Reading through the Old Testament, following the history of God’s people and His relationship with them, we see that the account of John the Baptist and his message was bold. John told the Jewish leaders they could no longer claim to be children of God simply because Abraham was their forefather—John told these Jewish leaders that this heritage no longer applied. Finally, John said to them,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near … He [the One coming] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
(Matthew 3:1,11)
John was proclaiming that Christ, the Judge, was coming, and He was bringing His kingdom. Ancient
family ties were no longer the criteria for salvation.
What a mind-blowing message! Imagine these religious leaders, thinking they were doing God’s will (or, maybe, consciously ignoring God’s will), suddenly hearing that God was unfolding a completely new plan. And because of that, God was now requiring them to repent—to turn from the reliance on law and tradition they had held as truth for thousands of years, and turn toward the new covenant God was bringing. However, John’s message was really only another step in the preparation for the new covenant that God had been preparing His people for throughout His story.
God had been promising the Redeemer, the Messiah, since the fall of mankind, and had been slowly and surely revealing what this Messiah would bring. He would not only bring political deliverance at the end of time, but a much more important personal deliverance from sin. He would also bring forgiveness, a transformed heart, and the power to live as God’s child because of a physical indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Messiah would be the answer to all of humanity’s deepest problems. Because of this, God demanded repentance—a heart turned away from sin and turned toward Him.
God prepared the people for the ultimate good news in a way that no one could have imagined. Even today, God invites us to receive this new covenant through a decision to turn from the old and turn toward the new. He desires our repentance to receive the good news of Christ by faith, in order to be grafted into His family
through grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment