By Jim Anderson
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 1 :19-22
Each week we are going through the entire New Testament of the Bible, from Matthew to Revelation, stopping at each verse that tells US how we might gain eternal life in heaven. Here the great Apostle Paul tells us once again that he is preaching Jesus Christ. In fact. this is all that Paul preached. If there were another way to be saved. other than faith in Jesus Christ, and trust in him as the great sacrifice for all our sins, Wouldn't Paul have been preaching this supposed other way? We are told today that there are ways to heaven other than or in addition to Jesus, but Paul evidently did not believe that and neither should we.
We are also told here that Jesus fulfilled the promises of God. These would be the promises that God gave in the Old Testament (Isaiah 49) that he would send a Savior and a Redeemer who would save us from our sin - that Saviour was of course Jesus, who was the perfect sacrificial Lamb of God. Until Jesus came, a perfect lamb had to be sacrificed repeatedly for the sin of the people (Leviticus 3-4) who were at that time looking forward to their Saviour, Jesus, coming. After Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, came and was sacrificed on the cross, the debt owing for our sin was paid in full, once and for all. Sacrificing a lamb before Jesus came was like making a payment on a mortgage - when Jesus came and was sacrificed it was like paying off that mortgage in full so that no more payment need ever be made.
But, God has one condition and one only. That is that we believe and trust Jesus as the perfect and all sufficient sacrifice for our sin. When we transfer our trust from self or anything else, including religion, that we may be trusting in, to Jesus, we have gained eternal life. And, as these verses tell us, at that time the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts and guide us into further truth through His Word, the Bible (John 16:13) - praise God!