Passive Obedience

What is your passion?  Whether it’s quilting or baseball there is nothing wrong with having a passion.  Find something that is God pleasing and do it with all your might to the glory of God.  When we talk about Jesus’ Passive Obedience and Jesus’ passion, suffering and death, we’re talking about something different.  You’ll note that the obsolete definition in the dictionary is suffering.  Language evolves as it is used.  We don’t use the word that way anymore, but the church has hung onto that description when we speak of Jesus’ payment for our sins.

Looking at the historical events of Jesus’ passion is well known to many Christians.  After a walk through of the events of Jesus’ passion we’ll take a walk down the theological side of Jesus’ passion.  There are a handful of words that we sling around that end up being so much church jargon if time isn’t spent giving each word a picture.  You can watch the explanation of all of the words in the sermon.  I want to spend a little more time on Vicarious Atonement.

If there is a pastoral ministry student who shows up at a WELS church, his title will most likely be Vicar.  He takes the place, serves in the place of the pastor in almost every area of ministry.  (It’s a busy year.)  When we speak of Jesus’ Vicarious Atonement, he is taking your place.  When you look at atonement, it’s best to go straight to the Great Day of Atonement in the Old Testament, Yom Kippur.  On that day – and only on that day – the high priest would go into the tabernacle or temple entering the most holy place where the Ark of the Covenant sat.  He would have the blood of an animal that he would pour over the Mercy Seat (the cover piece of the Ark).  The very vivid picture was that blood would cover over our sins.  When Jesus died for our sins, he took our place and his blood covered our sins.  This is just one picture God uses to communicate to use what happened on Good Friday and how we are forgiven.  Remember it is easy for God to forgive – Jesus did it all; it is impossible, if not for the Holy Spirit, for us to believe that we are forgiven.

Want to hear more?  Watch this week’s sermon form Isaiah 53 on Jesus’ Passive Obedience.

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