5.6

Keeping the promise

The exodus gave birth to a people who would forever be God’s freed slaves. Israel left behind her land of slavery to follow God into the land He promised, one of rest and inheritance (Deuteronomy 12:9). But God’s promise to make Israel His holy people was not fulfilled in the exodus. Israel remained trapped in her own ways. The generation that left Egypt died in the wilderness and did not enter God’s promised land. A second exodus came that would keep God’s promise with a different sacrifice, to bring all His people into His rest. This second exodus was led by the same God as the first one but worked through very different events in history. It arrived in the form of a Person who John the baptizer called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). This time God would not deliver one nation from a destroying angel and bring to Mount Sinai. This time, He would deliver all people from their blindness to God and bring them to the promised rest of God’s Messiah

God’s sacrifice is essentially different from sacrifices we make for one another. When someone sacrifices her possessions for another’s sake, she is considered generous and charitable. If someone risks and even gives her life for another, we begin to approach the nature of God’s Spirit of sacrifice. Our generous and sacrificial giving reflects God’s image in us but it is not the substance of His giving. We can only give what God gives us. All we have is what we receive from Him. God’s giving differs in essence from ours because only He can give of His own

God gave Himself in Jesus. When God appeared in His Son, He accomplished the unspeakable. Jesus was not merely a gift from God’s abundance but One who came from His deepest poverty. This poverty is not from God’s lack in anything, but Jesus is the Beloved who God can least afford to give. Jesus is the heart of God, to whom God has given all things. God giving His Son for our redemption is the greatest sacrifice He could make. The blood of His lambs delivered Israel from death in Egypt but the blood of His Son on the cross delivers the world from its sin and death. Why would God require something so unfathomable? Because God knows what we do not, that only His sacrifice can free us from sin and we must be freed of our sin to be found in God

Our sin will always shroud God’s goodness. One of the greatest revelations God gave Israel is her need to atone for her sins with blood sacrifice. The sacrificial system is the image of God’s sacrifice of Jesus, who is the substance. God forgives and frees us from our sin by His sacrifice. Couldn’t God have found a more antiseptic and less harrowing way to bring us to Himself? No. We are all greatly dulled to our offenses against God. We don’t understand how good are His gifts and how much we disparage Him. But when Jesus hung naked on the cross before a violent mob, the world and the heavens could see how shamelessly God loves us and how shamelessly we spurn Him

Jesus hung on His cross not only to show the true nature of our relation with God but also to finish the promise of God’s work to transform us into His holy ones so we may finally see this God of glory: the One before whom Isaiah despaired and the One before whom Isaiah ecstatically rejoiced. When we receive this living gift of God’s redemption in His Son’s sacrifice, we are changed and enabled to receive Him. When we receive Him, His Spirit reveals to us God’s unique good and love for each one of us that enable us to love Him in return. There is no greater joy, no greater good than this. God’s sacrifice reveals the true worth of all sacrifices. Life’s ultimate value can only be given and known by sacrifice, who is Jesus