Restoration
Part 4: Restoration
Our relationship with God is restored through Christ, and now we have the opportunity to pledge allegiance to Him and tell others what He has done. We have the chance to embrace Jesus as our Savior. R.C. Sproul wrote a children’s story based on Zechariah 3:1-5. It tells the story of the gospel along the lines of something like this.
As the priest makes his way to meet the King, he falls into a puddle, leaving his clothes in a filthy state. Since the King is of royal status, it is unacceptable for the priest to approach him in such a disheveled state. The dirty clothes symbolize our sin in this story. Jesus, the Prince, was wearing clean clothes. The Prince, Jesus, removes his robe and presents it to the priest so that he can approach the King. Jesus, the Prince, puts on the dirty clothes. This is the gospel. When we pledge our allegiance to Jesus, we can come before God. He only sees the perfection of Christ because His sinlessness has been transferred to us.
Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then, He was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church. But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach the same message you have already believed (1 Corinthians 15:1-11, NLT).
He restored our fellowship with God.
At the moment Jesus died “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split (Matthew 27:51, NIV).”
The Ark of the Covenant stood behind the temple veil in the Tabernacle. In hopes of not oversimplifying it, the ark is a box covered in gold. It holds within it the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna, and Aaron’s budding rod (Hebrews 9:3-5).
Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would go through a purification ritual, which included sacrificing a bull (Leviticus 16). The high priest would then enter behind the temple veil. He would have with him the blood of the sacrifice and would then sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice in the area between the cherubim that sat on top of the ark of the covenant. This is also known as the mercy seat. The High Priest would then lay both hands on another goat to “transfer” the sins of Israel, and then they would send it into the wilderness. This was called the scapegoat. When this was done, the atonement of sin was completed for Israel for the year.
The Holy Spirit dwelled behind the temple veil with the ark during the time of the Tabernacle with Moses and the Israelites (Hebrews 9:1-10). John includes what this looked like in his gospel.
“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot (John 20:11-12, NIV).”
This is the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement. The two angels sat in the same way the two cherubim did. Between them was the blood of our sacrifice, Jesus, for the atonement of sins of His Church forever. We do not have to sacrifice animals anymore because He fulfilled the need.
The splitting of this veil shows the world that through Jesus, we can now be in the presence of God. We no longer need something to keep us separated because Jesus’ blood did what the animal sacrifices could not: bring us salvation.
Jesus was both our high priest and our sacrificial goat. Write Hebrews 4:14 in your favorite translation.
"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess."
"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean? (Acts 2:1-12, NIV)"
"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:1-9, NIV).”
How to become a Christian
As we learned, Jesus did all the work. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you any more or any less. Because of this, He has made it incredibly easy for us to become His. Romans 10:9 says, "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (NLT).”
This means you must believe with your heart (meaning your mind, conscience, logic, and reason) that He died for you and God raised Him from the dead. Next, we pledge allegiance and loyalty to Him for life by confessing with our mouths that Jesus is our Lord. Then, your first act of obedience is baptism.
