The Mercy Seat.
We have learned thus far that whole of humankind became an irrevocable sinner in the garden of Eden. There are no exceptions. Also, there are no privileged people in the eyes of God. All are sinners, unable to do anything about it through their effort. However, because God loves humankind, he justified us by removing the sin we committed in the garden of Eden from us and, therefore, all sins. How did God accomplish it? But they are “being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth as the expiatory means through the reliability of his blood, as a demonstration of God’s righteousness, because of God’s forbearance; in passing by the sins committed beforehand to demonstrate his righteousness in the present, that he is just and the justifier by the faithfulness of Jesus.” Romans 3:24 – 26 (My translation of the Comparative Greek Text).
Traditionally, Bible scholars questioned why they would be guilty of sin committed by Adam in the garden of Eden. They were not there and were not even born yet, they reason. However, the Bible maintains that God put the spirit of the whole of humankind into Adam at creation. The human spirit is human life or intelligence. The whole of humankind has the same spirit or same intelligence. The spirit of the whole of humankind that God put in Adam made a deliberate, intelligent decision to join the rebellion against God. Therefore, the whole of humankind became sinners, condemned to eternal death irrevocably. The whole of humankind became utterly unable to free itself from sin through its efforts. God only has the power to remove sin from humankind by destroying the sinful human spirit.
In the above complex sentence, Paul alternates between reference to Jesus as the sacrifice for sin and as the scapegoat who removes the sin. Because of Paules’s style, students of the Bible are uncertain about Jesus being both the sacrifice for sin and the scapegoat. Puzzlement stems from the Day of Atonement Ritual in the earthly temple. The earthly shadow Day of Atonement employed two goats: one for the sacrifice for sin and one for the scapegoat. Both goats on the earthly Day of Atonement represented Jesus Christ symbolically.
The Mercy Seat continues in the next blog.
