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Showing posts from May, 2025

Forgiveness

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  Why do we forgive?  I have heard it said so many times that we forgive to set ourselves free. I also to a degree, believe this - but I do not believe it should be the primary reason: The Lord has already set us free, through the power if the Cross. And besides this; every time I make anything about “me” - i.e. “setting myself free”, it always seems to end in epic failure. Why? See Galatians 2:20. This is primarily and ultimately about Christ and how his crucifixion has dealt with my sin…  “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.  When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.  So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’  And out of pity for him, the master of th...

John Ch.19

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For cross reference: Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23 1 Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.  This flogging - or scourging - was designed to get a confession from its victim (and would also weaken them to the point where their death on the cross would be much quicker) In the time of Jesus, under the ruthless reign of Pilot, many Jews were crucified…hundreds more were flogged; everyone would have understood the weight of this “flogging” of Jesus. We would have no concept of this, but for numerous historical sources that tell us: Scourging:  “The victim of this severe punishment was bound in a stooping attitude to a low column and beaten with rods or scourged with whips, the thongs of which were weighted with lead, and studded with sharp-pointed pieces of bone, so that frightful laceration followed each stroke.” (Dods) In order to understand, even slightly, what was endured by Jesus here, we must look - not to the Gospels - but to the Old Testament - and one of the most powerful...