Imperishable

                 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (I Peter 1:18-19)

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)

                I’m not finding the passage I want to right now, which speaks of God’s plan for the sacrifice of Jesus from creation, or possibly before. Since I can’t come up with the right words for the search engine, Revelation 13:8 will have to do. It says what needs to be said, that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was not an after thought, a plan cobbled together because man screwed things up. God knew that mankind would sin, allowed it, and prepared for it even before He made man.

                If God knew, why did He create us in a way that allowed us to sin? If He did not, we could never know the freedom to think in any way other than He does. If He didn’t, He would demonstrate that His love is contingent upon our obedience. He would not be able to show us that He loves us despite our failure to live up to His standards. Alternatively, He might put each of us in a “Matrix” so that we could do whatever we wanted but have no responsibility or accountability for any of it, because it’s not real. That would amount to an extreme disrespect for us on His part. Our decisions and choices would not matter. There could be no real reality but He would be required to bow to our insane godhood. This would require that He hate Himself. He would have to lie constantly.

                The fact that He takes our sin seriously and that He chose to send His Son to die for us reveals the depths of His love for us. In the book of Hebrews, it says that the sacrifices made under the Law couldn’t save us. The high priest had to make atonement for his own sin. And then, eventually, the high priest died. So the sacrifice would have been burned up, eaten, or put in a special dump where it would rot away to nothing. The sacrifice would be no more. And the high priest would be no more. And by our own deeds, the sacrifice would not have provided a permanent fix for anything.

                But God provided a permanent fix to our situation, and what might be called a slow fix for ourselves, if only we avail ourselves of it. It proves His love for us just as much as His allowing us to sin does – without denying reality.