean conscience (Hebrews 9:14), knowing that you need not bring an animal into Him, for He has taken care of this once and for all. No more bulls and goats for we have our redeemer!

May God’s face shine upon you today.