It is written:
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21. NIV 1984.
How could the Holy One, Jesus, actually BE sin? We know from this verse that He was considered “SIN” by the Father. Sin, in many places in scripture is equated with darkness. In 1 John 1:5, it says,
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”
It goes on to say that there is no fellowship between the light and the darkness. So we see that, for however short or long, perhaps only for a moment, the Father broke fellowship with the Son. We might be tempted to think that this was no big deal, because we think in finite terms, and we measure the meaning of a moment to be very little. Many moments will pass before you finish reading this sentence, in fact, and it seems almost trivial to skip a moment or lose a moment in time.
We tend to measure the value of a moment by what was accomplished in that moment, and we really don’t see much happening in most of our moments. You might be having difficulty reading these sentences because you are growing tired, and experience as I do sometimes a “checking out” of the brain, where your brain pauses in understanding while your eyes continue to move over the page. After many moments, sometimes I realize that I have no idea what I just read, and have to start all over again at the last sentence I remember!
If you fell asleep for a few seconds while sitting there in your chair reading this message, and upon regaining consciousness you have the sense that everything around you is the same, you would count those missed moments as inconsequential… unimportant. You can just go back to the previous paragraph and “recapture” the missed moment. But if you fell asleep while driving your car down a highway, and woke just a moment too late to avoid a head-on collision, then by virtue of the consequences enacted within that moment, you would count those missed moments as having great import and everlasting value.
You can’t recapture that moment, which is, of course, the reality of every moment–it can only be lived once. Every moment has tremendous value, and is irrecoverable, or irrevocable, once lived.
God is not limited in His experience of moments like we are, and in fact, He knows the worth of every moment because He lives in every cranny of existence at once and understands all things completely. Every moment is an eternity to God, and every eternity is a moment. What God accomplishes in every single moment is beyond calculation, and His work in every moment holds infinite and everlasting value. This idea is hinted at in 2 Peter 3:8…
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” NIV 1984.
Do you know how many billions of processes are occurring in your body each second so that you can continue to live? You are just a single person. Now think how many concurrent processes are sustaining every human being at this moment. Expand your thinking to take in the processes that must also be ongoing for every living animal, and do not forget all the plant life, and the microbial activity that supports the whole system. Finally, consider the subatomic work that is taking place at every single moment so that elements may hold together, suns and stars may burn and give light, planets may orbit, and galaxies may coexist.
No one understands the true value of a moment like God does. Since He is everywhere at once, His experience of, and work within, a single moment is boundless. Does this give you a deeper appreciation of time, and of the mere moment? Let’s reevaluate the moment when the Father broke fellowship with the Son:
The break in fellowship between the Father and Son was absolute, since there was silence between them, as long as the Son was counted as darkness. The Father erected a momentary and infinite wall between Himself and the Son, so that the infinite wall of sin that separates man from God could be thrown down like the walls of Jericho. If the value of a moment could be measured in terms of what was accomplished within it, this moment is singularly priceless in all of eternity.
How long did it last—this break in fellowship? We might be tempted to think that when Jesus said, “It is finished,” that the Father was on speaking terms again with the Son. Shortly thereafter, Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” Luke 23:46. ESV.
I can’t make any conclusion about the length of time that fellowship was broken within the Godhead, but two things are certain. One is that the Son was fully submitted to the Father’s will even in this: that He waited for the Father to decide when fellowship would be restored. How do we know this? I would point again to the times before the cross when Jesus said He always did the will of His Father.
So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.” John 8:28. NIV 1984. (Italics and boldness, mine).
(It is interesting to note that when Jesus says here that the Father has not left Him alone, it is before the crucifixion)…
The second certain thing is this: the homecoming and return to fellowship carried with it a sweetness and joy of a restored fellowship that was broken only for the noblest of purposes, a celebration of the Son with His victory over sin and death and final proof of His submission to the Father in everything, and exultation in the finished work of God at the cross that the LORD Himself had never experienced before. It was a moment that Jesus had eagerly looked forward to:
Hebrews 12:2. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” NIV 1984. (Italics mine).
Think of all the hero movies and the dramatic moments when the foe has been vanquished, and the victor turns to receive his praise or medal or reward…the swelling music… the victory celebrations—they are puny and hollow compared to the celebration of the completed redemption of believing mankind!
The vain imaginations of the human heart and mind cannot conceive what an incredible shockwave resounded in the heavens at the return of the Son to sit down at the right hand of the throne of God after completing the sacrifice to end all sacrifices! Oh, I wish I could have seen it!!!! There is no dramatic music that could be written or scored to match the tumultuous ecstasy at the restoration of harmony within the Godhead, and the ascension of the Son Victorious to the throne. There are not writers in the world who could pen dialogue worthy of The Welcome of the Son back to the arms of the Father. No locking of eyes could ever say as much as the eyes of Father, Son, and Spirit in the pleasure of restored fellowship and the only worthy work of salvation that will ever be esteemed.
Much is made of the second coming of Christ, and rightly so. I can’t wait to see that moment, as well! (I know that it has its own glory and eternal significance and worth, and God Himself makes EVERY moment of eternity priceless simply because the LORD, the Living God, LIVES and REIGNS at ALL times)!!! The Second Coming seems to my fallen heart more of a denouement than a climax, however, when I consider the work at the cross. In my limited eyesight, I am tempted to think that the work on the cross is THE defining moment of eternity. It is the moment that is most representative of Who God IS. It is the displayed answer to the question, “Who is I AM?”
I AM is the one who created Heaven and Earth, and the people He loves so dearly that He would give up His rights for a time to suffer as one of them at their hands so that He could save the very ones who once spit in His face.
I AM is the one who paid a price He didn’t have to, that was too expensive for all of humanity or angelkind to afford, so that He could show loving kindness and mercy to His enemies.
Hallelujah! WHAT A SAVIOR!!! What a FRIEND!!! What a CHAMPION!!! Is there anyone like OUR GOD? HE did not even consider His own rights something to be grasped tightly in a righteous and iron grip, but He opened His hands and allowed His beloved creatures to nail iron spikes into them. He did not resist their torture and their scorn, when instead He could have rightly BROKEN OUT against them.
But He was careful and gentle with us, though we had murderous thoughts in our hearts, and the intention to kill our GOD. Through mercy and grace at the cross, God has offered peace to His enemies and forgiveness.
How can anyone complain about this I AM? He is undeniably WONDERFUL. And if anyone maintains that He is not, some day they will see Him and all that HE IS, and their own mouths will proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. And it will be their own knees that bow down before Him. But it will be a sad day for them, who did not recognize the Lord during their lifetimes.
JESUS now has the Name Above Every Name and was exalted by the Father to the highest place, because He surrendered every moment to the Father and ALWAYS did what the Father directed, even though the Father, for a time, DID leave Him “alone” for our sake…
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11.
And so perhaps the most valuable moment in eternity (in terms of what God accomplished within it) is defined by what was given up for us… the one moment in eternity when the Father was not speaking to the Son. Ironically, this holy moment of surrender and silence speaks, more poignantly and powerfully than any other, of the extent of God’s love, mercy, and grace to you and me… that the Godhead would break fellowship internally to secure our own fellowship with Him, “whosoever believeth.” John 3:16.