The world has a problem. This was not a problem made by the Creator. In the Beginning, so Genesis tells us, God created a perfect Paradise. His children, that He created in His image, would rule the earth, while He ruled in heaven above (Genesis 1:28-30). But then, our ancestors messed it up, believing a lie that we would become what we already were: Like God. A curse entered humanity and the rest of the world; sin and death entered in (See Genesis 3). Effectively, we broke what God had made perfect, and ever since then, we've paid the price. God is a Holy God, and that means He is perfect, and set apart from anything imperfect. Our Sin makes us imperfect, and so separates us from Holy God. We are told in Romans that " 23For the wages of sin is death"(Romans 6:23a, more on this later). We earn death by our Sin. Throughout the Old Testament, God's wrath was reserved for those who violated His terms (after all, He created the world, and it is HIS world to rule). He gave Israel and the surrounding nations time to correct and repent (to return to His ways), but they, time and time again, forced His hand, and He had to effect justice. Yet, there was a plan in place. God knew that Adam's sin ruined all things, so one like Adam, and yet set apart needed to correct that sin. The penalty for Sin is death, and so death needed to pay. One like Adam, and yet unlike DID come! Jesus, who the Apostle Paul calls the Second Adam, came and lived like you and I should have, and died like you and I deserved!(1 Corinthians 15) Yeshua, Jesus, God in the flesh took the punishment on HIMSELF that was set apart for us. Thus the terms of God's covenant were fulfilled. Jesus was tempted in every way and did not sin (see Hebrews 4). God took it upon Himself to conquer our Sin problem, and thus remove our Death problem. The problems We created, God fixed, and through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, should we give all up and follow Jesus, we have the promise of an eternity with Him! Isn't that good news worth sharing? You don't need a degree to tell your neighbors that there's problems we have created, nor to tell them that God has taken it upon Himself to fix it! Go and tell the news! From Romans 6:
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old selfawas crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For one who has died has been set freeb from sin. 8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Slaves to Righteousness
15What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,c you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Footnotes:
a 6 Greek man
b 7 Greek has been justified
c 16 For the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see >Preface; twice in this verse; also verses 17, 19 (twice), 20
