(Romans 8:29) … those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son

I. Dealing with Sin; Old Testament Style

If Jesus had not yet died this morning would look very different than it does. We have here in front of us today these symbols….this fountain “filled with blood”, these cups of juice representing the blood of Jesus spilled out for the sins of all the world. We have these little pieces of bread symbolizing the broken body of our Lord.

If you had lived “B.C.”, before your Savior came to this earth, you would still have, very much, been fighting the temptation to sin as we all do still today. You would have gotten up on Saturday morning, the Sabbath (rather than the Lord’s day which celebrates Christ’s victory over sin) and headed off to the tabernacles to get relief from the guilt of your sin.

First stop would be out in the barnyard behind your house or at the many vendors outside the temple to get your days offering. You know how hard it is to get your kids ready for church, how frustrating it is to herd your children into the minivan, endure the cramped quarters of the van advertised to have so much room, wade through all the wrappers and books and game boys left over from the last short run across town and get to the church in time with any level of sanity, then be admonished by the out of touch pastor to bring your mind into the place of worship.

Now imagine (B.C.) that you are getting into your van.. you are also loading two lambs and four turtle doves and two pigeons. You have to clean out the deposits left by the last set of turtledoves on the last trip to church. When you arrive you herd the kids into Sabbath School; “Don’t forget your pigeons” you tell the kids; In you go to Sabbath School with your little unblemished lambs to join every one else and their lambs. The pastor shows up with his minivan and begins to wrestle the young bull out of the back that he has brought to offer for all the unknown sins of all the people.

The time of worship is perhaps not as pleasant as ours is today. Well, with the wringing of dove necks and the cutting of jugulars and the sprinkling and pouring of blood all over the altar and then the burning of flesh there are certain elements of worship that have to b endured rather than enjoyed. (Let’s bring in some biblical perspective)

To us today this whole thing seems so barbaric. It makes much more sense to just ask God to forgive your sin and have him simply take them away. Many, many people today believe in God, believe in Jesus the son of God come to this earth as a baby in a manger, believe in his death on the cross and even his resurrection from the dead and simply have no concept of the huge-ness of what Jesus did in their place to bring them forgiveness of sins.

This whole sacrifice system of the Old Testament was built on the fact that man’s sin against his Creator had to be atoned for. Either mankind had to pay the stated penalty for the sin committed or they had to be able to bring something in their place that would act as a substitute for punishment.

I’m not a card carrying member of any animal rights group but I don’t think I would have particularly enjoyed the blood spattered worship atmosphere in Israel. My job would have been wringing necks and slitting throats and pouring out blood and more blood and more blood until it flowed like a river around the altar just so the congregation I cared for could go home with a sense of guilt for the sins they had committed that week. And next week they would be back again with more lambs and more pigeons and more turtle doves.

When you boil all we have been studying here on Sunday and even deeper on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 pm (advertisement) down to its fundamental meaning the formula is actually quite simple.

1) Adam and Eve sinned

2) Their sinned earned death; physical, spiritual, eternal death

3) As their descendants you inherited their sin nature and its punishment

(Rom. 3:23) …for all have sinned (aorist) and fall short of the glory of God!

4) So each of us must pay the penalty for our rebellion against God… the penalty is death!

5) God in his mercy allowed for the principle of substitution ( in place of)

6) In the Old Testament he allowed peoples sins to be covered by substituting another life for the life of the sinner. ( bull, goat, lamb, dove, pigeon)

He called the substitution process: Kippur- Atonement- covering

When a person sinned and brought their substitute to the priest and it’s life was taken in place of their sin punishment…. Their sins were kippur-ed until the next day when they sinned again….

Once a year, on the Day of Atonement; the priest would offer a general sacrifice to pick up all the stray sins of all the people that had not be “kippured” and that would last for one year or until the very next time the people broke God’s commandments.

Let me just give you a little trivia, and this is just trivia, but it is interesting.

There are 66 books in the Bible;….Do you know which book in the Bible has 66 chapters?

Isaiah!…… Isaiah is divided into two distinct sections:

Chapters 1-39 (warnings) 39 chapters OT has 39 books

Just interesting trivia since we know that the chapter heading are no inspired and were added later. It is interesting that the last 27 chapters of Isaiah are often called the:

Gospel of the Old Testament

What is more than just trivia and perhaps has biblical significance is that the last 27 chapters of Isaiah are distinctly divided into 3 sections of nine chapters each. Each of those three sections ends with and emphatic declaration that God will not compromise with sin….sin must be paid for.

Understand that what I’m talking about may actually have some significance because the Hebrew language unlike any other language that I know of , is a mathematical language. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a mathematical equivalent. One of the ways the scribes used to check their work was to add up the mathematical value of each letter and find the mathematical center of each sentence. In the Hebrew text there is actually a mark at the center of each sentence…. But that is another story…another study.

At the middle verses of the middle set of the middle chapter of the middle set of chapters of the middle section of the part of Isaiah known as the Gospel of the Old Testament lies these words:

(Isaiah 53:4-5) 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. (NIV)

1) He was pierced for our transgressions- sins- we can blame that old sin nature on Adam

2) He was crushed for our iniquities- “avon” best English equivalent is the word rebellion

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God incarnate came to this earth to deal with the sin

problem once and for all. He came to erase the curse of Adam’s sin….He came to

break the cycle of each of us just repeating the sinfulness of previous generations. He

came to deal with our rebellion…..

3) Jesus coming in our place wasn’t just because Adam had passed on his sin to us….It was because we had personally and willfully rebelled against our Creator. We each faced the moral choice of right and wrong and chose wrong. God calls it our iniquity….our rebellion… and Jesus came to address not only the rebellion in our hearts, but the evil consequences of our rebellion, the deserved punishment of our rebellion, and all the future outcomes that rebellion against God brings on all of us who rebel.

This was written 700 years before Jesus would come. One would come who would take the place of each who had gone before and of each who would follow and He would “Kuppur” the sins of all mankind and heap the atonement for all man-kinds sins inside His one great sacrifice.

In chapter 1 of Isaiah the lost-ness of mankind is described;

(Isaiah 1:2-6) Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger… my people do not understand." Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him….. Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness-- only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil. (NIV)

It’s the state of sinful people in “avon” , iniquity, rebellion against their God. It’s you and me without a Savior. It’s what we look like to God without shed blood of Jesus atoning for our sins.

In order to atone for our sins, the “Atone-er” would have our iniquity laid on his back; buried deep within his soul….

(Isaiah 52:14) Just as there were many who were appalled at him --his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness-- (NIV)

That day when John the Baptist was baptizing in the Jordan and Jesus stepped quietly into line to receive John’s Baptism; John’s words; brand new to the ears of anyone who was listening that day, are still ringing in our ears today with the same awesome truth.

It’s not hard to pick up the symbolism of God’s lamb… If John was right it was going to mean a radical change of theology for all who would follow Christ. The lamb, the pigeon, the turtle dove would now fade into insignificance….and they did…even for those who didn’t believe…

This final Lamb would serve in place of every lamb ever killed to cover man’s sins before and to take the place of all future lambs to come. This was The LAMB… and did you catch the second great component of John’s one sentence world changing announcement???

The final Lamb would not serve to cover man sin’s with his shed blood….this LAMB would take away the sins of the world!

(Hebrews 10:1-4) 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. (NIV)

The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins…it could only cover them.

(Hebrews 9:26-28) …. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people…. (NIV)

Here is the reality of what happened in a single sentence:

All the evil justly due to come onto us came onto Jesus so that all the good due to Jesus, earned by His sinless obedience, might be made available to us!