A man who loses hope loses his primary motivation for doing right and living holy. The Bible reveals what men do when they have no hope: “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). If there is no hope in a resurrection, man sees no reason to cease to go after his strange gods (Jeremiah 2:25) or follow “the imagination of his evil heart” (Jeremiah 18:12). If there is no judgment after death, or if the Lord is not soon returning, then the greatest impetus for living the Christian life is lost. Man needs a special motivation to help him to live a life of purity. He should live in purity because He loves the Lord. Yet, the answer lies in the fact that the Lord is coming soon, and man will stand before Him to give an account, and all those who have this particular hope will purify themselves, “even as he [Jesus] is pure.” Hope makes all the difference!
God demands righteousness, and when man fails to meet His standards, He calls for the shedding of blood for the remission of sins (Hebrews 9:22). Throughout the Old Testament, sacrifices majored on the blood of animals, but these animal sacrifices could never take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). God, in mercy, sent His Son to give “himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Ephesians 5:2). Unlike the Old Testament sacrifices, the Lord Jesus was a single onetime sacrifice that offered forgiveness of sin for all and to all. In shedding His blood, the Lord Jesus Christ became man’s sacrifice, and man need look no further than the shed blood of Christ for the means by which God is satisfied.
