This week we begin worship with:
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Nowhere else in scripture is heat or a coal used to cleanse from or atone from sin. In fact, all of scripture points to Jesus Christ as our only source of salvation and our only means of atonement. Question 152 of The Westminster Larger Catechism reads as follows:
What does every sin deserve at the hands of God?
Every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty, goodness, and holiness of God, and against his righteous law, deserves his wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come; and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ.
And scripture itself says:
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Fortunately that chapter further explains:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
So that coal was not taken from just any campfire, it was from the Celestial Altar on which the blood of Christ was spilt.
Worship today in the consistency and infallibility of scripture.
No comments:
Post a Comment