We All Need Forgiveness
The psychologist, Freud, accurately determined that the main source of all humanity's woes are feelings of guilt. He came to this profound truth, but didn't know what to do with it. Today, we are encouraged by pop psychologists to "feel good about ourselves," and to do away with the troubling guilt that we all have. The Bible teaches the opposite. It says we must face our sin and deal with it--and only then can we have the peace that the world craves so badly. It can be a frightening and painful thing to face our sin, yet we will never receive healing unless we do. Our guilt will continue to torment us and wreak havoc on our lives until we receive forgiveness for our sins. The key is not to ignore our guilt or try to gloss over it, but to face it and seek God for forgiveness, through the blood of Jesus.
When Jesus died on the cross, He took our punishment upon Himself. He took the guilt of our sins and bore them in our place. He received all the emotional pain of the abuse, betrayal, injustice, and scorn that we ourselves have given and received. In a prophetic portrait of the future Christ, Isaiah wrote, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" Isaiah 53:5.
In Hebrews 9:22, it says, "In fact, under the Law, almost everything is purified by means of blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins" (Amplified Bible, emphasis mine).
The weight of sin is so great that only shed blood can atone for it. We treat it so lightly, yet all the world is reeling and stunted and dying under the consequences of it. In the days of the Old Covenant (before Jesus came), God made laws requiring specific animals to be sacrificed to atone for certain sins. The one who committed the sin, was to slay the animal himself. We look at the Old Testament and wonder why God would be so strict, so seemingly cruel, and so specific. In confusion, many of us have said "Well, that is how God was back then..." and we try to put it out of our heads. There is something we must understand about God though. He does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. What He hated 2,000 years ago He hates today, and will hate 2,000 years from now. He hates what destroys His creation, and He will be merciless against all forms of sin and injustice until every last bit is purged from us. (Please note that He is merciless with the sin, but not the repentant sinner!!)
Sin has destroyed this planet far more than even the most perceptive of us can realize. Only by shedding blood can we understand the extreme consequences of the price of sin. The shedding of blood is a vivid illustration that all sin will end in death. God, in His mercy, has allowed us to see and receive a small portion of the consequences of our sin in this lifetime, so we can change while we still have the opportunity to do so. After we die it will be to late.
When we see that the price that we must each pay for our sins is lifeblood of something or someone-- and that there is no way around it--the dept must be paid, only then we begin to have a true appreciation of what happened on the Cross.
If we do not understand the Cross, we can never receive absolution from the guilt that eats away at us. The Cross is essential for us to have new life. It is our only path to freedom.
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