“The next day he *saw Jesus coming to him and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”—John 1:29

^{_{—(Elijah) John the Baptist}}

Matthew 17:11 And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; 12 but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist. 

MY FOCUS

As I focus on these journal entry posts, I learn and understand more about myself and my deepest concern, the salvation of souls. Ever since I’ve heard and believed in the gospel, the question of whether someone is saved or not has always been at the core of my desire to understand. More on that in other posts.

In my previous post, which is a building block to this one, I wrote, “God didn’t create me to be good or evil, or even to be as in-between—under the curse of sin as a sinner while alive by the grace of God to exist separate from Him (And thank God for that!).” Which has compelled me to expound.

GOOD OR EVIL, OBSERVE:

• Thinking about whether God created me to be good or evil?

I don’t think God created me to be good or evil, meaning there is a difference between ‘knowing good and evil‘ and ‘being good or evil‘. God saw all that He had made, then declared it ‘all‘ as … ‘very good‘; that didn’t mean that what He created innocent from the knowledge of good and evil to be limited by that innocence as programmed robots without risk, eating that fruit to have the knowledge of good and evil, of which existed altogether in harmony with the Lord God in the garden of Eden.

So sin existed in consequence of God warning Adam and Eve not to eat, or surely they would die (^{Genesis 2:17} but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”), and since Adam and Eve ate that fruit we all die because God means what He says; God is Holy and Just to execute the punishment deemed worthy of those attributes against His enemies. When mankind disobeyed God, we became enemies of God that reaps the consequences of that disobedience, and so therefore, we all suffer death.

^{1 Corinthians 15:22} For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

CREATED AS A SINNER?

I’m confident that God didn’t create me to be a sinner, which was what I meant by “in-between”—forever separated from God in the prison of death and Hades if it had-been that Adam ate from the tree of life (^{Genesis 3:22} Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—) to live forever in the consequence of our due penalty and present state of death; It would be miserable if this world of suffering … is without end, (^{Revelation 1:18} and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.).

Thank God for Jesus taking away the sin of the world!

• Thinking about what it means to be separated from God?

I know that I’m separated from God through knowledge gained by experience in this flesh and blood of sin and death under the grace of God (^{1 Corinthians 15:26} The last enemy that will be abolished is death.) by guilt that is incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God (^{1 Corinthians 15:50} Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.). Truth testifies to the death that I am dying as the last enemy to God yet to be abolished by the return of Jesus Christ (^{1 Thessalonians 4:15} For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.).

SO AGAIN I SAY!

THANK GOD FOR HIS LAMB!

So all that to say that when Jesus took away the sin of the world at the cross as the Lamb of God, all entered into a new covenant of which saves us through faith.

The gift of God does not come without responsibility, that is to say, without repentance; repentance is experienced through much discipline by the Helper—the Holy Spirit (^{John 14:25} “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.). (^{John 16:6} But because I have said these things to you, grief has filled your heart. ⁷ But I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I am leaving; for if I do not leave, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. ⁸ And He, when He comes, will convict the world regarding sin, and righteousness, and judgment: ⁹ regarding sin, because they do not believe in Me; ¹⁰ and regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you no longer are going to see Me; ¹¹ and regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.).

Who is the ruler of this world?

I’ll leave that to build on in the next post.

^{Matthew 17:11} And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; ¹² but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” ¹³ Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.