A couple years ago, a tragic story hit the news here in Colorado. A young boy and his mom were at the mall. One minute they were casually shopping and the next minute the world came crashing down. Out of nowhere, a pickup truck came barreling through the store’s window at full speed. In the split second between recognition and impact, the mom leapt toward her son to push him out of the way. In doing so she placed herself in the path of the oncoming truck. Her boy was pushed aside, out of the path of the truck’s deadly destruction. The mom, however, was killed instantly. She had sacrificed her life for her son.
Taking the Hit for Us
This mom’s noble sacrifice serves as a modern day parable for us as we explore the next step of our GOSPEL Journey acrostic, the “P”:
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again.
The Bible says that God’s anger over sin was headed full speed at each of us. But out of His great love for us, Christ pushed us out of the way, sacrificing His life so we could have a restored relationship with God now and live forever with Him in heaven. Jesus died in our place!
The Centrality of the Atonement
Did you know there are some theologians in our day who find the theology of the atonement uncomfortable? The brutal, bloody, substitutionary nature of Christ’s death makes them uncomfortable – so uncomfortable that they’ve set off in search of extra-Biblical alternate explanations for this divine transaction.
And certainly in some respects, the bloody payment Jesus provided should make as all uncomfortable, for it was a horrendous price for God to pay for the forgiveness of our sins. But the stark, unsettling nature of this reality should never make us squeamish about the clear Biblical teaching of the atoning sacrifice of Christ’s death. It is a critically important theological truth which is central to the saving message of the gospel. And as such, it is vitally important that we communicate this truth to our students.
Why Blood?
Why did blood have to be shed to make us right with God…(read the rest of the Energize Article Here)
