Despair and heartache stallk many consumers because they have a cheap view of the agent with remedies and his product. Salvation in Christ suffers the same fate. We routinely bypass fresh fruit for their processed versions. We are doing the same when it comes to the equally important spiritual life and health. Calvary is not the same as the Exodus. Of course not. It is like the Exodus, but the Exodus is not able to show the high definition of the cross. Old wine and new bottles end in disaster. Salvation is not only an old idea and expectation; it is a divine and timeless mystery unveiled completely in 3½ years.

Full moon on a dark day

It was a full moon, 14th of Nisan, a high festival in Judea when Christ died. The Passover was a real event that doubled as a picture of the liberation of people all over the world from sin’s bondage. Now that Passover is no longer a local affair its Lamb selection and routines are irrelevant. There is only memory of the event. For Christians the Passover is an eternal reality that touches down when people come to faith. That day put a cap on 3½ years of public service – preaching, teaching, healing.

Scandal we avoid

Most people who say they are into something special with God are likely to be far from him. Look no further than our own fathers in the Christian faith. Paul was a virulent antagonist before his conversion. James tried to turn the church into Israel after his conversion. Far too many believers are eager to lay aside the gold of Christ for the tin of Moses. It seems so much more easy to subscribe to rules and regulations.  To associate with a Saviour is to admit the need, and that need is inconsistent with “good people”, people who are not afraid of death, or people who “don’t understand how humans can disobey and rebel against God and man”.

Salvation’s door is open.  The day it closes is the day we die or the day God rolls up the sky and land and put them away.  Christ’s work is done.  He passed the torch to the Holy Spirit who alone can keep people in the truth and guide them to more treasures of divine majesty. He is not dying today and cannot die again.  There is no need for a second death.  He dies once.  We die with him once – no repeat – in order to life in him.

We will never find access to the truth beneficial if we keep distancing ourselves from the ancestors as if we were automatically better off or in possession of better and mightier things. The Christ who cried, took the side of the oppressed, owned no property, had dinner dates with sinners and prostitutes, and died, is not a hero. Far from it! Many of us actually despise Christ for not making us spitting images of our heroes. He made a troublefree life for noone. It is a Balaam attitude to expect a life of ease – a crossless and stagnant (no growth) life.

Salvation is not a good or better job. Just looking at the people who profess this kind of salvation delivers a shock.  Everyone is aging and decaying.  Salvation is not improved health or healing. It is not getting a victory in every circumstance. It is wholeness that needs no human contribution. Christ saves us or we are not saved at all.

Salvation will mean nothing at all to people with a sense of “I never” because that is precisely the last thing God wants to hear. How Hollywood and abominable it is to put on an air of disgust and personal achievement of a sinless “victorious” life! Eternally sinless people cannot call God Father or pray to him without reference to how one becomes his child, because his children always need a Saviour.