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God is real. He is a person. He loves us. He created us in His image, so that we would have a close personal relationship with Him and live with Him forever. But, because we joined the rebellion of the fallen angels, all of humanity is alienated from HaShem, this supreme Person. Before we leave this world, the most important thing for any of us to do is end our estrangement from the Creator. We must be reconciled to Him. We must be reunited with Him, or our lives will have been a failure. And, God has made it possible to be reconciled to Him. In the Bible, there are a number of ways this Gospel, this Good News, this Most Important Of All Messages about our need to be reconciled to the Creator is presented. It’s presented using concepts that were common to people and easy for them to understand.

It’s presented through the idea of sin, sacrifice and atonement. When one person offends another person, one way to restore the damaged relationship is to approach the person who has been offended with words of apology, regret, remorse, accompanied by a gift. How many men have to come to their wives with something like: “Honey, I’m so sorry. You were right. I was wrong. I acted badly. I disappointed you. I let you down. Please accept my apology. Here are some flowers, and I’m taking you out to your favorite restaurant. Will you please forgive me?” Sin, sacrifice, atonement. According to the Torah, when a person sinned, he was required to go to the Temple. There, along with a bull or cow, lamb, ram, goat or dove, he confessed his sins and placed his hand on the head of the animal, thereby transferring his sins to the innocent animal. Then he killed the animal, and a priest sprinkled its blood around the altar. If he had genuine faith, the person was atoned for. The animal sacrifices were useful, but they were only a temporary covering for our sins. The blood of bulls and cows, lambs, rams, goats and doves could never fully atone for human beings, since human beings are more valuable than animals. God’s ultimate way of making full and final and perfect atonement was through the Messiah, who is fully God and fully man, and therefore of more value than all the animals in the world, and more valuable than all of mankind. His perfect life and His death – His great, ultimate sacrifice to atone for the sin of all of humanity – was predicted by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before the Messiah came: He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment for our well-being was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him… My Servant will make many righteous, as He will bear their iniquities… He bore the sin of many (Isaiah 53). The death of the righteous Messiah is presented as the fulfillment of the way of sin, sacrifice and atonement.

This idea of the need to be reconciled to God is presented in the concept of redemption. Redemption means that something valuable has been sold or forfeited and is under the control of another and is taken back by the original owner. Money could be given or actions taken to restore that which was lost. Houses, land, people, even an entire nation could be redeemed. Remember the nation You purchased long ago, the people of Your inheritance, whom You redeemed (Psalm 74). God, by His efforts, is able to redeem individuals and nations – which is why one of His titles is Redeemer.

Here is an explanation of the Good News based on the concept of redemption – being rescued from powerful forces that have taken control of us: The world is broken. Human beings are damaged – mentally, emotionally, physically. We are harming this beautiful planet in many ways. We frequently hurt other people, sometimes even when we don’t want to. We experience our own failures and disappointments and often aren’t happy and don’t feel good about ourselves. The world is full of pain and suffering, broken relationships, hatred, injustice, crimes, murder and war. Why? The Word of God tells us that we live in fallen world that is satanically controlled and is in rebellion against God and is under a curse because, at the beginning of human history, Adam and Eve, who were real people, rebelled against the Creator – who is a real and good and wise and powerful Person. By listening to the Satanic Adversary, who is real and a fallen angel, and eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which the Supreme Being warned them not to do, Adam and Eve joined the rebellion of the fallen angels. The consequences of the Fall of Man were dramatic and immediate. Adam and Eve were alienated from the Creator. Their relationship with God was ruined, and every aspect of who they were was damaged. Their bodies, their souls, their wills, their minds, their spirits, the way they felt about themselves – every facet was harmed, damaged, ruined, spoiled, corrupted. The consequences of Adam and Eve’s rebellion were far-reaching, including a ruined relationship with God; a damaged relationship to a fallen creation, because when Adam and Eve fell, the universe fell with them; a damaged relationship with other human beings; the ruination of human nature; domination by Satan and the demons; and a destiny of death – the First Death, physical death, followed by the even worse Second Death – Gehenna, Hell, the Lake of Fire – which, like Heaven, is a real place. The consequences of the sin of our first parents were transmitted to all of their descendants. That ruination of body, soul, will, mind, spirit; that damaged relationship to God and creation and other human beings; that loss of eternal life – all of it was passed on like a horrible disease, infecting all of us. Because of our alienation from a God who is perfect and holy, and because of our fallen, sinful, rebellious human nature, there is not enough we can ever do on our own to end this alienation from God or its many tragic consequences. We can never be good enough or religious enough. We can never keep enough laws, or do enough good deeds to outweigh our bad deeds, to end our alienation from the Creator or overcome the real and deadly forces of Satan, sin, the sin nature and death. No amount of laws, law-keeping, good deeds or human effort can ever be enough.

But the Good News is that the good and merciful Creator God did not leave us in that horrible and hopeless condition. God the Father sent the Redeemer, the One who alone is able to get us out of every aspect of this horrible situation by doing something only He could do and by paying a price only He could pay. The Son of God, who is one with the Father in nature, yet distinct from the Father as a Person, was sent on a great rescue mission. The Son of God left Heaven, came to this planet, and became a human being. The Messiah was born into the royal family of the Chosen People. The young carpenter from Nazareth became our greatest rabbi, and lived a unique and perfect and sinless life. Rabbi Yeshua did great miracles, demonstrating He was sent by God, and then did the greatest thing of all. He allowed Himself to be put to death on a cross. But death could not claim or hold this perfect, sinless Man! God the Father raised His Son from the dead and transformed His body. The divine nature, perfect life, death and resurrection of the Redeemer makes it possible for fallen human beings, spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins, to have all their sins, rebellious acts and transgressions forgiven and their alienation from God ended. They are redeemed from sin.

Those who know that God the Father and Messiah the Son are real and transfer their loyalties to the Three-In-One God are removed from the control of the dark kingdom of Satan and the demons. They become citizens of the Kingdom of God. They belong to the Father and the Son. They are redeemed from the kingdom of darkness.

They may experience the First Death – physical death – but they will not experience the Second Death. They will live forever as the honorable and eternal sons and daughters of God in the New Heavens, the New Earth and the New Jerusalem. They are redeemed from death.

And they are given a new nature. They are born again, transformed, renewed, recreated, new creatures. They are given the Holy Spirit of God, to live in them and guide them and empower their new nature to live in a way that honors God. They are redeemed from their old, fallen nature. Messiah can redeem us from Satan and the demons, sin, the sin nature and death! This idea of the need to be reconciled to God is presented in the concept of redemption.

This idea of the need to be reconciled to God is presented through the idea of something being lost and then being found. David prayed: I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments (Psalm 119). In the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord declared: My people have become lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray. They have made them turn aside on the mountains; they have gone along from mountain to hill and have forgotten their resting place (Jeremiah 50). In the time of Jeremiah, because of bad shepherds, the Chosen People were like lost sheep – far from God and in need of finding their way back home. Messiah came as the Good Shepherd who seeks lost sheep, human beings, to return them to God. He said: If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? He also said: I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And He said: I am the gate for the sheep … I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep … I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen (referring to the nations other than Israel). I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. This idea of the need to be reconciled to God is presented through the idea of something being lost and then being found, like lost sheep and a good shepherd who finds them and brings them safely home.

One of the nicest ways this Most Important Message about our need to end our estrangement from God is presented is through marriage: The coming together of a man and a woman for companionship and mutual support and the production of children. The productivity and the joy that comes from the union of two individuals is a fantastic illustration of our need to be reunited to the Creator from whom we are estranged and the blessedness that results from that union. The coming together of a man and woman in marriage is used in the Tenach (Old Testament) to describe the relationship of the Jewish People and God. God is like a husband and the Jewish people are like a wife. Sadly, the Lord repeatedly compared us to an adulterous wife who strayed from her husband. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, telling him to confront the Jewish people with our sins. The way he was to do that was by comparing our relationship to God to that of an unfaithful wife. Ezekiel declared that we came from an ignoble ancestry and a shameful beginning. We were like a baby girl who was born, but no one was there to care for her. Her umbilical cord was not cut. She was not cleaned or fed or clothed. Instead she was abandoned and thrown into a field to die. In spite of this ignoble beginning, the Lord loved us and saw us and rescued us. He washed us and fed us with the best food and clothed us with beautiful clothes and jewels until we became a beautiful woman. Then He married us. But in spite of all He did for us, we were like an adulterous, unfaithful wife. We worshiped other gods and became morally corrupt. Because of this, judgment was coming.

The life of the prophet Hosea teaches us the same truth. His book begins: When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”

But then there is the amazing prophecy of restoration and new covenant and renewed relationship between the Jewish people and God that is found in Jeremiah. “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt (referring to the Sinai Covenant), because they broke My covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. God was a faithful husband and we were a covenant-of-marriage-breaking wife. God intended to restore our broken relationship by means of the New Covenant made by the Messiah. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my Torah, My Teaching, in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” God promised to make a new covenant with the Jewish people, based on a better covenant; a new husband-wife relationship between God and Israel based on the forgiveness of all of our sins that damaged our relationship with Him, a renewed relationship with Him based on knowledge, affection and intimacy.

It should not be surprising, therefore, that in the book called the New Covenant, or New Testament, the Messiah is compared to a good husband, and His people, made up of Messianic Jews and Christians from the nations, are compared to His wife. John, the Messiah’s forerunner, who had many followers, said: I’m not the Messiah. I am the best man. The bride (referring to the Jewish people who are receptive to the truth) belongs to the groom (referring to the Messiah). I’m very happy when the groom is present and the bride follows Him.

Rabbi Paul, concerned that the community in Corinth was in danger of straying from the truth, wrote this: I promised you to one husband, to Messiah, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Messiah. Messiah is the husband, and the community of Messiah is like a holy woman who is to be joined to Messiah alone, faithful to Him and to His teachings and to no one and nothing else. Writing to the Ephesians, the Lord’s representative compares the relationship of Messiah and His Community to that of husband and wife. Like a good husband, Messiah sacrificially loved us and gave Himself for us. He takes care of us. He provides for us. He helps us be our best. He leads us. We are like a wife and we are to faithfully follow Him. Quoting the Torah about the first marriage, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh,” Paul makes this observation: This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Messiah and the Community. This mystery, this truth that only became clear with the arrival of the Son of God, was that instead of being alienated from God, Messianic Jews and the redeemed remnant of the nations now enjoy the closest kind of relationship with Messiah – like the intimate relationship between a husband and wife. Messiah and His people form a community in which life and love and intimacy and friendship are shared! We need to understand this amazing and precious relationship, and value it and nurture it so that it’s always alive, warm and close, faithful and true.

John, the Lord’s representative, was given an amazing glimpse of the eternal state, when God has finished His work of rescuing human beings. Heaven and a new Earth are united, and God and redeemed human beings are joined together – forever. John reports that he heard what sounded like a great multitude shouting: Hallelu-Yah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! The wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready … Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! What a celebration that will be! I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. In the future, a great union will take place. The redeemed inhabitants of Heaven will be like the most beautiful bride, and our worthy groom is the Son of God, who sacrificed Himself for us to save us. We will be united to Him forever, in a relationship filled with peace and love and happiness.

There are many messages being proclaimed in our confused world today: There is no God. There may be a God, but we can’t know, so it’s not important. There are the messages of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. There is the message that the most important thing is making a lot of money and living a comfortable life. There is the message of family being the most important thing. All of those messages are flawed and inadequate. Here is the truth: God is real. He loves us. He created us in His image, so that we would have a close personal relationship with Him and live with Him forever. But, because we joined the rebellion of the fallen angels, humanity is alienated from our Maker. Before we leave this world, the most important thing for any of us to do is be reconciled to the Three-In-One God.

In the Bible, this Good News, this Most Important Of All Messages is presented through the idea of sin, sacrifice and atonement. It’s presented in the concept of redemption. It’s presented through something or someone being lost and then found. And it’s most beautifully presented through the coming together of a man and woman in marriage. This is a message worth investigating. This is a message worth wholeheartedly embracing. This is a message worth proclaiming – unashamedly, boldly, courageously. This is a message worth living for. This is a message worth keeping yourself pure for. This is a message worth sacrificing for. And this is a message worth dying for. Let’s make absolutely sure we have welcomed this Most Important Of All Messages, and ended our estrangement from God; and then, if we have, let’s be passionate about telling others how they can be reconciled to the One who loves them and wants to live with them forever!