This Exhortation is about our attitude toward one another How should we treat our brothers and sisters? When they commit iniquity, should we cast them off, separating from them? Or should we identify with them, treating them as one with us? It is easy to think of ourselves as being superior to them, even as the hypocritical Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as a publican”
It is not at all easy to have the proper Christ-like attitude, to identify ourselves with our brethren m their failures Let us learn from examples of the way men of faith reacted to the sins of their fellow brethren.
Moses
Moses had been on the mount for 40 days Would he ever come back? The people could not wait to know God’s way Instead, they made themselves a golden calf, and they worshipped this god in a wild party “And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves” When Moses saw what they had done, he was disgusted In his anger, he threw down and broke the tables of the law What would he do next? Would he separate himself from his sinful brethren, asking God to get rid of them and start over with a group of “good” people? That is not how Moses reacted Instead, he returned to God and prayed, “If thou wilt forgive their sin —, and if not, blot me out of thy book”
Rather than separating from his sinful brethren, Moses associated with them, willing even to die in their place After the Lord God openly showed Himself to be merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquities and pardoning sins, Moses quickly prayed, “Pardon our iniquity and our sin” He had not committed the sin, but he willingly identified himself with his sinful brethren who had.
Hezekiah
Newly crowned King Hezekiah commanded the priests and Levites to clean up the desecrated temple He was eager to restore proper worship of God He invited the nation, the whole nation, both north and south, to come to a Passover celebration Some mocked, but others came to the great feast Unfortunately, not everyone prepared himself properly Many of them “had not cleansed themselves, yet did eat the passover otherwise than had been written” What was Hezekiah’s reaction to these sinners’? Did he command them to leave’? To be thrown out? Not at all Instead, “Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people” Hezekiah made intercession for the transgressors He willingly bore their sins, possibly becoming a leper as a result.
Daniel
In his magnificent prayer for the restoration of Israel, Daniel repeatedly identified with his sinful brethren, saying, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets 0 Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee”
Had Daniel done these things? Nothing of the sort is recorded of him Daniel knew why his people had been scattered — they had sinned against God’s commandments He knew that the prophet Jeremiah had foretold the restoration of the nation 70 years after its destruction He did not pray that only the “righteous” return Instead, he prayed that the sinners be forgiven And he included himself in that number He numbered himself with the transgressors who had caused God so much grief.
Nehemiah
Nehemiah, upon hearing about the affliction of Jerusalem, “confessed the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee both I and my father’s house have sinned We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses” God’s faithful servant Nehemiah was associating himself with his sinful brethren He was interceding for the transgressors, praying that God would forgive them.
Ezra
Israel had not separated itself from the people of the lands In fact, they even married them! Ezra was disgusted when he heard of their sin He rent his clothes, pulled out the hair in his head and beard, and sat down completely dismayed But he did not desert his sinful brethren Rather, he associated himself with them, pray-mg, “0 my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up to the heavens we have forsaken thy commandments behold, we are before thee in our trespasses for we cannot stand before thee because of this” But Ezra had not committed this sin! Nevertheless, he was will-mg to identify himself with them, saying “we” when it was really “they”
Jesus Christ
Of course, these faithful men are a mere shadow of Jesus Christ, the primary example of a man identifying himself with his sinful brethren During his ministry, Jesus regularly identified himself with sinners He was baptized along with his sinful brethren He bore our sicknesses, touching lepers and corpses He ate with publicans and sinners He allowed himself to be anointed by a woman, knowing all along that she was a sinner who would love him a great deal because he forgave her a great deal.
He shared the bread and the wine with the children God had given him He gave thanks for these tokens of his sacrifice and then partook of them with his brethren, whose faith would shortly collapse “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers [same word as “communion” in I Cor 10 16] of flesh and blood [the bread and the wine], he also himself likewise took part of the same [at the last supper], that through death [the sacrifice represented in the bread/body and wine/ blood] he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2 14-15).
Brothers and sisters, Jesus laid down his life for us his friends While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us He loved us and has given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor He hath borne our griefs He was wounded for our transgressions He was bruised for our iniquities With his stripes we are healed The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all He bore the sins of many He made intercession for the transgressors
Jesus was numbered with the transgressors In particular, he was crucified with two thieves And by allowing himself to be hanged on a cross, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us Jesus chose to identify himself with us so he might save us from sin and death Instead of living out a full life and dying of old age, Jesus was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross He chose to die the death he did, he chose to be treated as a transgressor, he chose to be a sacrifice for our sins, he chose to bear the sin of many, to make intercession for the transgressors We ought to follow his example.
To this day Christ associates himself with us sinners He is not ashamed to call us brethren Having been tempted himself, he is able to succor us when we are tempted He can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities When we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
The bread and the wine
This identification with one another is represented in each of the two emblems that we partake of to remember the sacrifice of Christ The bread is one loaf from which we each take a piece The wine is one cup from which we all drink, which we divide amongst ourselves.
If God can forgive us, then shouldn’t we also forgive one another” Christ died for us his friends He chose to be numbered with us transgressors He became a curse for us Are we willing to do the same for our brethren? May God give us the strength to follow the examples of Moses and Hezekiah and Daniel and Ezra and Nehemiah, and Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One