The Outstretched Arms of God!

Picture a parent with outstretched arms to a son or daughter attempting first steps—such longing to see that child walk!  Repeated falls by the child do not diminish the parent’s longing, indeed the longing is multiplied until at last the child makes several steps into the waiting arms of the parent.

This can be an apt picture of the Heavenly Father’s longing for our belief in Him to salvation, “For ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (Hebrews 10:13).  How earnest is God’s desire toward us that we come to Him in repentance.  The whole argument stating this desire for our salvation over against the demands for justice, as will be executed with Christ’s 2^nd Coming, is laid out in II Peter Chapter 3:

“knowing this first:  that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?  For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’  For this they willfully forget:  that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. (They forgot or discounted “the flood”.) 

“But the heavens and the earth which now exist are kept in store by the same word, reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.  But, beloved do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (vss. 3-9).

“Repentance” is a word that needs to be “unpacked”.  In this case it’s shorthand for the whole “scheme of redemption”.  In this the holiness of God is contrasted with the sinfulness of man.  These two are brought together in Israel’s system of worship, first, through the Mosaic Tabernacle and then the Temple.  Sacrifice for sin (covering it over) was made outside the “holy place” and the “most holy place” where the presence of God dwelt in holiness.  Access to the “presence of God” was gained once a year on the “Day of Atonement” by the High Priest to offer blood at the “Mercy Seat” for the sins of the people.

Only historic Judaism was capable of making this distinction between the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God.

Then Christ came as a sacrificial lamb who “took away”, in strong contrast to priestly sacrifice that only “covered over” sin, the sins of all mankind.  Such a sacrifice is required because “without the shedding of blood there is no remission (forgiveness)” (Hebrews 9:22b).

This provision of Christ’s sacrifice is not automatic, it’s reserved for those who will call upon the Name of the Lord (Hebrews 10:13).  Further, this is not a perfunctory thing, it requires you become a disciple of Jesus, learning of His ways and submitting your life totally to His direction.  Will you do this?