Kingdom of Life

God loves you! He loves all of us.

He gave us life. He gave the first humans the choice to obey Him or rebel, even though He knew it would bring Him a lot of grief. Their rebellion brought sin into the world, separating them and their descendants (you and me) from God. This was the beginning of a lot of problems for humanity, the biggest being that we became enemies of God.

But God’s plans for our salvation had already begun. “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love.” (Ephesians 1:3-4) It has never been God’s desire for us to sin, but He is such a great God that He is able to achieve His purposes in spite of our sin. God wants to bless us “with every spiritual blessing”. And His plans to do this began “before the foundation of the world”.

It is through Christ that God has saved us from the power of sin. And who is this Christ? He is the Son of God, the very Word of God. One of His disciples, John, wrote this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it. (John 1:1-5)

He was in the world, and the world was created by him, but the world did not recognize him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not receive him. But to all who have received him — those who believe in his name — he has given the right to become God’s children — children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God. (John 1:10-13)

The Word was with God in the beginning and was, in fact, part of God. Through that Word the universe was created. And when the time came for God to send a savior — the Christ, the Messiah — the Word became a man, Jesus of Nazareth. All who believe in his name are given the right to become children of God. We were all created by God. But being in God’s family, in a relationship with Him, being spiritually reborn as we need to be, is for those who receive Jesus.

Those who turn away from their sin and believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation from that sin have God’s promise to adopt them into His family, “because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.” (Romans 8:29-30) God will wash away their sin, spiritually transform them to be like His Son Jesus, and enable them to be with Him for eternity.

What is salvation?

Before a person who is drowning in a body of water can have their life saved by another person, they have to stop trying to save themselves. Before any of us can have our spiritual lives saved from sin and death, we must turn to God — who alone can save us — and stop trying to save ourselves through being religious, being good, following rules, etc.

Perhaps that is why God allowed the Israelites to experience what they did. He liberated them from oppression in Egypt; through miraculous signs and wonders He compelled the Egyptian government to let the Israelites go free so He could take them to a new land. He gave them the Law through Moses — all the things that, if followed, would enable them to live and not die. They were told that if they followed all of the Law, all of those rules, that God would be their God and they would be His people. He would fight their wars for them, protect them from disaster, and ensure their economic prosperity. But they were unable to follow all of the Law through their own effort, for the same reason that none of us are able to: our hearts are corrupted by sin so that we are unwilling to do what we know is right.

The Israelites saw the power of God displayed on their behalf firsthand. They saw many miracles. They had all the proof and all the incentive anyone could need to follow God. And yet, they still turned away from God. Why? Because proof is not enough, incentive and self-interest are not enough. There is a problem, the problem of sin. And this problem is something only God can solve; we cannot solve it ourselves.

Perhaps God knew His people had to try to make it through their own effort before they could see the futility of it. Maybe the covenant — the agreement — between God and the people of Israel served to show them, and us, that the spiritual obstacle that we need to overcome can only be overcome through faith in God.

If the covenant with Israel showed us our need for God, it also showed us a little about what it means to be in a relationship with God, about what salvation is like. Look at what God promised the Israelites if they would obey His Law:

“If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, I will give you your rains in their time so that the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, and you will live securely in your land. I will grant peace in the land so that you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword of war will pass through your land. You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. I will turn to you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and maintain my covenant with you. You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new.

“I will put my tabernacle in your midst and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright.” (Leviticus 26:3-13)

Salvation means knowing God, being able to love and worship Him for who He is, and receiving good things from Him. It means being transformed so that we take after Him and love others the way He has loved us. All this is possible only because He breaks the bars of sin which enslave us, enabling us to be reconciled to Him. Those of us who have received Jesus have been brought out of the land of spiritual slavery; we have been saved from death to a new life in the kingdom of God!

The Messiah

Even though the Israelites were unable, because of sin, to access salvation through obedience to the Law, they were being used by God to carry out His plans for bringing salvation from sin to all the people of the world. It would be from the people of Israel, the Jews, that the Savior of the world would come. And it was to the Jews that God spoke about this Savior, telling them through His prophets what He would be like and what He would do.

By about 700 B.C., God’s people were in dire straits due to their rejection of God. The northern kingdom, Israel, had been conquered by Assyria, the dominant regional power at the time, and the southern kingdom, Judah, was at Assyria’s mercy. The prophet Isaiah made it clear that God would eventually bring complete conquest and enslavement by foreigners upon both Israel and Judah (see Isaiah 9:8-10:4; 28:14-22; 39:5-8). God had established the nation of Israel and had made a covenant with it, but now, because of its unfaithfulness, He would bring that covenant to an end (Isaiah 5:1-7).

But Isaiah also prophesied about things that God would do later on. In the last days the word of the LORD would go out from Jerusalem and the peoples of the world would live in peace (Isaiah 2:1-5). God would send His servant, who would establish justice on earth, be a light for the Gentiles (non-Jews), give sight to the blind, and free those imprisoned in darkness (42:1-9). God would bring joy and salvation to His people; and even though the present heavens and earth would someday pass away, His salvation and righteousness would last forever (51:1-16). “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.” (65:17, NIV) God’s people would never again suffer physical misfortune or material lack, and no one would be able to harm or threaten them. (65:17-25) “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” (65:19, ESV)

Isaiah wrote of a savior who would bring these blessings to God’s people:

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan –
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest,
as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. (Isaiah 9:1-7, NIV)

However, the one sent by God would not only be a conquering king, he would also be a suffering servant.

See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
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 –
so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

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.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, NIV)

So, while Isaiah warned of God’s judgment upon Israel and Judah, he also spoke of events in the more distant future, about God’s sending of one who would suffer for the sins of the people and who would deliver His people into a new life.

The prophet Jeremiah’s ministry was over a hundred years after Isaiah’s; it was around the time that Jerusalem itself was finally conquered by the Babylonians. Jeremiah’s warnings to the Jews carried an even stronger sense of finality — of a sense that God had decided to bring the old covenant with His people to an end, to allow Judah to be conquered, and allow its people taken into exile. Yet Jeremiah prophesied that the Jews in exile would be freed to return home and that God would one day show kindness to Israel again. Furthermore he echoed Isaiah’s prophecy concerning a future leader and a new age for God’s people. Although the hereditary line of kings of Israel that were descended from David would be brought to an end, “I, the LORD, promise that a new time will certainly come when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, a descendant of David. He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding and will do what is just and right in the land.” (Jeremiah 23.5)

And there was this:

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NIV)

Ezekiel was a prophet living among the Jews who were in exile in Babylonia in the early 6th century B.C., shortly after Jeremiah’s ministry. He looked ahead to the Jews’ restoration from exile, but he also spoke of a time when God would cleanse His people of their sins:

“‘I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations. Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.’” (Ezekiel 26:25-28)

By the time of Jesus, the idea that a Messiah, a savior, would come to Israel was well established. ‘Messiah’ was the Hebrew word meaning “anointed one”. ‘Christ’ was the Greek word meaning the same thing (in the centuries just before the birth of Jesus, Greek became an alternative language in Israel and throughout much of the Mediterranean). For the Jews the defining characteristic of a king was that he was anointed by God, symbolized through having the priests pour oil on his head. By Jesus’ day the term ‘Messiah’ was reserved for the one whose coming would fulfill the prophesies about a ruler, descended from David, who would be sent by God to save His people and end oppression and injustice. The Jews tended to regard this person as a conquering king, a political leader who would have the Spirit of God, who would free Israel from foreign occupation and inaugurate a new era. Isaiah’s prophecy about a suffering servant contradicted this view of the Messiah but could be reconciled by assuming that a savior would have to make some sacrifices. In other words, the Jews had prophecies about a conquering king, and prophecies about a suffering servant, but they were — understandably — unsure about the meanings of these prophecies, who they referred to, or when they would be fulfilled.

The Son of Man

One night in Judea, in the town of Bethlehem, the Savior sent by God arrived. The Word “became flesh and took up residence among us.” (John 1:14) Jesus was born to a Jewish couple from Nazareth: the virgin Mary and her husband, Joseph, a descendant of David.

Jesus was about 30 years old when He began His earthly ministry. After successfully passing through a period of temptation in the desert at the hands of Satan, he returned to Galilee:

Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the surrounding countryside. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by all.

Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and the regaining of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to tell them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read.” (Luke 4:16-21)

Jesus began preaching the kingdom of God, repentance and the forgiveness of sins. “…Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed the gospel of God. He said, ‘The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel!’” (Mark 1:14-15) Then Jesus and His first disciples headed to nearby Capernaum:

Then they went to Capernaum. When the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people there were amazed by his teaching, because he taught them like one who had authority, not like the experts in the law. Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “Leave us alone, Jesus the Nazarene! Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God!” But Jesus rebuked him: “Silence! Come out of him!” After throwing him into convulsions, the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. They were all amazed so that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him.” So the news about him spread quickly throughout all the region around Galilee. (Mark 1:21-28)

Jesus went around doing good, loving people and ministering to their needs.

Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people. So a report about him spread throughout Syria. People brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those who had seizures, paralytics, and those possessed by demons, and he healed them. And large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan River. (Matthew 4:23-25)

Upon returning to Capernaum, which had become Jesus’ home base, there was an episode which illustrates some important things about salvation and Jesus’ earthly ministry:

Now after some days, when he returned to Capernaum, the news spread that he was at home. So many gathered that there was no longer any room, not even by the door, and he preached the word to them. Some people came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. When they were not able to bring him in because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Jesus. Then, after tearing it out, they lowered the stretcher the paralytic was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the experts in the law were sitting there, turning these things over in their minds: “Why does this man speak this way? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Now immediately, when Jesus realized in his spirit that they were contemplating such thoughts, he said to them, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up, take your stretcher, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” — he said to the paralytic — “I tell you, stand up, take your stretcher, and go home.” And immediately the man stood up, took his stretcher, and went out in front of them all. They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:1-12)

We must have faith, we must believe in the “Son of Man” (Jesus’ favorite term for Himself during His earthly ministry) in order to have our sins forgiven. Having our sins forgiven is our greatest need; it is necessary before we can know God and receive healing or other good things from Him. And miracles such as the one above are not just for their own sake but serve to glorify God and prove that Jesus really was (and is) the Son of God.

Jesus showed us God the Father; He showed, through His love, truthfulness and forthrightness, compassion, uprightness, and mercy, what God is like. And He came to seek and save all who are lost who will believe in Him, so that they can have communion with God and have life to the fullest. Jesus said:

“I tell you the solemn truth, the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the stranger’s voice.” Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So Jesus said to them again, “I tell you the solemn truth, I am the door for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold. I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me — because I lay down my life, so that I may take it back again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own free will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This commandment I received from my Father.” (John 10:1-17)

Jesus not only showed us what God is like, He showed us how to live. He put God and the kingdom of God first in His life. He received power and wisdom from God through the Holy Spirit. And He loved people and was sensitive to their spiritual and physical needs.

The Lamb of God

Jesus showed us the Father, and He modeled the life we should live. The most important thing He did — the reason He came — was to defeat the power of sin so that we could be reconciled to the Father and be empowered to live that kind of life. He defeated sin by offering Himself as payment for the sins of the world.

Jesus has already come once, and someday He will come a second time. He came the first time as the suffering servant to die for our sins, so that we could be saved. He will come again as the conquering king who will judge the world and inaugurate the new heaven and the new earth. If he had not come to pay for our sins, if His only coming was as the conquering king, none of us would have any hope; no one from this world would populate heaven. This is because none of us can stand in God’s presence without a spiritual rebirth or transformation, and none of us can receive such a rebirth without our sins being paid for. If we were to have the possibility of living and not dying, He had to come first to sacrifice Himself for the sins of the world.

Jesus spoke of our need for spiritual rebirth in a conversation with Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader:

Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven — the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:1-16)

Once when He was traveling through Samaria, he stopped at a town and had a conversation with a woman at the well there. He had an opportunity to tell her that He is the source of eternal life:

A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.) So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you — a Jew — ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”

Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:7-14)

When Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem for the last time before being crucified, a man in Jericho repented of his sin and put his faith in Jesus and was saved:

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. Now a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to get a look at Jesus, but being a short man he could not see over the crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” So he came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully. And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)

After three years of earthly ministry, Jesus and His 12 disciples went to Jerusalem, the center of religious life for the Jewish people, for Passover. Jesus knew He would be crucified before the end of the week.

Passover commemorated the night during God’s deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt when God had told Israelite families to each slaughter a lamb and put blood on the doorway of their dwellings. When God’s wrath came upon Egypt to compel the Egyptians to release the Israelites, He passed over the places which had the blood of the lamb so that His people were saved from punishment. This miraculous sign was a landmark event in the life of the people of Israel, and ever since, they had commemorated it annually with the Feast of the Passover. The week of Passover, Jerusalem was crowded with many visitors from across Judea and beyond who were there for the Feast, and they gave Jesus a hero’s welcome upon His arrival. Jesus had been careful about referring to Himself as “Messiah” among the Jewish public because of the difficulty it would cause for His saving mission. Nevertheless, He had done enough that people were excited about Him and many were thinking about Him in that light.

This placed great pressure on the Jewish religious leaders, who were concerned about losing their position in society. Everything, from Jesus’ statements and actions to the reactions they elicited from various actors and parties, was happening according to God’s will. The Jewish leaders decided to kill Jesus, but to wait until after Passover. However when Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples, went to them and offered to arrange for Him to be arrested when there would be no supportive crowds present, they were delighted and agreed (Luke 22:5).

On Thursday of that week, Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover meal. They went through the set rituals commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. But then, Jesus did something different:

Then he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:19-20)

Jesus was saying, in effect, that the Passover meal was about Him! That He was the Passover lamb. That the wine symbolized His blood and the bread symbolized His body which would be sacrificed to turn aside the wrath of God. This would make the “new covenant” mentioned in Jeremiah 31 a reality for all who will believe.

Jesus had much else to say to them that night, including this:

“Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. And you know the way where I am going.”

Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him. (John 14:1-7)

That night, Jesus was arrested. The next day He was tried by the Jewish leaders. They determined that He should die. The same crowds who had adored Jesus a few days earlier now demanded His crucifixion. The Romans, afraid the situation in Jerusalem would get out of hand and they would lose control of it, carried out His crucifixion. Again, it was all according to God’s plan. The Messiah prophesized in scripture was put to death by His own people, who did not recognize Him. The only man who ever lived without sinning was nailed to a cross.

It was a terrible thing for Jesus, but it was a triumph at the same time. The Lamb of God paid for the sins of the world; He shed his blood so that we could be forgiven. The one who had enough goodness and purity to make up for the sin and evil of you and me took our place; He took our punishment for us.

New life

Jesus died that evening. His body was taken from the cross and placed in a tomb belonging to a rich man who was a believer in Jesus. The Jewish leaders were able to get a guard posted at the tomb to prevent anyone from tampering with it. There Jesus’ body lay throughout Saturday.

But it did not stay there.

Now on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women went to the tomb, taking the aromatic spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood beside them in dazzling attire. The women were terribly frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised! Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” (Luke 24:1-7)

Jesus was raised from the dead! The power of God brought Him back to life. Some of Jesus’ other followers also encountered Him during the day. That evening, Jesus appeared to the disciples, huddled together behind closed doors as they were discussing the reports that were coming in from others:

While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified, thinking they saw a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; it’s me! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones like you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still could not believe it (because of their joy) and were amazed, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” So they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in front of them.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it stands written that the Christ would suffer and would rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:36-49)

“What my Father promised” and “power from on high” referred to the Holy Spirit, God’s spirit, which He gives to all who have been forgiven of their sin through faith in Christ.

Jesus stayed with His disciples for 40 days after His resurrection. He left them with these words:

He told them, “You are not permitted to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.” After he had said this, while they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud hid him from their sight. As they were still staring into the sky while he was going, suddenly two men in white clothing stood near them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:7-11)

A priest is someone who mediates between God and humanity. When Jesus shed His blood for us, He entered into a priestly ministry on our behalf. By the sacrifice He made He is able to intercede with God for us, something none of the priests of Israel could ever do:

For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. 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; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:24-28, NIV)

Through belief in Christ, a righteousness by faith — rather than by doing good works — can be ours. And along with it, all who believe receive God’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, which is able to transform our hearts and minds, enabling us to worship God, changing what we want, and enabling us to love others.

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.) But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:1-8)

John, in a letter to fellow believers, said, “By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10)

When we are reconciled to God through faith in Christ, God is able to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit. We are able to love Him and worship Him gladly. We are transformed to become more like Him. And we begin to love others as He has loved us. We are adopted into the kingdom of God, and His kingdom is advanced in this sinful, broken world through us.

And, we have hope for the future. When God judges this world through Christ, all who are in Christ will be taken to be with their Lord and Savior for eternity.

Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17)

After Jesus’ return, the final defeat of Satan, and the last judgment (see Revelation 20:11-15), there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Revelation contains a vision which God gave the apostle John, which he wrote down. The exact meaning and correct interpretation of the things contained in the vision is not always easy to determine. But it is clear from what was revealed to John that the old order of things will pass away.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. And I saw the holy city — the new Jerusalem — descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more — or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.”

And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!” Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.” He also said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water free of charge from the spring of the water of life. The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But to the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, idol worshipers, and all those who lie, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. That is the second death.”

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues came and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb!” So he took me away in the Spirit to a huge, majestic mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. The city possesses the glory of God; its brilliance is like a precious jewel, like a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It has a massive, high wall with twelve gates, with twelve angels at the gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel are written on the gates. There are three gates on the east side, three gates on the north side, three gates on the south side and three gates on the west side. The wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (Revelation 21:1-14)

Now I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God — the All-Powerful — and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their grandeur into it. Its gates will never be closed during the day (and there will be no night there). They will bring the grandeur and the wealth of the nations into it, but nothing ritually unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or practices falsehood, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life — water as clear as crystal — pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flowing down the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month of the year. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. And there will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and the Lamb will be in the city. His servants will worship him, and they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more, and they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 21:22-22:5)

So, there is new life, in this world and the next, for all who will repent of their sin and believe in Jesus Christ. Repenting means being genuinely sorry for what we have done wrong and desiring to not do it again. Belief in Jesus means trusting His blood to wash away our sin and being willing to openly declare that He is Lord.

If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation. For the scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:9-13)