In the early days of creation, God came to the garden to visit with Adam and Eve; there was pure fellowship. But as you know, Satan snuck in and caused Adam and Eve to sin. God showed up and made a sacrifice for their sin and clothed them. This sin separated man from God for pure fellowship. God began the long process of buying them back.
Since the life (or soul) is in the blood, God required a blood sacrifice of animals to roll the sins forward. Then in time, God himself in human form would shed his blood in the temple and on Calvary’s hill for the forgiveness of all mankind. Emmanuel would be the Isaiah 53 suffering Messiah.
God came to earth as Jesus and paid the price on the old rugged cross.
It is important to understand that God so loved the world he gave His Son, Jesus. He did not die on the cross to make good men better. He died to make the spiritually dead men and women spiritually alive. God whether in personal creation or in personal salvation deals with all creation in a personal way. Let’s be clear: Jesus did not die at the cross to make unproductive men and women productive, wise and creative. That was created into them as the Imago Dei. They did not lose that at the fall. At the fall they all lost their personal fellowship with God. That means they lost their divine direction of their creative wisdom; they may become creative heathen with a generous personality, but a lost soul. The result of preaching the cross to restore the fellowship of God and man is not about making a nation creative, economically successful, or free; it is to bring the individual spiritual freedom and restored fellowship with God, and spending an eternity with God.
Thus since sin is what separated us from God, and sin is missing the mark of perfection, and “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans), the remission or forgiveness of sin is the first order of business to be restored to fellowship. God gave that answer in the first sermon preached the day the church was born in Acts 2.
This question was asked by sinners and God; through Peter God gave the answer.
1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
1 John is a letter to an established church made up of baptized believers that have continued to sin.
Thus, this so-called “SINNER’S PRAYER” IS REALLY A SINNING CHRISTIAN’S PRAYER, one that has already been baptized for the remission of sin. It is critical to read the Bible, not theology textbooks, when it comes to restoring fellowship with God.
Once we accept God’s invitation of renewed fellowship, we’re adopted into His family (Ephesians 1).
20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.
In this process, we are not only forgiven, we are spiritually circumcised as a sign of our being a part of the family of God, in full fellowship with God.
9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. 11In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
We take God’s word that the world was created perfectly and without sin, sickness or evil by faith. As we look about us in the world we find two groups of productive, creative humans. There are the Christians that know they were hand created by God, that they sinned, and are redeemed by the blood of Christ, and our response to that “Old Rugged Cross.” Then there are the non-Christians who believe they are a product of time and chance for the most part. They may live next door, or even in our home. They may be healthy, wealthy, and wise in the ways of the world, but they are in their sins and out of fellowship with God. If they are out of fellowship here, they will be out of fellowship in eternity; that means an eternity with Satan.
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