Jesus of Nazareth: The One Who Changed EVERYTHING!

When Gabriel told Mary that she was going to give birth to a son, he told her that Jesus would save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Indeed, many years before that event, Isaiah had predicted this very thing about him. Isaiah wrote: "he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all." (Isaiah 53:5-6, NLT) In the First Epistle of Peter, we read: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." (3:18, ESV) In the same letter, we also read: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." (2:24) Likewise, Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome that "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (5:8) He also wrote to the Christians at Corinth that: "all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!' For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." (II Corinthians 5:18-21, NLT) In his First Epistle, John wrote that "if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (2:2)

Jesus accomplished all of this by fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets - causing the Hebrew Bible to be reinterpreted through HIM! (Matthew 5:17) He even distilled all of the dos and don'ts of the Torah into two great principles: Love for God and love for each other. (Matthew 22:36-40) In his letter to the saints at Rome, Paul explained it this way: "God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood." (Romans 3:21-25) As clear as Paul was, however, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews probably explained how Christ had transformed the Hebrew Scriptures better than anyone else. He wrote: "So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant." (9:11-15, NLT)

Paul said that Jesus Christ makes us a new person (II Corinthians 5:17). He told the Romans to allow Christ in them to transform their minds (Romans 12:2). Likewise, he told the Ephesians and Colossians "to put on the new man." (Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10) Thus, we have seen that Christ changes death to life (Romans 6:23). He changes sin to righteousness. Jesus changes old to new. Christ transforms the law into the principles of love for God and each other. Christ transforms each of us into a completely new person/creature. In short, Jesus of Nazareth changes EVERYTHING!