THE CONDITION AND THE CURE

If you have a life-threatening infection actively working in your body, or a malignant tumor on your skin boring its way into your systems to spread certain death, a Band-Aid will do you no good. Covering up those maladies will only make certain your ultimate demise.

The tumor must be fully excised, and the infection must be fought with the correct antibiotic to guarantee its destruction. When there is a remedy, it must be applied to deal with fatal maladies. A good physician will be honest about your condition, diagnosing the problem clearly and presenting to you the cure. It would be unthinkable for the doctor to hide from you your true condition if you did have something at work in you that was going to kill you.

The world and its demonic system doesn’t want you to know the truth about the true condition of your eternal soul and its desperate need for God’s intervention to preserve and restore your life. The world states continuously in so many ways that you have nothing to fear, nothing to be saved from. The truth is that your spiritual disease is normative to you; it’s all you have ever known. So, it seems plausible that you have no need to be rescued. The satanic lie is that you are OK just the way you are and no one can tell you anything different. In fact, you should take great offense if anyone points out to you that you might need a Savior.

One honest look at the world around you, however, will tell you something is wrong. All you need to do is sit in silence by yourself for one hour to have that internal revelation that things are not OK. There is no real peace of mind, and you don’t have the answer or cure for what is eating you. Sin has made humanity spiritually dead, as numb to the death in us as leprosy make one numb to pain.

Sin is a spiritual disease in every human being. It manifests itself in enumerated “sins.” Pride, envy, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, and wrath are the foundationary of every evil know to humanity. Sin is a spiritual condition that is endemic to all, everywhere. That condition is working death in us and there is no human remedy. History teaches us that this is true. Humanity has never been able to save or heal itself. That is because what is broken cannot ever hope to fix itself.

Sin had to be dealt with, removed, destroyed, and rendered helpless to hold humanity in its slavery. Someone had to come and deal with it in finality. Only God sees sin in all its sinfulness. No mere human being can measure sin, define it weigh it and see its consequences fully. Only God could deal with sin but humanity was the one who had internalized and personalized sin, embracing it. Nothing in humanity has been left unaffected by sin. There is no aspect of human life that has remained untouched by this malignant spiritual reality.

Jesus Christ, being full man and fully God was the only cure for the sin of mankind. The sum-total of the sin of humanity was dealt with by Him and Him alone. Jesus’ death on a Roman cross was God’s answer to spiritual death. Being fully human, yet without sin, Jesus Christ took the punishment as a man that humanity justly deserved for its rebellion against God and all true goodness. Being fully God, He was able to fully consume the totality of sin for all time for all humanity. Jesus Christ who knew no sin became SIN for us so that in dying the death-of-deaths, and rising from the dead three days later, He opened the singular way for humanity to know God’s forgiveness and restoration to true Life. Jesus died once for all. No one has ever nor will ever die a death like His. He endured the suffering and annihilation of a death deserved by all humanity and in doing so destroyed sin, death, and the grave so that our incurable disease might be eternally cured and we could be healed.

God’s remedy for our desperate need has been provided. We can finally become fully human again. We can be made new by believing Him, turning from sin, abandoning it, and surrendering the whole of life to the only One who can restore us into wholeness. God wants to replace the death at work within us with Eternal Life. When we believe God, what He has already done for us in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit unites us to the death of Jesus (where Jesus died our death) and then unites us to Jesus’ resurrection. The Holy Spirit raises us to new life even as He raised Jesus Christ from the dead three days after His crucifixion.

Where we once only had death at work in us, Jesus Christ removes our death and comes to live His Life within us by the Holy Spirit’s indwelling Presence. God has done for us what we could never have done because He loves us and doesn’t want any of us to end up at the destination we were heading for: eternal separation from Him and all goodness. God is offering to all the gift of repentance and faith that we might come home, receive forgiveness, receive a new heart and a new spirit, and become new creations by His mercy and grace.

The diagnosis of our condition is correct. The cure has been provided. Will you stay dead or will you enter Life?