CHRIST THE ATONING SACRIFICE
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE:
I JOHN 2:1-6 4:9-17
Key Verse
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”.
1 John 4:10
INTRODUCTION
It is a good and wise thing to follow the leading of someone who thinks right thoughts. It is not good to follow people who think thoughts which harm others and lead them down a path leading to suffering and death. This is what the apostle John is doing in the Scriptures he wrote. He was now an old man and it was only he that was left alive of the Apostles of Jesus. So he took on this valuable task to show others the way to true life. He wanted the people to stay away from those who wanted to deceive them and take them away from the right relationship to God the Father and to Jesus Christ.
Sadly the world is full of people who do not want to follow the ways of God. That means they are not wise and the advice and leading they give will not lead to good results.
God knew some prefer to follow ways that are not good for them and so He set up a system of life and worship to teach and to show the awful results of sin. Many animal sacrifices had to be done so that people would come to learn that sinning always led to death and the shedding of blood. But the death of animals as a substitute for the death of sinning persons was not enough to permanently pay the price for sinning against God and so God had to send a substitute much more valuable than animals or ordinary human beings to bear the sins of men on a permanent basis. He sent Jesus Christ from heaven to become a man and to perform the role of Saviour, Redeemer, and a representative or Advocate before God the Father so that the anger of God would not fall on people.
Jesus became the sacrifice therefore. He took on Himself the suffering needed to wipe out the bad effects of what men had always done, their errors, foolishness and downright rebellious actions. Jesus and His Father did all of that because they had created men and they loved men and did not want all of them to be destroyed.
The sacrificial action of Jesus to bear the sins of men was a result of love. They loved people and set the example of how people are to love and care for each other, and do what was necessary to save others from the awful consequences of their actions. Love is in the nature of nature and it should be in our nature. We who love God should love others and are to be helpers of those who have lost their way and remain away from God.