Jubilee

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life" by this He meant he has power over the grave. He is the first fruit of those risen from the grave. To Jesus resurrection from the dead is not a myth or a make-up belief about the future event. Jesus himself is intricately involved as the Agent of Resurrection. Praise Him! Glory!! Alleluia!!!

According to the teachings of Jesus, both the righteous and unrighteous will experience resurrection. The righteous will rise to new life of eternal life and they will rise to live forever and ever.

Resurrection of the body was a mystery to the Jews and their thinking about the resurrection was affected by this thought. To them the grave is the end of life. They do not see life after death beyond the grave. Some of the Old Testament writers like David in the psalms and Job's writings reflect the end of life in the grave. Gradually and slowly Job was beginning to have an epiphany, a revelation to see that death is not the end of man. He saw that there is life beyond the grave as it was reflected in his writings. According to theologians "progressive revelation" means there is something more than darkness beyond death. In other words there is life after death, beyond the grave.

God is a Holy God and he cannot condone and connive sin. He is a Spirit and therefore he must be worship in Spirit. Nothing filthy can enter into his rest. That is why God intended animal sacrifice to teach us that you can sin and then walk into my presence like that. We need to atone for our sins. God is holy and therefore our approach to him must show holiness on our part. We need to purge the sin out of our system before we can approach him. God is a righteous God. He is full of mercy. That is why we must be imitators of God.

The blood of lambs, goats, and bulls cannot remove the sin of man therefore God has to provide the perfect and necessary lamb that can accomplish the job. God's provision of animal sacrifices for forgiveness of sins is a way of preparation for the perfect lamb to finish the job. That perfect and blameless lamb is Jesus. By sacrificing those animals the Israelite are acting in obedience to the command of God. No. Animal sacrifices were inadequate to atone for the sin of man. Period.

The basic Old Testament elements involved in a sacrifice for sin are: confession of sin, bringing an animal which has no defect, lay hands on its head, slay the animal, blood is collected, fat portions are burned on the altar, and the meat is eaten by the priests. The only one which is still necessary for forgiveness of sins today is the confession of sin. The principle we follow today if somebody miss the mark is in 1 John 1:9 which says: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Apart from the confession of sins the rest are rendered null and void because Jesus paid the price for the sins of mankind. No amount of animal sacrifices can take the effects of the sins of the world. Galatians 3:13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Verse 14 says, "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. " Glory to the Lamb of God No more animal sacrifices. It is abrogated. Jesus has become our new paschal lamb. Alleluia!

Animal sacrifice is repulsive to modern people because they are not used to such killing of sacrificial animals. According to traditional or ancestral norms the sacrificial animal must be killed according to the letter of the law. Who are you to change the rule? Changing the norms means bleaching the ancestral norms and it invites curses upon generations. Thank God I have been redeemed from the curse of the law. Glory to God. We need to understand the difference between city life and village life. There are things we have in cities which make life bearable as opposed to the way of doing things. In the city we have modern gadgets of killing an animal but in the village it is different.

Question number two reminds me of Paul's admonition to the Church at Ephesus and this applies to us also. In Ephesians 4: 26-27, Paul says, "In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." Anger in itself is not a sin but when it crosses the boundary then it becomes sin. Anger is a human response to unrighteous acts committed against God and fellow human beings. The difference between capricious or uncontrolled anger is capricious or uncontrolled anger leads to sin and righteous anger leads change and justice in the world.

John the Baptist was born, raised,and schooled in his Jewish culture. He knows the tradition requires that a lamb must be killed and sacrificed for the remission of sin of the people in other words to appease or atone for the sin of the individual or the whole community. In the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and they realized that they were naked God killed a lamb and used the skin of the lamb to cover their nakedness. Before the Exodus God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites how to eat the passover lamb in Exodus 12 and what to do with the blood of the lamb. This is a The lamb is a type or shadow of Jesus. Isaiah 53 is directly referring Jesus and everything Isaiah prophesied about the Suffering Servant or the Messiah has been fulfilled. In other to cover up the concept of sin in this generation we use different kinds of euphorisms because the concept of sin sounds judgmental and harsh in people's ears. The reason why Jesus came on earth is to be the sacrificial lamb that was slain from the beginning of the world. As the book of Hebrews says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.

Many people continued to blame the death of Jesus on the Jews. By doing this I think they misunderstand the reason why Jesus came on earth. And by blaming the Jews too is like shifting the responsibility from themselves onto somebody else. I have to take responsibility for killing Jesus. I stand accused and he took my place. I cannot pay for my debt and he came to pay for me. Jesus was praying for us so that his father and our father will not hold our debts against us. Thank you Jesus for the Blood you shed for us.