“For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
I find it strange that people who give very little thought to Jesus in their daily lives lecture those of us who are believers about what Jesus would say or do. I, for one, as a believer do not claim to know everything about Jesus, for no one can, but I do know that I have a personal relationship with Him. In letters to editors, “squawk boxes” in newspapers and in various other places I read what people say about us because we don’t agree with them on certain issues before us today. This got me to thinking about who some people think Jesus is and who the Bible (mainly the New Testament) tells us that He is. There are those who would make Jesus into a libertine who has no moral authority and who makes no moral judgments. According to them, if you follow Jesus anything goes, and if believers make a moral decision based on Jesus, they call us “hypocrites.” It is for certain that Jesus told us not to judge people, because we ourselves are sinners in need of forgiveness, but for heaven’s sake are we to ignore such things as the Ten Commandments, and other moral arguments made by the Bible? I am no one’s judge, and do not want to be anyone’s judge, but I do want to take the moral values of the Bible seriously. Jesus certainly took them seriously. In the New Testament Jesus took on the self-righteous and the unrighteous equally. He excoriated the self-righteous Pharisees and straightened out the life of a tax collector like Zacchaeus. Jesus was a perfect person “who knew no sin,” but He worked among sinners, not to agree with them or to boost them in their lifestyles; rather, He did this to help them live better lives. There are those who would make Jesus into a social reformer. Jesus came to earth to transform people, but He did not come to reform them. Unless you see something in the gospels that I do not see, Jesus did not make political statements. He did not come to take on the corrupt Roman government. It is true that He did not agree with it, but He did not come to reform the Roman Empire but to transform it, which eventually happened. Jesus was not a roving revolutionary, striking out at the political systems of His day. In fact, He was harder on so-called religious leaders like the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians than He was on Roman soldiers. I realize that I am leaving a lot of interpretations of Christ out in this article, but these are two examples that are on my mind at the present time. I think that our text tells us who and what Jesus was and is: “For He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus came to the earth to eventually die for the sins of people – all people. He made it plain in the New Testament that He was, and is, the means of salvation for all who will believe in Him. He is the One about whom John wrote in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” When we claim to be saved, we do not mean to cast aspersions on all other people, for we realize that we are “sinners saved by grace.” What we do want is for other people to see Jesus for whom and what He is, and for what He can do in their lives. I know that when I tell someone about Jesus, I am not looking down on them, but simply concerned that they find the life that God wants them to have in Jesus. The same God, who sent Jesus out of His love for humankind, is the One who put His love in the hearts of believers. We do not mean to demean you, but we want you to find life in Christ, which is “abundant life.” I want to leave this with you: We know that we aren’t perfect, and we know that we can sometimes come across as self-righteous, but we do know that we are forgiven and that Jesus Christ is an integral part of our lives. We want all people to know that forgiveness and that life. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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