Jesus Christ took on human nature, became a man and died to redeem mankind.\u00a0 I\u2019ve sometimes wondered if it was really that great of a sacrifice.\u00a0 He knew what was going to happen, He\u2019s the one who gave the story to the prophets of old so that they would write it down, enabling us to recognize when Christ came as the Messiah.\u00a0 He knew He would raise again in three days, and He\u2019d be back to the right-hand of the Father.\u00a0 So, what\u2019s the big deal?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll get back to that.<\/p>\n
There are a number of views of hell among Christians.\u00a0 Some believe that it\u2019s actual real fire, and I recall preachers referring to fire that burns black (explaining both fire and blackness in hell). \u00a0Some believe that there are actual worms eating at the flesh for eternity.<\/p>\n
Others believe, and this seems to be becoming a more common belief, that the Biblical descriptions of Hell are accurately descriptive, but man has no concept, no words that can describe what Hell is like, and the inspired authors of scripture used the best description available to the human vocabulary and our limited mind.\u00a0 Hell is the absence of hope, once there, you will never, ever, ever have the opportunity to see Christ, to know God, to experience oneness with the Spirit.\u00a0 We can’t comprehend what this is like, so the various authors described it as “outer darkness”, “furnace of fire”, a place where “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”, “fiery lake of burning sulfer”, where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”. (Matt 25:30, Matt 8:12, Rev 21:8, Mark 9:44, etc.)<\/p>\n
Those that have not accepted Christ will spend an eternity empty.\u00a0 While alive, people try to fill the void with friends, drugs, sex, alcohol, busy-ness.\u00a0 Mostly busy-ness, I think, keeping their lives so full they mute their own longings for God, either because they don\u2019t want to know Him, or because they haven\u2019t been told that He is who they need to know.<\/p>\n
So, what was Christ\u2019s sacrifice?\u00a0 He became a man to die.\u00a0 He came to die for the very people that killed him.\u00a0 Man had become the type of being that would kill God when He came to earth to save them, which is the very reason God had to come to earth to save them.\u00a0 That\u2019s a sacrifice, a wonderfully awesome thing that Christ did!\u00a0 But He still knew He would raise again.<\/p>\n
In the garden, right before His death, He was in torment. \u00a0(Mark 14:33, 34)\u00a0 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.\u00a0 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them…<\/strong> Why?\u00a0 He knew what was about to happen.\u00a0 He knew that He was going to die and raise again, suffer incredible physical and emotional pain.\u00a0 But He was still God, He knew how it was going to turn out.<\/p>\n Up until this point, Christ was focused on the mission, His (about) three and a half years spent about His Father’s business (Luke 2:49), to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).\u00a0 But now, he seemed to be losing hope.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a figure of speech, hope<\/b> was actually going away.\u00a0 He was about to be separated from His Father, to experience death and the punishment of sin, to be forsaken by His Father (Matt 27:46).\u00a0 We have the descriptions of the punishment, the descriptions of hell.\u00a0 Christ was about to experience a separation from God without hope<\/b>.\u00a0 His knowledge of what would happen was of absolutely no value.\u00a0 Christ was to be without hope for a period of time, physically and emotionally and spiritually experiencing hell.<\/p>\n For how long was Christ without hope, separated from His Father?\u00a0 By some counts it was about 6 hours, from the point of being forsaken until the point of death when Christ commended His Spirit to His Father.\u00a0 We think in terms of time, but God is outside of time as are we once we die.\u00a0 At the point of death, Christ was taken out of time.\u00a0 Out of time, you are basically experiencing eternity.\u00a0 For all we know, Christ experienced an eternity of separation from His Father without hope.\u00a0 In the Garden, He knew what was coming and chose to do it anyway.<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not establishing new theology here.\u00a0 This is a combination of fact and conjecture, and I welcome debate, a little iron sharpening iron (Prov 27:17).\u00a0 What can we take from this, from a combination of the stuff that\u2019s solidly supported in scripture and from some speculation from a limited human mind (although a mind created by God with the ability to speculate!)?<\/p>\n First, we should really really appreciate the sacrifice Jesus the Christ made.\u00a0 It should be real to us every day, we should thank Him often that, as believers, we will never have to experience separation from the Father without hope.<\/p>\n Second, we should try to understand from Christ\u2019s example what awaits those that do not know Him, and be motivated to always represent Christ and be ready to offer His story to every person we meet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jesus Christ took on human nature, became a man and died to redeem mankind.\u00a0 I\u2019ve sometimes wondered if it was really that great of a sacrifice.\u00a0 He knew what was going to happen, He\u2019s the one who gave the story … Continue reading