GOSPEL LIGHT #781

 Priest Offers Himself Without Sacrifice - Gets Burned 

JERUSALEM - In an unprecedented display of devotion, priest Yakov Eliab reportedly gave  and offered himself fully to God in the temple yesterday showing up empty-handed, without any sacrifice whatsoever. 

Eyewitnesses say Eliab entered the Holiest part of the temple, arms raised, and shouted, “Lord, take me! I am yours!”

In an instant, Eliab was engulfed in fire. When the smoke cleared, nothing remained of him - not a hair, not a robe, even his very shadow was burned. From somewhere inside the flames, a tiny, singed voice called out: “Okay! Okay! Next time… I’ll just bring a lamb!” Then there was only silence. 

Temple scribes shook their heads and muttered, “We told him not to do it but he insisted that giving himself should count for something.”

In the meantime, another figure stood at the doorway of the temple, positioned himself, and ready to pray the sinner’s prayer inside, without a sacrifice. He will not be bring any sacrifice at all but will just say inside that he will accept the lamb in his heart.

GOSPEL LIGHT #780

 The "Give Your Life to Christ" Theology

In the book of Romans starting from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 5:21, where Paul talks about justification, he never talks about giving our lives to Christ.

In the gospel of John, the NT gospel "tract", John never employed the idea of giving our life to Christ for salvation. On the contrary, he says "as many as received Him." Over and over again, he conditions salvation on believing or trusting in Christ. Trusting in Him is receiving His claims.

The giving of our life to Christ is not a fitting response to the gospel message. The gospel message is "Christ died for our sins and was raised again." Either you trust in it or not. These are your only options.

If you give your life to Christ He will only crucify it in Himself on the cross. It can only produce filthy rags. It's the resurrected life that He wants not your pre-cross life.

What we need first and foremost is the atonement and payment for our sins. Our lives could never do it. Atonement is only in His blood. Trust in it.

It's not our surrender, the giving of our lives to Him - that saves. It is His surrender, His giving of His life, that saves.

We never give ourselves to Him perfectly. When we sin, we are practically taking it back. Even if we give our lives to Him perfectly from this point on, we already fell short yesterday and all the yesterdays before that. If you want to be saved through that route -- He wants perfection.

Giving our life to Him is sanctification not justification.

Giving our life to Him is practically salvation by works. If the giving of our lives is the condition of salvation then why did Christ die on the cross? Why did He give His life when we only have to give our own? In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system vividly showed that atonement required a substitute. The sinner had to bring an animal offering; offering oneself would never do. What this symbolically revealed is how a sinner is saved: through the death of a substitute, not by offering oneself. Your own self cannot atone for your sins -don’t try to give it; it needs a substitute.

You can give your self to God but if you don't get inside the Ark, the Flood would devour you.

You can give your self to God but if you don't look at the bronze serpent, you will die.

The only response that made sense when Abraham was promised by God in Genesis 15 was faith. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Giving himself to God at this point would not make sense. Don't give your life. Receive eternal life.

GOSPEL LIGHT #779

 

GE 39:22 The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s charge all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it.

GE 39:23 The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made to prosper.


You see, because Joseph was there, even prison became a place of blessing.

To be sure, many were in that prison, but it was only when Joseph came that it became a favored and prosperous place.

In the same, many were crucified on the cross of Calvary. The cross was the emblem of shame, cruelty and condemnation. But when the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, He transformed it forever.

Because He was there, what was once a place of death became the doorway to life. What was once a place of condemnation became the fountain of salvation.

And today, through that same cross, sinners can be forgiven, the guilty can be justified, and the broken made whole.

You know, where Jesus is - everything changes.

Will you come to Him putting your confidence in what He did on the cross for you?