14.2 The Living Lamb-Slain
14.2 The Living Lamb-Slain
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Living Lamb-Slain
The cross and the resurrection cannot ever be separated. To separate those two, as Nicene Christianity has done, is to perpetuate death and accusation. Dead to sin AND alive unto God (Romans 6:11). Dead to sin is a statement of fact; the cross is our protector. Alive unto God is active energia, the living of daily life. The Lamb-Slain is not dead, but very much alive forevermore.
So much of Christian theology is built upon the crucifix. Protestants threw out the crucifix, but not the theology built upon it.
The Crucifix
Millions of evangelical and charismatic Christians flocked to watch Mel Gibson’s version of the Catholic crucifix, The Passion of the Christ, and every one of them viewed that image of the suffering and dying Christ from outside. You see, their theology allowed them to view the crucifix as something taking place separate from themselves, AND as the consequence of their own sin. This is what you did, sinner!
We will explore what the action of worshipping the crucifix really means in the upcoming session: How Was the Cross Perverted? Here we want to know the Living Lamb-Slain.
Crucifix Darkness
But first, here are some of the Christian ideas that come out from seeing only the crucifix, outside of Christ.
• Jesus was “punished for our sins.”
• Jesus “took our place upon the cross.”
• Jesus “paid a debt that we owed, but could not pay.”
• Jesus died “because of” our sins.
These ideas do not sound right to me, nor consistent with the revelation of Jesus Christ and the being and purposes of God; I must know what God actually says. I have placed this study in the Appendix: The Redemption Verses, verses you will investigate in this session’s assignment.
Pro-Determination
How could punishing Jesus for our sins cause the old creation to cease that I might be transferred into the new? How could “I” have died in Christ if I was not fully there inside of Him and inside of His death? Jesus “paid,” that is true, life laid down and love poured out, but the question before us is – Whom did Jesus pay?
And how could human sin CAUSE the revelation of the heart of Father? The revelation of Father’s Heart in outward appearance, as a Man laying down His life for His friends, can be the result only of the Pro-Determination of God; it cannot be the result of human stupidity.
The Revelation of Father’s Heart
Let’s place the biggest thing first. God wants to transform us into the image of Christ, to make us just like Jesus. Jesus is Redemption in His nature and person; that is, Jesus IS life laid down and love poured out. How, then can we be saved? That is, how can we be made just like Jesus, as life laid down and love poured out?
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us, and we also ought to be like Jesus, to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16). The Living Lamb-Slain comes to us as He is, that we might be just like Him, the revelation of Father’s Heart.
What Could Be More Effective?
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:4-6).
It’s a simple thing, really; Jesus is out to win our hearts. Now, let me ask you, is there any other “whatever” that could possibly be more effective to win your heart than all that is meant inside the Living Lamb-Slain come to you, asking your permission to allow Him to be all that you are, including sin?
An Offering
But then Isaiah adds a line in verse 10 that I have not seen in this light before. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed.
It was not Jesus’ life, His zoe, that was His offering for sin, but His soul, His psuche, His story of self. An offering for sin means a price paid. All through the Old Testament, the words “an offering to God” appear with every instruction of sacrifice and offering. But Jesus said, “The Father and I are One,” in the middle of the Atonement. God was the One who paid, not the one who received payment.
Whom Did Jesus Pay?
The price of redemption is the Blood of Jesus. Jesus paid that entire price, certainly, with all the willingness of His heart. But we must ask the simple question – Whom did Jesus pay?
The correct answer to that question is our passage into walking right now as all the revelation of God Almighty THROUGH our present human weakness.
Whom did Jesus pay? The Blood of Jesus is worth infinitely more than all the value of the entire universe and all the value of all persons in it. Who made off with all that wealth?
And What Did Jesus Buy?
But the question, whom did Jesus pay, is only half a question. The other half is – and what did Jesus buy? Who made off with the wealth of the universe and what did Jesus buy in return?
Everyone has always assumed that Jesus paid God to buy us. But Jesus was simply God’s appearance in space and time; it was God in Christ paying the cost. Whom did God pay? Did God pay the devil, as other’s imagine, thinking that the devil “owned” us. But man is the master; demons do not “own” humans. Besides, the devil made off with nothing from Jesus’ purchase.
Who Got Paid?
The answer is pretty clear and obvious. Who made off with the wealth of the universe and what did Jesus buy in return? We need only one verse, one among many, to tell us who it was on the receiving end of Jesus’ purchase. Ephesians 3:19 That YOU, dear believer in Jesus, might be filled with all the fullness of God.
Jesus paid you and me His life, and all the fullness of the Father inside of us as one person with us. Jesus paid us the Holy Spirit, all the wealth of the heavens, all the riches of God. What did Jesus receive in return for His money?
Will We Rob God?
What did Jesus buy from us in return for all that wealth? Do we dare to withhold from Him what He has already purchased from us? Will you rob God?
Jesus BOUGHT your sin and your sinfulness, your evil actions and your perverse lusts, your wicked thoughts and all of your hostility against God. Jesus bought from you every accusation you have ever screamed against God and against yourself. Jesus bought from you all the emptiness of your life, all the misery, all the lonely places, all the sickness of shame.
Jesus bought you from you; Jesus bought me from me.
Refusing to Exchange
If you are a clerk at a checkout counter at a store and someone places some goods belonging to the store on the counter, what do you, as the owner of those goods do? You receive the money, yet the goods remain on the counter. The purchaser has already paid in full for all those packages on the counter, what do you do? Easy, you allow Jesus to put all those goods into His cart, into an empty, empty grave, and cart those goods out the door of the cross into the forgetfulness of God.
But what if you refuse and hold onto those goods for yourself, claiming that Jesus’ money was not good enough for you? You are a thief and a breaker of covenant.
Which Is Worth More?
But we are not thieves. You and I are those who allow Jesus to become all of our sin and all of our present sinfulness, according to the gospel.
You see, we will not speak Christ personal as our very and only life unless we allow His payment for our sinfulness to be enough for us. Is not all the fullness of God worth more than all of our own self-story of accusation? Which is worth more? – I am filled with all of the Father revealing Himself now through my human weakness? Or – I’m a sinner hostile against God, hoping to be saved someday?
A Matter of Heart
What is the difference between Christians who call their self by Christ and those who call their self by sin and accusation? It is entirely a matter of the heart. The Christian who speaks sin and accusation loves their own story of self. A Christian who speaks only Christ has so hated their own false story of self, so come to all abhorrence of being found anywhere but inside of Jesus, that they willingly and gleefully abandon all claims to a self not Christ.
We have no sufficiency in ourselves; we will not be “making it,” thank God. “Christ, not I.” Jesus has won our hearts.
Thy People Shall Be Willing
Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power (Psalm 110 - KJV). This is the Psalm of the victorious Messiah, the most frequently quoted Scripture by New Testament writers. This line has been at the center of the Seed of God birthed in me over many years, a line I have long since drawn into my heart as the desire and passion of my soul. And for the first time in my life, I know exactly what it means.
Just as Adam made a trade with the serpent, self-identity for self-identity, so Jesus offers the same trade to us, His self, His psuche, His soul, for our former self GONE. We are willing because Jesus has won our hearts.
Symmorphy, Not Slavery
Yes, the idea that Jesus purchased something that had to do with us is carried in a hazy manner in the minds of most of our brethren. Do you not know that… you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
Those who see Jesus from afar, see this as a statement of slavery – Jesus commands, you obey, period. We who live only inside of Jesus, we IN Him and He IN us, looking out from His eyes every step of the way, see this line as a description of symmorphy, Jesus and us as one person together sharing God’s body and God’s Spirit.
The Living Lamb-Slain
And Redemption is utterly personal inside of us because God’s redemption comes through a very Human, very personal, Person, the living Lamb-Slain. Thus, in order for us to truly KNOW the totality and absoluteness of our redemption, God gave us a Man on His knees in Gethsemane, a Man hanging bloody, bruised, and unashamed upon a cross of wood.
You see, it takes far more than knowledge of redemption to win our hearts. It takes a Man willing with all His heart to exchange His life for ours, that He might live as us. And it is only after this Man has won our hearts for His own, that Redemption begins to change our minds.