Thoughts to Ponder During the Holy Week | The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Tomorrow is the start of a holiday in the Philippines known as the Holy Week. It is a commemoration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Usually, majority of Filipinos visit catholic churches, fast, and make physical sacrifices even to the point of having themselves nailed on a wooden cross. Most do this to sort of pay for the sins committed.

But what I have learned from the Bible, as I have read in different forms such as book-form, kobo ereader or an ebook reader, is that these sacrifices are unnecessary, unacceptable and actually not enough to satisfy God’s righteous and holy justice when it comes to sin in general. The only acceptable sacrifice was already made by Christ.

Why? Because no matter what man does or whatever man offers, we are still sinful and everything we offer or do has been tainted with sin. On the other hand, Jesus, who claimed to be 100% God and 100% man, lived a sinless life. That made Him the only sacrifice that was acceptable to God.

A great parallelism is the lamb that was brought by the Jews for their annual sacrifice for their sins. The lamb had to be spotless, without blemish or defect. Any other animal that was not perfect was unacceptable. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He was figuratively spotless, without blemish or defect because He was sinless and only His sacrifice was accepted by God.

His death, burial and resurrection was the only solution to satisfy God’s justice system for all mankind. That is why whoever “believes” in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life. This is not a matter of religion but is about having a right relationship with God - the forgiven sinner, because of faith in Christ, becomes the child of God.

The Bible is clear that we can know that we have eternal life. So, the question is, do you know that you have eternal life? Do you know that when you die you are going to heaven? Do not be deceived because the apostle John clearly declared, ”And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:11-13)