SCRIPTURE: For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:10 NIV
THOUGHT: We often treat the death and resurrection of Jesus as one and the same. I don’t mean that we don’t know the difference – I mean that we lump the two together in our minds under the banner “pinnacle of history,” failing to ponder what difference each event made for us.
Today’s promise calls us to think deeply about what happened on those separate occasions. There is reconciliation and then there is salvation, Paul says. Reconciliation is tearing the curtain in the temple from top to bottom. Sin has once forever been paid for. God can once again look at us without seeing our sin, and having it separate us. We can once again “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).”
But then there is the matter of resurrection! Jesus didn’t just make a sacrifice for us as our great high priest. He overcame death as a testimony to his power over matter. He is not forever dead, he is forever alive and out ahead of us making salvation more than a celebration of forgiveness and reconciliation, but a promise of eternal life. Remember how God fences off the Garden of Eden, because he won’t allow his fallen creatures to eat from the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24)? Well, in resurrection, Jesus becomes our Tree of Life.
Even while imperfect, struggling with the results of the fall each day, there are two things that give me hope: 1) through reconciliation, I can moment-by-moment draw near to the great Creator of the Universe, and 2) through salvation, there is not just forgiveness, but also more life ahead that I cannot see. Life as God sees it, as God planned it. Good and eternal.
PRAYER: Thank you Jesus, for your work on the cross and in the grave. Thank you that because of you, we are reconciled with God and can live forever in a salvation celebration. No more do sin and death write the end of our story!
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
Check out Walking When You’d Rather Fly, and learn more about the book and Amy’s other ministries. You will also find her devotional work at Words of Hope.
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