We are so used to forgiveness being granted that we take it for granted. We have come to think that forgiveness is easy, to be dispensed the way we hand out compliments. But forgiveness is tough, even for God. True forgiveness is not automatic, and it has a cost. To forgive means to give up something.

We should have a forgiving attitude, as Jesus did when He prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). If we do not forgive others, we cannot expect to receive forgiveness from God. The Lord's Prayer includes the words: "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt 6:12). But in carrying out our duty of forgiving, we should not overlook the cost of forgiveness and regard it as an unthinking "knee-jerk" reaction.

Michael Carneal, age 14, shot and killed three girls who were his classmates at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky. Almost immediately, surviving classmates put up a sign saying "We forgive you, Mike!" Dennis Prager reacted to this example of what he regards as a "feel-good doctrine of automatic forgiveness":

Even by God, forgiveness is contingent on the sinner repenting, and it can be given only by the one sinned against.

"And if your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him," reads Luke 17:3-4. "And if seven times of the day he sins against you, and seven times of the day turns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him." ("When Forgiveness Is a Sin," Reader's Digest [March, 1998], p. 38; reprinted from The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 1997).

Perhaps Prager has underestimated the cost of emotional pain borne by the students who put up the sign. Perhaps the forgiveness that they offered to Mike was not as automatic and meaningless as Prager supposes. But Prager's caution is worth considering. True forgiveness is not automatic, and it does have a cost.

A Christian should offer forgiveness the way God does: as a deliberate, conscious, and meaningful choice, whether or not the person who has committed the wrong repents and accepts the forgiveness, or even asks for it.

Forgiveness is not only something that is offered, it is a transaction between two parties, the one wronged and the one who has committed the wrong. Until the one who has committed the wrong repents and accepts forgiveness, forgiveness is not complete in the sense that the offender does not receive the benefit of forgiveness. At the Israelite sanctuary, God continually made forgiveness available. But a sinner was only said to be "forgiven" when he/she accepted God's forgiveness by bringing a sacrifice (Lev 4:31, 35).

If you want to see how agonizing true forgiveness can be, look at the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. When Joseph was second in command to Pharaoh and his brothers showed up in Egypt to buy grain, Joseph did not immediately reveal his identity. Before he forgave his brothers, he tested them in all kinds of ways, to find out whether they were the same sort of individuals who had stripped him, thrown him in a pit, callously sat down to eat, and then sold him to a living death of slavery (Gen 37:23-28).

Forgiveness was tough for Joseph. Because his brothers passed the character tests he set up, thereby showing their change of heart and repentance for what they had done to Joseph, he became willing to reveal himself in order to forgive them.

We know that the story has a good ending. So we tend to take too much for granted. What if Joseph's brothers had failed his test by abandoning Simeon in Egypt (Gen 42:18-24)? What if they had consented to Benjamin remaining as Joseph's slave because he had allegedly stolen Joseph's silver cup (44:1-17)? Would Joseph have forgiven them? Perhaps not.

Judah's speech, imploring Joseph to let Benjamin go, put the capstone on Joseph's realization that his brothers were repentant, reformed men. Judah ended his speech:

Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father (Gen 44:33-34).

These words melted Joseph's heart.

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, "Send everyone away from me." So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" (Gen 45:1-3).

Philip Yancey comments:

When grace finally broke through to Joseph, the sound of his grief and love echoed throughout the palace. What is that wail? Is the king's minister sick? No, Joseph's health was fine. It was the sound of a man forgiving.

Behind every act of forgiveness lies a wound of betrayal, and the pain of being betrayed does not easily fade away. (What's So Amazing About Grace? [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997], p. 85).

Joseph revealed himself, and then he expressed his forgiveness in words and by kissing his brothers and weeping upon them (Gen 45:4-15). He did not reveal himself until he was ready to forgive.

Unlike Joseph, God pursued Adam and Eve to reveal Himself as soon as they sinned (Gen 3:8-9). God continued to reveal Himself to patriarchs, to the Israelites at the sanctuary, to prophets, and ultimately to all of us when Christ emigrated to our Planet.

God's willingness to reveal Himself has consistently shown His willingness to offer forgiveness. Had He not wanted to forgive us, He would not have bothered to reveal Himself.

If God did not reveal Himself in order to help us, we could not take the first step toward repentance. Repentance is a gift of God (Acts 5:31). If God waited for us to repent before He revealed Himself, we would all be lost.

Think about this. If it was hard for Joseph to forgive after his brothers showed repentance, how much harder must it be for God to offer forgiveness before we even realize our need for repentance?

Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (Rom 5:7-8).

We have wounded the great, sensitive heart of God by rebelling against Him. If anything, He must suffer the pain of betrayal more than we do when people wrong us. But through His tears He reaches out because love overcomes pain.

If God was already in pain because of human sin, why did He immeasurably add to His own pain by having Christ die on the cross? Couldn't He avoid the pain? Only if He protected His heart by covering it with rejection, steeling Himself against forgiving us, abandoning His desire for a relationship with us. If He did this He would not be a God of ultimate love as He claims to be (1 Jn 4:8).

Love includes justice as well as mercy. To give mercy at the expense of justice would be to compromise love. Christ's sacrifice makes it possible for God to maintain His justice when He gives us mercy by forgiving us for breaking God's law. Justice demands that we die. Christ has died in our place to fulfill that demand: "...he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed" (Isa 53:5).

The law we have broken is love (Matt 22:36-40). But love is also the powerful force that impels God to try to save us at any cost. We see this divine obsession in Judges 10:16. When the Israelites put away their idols and turned back to worshiping the Lord, "he could no longer bear to see Israel suffer." He couldn't stand it! He just had to deliver Israel. And deliver Israel He did.

God chooses to save us. John 3:16 says: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son..." (NASB). He chose to give. He wasn't paying taxes. He chose to give because of who He chooses to be: the God of love. His giving is the outflow of His chosen nature.

When He was on earth, Christ showed how God wants to forgive and restore faulty human beings. The story goes like this:

Disarranged locks of long, dark hair frame a tear-streaked face. Lowered eyes, wild with terror, glance about furtively. She is wearing, well, whatever she could grab to hastily cover herself before going before the king for judgment. King? Yes, but he's not on a throne and few people recognize that He is king. Instead of guards around Him He has a few fishermen.

This woman doesn't choose to go before the king. She is dragged there by a group of men, men of honorable demeanor who express horror at her crime. But they also seem to be delighted to have the opportunity to bring her to the king, as if they are glad that she sinned so they could catch her.

"We caught her, we did, in the act, yes, the very act of adultery. Adultery, no less, yes it was adultery all right. What do you say, teacher, what do you say we should do with this wretched woman? Moses made it clear, yes, very clear, what we should do: He commanded us to stone such a woman. But what do you say, teacher, what do you say we should do with her?"

Jesus knows that He is on trial with the woman. Whatever He says, they will get Him. If He says to stone her according to the law of Moses, they will turn Him over to the Roman authorities for illegally taking the law into His own hands by condemning someone to death. If He says not to stone her, He will be speaking against the law of Moses and therefore lose all credibility with the Jews who follow Him.

There are only two answers to the question of what to do with the woman: stone her or don't stone her. They have Him either way. Brilliant.

They might expect Jesus to question the details of the case. Had she really committed adultery? Was she presently married? Where was her lover? It takes two to commit adultery and the law of Moses condemns both together, not just the woman (Deut 22:22). Apparently they have the answers to these questions and Jesus knows that she is really an adulteress. Her lover must have mysteriously been allowed to escape.

Whatever He might say, Jesus is trapped. So He doesn't say anything. Instead, He bends down and starts writing with His finger in the limestone dust that covers the ground in Jerusalem.

"Teacher, don't ignore us. This is a serious case. What should we do with this woman?" He straightens up and replies: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (Jn 8:7).

So Jesus does not say that the woman should die according to the law of Moses; He assumes that she is worthy of death and simply addresses the way in which the execution is to be carried out. He doesn't directly say to stone her. He says in effect, if you want to stone her, go ahead, but remember that only a righteous person has the right to begin the execution. Then He bends down and keeps on writing in the dust.

"What's He writing? I'd better take a look. Oh, no! He's writing my sin—here in public where everyone can see! How does He know about that? If anyone else finds out I'm going to be dead meat, a mere grease spot on the pages of history! I'd better get out of here before they catch me and stone me with that adulterous woman!"

They have condemned her loudly, but they depart quietly. And quickly too, as fast as their long Pharisaic robes will let them go.

The next time Jesus straightens up, they are all gone and He is left with only the woman standing before Him. She is still there cowering, waiting for the first stone to strike her.

He says to her: "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She manages to squeak out the words, "No one, sir."

Jesus replies, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again" (Jn 8:11).

"Neither do I condemn you." Jesus doesn't say she isn't guilty and worthy of death. God's finger, which wrote the sins of the Pharisees in the dust, had written the seventh commandment in stone over a thousand years earlier: "You shall not commit adultery" (Exod 20:14). His law is eternal, immutable, irrevocable. He has written it in stone.

But sins are not written in stone. Thank God, Jesus writes even the sins of Pharisees in dust, not stone! Our sins are not eternal because Jesus can wipe them out.

When Jesus says to the woman, "Neither do I condemn you," what He means is: I forgive you as an act of mercy. He doesn't dispute her guilt, but He prevents her execution from being carried out.

Jesus also says: "Go your way, and from now on do not sin again." His forgiveness is redemptive. He forgives people so that they might have a chance to begin a new, better kind of life. He accepts us just as we are, but He doesn't leave us just as we were! "Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me" (Mic 7:8).

God is eager to restore us. No, that's not strong enough. He is obsessed with restoring us! This is in spite of the fact that forgiveness is tough for Him, as proven by the sacrifice of Christ. When God grants us forgiveness freely, as a gift, let us never, never, never take it for granted. Look at the cross again and remember the cost of forgiveness.

Trying to overcome sin can be like attempting to row a canoe upstream just above Niagara Falls. With your desires and Satan's clever temptations against you, you are going over. But when you are in Christ, there is a powerful force pulling you to safety. The apostle Peter wrote:

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:3-4).

Although we are sinful, through Christ we can "become participants of the divine nature"! This does not mean that we become gods, but we do receive divine power to overcome sin and emulate God's moral character.

Until we receive glorious, pure, new bodies at Christ's Second Coming (1 Cor 15:51-54), we will have weak, mortal bodies that contain minds bent toward sin. But we can become participants of the divine nature by having Christ living in us (Gal 2:20). The divine nature overcomes and controls the sinful nature.

Christ's sacrifice provides forgiveness and victory over sinning. But it is also Christ's sacrifice that promises the permanent solution of new bodies that contain no fallen disposition and that live forever. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Cor 15:55). Christ died not only to wipe out our acts of sin, but also to give us eternal life (Jn 3:16).

For Christians, the ritual of baptism signifies our acceptance of Christ's promise to cleanse us from sin and give us new life through His sacrifice and resurrection (Rom 6:1-11; compare 1 Pet 3:21-22). This idea that Christ gives life as well as forgiveness was shown by the ancient Israelite ritual system. Remember that the Israelites received atonement through sacrifice not only for acts of sin, but also for ritual impurities. We will find that such impurities represented mortality that is removed by Christ's sacrifice.

Ritual impurity disqualified an Israelite from coming in contact with holy things, that is, things that were closely connected with the Presence of the Lord. For example, God prohibited a person who was ritually impure from eating the holy flesh of a well-being offering (Lev 7:20). Impurity could not be brought into contact with holiness.

The purpose of the laws in the Bible regulating impurity was to safeguard that which was holy from contamination by impure people or things. Since the Lord resided with the Israelites in the midst of all their impurities (Lev 16:16), they had to be very careful to observe the boundaries of purity that He set up.

Ritual impurity was not the same as ordinary physical dirtiness. You could scrub yourself in the tub and still be ritually impure. But ritual impurity did result mainly from physical states of human beings. It could also result from contact with an animal used in a ritual to remove sins (Lev 16:21, 26).

You were regarded as impure if something contaminated you, for example, if you came in contact with a carcass or corpse (see Lev 11:24-28; Num 19), if you had a scaly skin disease (so-called "leprosy"; Lev 13-14), or if you had a discharge from your genital organs (Lev 12, 15; Deut 23:10-11). Even when you were healed from scaly skin disease or no longer had a genital discharge, you were regarded as ritually impure until you were purified by the appropriate ritual.

The idea that ritual impurity was not ordinary physical dirtiness is reinforced by the facts that going to the bathroom did not result in ritual impurity, even a physically clean corpse was ritually impure, and purification from minor ritual impurities such as sexual intercourse included waiting until evening (Lev 15:18). Waiting until evening could not contribute to ordinary physical cleanliness.

My best modern illustration of what ritual impurity is like comes from my childhood. When I was in fourth grade, boys wanted to stay away from girls, who were supposed to have something contagious called "cooties." This word literally means "lice." But my classmates and I did not know this. For us, having "cooties" did not refer to literal physical contamination. I am not aware that any girls in my class had lice. But they were female, and young males wanted to protect their male image by distancing themselves from girls.

Like ritual impurity, our "cooties" were conceptual in nature. They expressed ideas that put people and things in categories on the basis of their physical natures or states. "Cooties," of course, were a ridiculous expression of immaturity that did not survive the onslaught of puberty. Ritual impurity, on the other hand, was designed by God to teach profound principles to mature people.

In the Bible, comparison between passages dealing with cases of ritual impurity (see especially Lev 11-15; Num 19) yields a common denominator to the various impurities: all have an aspect of death about them. The holy God could not be approached too closely by mortals under the curse of death resulting from sin. This was especially true when their mortality was emphasized by factors such as contact with dead bodies, the deterioration of skin disease, or loss of blood and/or the seeds of life (sperm or ova) from the reproductive organs.

In addition to safeguarding the holiness of the sanctuary and things connected with it, the Israelites' system of purity made it impossible for them to worship the dead as the Egyptians did. In Egypt, tombs were temples because dead people were regarded as holy gods. But in Israel, the dead were impure (Lev 21:1-4, 11; Num 6:6-17; 19:1-22), and impurity was the opposite of holiness.

As we saw earlier, ritual impurities were not sins even though they resulted from a mortal state that had resulted from sin (compare Rom 6:23). Indeed, some causes of ritual impurity such as menstruation (Lev 15:19) and nocturnal emissions (Deut 23:10-11) were normal, involuntary functions of the human body. A person could not help doing these things.

Some kinds of ritual impurity, such as coming in contact with a corpse, could usually be avoided (Num 6:9 gives an exception). But becoming impure was wrong only if God prohibited it. For example, while lay Israelites were permitted to become impure by participating in funerals, priests were restricted in this regard because of their special holiness (Lev 21:1-4, 10-11). Violation of such a restriction would be sin, not because ritual impurity was sin, but because violation of a divine command was sin.

Ritual impurities pointed to death. But the rituals by which the Israelites received purification pointed to life through Christ and His sacrifice. These rituals included ritual bathing and sin offerings.

The purification process could not begin until the source of the impurity stopped. For example, if a person had scaly skin disease, he/she could not even begin to undergo ritual purification until the symptoms of the disease had disappeared (Lev 14).

A person with a light impurity that lasted only one day would wash his/her clothes and body and wait until evening to be pure (see for example Lev 15:5-8). This ritual bathing by immersing in water is the forerunner of Christian baptism. For a new Christian, going down into the water (Acts 8:38) represents purification from a morally evil life by burying his/her old life of sin and rising to a new life in Christ (see Rom 6:1-14).

Why did the Israelites wait until evening before they became pure? Because the impurity only lasted until the end of the day. But there may an additional factor here: Christ died about the time of the "evening" (or late afternoon) sacrifice (Matt 27:46-51; compare Num 28:4). So His sacrifice provided purification at the end of the day.

Severe impurities that lasted a week or more required sin offerings (see for example Lev 12:6-8; 15:14-15). Like all other sacrifices at the sanctuary, these represented Christ's sacrifice, but they provided the atonement of ritual purification, not forgiveness. This highlights a magnificent and neglected fact: Through Christ's sacrifice, He not only forgives us from our sins (1 Jn 1:9), He heals us from our disease of mortality and gives us eternal life (Jn 3:16)! Psalm 103 refers to the two aspects of our restoration: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits ‹ who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases" (Ps 103:2-3).

When Christ died on the cross, He not only took care of sins and mortality that had occurred up to that time, He made forgiveness and life available to generations of people who had not even been born. This idea is reflected in an unusual Israelite sin offering. A red cow was burned outside the camp in order to make ashes, which were stored. Later on, when a person was contaminated by contact with a corpse, some of the ashes were mixed with water and sprinkled on the impure person in order to purify him/her (Num 19). The ashes functioned as a ritual "sponge" to remove impurity from the person. Even though the burning of the cow happened before the ashes were applied to the person, those who participated in the burning of the cow and storage of the ashes contracted a mild impurity (Num 19:7-8, 10). Why? The burning sacrifice was bearing future impurity. It was as though the corpse contamination traveled back in time and space through the ashes of the cow to the sacrificial event. So it was with Christ. He bore all the sins and mortality of the world, including those of the future. This has special meaning to us because we are living in that future. Christ is the source of our purification.

The fact that Christ is the source of purification was emphasized by the fact that when He died and a soldier pierced His side, "blood and water came out" (Jn 19:34). These are the two main purifying elements of the Israelite ritual system: blood and water.

Christ was already a source of purity during His ministry on earth. Did you ever wonder how Jesus could touch lepers in order to heal them (for example Matt 8:3) and not become impure Himself? Have you thought about the woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years (Lk 8:43-48)? According to Leviticus 15, such a woman was ritually impure and whoever touched her became impure (verses 25-27; compare vs. 19). She could not worship in the temple court, eat holy food at special celebrations, or have sexual relations with her husband if she was married (compare Lev 18:19; 20:18). Her life was affected in serious ways beyond her physical suffering. In a sense she was cut off from God and man. No wonder she was desperate.

Why did the woman only touch the hem of Jesus' garment? To avoid making Him impure. But Jesus asked: "Who touched me?" Who in all that pushing, shoving, Near Eastern crowd had touched Him? If you have been in such a crowd in that part of the world as I have, you know how ridiculous that question must have sounded to those close to Jesus. But the woman knew what He meant and she trembled, thinking He was about to rebuke her for making Him impure.

Instead of rebuking the woman, He gave her a blessing. She didn't make Him impure at all. Why not? Because Jesus is the source of purity. He noticed the touch because He felt power going from Himself to the woman (Lk 8:46).

Jesus is like the spring or cistern of water in Leviticus 11:36. Carcasses of unclean animals could defile other things (verses 29-35), but they could not contaminate a spring or cistern of water because it was a source of purity.

The message is: Come to Jesus and let Him touch you. Grasp the hem of His garment. Do not be afraid. You can come to Jesus all filthy as you are, in need of every kind of cleansing and healing, and He can help you without becoming defiled Himself. He will not rebuke you. He will only bless you.

There's more. God can make you a source of purity and healing in the world. When you go out into an environment full of all kinds of moral pollution, you can give cleansing by putting people in touch with Christ without being defiled yourself. As long as you are with Christ, guided by Him on His errands, you are safe. Don't be afraid.

Now that our worship is directly focused toward God's heavenly sanctuary, where Christ is ministering as our Priest, we no longer have God's glorious Presence visually manifested at a particular physical location on earth. So the ritual purification laws of ancient Israel, which were designed to safeguard the interactions between the Israelites and their God in His earthly sanctuary, no longer apply. We do not need to have people stationed at the doors of our churches to make sure that participants in Communion are not ritually impure.

We should not ignore the purity laws of the Bible just because they do not apply to us. They teach us how our fallen state separates us from God and they show us how God brings wholeness, purity, and life from brokenness, defilement, and death.

Our lives are battlegrounds. But we can have victory now. Better yet, God will clean up the mess and give us ultimate peace. We will live without fear of sin or death. Christ's sacrifice guarantees that death will be no more (Rev 21:4).

On the way back to the U.S.S. Kearsarge, a helicopter carrier sailing in the Adriatic Sea, the low-flying helicopter was attacked by small SA-7 missiles and gunfire. The missiles missed, but a bullet tore into the chopper. The bullet hit some communications equipment and bounced off the back of the flak jacket worn by Marine sergeant major Angel Castro Jr.

To avoid the missiles and gunfire, the pilot made the helicopter rock and zigzag violently. Occasionally it popped up suddenly to clear low power lines. One Marine commented later: "It was a terrifying ride ‹ the roughest helicopter ride I've ever been on." But once the aircraft reached the Adriatic Sea, O'Grady and his rescuers were safe. (Time, June 19, 1995, p. 26).

Getting O'Grady back to safety didn't happen all at once. It happened in stages. The crucial moment was when he boarded the helicopter. But he had a way to go before he was completely safe. As Yogi Berra (the legendary New York Yankee) said, "It ain't over until it's over!"

The crucial moment in our salvation was when Jesus died on the cross. If He had not done that, we would have no hope of being reunited with God and restored to eternal life. Christ's death was the one and only atoning, sacrificial death (Heb 9:28). When He cried out "It is finished" and died (Jn 19:30), He had made complete provision for the salvation of anyone who would accept Him. In this sense Christ's atonement for us was complete at the cross.

All atonement flows from Christ, lifted up on the cross. But the story of atonement did not end two thousand years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem. It continues because Christ brings His atonement to us today. Atonement is a process that moves forward in stages until we are fully reunited with God.

The cross was not the end of atonement because atonement is relational in that it is reconciliation between two parties: you and God. How could you receive atonement from a historical event that occurred long ago unless you experience a changed relationship with God during your lifetime on the basis of that event? As long as your relationship with God is being healed, atonement is continuing.

Christ's sacrifice makes reconciliation with God possible: "And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him" (Col 1:21-22). But reconciliation did not end at the cross: "So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:20). Why would Paul appeal to people to "be reconciled to God" if reconciliation ended at the cross?

The idea that atonement continues beyond the cross agrees with additional evidence in the Bible. First, the apostle Paul stated that if Christ had not been raised from the dead, the faith of those who believed in Him would be futile, they would still be in their sins, and those who had died in Christ would have perished (1 Cor 15:17-18). This would not be true if atonement ended at the cross, in which case we could be saved even if Christ had only died, without rising from the dead. But the fact that the Resurrection is essential for salvation indicates that atonement continued after the cross event. We need a dying Christ, but we also need a living Christ!

In Hebrews 7-10, Christ ministers after His ascension as our High Priest in the true sanctuary in heaven, which was foreshadowed by the ancient Israelite sanctuary. There He appears "in the presence of God on our behalf" (Heb 9:24). Having obtained eternal redemption for us by His own blood (verse 12), He uses His blood to "purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God" (verse 14; compare verse 13). In other words, Christ died to make abundant provision for the salvation of all human beings and then He distributes/applies the transforming benefit to those who believe in Him.

By way of analogy, Christ put the money in the bank (by His death on the cross) and then He writes checks to people from that account (by His mediation, distributing the benefit). For us to receive the benefit of salvation, provision and distribution are both necessary. Christ put enough "money" in the bank to cover every human sin. There is enough to give everyone the opportunity to be saved. But what is the use of a huge bank account if nobody writes checks to those who want the money?

In agreement with New Testament evidence for the way in which we are saved by Christ's blood, an ancient Israelite sacrifice for sin included priestly mediation as an essential component. An Israelite sinner was required to bring an animal to the sanctuary, lean his/her hand on its head, and slay it. Then the priest applied its blood to the altar and burned its fat on the altar (Lev 4:22-35). The effect of the ritual is summarized: "Thus the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin, and he shall be forgiven" (verse 26; compare verses 31, 35).

Atonement was not completed by slaughter of the animal at the hand of the sinner, which pointed forward to Christ's death. Death provided the blood that made possible priestly mediation leading to divine forgiveness. This mediation is called a work of "atonement." Mediation was part of the atoning sacrifice. Since Christ's sacrifice fulfills the meaning of the animal sacrifices (Jn 1:29), we should include Christ's mediation as an essential part of His sacrifice rather than regarding it as a separate phase.

An Israelite had to be personally and sincerely involved in his sacrifice or God would not accept it. The individual was involved by bringing an animal to the sanctuary, laying his hand on its head, and slaying it. When the priest completed the ritual for the sinner, "he shall be forgiven" (Lev 4:31; RSV). That is, the sinner shall be forgiven directly by God.

An Israelite was not automatically saved because a sacrificial death and priestly mediation were performed on his/her behalf. God read the heart and He would not accept hypocrisy (Isa 1:10-17). Hypocrisy prevents or nullifies atonement.

Even though Christ has died and is mediating for us as our priest in heaven, we cannot be forgiven unless we sincerely receive God's gift of repentance (Acts 5:31), that is, turning away from sin. As the Psalmist recognized, God will not listen to our prayers for forgiveness or anything else if we do not intend to give up our sin (Ps 66:18).

Since forgiveness is part of the atoning process and since we receive forgiveness when we personally and sincerely accept Christ's sacrifice, it is clear that atonement continues beyond the cross.

An Israelite who had sinned could receive complete forgiveness from God through a sacrifice that pointed forward to Christ's sacrifice (for example Lev 4:31, 35). But that was not the end of the process of atonement. Atonement goes beyond forgiveness. There was a further phase of atonement on the "Day of Atonement." On this day, Israelites who had already been forgiven were now "cleansed" (16:30) through purification of the sanctuary from their sins (16:16, 33-34).

It was not enough for an Israelite to be forgiven. If a person who had already been forgiven did not accept God's cleansing phase of atonement by humbling himself/herself and abstaining from work on the Day of Atonement, God would punish that person (Lev 23:29-30).

The Day of Atonement has this name (Lev 23:27-28) because it deals with a phase of atonement. As we shall see later, the Day of Atonement points to a phase of Christ's atonement ministry before His Second Coming. Just as the blood of sacrificial animals cleansed the sanctuary on the special Day of Atonement, the blood of Christ's sacrifice provides cleansing in a special time of atonement after His death on the cross.

For an ancient Israelite, cleansing from ritual impurity through sacrifice was called "atonement." For example, Leviticus says about a woman who had recently given birth: "... and the priest shall make atonement on her behalf, and she shall be clean" (Lev 12:8). This kind of atonement could require several stages, as in the case of a person who had been cured from scaly skin disease (not modern leprosy; Lev 14). Compare the way Jesus healed a blind man in stages (Mk 8:22-25), perhaps so that he would better understand the greatness of what Jesus did for him.

As we saw earlier, sin offerings for ritual impurity pointed to the fact that Christ died to save us not only from our acts of sin, but also from our state of sin, which is characterized by mortality. Since cleansing Israelites from ritual impurity through sin offerings was a form of atonement (Lev 12:7-8), Christ's work of cleansing us from mortality must also be regarded as accomplishing atonement. But this work will not be completed until we receive immortality at His Second Coming, long after His death on the cross (1 Cor 15:51-54).

Does the idea that atonement did not end at the cross diminish the sacrifice and atonement of Christ? Absolutely not! We magnify what Christ is doing! The Bible shows that Christ's sacrifice and atonement are much bigger than they are commonly thought to be! All atonement flows from Christ's blood, shed at the cross.

God is reuniting us to Himself. This takes time. It happens in stages. "It ain't over until it's over!" But Christ has already put the "money" in the bank. He is in heaven, ready to write "checks" for you.

There is no good reason for you not to be saved. Put Christ in charge of your salvation. Keep Him in charge. He'll take you all the way home. There may be obstacles along the way. "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:57).

Yes! I had met Kelvin near the end of the previous year. He was back. "Hi Roy!" "Hi Kelvin." "I'd like you to meet my sister, Connie." "Hi Connie." "Hi."

The way she said "Hi" melted me. We looked into each other's eyes and it was love at first sight. Yes, I know that's supposed to be impossible. It must have been infatuation. But whatever it was, it was the beginning of love.

Connie and I sat together during the program in the gym. We started getting acquainted. She was eighteen years old, entering college. I was twenty-four, already entering my second year of postgraduate study at Berkeley. But we had so much in common. We both loved God, classical music, outdoor activity, and many other things.

We started dating. At first I had a lot of competition. Numerous men asked Connie out during her first week of college. But I persisted and she responded.

We met on September 20. We started going together on October 16. We got engaged on December 17. We were going to wait seven years before getting married, until we both finished our education. That quickly came down to three years. But we couldn't stand being apart, so we got married the next June 15. Our relationship grew step by step as we came closer together.

Your relationship with God can grow step by step. Because God is holy, there is a sense in which you become holy when you begin to have a relationship with Him. The apostle Paul wrote to the people of Corinth, speaking of the time when they were converted: "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor 6:11).

"You were sanctified" means "You became holy." This is why Paul addressed the Corinthians as "called saints," that is, "holy ones who have been called" (1 Cor 1:2; my translation). English translations read "called to be saints." But "to be" is not in the Greek original. Paul clearly regarded the Corinthians as holy people.

The Corinthians were holy in the sense that they belonged to the holy God, but they were far from perfect. Paul's letter to them shows that they had serious problems. For one thing, they had divided into groups that quarreled with each other. They were holy in the basic sense, but they needed growth in holiness, which can be called "sanctification." They needed to become more like God in moral character.

The Thessalonians also needed growth in holiness. Paul wrote to them:

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints (1 Thess 3:12-13).

Notice that for human beings growth in holiness is growth in love. The words "may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness" refer to "may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all."

It is no accident that growth in holiness is growth in love, because the moral character of our holy God is love (1 Jn 4:8). As we come closer to Him and become more like Him, we become more loving and therefore more holy.

The apostle Peter calls us to emulate God's holiness by being holy in all our conduct (1 Pet 1:14-16, quoting Lev 11:45). Leviticus 19:2 expresses the same idea: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." How can we do this? The rest of Leviticus 19 consists of laws that teach God's people how to live in relation to Him and to each other. So being holy means living according to God's principles. Verse 18 refers to the basic principle of God's character underlying all of the laws: "...you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord."

When someone asked Jesus which commandment in the law was the greatest, He referred to the command in Deuteronomy 6:5 to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (see Matt 22:37). Then He cited Leviticus 19:18: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (see Matt 22:39). Jesus recognized that love for God and mankind are the basic principles of God's law and of the entire Bible (Matt 22:40).

God calls us to be holy. He is holy and holiness is defined in relation to Him. The closer you get to Him, the holier you are. To be holy is to be loving. We become holy when we accept God and then we grow in holiness for the rest of our lives as we grow in love.

The idea that there are degrees of holiness in relation to God may come as a surprise. But the Israelite sanctuary demonstrates the same idea in physical terms.

In the sanctuary, the Lord was enthroned above the ark in the inner apartment, called the "holy of holies." This was the holiest area, closest to Him. The outer apartment, called the "holy" place, was the next holiest area. Less holy was the court outside the sacred tent. So the closer you got to the Presence of the Lord, the holier things became. This gradation of holiness is reflected in the materials of the sanctuary structure, the priestly garments, and the access that persons had to the different parts of the sanctuary.

Sanctuary Materials

The holier the area, the more valuable the materials. Fabrics in the inner part of the sanctuary were intricately woven from dyed wool and linen of various colors. Further from the ark the fabrics were more simple and less valuable. Inside the sanctuary tent, the items of furniture were made of gold or overlaid with gold. Outside in the court, the outer altar and the basin (laver) were made of bronze.

Priestly garments

The holier the priest, the more elaborate and valuable his garments. There were two kinds of priests: one high priest of superior holiness and a number of ordinary priests of lesser holiness. Aaron, the older brother of Moses, was the first high priest, and his sons were the first ordinary priests (Lev 8-9). The high priest had a much more elaborate and valuable set of garments than did ordinary priests. Detailed descriptions of the priestly garments are found in Exodus 28 and 39:1-31 in close connection to descriptions of items belonging to the sanctuary structure. The priestly garments were regarded as belonging to the sanctuary because the priests belonged to the sanctuary.

All priests, including the high priest, wore four garments made of fine linen (Exod 39:27-29): (1) tunics, (2) sashes, (3) headdresses, and (4) trousers as undergarments. However, the high priest's special status was reflected in the fact that his head covering was a turban. Furthermore, only the high priest wore four additional outer garments that were appropriate for his responsibilities:

1. An ephod (a kind of apron) of fabric consisting especially of gold, plus wool mixed with linen, was made of the most intricate workmanship. On the shoulder pieces of the ephod were two precious stones, each of which was engraved with the names of six tribes of Israel. The significance of carrying these names is explained: "Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance" (Exod 28:12).
2. A breastplate was attached to the shoulder-pieces of the ephod and made of the same kind of fabric. The breastplate had twelve precious stones set in it. Each of these gems had the name of one Israelite tribe engraved on it. Exodus 28:29 explains the function of the breastpiece: "So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart when he goes into the holy place, for a continual remembrance before the Lord."
3. The high priest wore a blue robe under the ephod, made of woolen thread alone, with golden bells attached to the bottom. Between the bells were suspended ornaments looking like pomegranates, made of a mixture of dyed wool and linen. The garment with bells was vital for the high priest's work: "Aaron shall wear it when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, so that he may not die" (Exod 28:35).
4. On his head, the high priest wore a golden diadem/crown on which were written the words: "Holiness to the Lord."

It shall be on Aaron's forehead, and Aaron shall take on himself any guilt incurred in the holy offering that the Israelites consecrate as their sacred donations; it shall always be on his forehead, in order that they may find favor before the Lord (Exod 28:38).

In addition to his elaborate vestments, the high priest had a second set of special garments that he wore only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, for cleansing the sanctuary, including the most holy place (Lev 16:4). These clothes were similar to the four basic garments (tunic, sash, turban, trousers) that he wore during the rest of the year, except that they were made of plain linen rather than fine linen. An ordinary priest also wore plain linen garments when he removed the ashes from the outer altar (6:10).

In a sense, the plain linen garments both of the high priest and of the ordinary priest were "cleaning clothes," but they were holy (see Lev 16:4) and involved close contact with the most holy place and the outer altar, respectively. Designation of the plain linen garments as holy agrees with the fact that in the Bible angels who belong to the holy, heavenly realm are described as clothed in linen (Ezek 9:2-3, 11; 10:2; Dan 10:5; 12:6-7).

Access

"Authorized personnel only." We often see signs like this. The more special the area, the more limited the access. For example, you can look at the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue anytime you wish. If you want to go inside the gates, you can do so only at certain times. You can tour part of the White House, but other parts are off limits except to those who live or work there, or who have special appointments.

The White House is a special area because it houses a special person, the President of the United States. Buckingham Palace is special because the Queen of England resides there. You cannot simply walk up to the President or the Queen any time you like and strike up a conversation. A few years ago a mentally unbalanced man did manage to get into the Queen's private chambers, but her guards soon ushered him away.

If human beings can make places special, what about the Lord of the Universe? The prophet Isaiah describes an awesome vision that he saw:

In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said,
       "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
        The whole earth is full of His glory."
And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke (Isa 6:1-4; NASB).

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." Only God is intrinsically holy and immortal. His unique holiness is the sum of His attributes, including His glory, power, and moral character of love, which includes both justice and mercy.

Isaiah saw the vision in "the year that King Uzziah died." In striking contrast to King Uzziah, who died of an unclean skin disease because he tried to usurp the priestly function of burning incense (2 Chron 26:16-23), God is pure and immortal. Human leaders are weak, faulty, and often untrustworthy, but we can have absolute confidence in the unimpeachable Leader of the Universe.

Since God is so much greater than the President or the Queen, it is no wonder that the Israelites were to treat Him and the holy area defined by His Presence with respect. In the sanctuary, the holier the area, the more limited the access. Only the high priest could enter the "most holy place," which was closest to God, and then only once a year (Lev 16:2, 29-30, 34). Only priests could enter the "holy place" (see for example Exod 30:19-21). Any Israelite could enter the courtyard.

We have found the sanctuary to demonstrate the principle that the closer one gets to God, the holier things become. This principle operates in our lives. God's holiness is unique, but He shares the love portion of His holiness with us. We grow in holiness as we come closer to Him by growing in love.

The love we are talking about here is God's kind of love, which involves unselfish and even self-sacrificing kindness and mercy. God's love also includes justice. He does not allow mercy to wipe out fairness. Christ's sacrifice proves God's justice and mercy: Christ bore the just consequences of our sins so that we might receive mercy.

Bible love is not the Hollywood brand of love, which is saturated with self-gratification. As sinful human beings, we do not even comprehend the meaning of true love without God's help. We need Him to teach us what real love is.

The more I study the Bible, the more I realize how right Jesus was when He said that love is the basic theme of the Bible (Matt 22:36-40). God's love is so big and so important for our lives and we are naturally so lacking in true love that it takes the entire Bible to teach us what love is and how it works!

The closer we come to God in character, loving others and bearing their burdens, the more we become like the holy Israelite high priest, who carried the names of the tribes of his people on his heart. And the more we become like Christ, our ultimately holy high priest, who bears our burdens and carries our sorrows (Isa 53:4-5).

The Bible shows in many ways how love and holiness are connected. For example, God gave Moses greater access to His holy Presence than any other human being (Deut 34:10). Moses' love for his people was so pure, so free from selfishness, that he interceded for them by offering to give up his own salvation if God would save them (Exod 32:32).

David recognized the connection between love and holiness. He sang: "How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes" (Ps 133:1-2).

Why did David compare unity to oil on the high priest? The oil to which David referred is the holy anointing oil that made Aaron holy (Lev 8:12). David's point was that unity is holy like that oil. Just as Aaron was holy because he had holy oil, other people who believe in God can have the holiness of unity whoever and wherever they are.

The idea that we can have holiness wherever we are is shown by the seventh-day Sabbath. In Exodus 31:12-17, just after the directions for building the sanctuary, the Lord stated that the Sabbath was a sign between Himself and His people, "in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you" (verse 13). Here God reminded His people to rest on the Sabbath even from their work of building His holy sanctuary because He had rested on the seventh day of Creation to celebrate what He had done (verse 17). But He was also telling them that just as the sanctuary was the physical place where the Lord and the Israelites were especially connected, Sabbath was the time that showed in a special way that God made holy the people who were His because He had redeemed them from Egypt (compare Deut 5:15).

The Sabbath is a temple of time, as recognized in Jewish tradition. Even when people did not have a way to get to the sanctuary or when the temple was destroyed, they could enjoy the temple of time wherever they were.

When God's people keep His Sabbath, they are not being legalistic; they are showing that because He has redeemed them, they accept His gift of sanctification. It is God who sanctifies His people, just as He created the world for them. They do not sanctify themselves any more than they created themselves. This sanctification is a gift of love because it is growth in holiness, which is growth in love. So the Sabbath is a celebration of love.

In the evening before Jesus was crucified, He prayed for His disciples and for all who would later believe in Him. In this wonderful prayer, He tied together the ideas that God sanctifies His people, gives them unity with Him and with each other, and restores them to full access to His glory (Jn 17:17-24). He petitioned His Father on behalf of His people "that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (verse 23). Unity among God's people is the greatest evidence to the world that the miracle of God's love has touched them through Christ. Many will be drawn to Christ when His people gather together in unity around the cross where He is lifted up.

Christ wants us to be fully restored. But we are not there yet. We can become less holy. There are degrees of going away from God, just as there are degrees of coming close to Him. In our study of the sanctuary we will find that there are degrees of sin. For example, unintentional sins are not as serious as "high-handed" (openly defiant) sins (Num 15:27-31).

How can we come to God rather than going away from Him? How can we become more holy and more loving?

Have you ever found yourself short of love? I have. Some years ago there was someone I needed to love, but I did not have love for this person. I scraped around in the bottom of my heart, but there was no love there. Love is not natural for sinful people like me. I need help from outside myself, from the Source of love.

When I had no love I prayed for God to give me His love as a gift through His Spirit, claiming the promise of Romans 5:5: "and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

God answered my prayer and that love is still growing and flourishing today. It is a miracle. God created love in my heart where there was no love, just as He created Planet Earth where there was only an empty void in the universe.

God's love is a gift of grace. So sanctification, which is growth in holy love, is a gift of grace received through faith.

Jesus accepts us just as we are, but thank God, He doesn't leave us the way we were! Through the Spirit, He gives us the cleansing and renewal that He bought by His blood (Jn 3:5-17; Titus 3:4-7; Heb 9:11-14).

Since sanctification brings us into harmony with God's law of love (Matt 22:36-40), we can see that sanctification involves obedience to God. But this obedience is not something that we are left to do on our own after God gives us the gifts of repentance (Acts 5:31) and justification/forgiveness (Rom 3:24). Because our obedience is based on the love that God gives us as a gift, it is clear that obedience to God is a gift of grace!

Any good works you do result from your acceptance of God's love. You don't have to propel your spiritual life under your own steam (having a sense of "self-steam"), "for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:13). What excuse can there be for disobedience?

So why do we struggle so much to do works of love rather than works of sin (compare Rom 7)? Because we have trouble accepting the gift of love through the Holy Spirit. Instead of humbly receiving the gift, we tend to try doing things on our own so that we might be in control.

We only need to allow God to do in us what He wants to do. Mary had it right. When an angel told her that God would conceive Christ in her womb by the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35), she recognized that this was humanly impossible (verse 34). But she replied: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" (verse 38). If God could implant Christ in the womb of Mary, He can put the love of Christ in our minds. Paul describes the result: "and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20).

The "nuclear reactor" that empowers holiness in the Christian life, individual and corporate, is the presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit (compare Jn 14:16-17; 16:7-15). If the Spirit is in a person, there is a sense in which that person is a kind of holy temple (1 Cor 6:19-20). If the Spirit dwells in people who make up a church, the church can also be regarded as a temple (1 Cor 3:16-17).

Sanctification is not merely an abstract theological concept. It is growth in love that affects the little events of life on a day-to-day basis as we interact with God, our fellow human beings, and the rest of God's creation. Those who belong to Christ will show their love not simply with eloquent words, but by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, and visiting those in prison (Matt 25:31-46). Do we show compassion? Do we care? Are we willing to put ourselves out in order to help another person or creature?

I need to grow. I need to accept more of God's Spirit into my life so that He can teach me and empower me to love as Jesus loves. I have a way to go. Like O'Grady's trip out of Bosnia, the ride will be rough at times. But there will be perfect peace at the other end.

When I was thirteen years old, my family went to a lake in Minnesota for a vacation. The camp where we were staying had a paddle-wheel boat. So we put Tippy, our small dog, on the low deck and paddled around the lake. We came to a place where huge lily pads were completely covering the surface of the water. Tippy saw that everything was green. Green is like grass. You can walk where it is green, he thought. So he stepped off the boat onto a lily pad and found himself in the water doing a frantic dog paddle. As we fished him in, we were so amused by the surprised look on his face that we doubled up with laughter and nearly fell off the boat ourselves.

Tippy had false assurance. But you need real assurance. When you marry someone, you want to know that your beloved truly means "I do." When you accept Christ's promise of salvation, you want to know that you have really connected with Him and that He will carry out His promise for you specifically.

The Bible tells us that we can have the assurance of salvation through Christ:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. We know that we are God's children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life (1 Jn 5:13-15, 19-20).

It is true that God wants us to be humble before Him (Isa 57:15; Phil 2:5-8). But He also encourages us to have assurance that gives us "boldness" (1 Jn 5:14; see above), including boldness to approach His throne when we are in need (Heb 4:16).

What if your hour of need is a time when you have sinned? Can you boldly approach the throne of grace then? The apostle John says "yes":

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness... My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 Jn 1:9; 2:1; NASB).

Do you have assurance of salvation before you come to the throne of grace asking for forgiveness? We could ask this question another way: Does Christ's blood cover you between the time you sin and the time you have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness? Daily sacrifices at the Israelite sanctuary say "yes" in the sense that God guarantees that He will not condemn you before you can ask Him for forgiveness. Every morning and evening a lamb was offered as a burnt offering on behalf of the entire community of Israel (Num 28:1-8). This was the foundational sacrifice of the Israelite ritual system. Since we know from other passages that burnt offerings provided atonement (Lev 1:4; 16:24), it is clear that the daily burnt offerings made atonement available to all Israelites, wherever they were, on a regular basis.

On a special festival occasion, additional burnt offerings and a sin offering were performed at the sanctuary along with the morning burnt offering (Num 28-29). The Bible explicitly mentions the fact that this sin offering was to make atonement on behalf of the Israelites (Num 28:22, 30; 29:5). So, like the daily offerings, these additional sacrifices made atonement available to everyone.

When Israelites sinned, sacrifices representing Christ's sacrifice kept them from being condemned immediately, before they had an opportunity to bring their individual sacrifices in order to receive forgiveness. In some cases people who sinned delayed bringing their sacrifices because they did not yet know that they had sinned (Lev 4:27-28). Before such a person knew that he/she had sinned, the public daily sacrifices prevented rejection by God.

For the Israelites, the individual experience of sacrifice was in addition to the public sacrifices. Both were necessary. Neither substituted for the other. Just so, Christ's sacrifice makes atonement available to all mankind (Rom 5:18). But we must also come to Him individually in order to receive forgiveness (1 Jn 1:9; compare Jn 3:18).

An Israelite who knew that he/she had sinned was under obligation to bring a sacrifice. For example: "If any one sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity" (Lev 5:1; RSV). To "bear iniquity" was to be "subject to punishment" (end of same verse, NRSV). If nothing more happened, that person would be punished for that sin. But when the sinner brought a sacrifice, God forgave the sin (verses 5-13).

When God forgave, He bore the liability for punishment that the sinner had previously carried. Exodus 34:7 describes God as "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." The Hebrew expression for "forgiving iniquity" uses the same words that appear in Leviticus 5:1 with reference to bearing iniquity/punishability. So when God forgives, He transfers the sinner's punishability to Himself.

Because the priests were God's agents and represented Christ in His priestly role, they bore iniquity/punishability because God bore it. In Leviticus 10:17, Moses asked the sons of Aaron why they had not eaten their portion of the sin offering of the Israelites, "since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord" (RSV).

If an Israelite had sinned, he/she was under obligation to accept the means God had provided for atonement by coming boldly to the sanctuary, confident that God had promised forgiveness to those who repent. When we have sinned, the right place for us to be is before God's "throne of grace," claiming there the promise of 1 John 1:9: If we confess, he will forgive and cleanse.

When we have sinned, a state of denial will do us no good. Adam and Eve attempted the first cover-up by using scratchy fig leaves. When God called, they hid. But He knew what they had done (Gen 3:7-11). When we sin, the sooner we confess to God the better. Delaying will only make matters worse.

In ancient Israel, a person who had become ritually impure was under obligation to undergo purification through ritual in the way God had provided, just as a person who had sinned was under obligation to seek forgiveness. God did not punish a sinner or impure person before there was a reasonable opportunity to use the ritual remedy that He had given. However, an Israelite who willfully neglected God's remedy was rebelling against Him and would suffer the consequences. For example, according to Numbers 19:13, 20, an individual who neglected to purify himself/herself from the ritual impurity of corpse contamination was to be "cut off" from Israel. God did not prohibit Israelites from burying their dead relatives. For them it was not a sin to become impure in this way. But to willfully remain impure was to disobey God by rejecting the purification that He provided.

By way of analogy, a mother may allow her young children to get dirty by playing in the yard. But she will insist that they clean up afterward.

To reject the solution to your problem can be a serious matter. If you are bitten by a deadly snake and refuse to take the anti-venom, your life expectancy will be short. If you have a life-threatening disease and refuse the treatment that cures it, you have a good chance of dying prematurely. If you are in Bosnia and run away from a helicopter that has come to your rescue, you are crazy.

If you were an Israelite in need of atonement and you ignored the means that God had provided for that purpose, you would be in deep trouble. One could say that you would be "history." But if you were "cut off" from among your people, you would not even be history! For "cut off" meant that God would see to it that sooner or later your line of descendants would die out (Donald Wold, "The Meaning of the Biblical Penalty Kareth," Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1978).

Like people of other societies, an Israelite would want to have his life continue through his children, grandchildren, and so on after his death. This was so important that if a married man died without having a child, his brother would marry the widow to keep the name of the dead man alive (Gen 38:6-11; Deut 25:5-10; Ruth 4). But if a person were "cut off," he could be sure that in the future he would have no descendants even to mention his name.

To be "cut off" was a fate beyond death and worse than death. In fact, a person could be executed and "cut off" as well. The Lord told Moses:

"You shall also say to the sons of Israel, 'Any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given some of his offspring to Molech, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name'" (Lev 20:2-3; NASB).

A person who engaged in child sacrifice to the god Molech would die by stoning and then "die" again by losing the continuation of life through descendants. It was double jeopardy!

To be "cut off" was like a second death. It was a foretaste of the ultimate "second death," the eternal death in hellfire on the surface of this Planet when every trace of sin and sinners will disappear in a molten "lake of fire" (Rev 20:9-15).

Contrary to jokes and cartoons, the Devil and his demons are not in charge of hell and they never were. On the contrary, they will be among those who perish (Rev 20:10). Hell is not a place that exists now. It is an event that will occur on earth in the future, 1,000 years after Christ's Second Coming (see Rev 19-20).

How could a loving God do such a thing? This seems so alien to His nature. Isaiah 28:21 refers to this kind of divine judgment as a strange act of God. He does not want to execute anyone because He is "not wanting any to perish" (2 Pet 3:9). But God's strange act is an act. He accepts responsibility. He will put an end to sin and the oppression and misery it causes. This mess will not go on forever. Enough is enough.

Before we accuse God of injustice, we should remember that He has given us ample opportunity to be saved. He is our only life-support system. Every breath we take is in His hands (Dan 5:23). If we cut off our life-support by rejecting Him, what can He do for us?

To use another analogy, the human race is going down like the passengers on the Titanic. We are already in the icy water. We will be lost if we do not have help. But God sends Christ's lifeboat to rescue us. He invites us into the lifeboat, but He does not force us, just as He did not force people to board Noah's ark. There is no other lifeboat: "There is salvation in no one else" (Acts 4:12). As Jesus said to Nicodemus: "Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (Jn 3:18).

If we have any doubt about God's sincerity and justice, think about this. We have all sinned and we deserve to die (Rom 3:23; 6:23) not just the death we know so well, but the "second death," the death of hell. But Jesus, our Messiah, has already suffered the penalty for us. Daniel 9:26 reads: "After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing." The "anointed one" here is Christ, the Messiah. And the prophecy says that He would be "cut off." This is the Old Testament penalty of divine punishment, which reaches beyond the first death and points to the second death. Jesus died a kind of second death in our place!

Christ could not have saved us from the second death by merely dying the first death, which He regarded as a kind of "sleep" because it is a temporary state of unconsciousness (Jn 11:11-13). The agony of being cut off from His Father (Matt 27:46) surpassed His physical pain because He is far closer to His Father and the Holy Spirit than a husband and wife are to each other.

In Christ, "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col 2:9; compare 1:19). The whole fullness of deity must also dwell in the Father and the Spirit. The members of the holy Trinity, each of whom is the "fullness," make up one indivisible unit (Deut 6:4). They are bound together as tightly as an atom is one unit. But by becoming sin for us (2 Cor 5:21), Christ experienced separation from His Father, whose holiness is totally incompatible with sin. Sin penetrated the atom of God's oneness and wrenched it apart, unleashing a "nuclear explosion" of suffering.

The glory of Christ's resurrection (Matt 28; Jn 20) is not simply that He rose from the grave as Lazarus did (Jn 11:43-44). The incredible thing is that Christ rose from a death like the second death, from which there is no return!

Like the Israelite priests, Christ bore punishability on behalf of others. Unlike them, He actually suffered this punishment. But He had not sinned and He was still divine. So although Christ was "cut off" (Dan 9:26), "he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days" (Isa 53:10). His name will never be forgotten.

By dying the equivalent of the second death, Christ "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Tim 1:10). Death itself will finally be destroyed in a lake of fire (Rev 20:14) because of what Christ has done.

The only thing that stands between us and the second death is the blood of Christ. Only Christ can save us (Acts 4:12). His blood, daily received and applied, is our only assurance. But Christ's blood, freely available to us, is abundant assurance! Christ gives us abundant life (Jn 10:10) and abundant grace (Rom 5:17).

Our assurance is conditional in the sense that we can be saved only in Christ. But as long as we are in Christ, our assurance is guaranteed: "And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 Jn 5:11-12).

Do you think God would pay the price of the second death for you and then throw you away? It would make more sense to discard the Hope diamond. You may have heard that Bill Gates is worth billions of dollars. But in reality he is worth much more than that. And so are you. You are priceless. If you are in Christ, nothing can separate you from God. He will never let you go (Rom 8:31-39)!

Satan tries to separate us from God. He does not respect our free choice and does not take "no" for an answer. Sin "is lurking at the door; its desire is for you" (Gen 4:7). Is its desire for you like that of a mellow pussycat that wants to sit on your lap and purr? No! Sin is like a sabertooth tiger that will get in the door of your heart if it can. It will not knock. Its desire is for you because it wants to gobble you up!

Christ has a totally different approach. He stands at the door of your heart and knocks. He will come in only if you open the door and let Him in (Rev 3:20). Unlike sin and Satan, Christ respects your free choice!

Christ is the all-powerful Lord who created the world (Jn 1:3; Heb 1:2), but He shows amazing restraint by allowing you to shut Him out of your life if you want! He will never force you to love Him because forced love is not love. He wants companions rather than robots.

Christ allowed Himself to be lifted up on the cross so that we might be drawn to Him with our free choice intact. We have rebelled against God, but He is giving us another opportunity.

My computer gives me another chance. I can get rid of a document by dragging its icon into the "trash" that appears on my screen. But before the document disappears, a dialogue box comes up on the screen. It says: "Are you sure you want to permanently remove it?" I can click on either of two choices: "Remove" and "Cancel." In a sense we are living our lives in a dialogue box like that. We have trashed our lives, but Christ gives us another chance.

The choice is ours. Like an ancient Israelite, we will bear our punishment unless we allow God to bear it for us through sacrifice. We are under obligation.

When we sin, God does not immediately cut us off from Himself by destroying us. He patiently gives us an opportunity to receive forgiveness (compare 2 Pet 3:9). Assurance is not unconditional, but it is freely available through Christ.

If we persistently reject God's appeals through His Spirit, we can eventually pass the point of no return (Matt 12:31-32). Turning away from Christ is dangerous (Heb 6:4-6). There is only so much that God can do, because He respects our free choice.

In Isaiah's day, God likened His people to a vineyard and lamented: "What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?" (Isa 5:4). These are ominous words. God says in the next verses: "And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste..." (Isa 5:5-6).

Going beyond the point of no return is our choice, not God's. He does not cut off anyone who responds to Him. He appeals as long as there is hope for a response. He does not immediately take "no" for an answer because He knows that we are ignorant and deceived by sin. But if He gets nowhere with us, He ultimately acknowledges our choice.

Be warned, but don't think God has given up on you. If you think you are too bad to save, remember Manasseh. He was the worst king in the history of Judah. He was so bad that in some ways he makes Saddam Hussein look like a nice guy. He shed innocent blood, performed child sacrifice, and promoted idolatry so enthusiastically that he spat in God's face by putting an idol in God's temple in place of the ark of the covenant (2 Ki 21:1-17; 2 Chron 33:1-10). So God removed His protection and the Assyrians captured him (2 Chron 33:11).

End of story? There's more! Terrified, Manasseh realized his stupidity. What happened next is one of the most amazing turnarounds in the entire Bible:

While he was in distress he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. He prayed to him, and God received his entreaty, heard his plea, and restored him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord indeed was God (2 Chron 33:12-13).

Astounding grace! Stunning assurance of God's relentless mercy! Breathtaking snatch from hell!

According to Revelation, the last book in the Bible, Planet Earth has an appointment with fire (Rev 20). But in Christ we have protection. Guaranteed.

O'Grady's message got through because there was someone who could receive it. Hanford and O'Grady knew that they had really communicated with each other. They were able to communicate because they had radios that were compatible. They knew what to say and they could visualize each other because they belonged to the same group of fighter pilots. O'Grady even knew what it was like in Hanford's cockpit because he also had flown an F-16.

Are our prayers to God as real to us as O'Grady's brief conversation with Hanford was to him? Do we have the assurance that we are getting through? When we need God's help or forgiveness or when we want to thank Him, make a promise to Him, or express our love for Him, do we accomplish our heart's desire? Or do we mumble sleepy clichés in a vague mist of unreality, as unsure of the results as we are unclear about what we are doing?

For the Israelites, the sanctuary was a big help. God had an address on earth to which they could direct their prayers. He was right there in the cloud over the sanctuary (Exod 40:34-38). It is true that God was not limited to the sanctuary; His primary dwelling is in heaven. But His people could reach Him through the sanctuary.

King Solomon understood the role of the sanctuary for prayer. At the dedication of the temple, he prayed that God would hear when His people would pray toward that place (1 Ki 8:27, 30). From Solomon's perspective, prayers traveled horizontally toward the temple, and from there they went ballistic up to heaven.

If an Israelite wanted to give something to God or to receive something from Him, he/she could go through the steps of approaching God in a tangible way through a sacrifice. Sacrifices were prayers made visible. Interaction with God was real to the Israelites because they acted it out.

Today God does not have an earthly address in the same sense. His Presence no longer hovers above an earthly place of meeting. We cannot interact with Him through sacrifices. But we can accomplish all of our interactions with God by praying to Him where He is, in heaven.

We have the advantage that Christ has opened for us a direct way of access to God's throne of grace in heaven (Heb 4:14-16). We no longer need the mediation of an earthly priest because we now have Christ Himself as our heavenly priest!

How can our prayers be as real to us as sacrifices were to the ancient Israelites? To answer this question, let's see how much prayer and sacrifice have in common. Then we can look at the possibility of approaching prayer as a form of sacrifice.

The sanctuary connected prayer and sacrifice because Israelites brought their prayers as well as their sacrifices to that place. The Bible records specific occasions on which people such as Hannah (1 Sam 1:9-11), Solomon (1 Ki 8:22-53), and Hezekiah (2 Ki 19:14-15) prayed at the sanctuary/temple. Even after the temple was destroyed, Daniel prayed toward that place (Dan 6:10).

Not only did Daniel pray toward the place of the temple (Dan 9:17, 20); he was praying "about the time of the evening offering" (Dan 9:21; NASB; compare Ezra 9:5ff; 1 Ki 18:36). What was so special about the time of the evening/afternoon offering? It was on behalf of all God's people and it was the last sacrifice each day. Later Jesus' once for all sacrificial death happened at that time (see Matt 27:46-50).

Our prayers need Christ's offering ascending as a sweet aroma to God (compare Lev 1:9). His sacrifice is like incense, which goes with the fact that people in Jesus' day would pray at the time when incense was offered in the temple (Lk 1:10). It also explains Revelation 8:4-5, where an angel in the heavenly sanctuary offers incense with the prayers of God's holy people. Without Christ's atoning sacrifice, there could be no communication with God and no hope.

Jesus called the temple "a house of prayer" (Matt 21:13). In Isaiah 56:7, the verse Jesus quoted, sacrifices are accepted in the temple, the house of prayer. Again, sacrifices are prayers made visible.

Today we have no building over which the Shekinah hovers so that its glory can be seen and no altars of burnt offering or of incense. Nevertheless, our churches are dedicated to God as special houses of prayer.

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, His words showed a number of important connections with sacrifice. The Lord's Prayer begins: "Our Father in heaven" (Matt 6:9). Both sacrifices and prayers interact with a Being who is above and beyond our material realm. However, we have a special relationship with this divine Being, who is greater than us. As our Creator, He is our Father (compare Lk 3:38), who deserves our utmost respect. Because He is our Father, it is desirable for us to interact with Him.

We know that God is kind because He is our ideal Father. My family and I were strolling through the mall in Washington, D.C., enjoying the sunshine and cherry blossoms. I pointed out the Washington Monument to my daughter, then six years old, and told her that the great obelisk honors George Washington. Then I asked her, "Do you know why he's called the 'father of our country?'" She replied, "Was he kind?"

Jesus continued His prayer: "hallowed be your name" (Matt 6:9). God and His name are holy. It is true that He is abba, "Daddy" (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), but His name or title must be uttered with the utmost awe and respect. In ancient times, the sanctuary was the designated place where God put His Name (Deut 12:5, 11; compare I Ki 8:29). It was His "Tent of Meeting" for residing among and interacting with His people. The materials of the sanctuary and access of persons to God within the sacred area reflected the principle that God is holy in the ultimate sense and all holiness comes from Him.

Jesus went on: "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt 6:10). God is not only King in heaven, He is King of earth as well. In the ancient sanctuary/temple, God had His earthly palace (Exod 25:8), where He was enthroned above the cherubim on the ark (verse 22; Isa 37:16). As in a dwelling belonging to a human being of high rank, He had before Him a table, an incense burner, and a lamp.

"Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt 6:11). Just as children need their earthly father to provide for them, we are dependent upon the ongoing creative power of God for our daily needs. Our lives and every breath we take are in His hands (Dan 5:23). In the Israelite sanctuary, the dependence of the people upon God as their resident Creator-Provider was symbolically represented by the "bread of the Presence," which was always placed on the golden table before the Lord (Lev 24:5-9).

"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one" (Matt 6:12-13). Jesus refers to what we have found in the sacrificial system: sins are debts. We express our repentance and ask for forgiveness through prayer. Personal repentance was also important for the ancient Israelites, but in addition, they were required to perform symbolic sacrificial transactions, which were acted out prayers.

The Lord's prayer teaches me how to reach beyond the boundaries of the world I see around me so that I might grasp the unseen hand of God. When I pray, I often begin by saying the Lord's prayer because it focuses my thinking away from myself and toward God.

Thus far we have seen important connections between prayer and sacrifice, as shown by prayers at the sanctuary and the Lord's prayer. Now we are ready to consider how our prayers can carry the function that sacrifices had for the Israelites.

Prayer and sacrifice are similar in that both interact with God. But at first glance the two forms of interaction are different: A sacrifice is a kind of transaction, which transfers something of value. A prayer is a form of communication, which transfers information.

Transaction and communication can overlap because some kinds of communication carry out transactions. For example, the words "I do" are solemnly pronounced in the context of a wedding. Linguistic theorists have recognized that words like these do not merely communicate information. They actually do something. They change something. When you say "I do" to your bride or groom, you transfer yourself to the other person, creating a new covenant relationship, a new state of being. Because you have transferred yourself, a person with value, you have carried out a transaction.

As in a wedding, a verbal contract or covenant between a person and God can be established through prayer. The prayer can be short and simple, like this: "Dear God, I accept Jesus Christ, your Son, as Lord of my life. Save me from my sins through the sacrifice of Jesus, and purify me through the power of your Holy Spirit. Let me totally belong to you, teach me how to live, and give me eternal life." You can say a prayer like this anytime, anywhere.

The prophet Isaiah spoke of a transaction with God: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!" (Isa 55:1). Isaiah refers to "buying" in order to emphasize that God has something of value that can be transferred to people who desire it.

Suppose I stood on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California, and announced to the hungry, homeless people there: "Yo, you who have no money, come, buy and eat!" How can they buy if they have no money? But Isaiah continues: "Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isa 55:1). God invites us to buy, but the price is free! Here in the Old Testament is grace through faith, just like in the New Testament (Eph 2:8-9).

When you give your life to God through prayer, you become a "living sacrifice" that is in the process of being transformed by the renewing of your mind (compare Rom 12:1-2). Through prayer you can have your holy connection with God renewed every day, just as daily sacrifices at the sanctuary reaffirmed Israel's covenant relationship with God (Num 28:1-8).

While turning over control of your life to God is the basic transaction, there are other important transactions, such as receiving forgiveness for sins, thanking God for blessings He bestows, making promises to Him, and so on. The Israelites acted out these transactions in sacrifices. We can have the same transactions through prayer.

If your prayer life is plagued with feelings of unreality, try visualizing the steps of sacrifice in your mind as you pray. For example, if you are thankful for something specific that God has done for you, think of approaching Him in His heavenly sanctuary with a small token of gratitude.

By faith your thoughts ascend to heaven. You come to God's sanctuary. The door into the sanctuary is open because Jesus has opened it. The sanctuary is much longer, wider, higher and more glorious than any earthly cathedral. Even the vivid description in Revelation 4-5 cannot do justice to its awesome, colorful brilliance.

There are myriads of mighty, glistening angels, singing soaring anthems like Bach and Mozart never imagined. And there is God upon His throne, surrounded by glowing rainbow light. Everything is so different from what you are used to on earth, and yet it is real.

You move forward with your meager offering. The music becomes softer. The angels are watching you. At first you are timid, but then you see Someone you recognize, someone who is human like you. You look into the eyes of Jesus and He looks at you with such tender compassion that you cannot take your gaze away. Drawn by the inviting face of the One who was lifted up for you on the cross, you boldly come all the way down that fabulous crystal corridor. You lay your offering at the feet of God and He looks down and smiles at you. He graciously accepts your gift.

You turn to go. After all, you are taking the time of the Master of the Universe. You are interrupting the heavenly choir. But God is not in a hurry. He invites you to linger and chat with Him. He wants your friendship. He desires your company. What is on your mind? He listens and talks to you. You feel a oneness and wholeness and satisfaction like you have never experienced anywhere else.

As you walk back toward the door, the angels sing: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created" (see Rev 4:11).

You return to earth, which seems dark and drab. But by faith you have been with God. You have renewed strength and courage to go on until the day when your visualization of face to face communion with God will become reality.

Another way to make your prayers more meaningful is to accompany them with gifts to God in the form of offerings or service to God. If you have sinned, you may wish to give an extra offering. Just as animal offerings helped the Israelites to remember and learn from their mistakes because such offerings cost them something (2 Sam 24:24), you will remember your mistake if your sin costs you something.

While there are ways to help our prayers become more real to us as sacrifices were to the ancient Israelites, we should keep in mind three things. First, anything we give to God is something He has already given to us. We cannot purchase any percentage of His favor or forgiveness. Second, what God wants is our hearts. Tangible tokens are of value only if they express our thoughts. Third, the only gift by which we are saved is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Rom 3:24). God's gift to us is free (Isa 55:1), but it was not free to God. He bought it with a terrible price.

When we pray, we can have the assurance that we have gotten through to God. We can be just as sure as O'Grady was when his radio message reached Hanford, flying high above him.

When we moved to Michigan, Sarah was lonely at first. She especially missed Jenny's children. She would sit on our front porch by herself with a faraway look, sometimes with a tear or two on her little cheeks. She would hold "Shadow," the white tiger, and remember the good times with her friends in California.

When you are separated from someone you love, you want something to hang onto. Before Jesus went back to His Father, He left us something to cling to, a "new covenant" service that Christians call "Communion" or "The Lord's Supper."

At the last supper Jesus ate with His disciples, He instituted the ritual of Communion to keep alive the memory of His sacrifice, which was about to take place, and to reinforce principles connected with it. He said: "Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Cor 11:24).

The Last Supper took place on the occasion of the Jewish Passover. So the Communion service is rooted in Passover, but Communion is simpler. Jesus selected and reinterpreted some key elements of Passover: bread and wine. But He also transformed preliminary foot washing into an expression of spiritual purification and humility. In this way, Jesus took ingredients both from the Passover ritual and from outside that ritual and created a powerful new service.

By learning where the components of Communion come from, we can better comprehend its meaning.

Foot washing

At the Passover supper, Jesus did the following:

... got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean" (Jn 13:4-10).

When Jesus was about to wash Peter's feet, His words showed that the physical washing does more than wash away physical dirt; it symbolizes moral cleansing. This is how washing only the feet results in cleansing for the entire person. In this sense, foot washing is like baptism, which also uses washing with water to symbolize washing away sin (compare Rom 6:2-3).

It must be assumed that all of Jesus' disciples had been baptized before the foot washing that took place at the Last Supper. A number of them had been disciples of John the Baptist (Jn 1:35-40), so they must have been baptized by John. When Jesus' ministry began, His disciples baptized other people (Jn 3:22; 4:2). They would have been baptized themselves before they baptized others.

If the disciples had already been purified by baptism, why did they need the additional purification of foot washing? The same question could be asked of us: If we are already baptized, why do we need further purification?

The ancient Israelite priests also needed additional purification that included foot washing. Before a priest could enter the sanctuary tent or officiate at the outer altar, he was required to purify himself by washing his hands and feet with water drawn from the holy basin/laver (Exod 30:17-21). He had to be basically pure from any impurity such as corpse contamination, a genital flow, etc. before he purified himself with laver water. Even if he had just washed by immersing himself with other water, he was still required to wash his hands and feet with laver water because he needed a higher degree of purity to prepare for a higher degree of interaction with God.

The foot washing instituted by Jesus is like the priestly purification of hands and feet in the sense that it prepares for a special religious experience. But two questions arise. First, why did Jesus wash only the disciples' feet? Why not their hands as well? Apparently because Jesus combined priestly purification with the washing of feet that was performed by slaves for their masters (see below). Second, a priest who was basically pure and who was not about to engage in ritual service could eat sacred food, such as portions from the offerings of the Israelites (Lev 22:1-7), without additional purification of hands and feet. So why should we have the additional purification of foot washing before consuming the sacred Communion wine and bread? The answer is that in Communion we not only eat and drink sacred things, we are also privileged to be participants in a ritual that involves special interaction with God.

We need a higher degree of preparatory purification, like that which only the priests in ancient Israel were to receive because we, like those priests, have special access to God through Christ (Heb 10:19-22).

Jesus used foot washing to symbolize moral purification, but He also had another reason for what He did:

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord ‹ and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (Jn 13:12-15).

John tells us that Jesus and His disciples were reclining at the Last Supper (Jn 13:23, 25). In Roman times it was customary for free persons to recline during a meal. Since Passover celebrated deliverance from slavery in Egypt, Jews living in that period ate it in a reclining position to celebrate their freedom. Even if a Jew was a slave, he/she reclined at Passover.

Imagine the shock the disciples must have experienced when Jesus rose from the reclining position of a free man to perform the service of a slave by washing their feet in spite of the fact that He was their Lord! Jesus' point was that even though they would be delivered from slavery to sin through His redeeming sacrifice, as the Israelites at the time of the first Passover were delivered from bondage to Pharaoh, they were servants of one another.

Passover was Independence Day, when the birth of the independent Israelite nation was celebrated. It was equivalent to the Fourth of July in the United States. Communion is Independence Day for Christians, celebrating freedom from sin in the "new covenant" era. It is also Memorial Day, when we remember Jesus death: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26). But Communion is more than Memorial Day and Independence Day; it is Interdependence Day, when we reaffirm our commitments to serve one another.

Even at the end of Jesus' ministry on earth, His disciples had a problem with pride and selfishness. Luke 22:24 tells us that on the very night of the Last Supper, they started arguing about which of them should be considered the greatest. Jesus corrected them with words (verses 25-27), but He did more than that. He used foot washing as a tangible object lesson for them and for us too, a ritual of humility and service. So Jesus took a mundane act, which was not part of the Passover service, and added it to the symbolic ritual in order to make a special point. In this way He transformed the meaning of the service.

Foot washing represents moral purification and service. These are not separate ideas. The message of Jesus' ministry and death was that moral purity is service. Moral purity is unselfish love that reaches out to others.

Bread

Matthew describes the way Jesus instituted Communion:

While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." (Matt 26:26-29).

The bread Jesus used was unleavened Passover bread (see Exod 12:8). He interpreted it to represent His body, which was about to be sacrificed. He took the wine to represent His "blood of the covenant." By His sacrifice, He would set up a new covenant (compare Jer 31:31-34; Dan 9:27). The wine would help Christians to remember the basis of their covenant with God: Christ's blood. Since His body and blood go together, we see that the bread and wine are tightly linked. Within the Communion service the bread was also bread of the covenant.

Is there any other covenant bread in the Bible? Leviticus 24:8 refers to the special bread that was placed on the golden table inside the Israelite sanctuary: "Every sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the people of Israel, as a covenant forever." This bread is the only offering at the sanctuary that is called an eternal covenant.

It is no accident that the "bread of the Presence" was set in order anew every Sabbath. The only other reference to a covenant forever between God and the Israelites as a whole during the period of their wandering in the wilderness is found in Exodus 31:16-17:

Therefore the Israelites shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

Here God calls the seventh-day Sabbath, the memorial of Creation, a perpetual/eternal covenant. The covenant bread was renewed on the covenant day.

The "bread of the Presence" offering acknowledged the dependence of the Israelites upon God as their resident Creator-Provider. God dwelt with His covenant people and gave them life. Similarly, Jesus spoke of Himself as "bread" that came from heaven to give His people life. The life He gives is eternal life, and the "bread" refers to His flesh (Jn 6:48-56). These are the concepts behind the words Jesus spoke when He broke bread and gave it to His disciples at the Last Supper: "Take, eat; this is my body" (Matt 26:26). By taking Christ's life into their own lives, as symbolized by eating bread, those who believe in Him have eternal life. They abide in Him and He abides in them (compare 1 Jn 3:24; 4:13).

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that in Leviticus 24:5 the Hebrew word for the loaves of the "bread of the Presence" probably means "pierced." If so, this would indicate that the bread had holes pierced in it. So also the body of Christ, the "bread of life" (Jn 6:35, 48), was pierced so that we might have life (19:34; Rev 1:7; compare Zech 12:10).

Wine

Wine is not specified by Exodus 12 in the directions for the original Passover service. Where did Jesus get the idea of using wine in the Communion Service? It is true that by Jesus' day the Passover service included wine. This is why the cup of wine was on the table for Jesus to use. But how did wine become part of the Passover service?

We don't have a historical text that tells us for sure how wine entered the service, but the ritual instructions in Numbers 15:1-16 suggest a strong possibility. Here God specified that certain kinds of sacrifices needed accompanying grain offerings and drink offerings of wine. Since the Passover was a kind of sacrifice to which this rule applied, when the Israelites settled in the Promised Land and were required to slay their Passover sacrifices at the central sanctuary (Deut 16:1-8), they would have accompanied their lambs with offerings of wine along with the unleavened bread that was already specified by Exodus 12. Just as Passover lambs were to be eaten by their offerers (verses 8-11), so the accompanying bread and wine would also have been consumed by the offerers.

The bread and wine used by Jesus in the Communion service were accompaniments to the main, central item of the sacrifice: the lamb. Where is the lamb in the Communion service? It is not symbolically represented at all! Why not? Because just after the Last Supper, the symbolic Passover lamb met its fulfillment in Jesus, God's "Lamb" (Jn 1:29). According to the Gospel of John, Jesus died as the reality to which the Passover lamb pointed (see Jn 19:36, referring to Exod 12:46).

Today we remember Christ's sacrifice by partaking of the accompaniments to sacrifice: bread and wine. By not eating any literal lamb, we acknowledge that He has come and is so real to us as our Sacrifice that He does not need to be represented in this way. Bread and wine are accompaniments, but Jesus made them more than that. Now they represent Him, the Lamb (Matt 26:26, 28).

In Matthew 26:28 Jesus called the Communion wine "my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." The idea that His blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins reminds us of the offerings prescribed in Leviticus 4 by which Israelites received forgiveness.

The words "my blood of the covenant" are reminiscent of the blood bond between God and the Israelites that Moses symbolized by sacrificial ritual: "Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, 'See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words'" (Exod 24:8).

Jesus' blood, represented by the Communion wine, has established a new covenant with us, as foretold by Jeremiah:

... I will make a new covenant... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people... they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (Jer 31:31, 33-34).

Jeremiah's prophecy has become the charter of the Christian faith. We know the Lord and He has written His law on our hearts. This experience is based upon forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the basis of the new covenant. When you come to God in the humble posture of admitting your desperate need, He can change your heart. When you cry out, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Lk 18:13), you are on the way to eternal life.

Jesus has returned to heaven, but He has left us with something better than a stuffed animal to help us remember Him. He has given us sacred emblems of Himself in the form of bread and wine. And He has given us to each other, as we recognize by washing each other's feet.