sanditui

Hi I am Sandi from Trinidad and Tobago and I am happy to be begin my online bible study experience. I hope to draw closer to God through this experience and to share thoughts with you my fellow participants.

The punishment for sin was death. Yet how could God kill man who was made in His image and likeness. Man made in God's image was a disgrace to Him, yet God loved mankind deeply. I think that God was therefore extending mercy to us by allowing animals to be sacrificed in place of us as a sign that through the shedding of an innocent's blood , sins were forgiven. However, animal sacrifices could never adequately atone for human sin. Only a human made in God's image and likeness could really atone for human sins. Hence Jesus, the unblemished one, had to come to fulfil this atonement and cleanse humanity. Through Jesus' faithfulness, He was able to redeem all of humanity so that we can now be called children of God through our faith in Him. Praise be to God for His loving kindness and compassion for us.

It was customary in John's time to use an unblemished lamb as a sacrifice for sins committed, so for John to refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, it somehow foreshadows that Jesus was to become the sacrificial lamb sent by God to atone for human sins. The shedding of a lamb's blood and the sprinkling of that blood on the sinner was a way to make amends for wrong doings. Jesus becoming the lamb who takes away our sins, now redeems humanity and ensures salvation for all who would believe in Him. 'Sins of the world' was a radical concept at the time because all along God had told the Israelites that He was forming a chosen race and that they were the chosen people. If anyone sinned they had to come forward with their family and offer an unblemished lamb as a sacrifice in atonement for that sin. To now suggest that Jesus was the one to take away the sins of the world, was difficult to comprehend as that would mean circumcised as well as uncircumcised people were to be included in this cleansing and forgiveness .