And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt. Luke 18:9.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Jesus attracted crowds, primarily because power went out of Him effecting amazing miracles of provision, healing, conversion, and new life. He cast out demons, stopped storms, and spoke with authority. He knew Me and revealed Me to those who heard Him as perfect love and goodness. He came into a dark world ridden with sin and evil and brought the Spirit and the Light that would renew the face of the earth. Just as at the beginning, as the Spirit hovered over the dark void and I spoke “Light be!” and a dark void became filled with the light of life and all good things.
Yes, it all changed from dark empty chaos to an amazing fruitful place filled with My goodness and Light by My Word and My Spirit. And that is the same way you can change your dark empty chaotic life into a place of heavenly beauty, splendor, and peace filled with all good things and perfect gifts. And to help you out I sent My Word made flesh to heal you and deliver you from all your destructions—to show you how to live and the way you should walk. Jesus, in whom you have redemption, the propitiation of your sins, and the fulfillment of every one of My good promises to you. You have My Word and My Spirit. You are ready to go forth to light up the dark world, to make chaos into order, and to change ugliness into beauty as a new creation in Christ!
“As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed, nor from the mouth of your seed’s seed,” says the LORD, “from now and forever.” Isaiah 59:21.
Never feel insignificant, you are the light the dark world is waiting for.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding forth the Word of life. Philippians 2:14-16.
You have the perfect sacrifice and He is for everyone who will receive the gift of salvation. He is the propitiation for your sins. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10.
He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2.
Under the Old Covenant, before My living trust (My eternal covenant) was amended and restated in Jesus, keeping the good things that never change of the Old and adding the new and better promises fulfilled in Jesus, for the Substance has replaced the shadow, there were four sacrifices of the tabernacle/temple that made atonement for your sins by the pouring out of the blood (the grain offering had no blood but was often offered together with blood offerings, such as the burnt offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering. The people relied on these to make atonement for their sins on the altar and on the Mercy Seat, the propitiatory.
Jesus is your propitiation and makes forgiveness and freedom from all your sins possible for all who will receive Him. But under the old version of the Covenant, you could not offer the lamb of sacrifice, or indeed any burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, guilt offering, peace offering, if you were an intentional sinner. Your sin had to be unintentional for you to approach the sacrifice with your lamb.
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them, if the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer to the LORD a bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. Leviticus 4:1-3.
In Greek, the language in which the New Testament (My amended and restated living Trust that continues the original and adds new provisions and replaces old ones that are now obsolete as completed in Christ), the word for propitiation is hilasmos (ἱλασμός). And hilaskomai (ἱλάσκομαι), which is akin to hilasmós, means to extend propitiation, showing mercy legally, in other words by satisfying (propitiating) My just wrath on sin with the appropriate sacrifice for sin, not just to cover it like the blood of bulls, goats, and lambs but to remove it entirely by the eternal blood of My Son. He gave His eternal life in the flesh for the eternal life you lost. And more than that, like the scapegoat and the burnt offering of the lamb offered each morning and evening in the Tabernacle and then the Temple, the pure sacrifice took on all your sins and gave you His righteousness, that is, His sinless purity.
And in Greek, the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies where atonement for the nation was made, is called the hilastérion (ἱλαστήριον), the propitiatory, the covering of the ark, which was sprinkled with the atoning blood on the Day of Atonement.
You may wonder why I am telling you all this, but in today’s conversation you will see why. Remember only those who were not sinning intentionally could bring the propitiation to the Tabernacle or Temple. And know this, tax collectors at the time of Jesus, who were Jewish working for the Romans were considered intentional sinners and were counted by the Jewish priests, scribes, and Pharisees as serious sinners that were barred from coming to offer sacrifices for their sins in the Temple. They had no way of making a sin offering or any of the other offerings as intentional sinners.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Matthew 18:17.
Right before the conversation we are now going to consider, Jesus had been teaching His disciples in parables and explaining them. He had just told them one on the necessity of praying always and not losing heart. And He had ended with a question:
However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find the faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.
Pray has to do with faith. And the prayer of faith of a righteous man is effective indeed. It calls what I have promised into the earth to manifest in the physical what has already been done in the spiritual.
Jesus then expanded His audience as He turned His attention to not only His disciples, He now told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt, and of course, this included the Pharisees, priests and scribes.
This parable concerns a Pharisee and a tax collector who went up to the temple to pray.
Even though tax collectors were excommunicated from the synagogue they had limited access to the Temple, just as the gentiles who came to Jerusalem to worship did. They had access to the Court of the Gentiles and the Court of Women, but no further. Their participation in the sacrificial system and fuller religious life was severely limited due to their perceived intentional moral corruption and ritual impurity for gain to the oppression of their brethren. They were not allowed to exchange their money at the Temple treasury and thus could not purchase the sacrificial animals you had to buy in the Temple to offer sacrifices.
So Jesus began His lesson on prayer as fellowship from a relationship.
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’” Luke 18:10-12.
This Pharisee was doing what many do in what they call “prayer,” they talk to themselves and not Me. He was naming how wonderful he was to justify himself as qualifying for special treatment by Me. But He was not really entering into any kind of meaningful dialogue with Me. He was talking at Me as he fellowshipped with himself. No matter how long you spend in such monologue it is not quality time with Me.
But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, make propitiation for me, the sinner!’
Do you see what he is asking? He is speaking to Me in confidence that I will make the propitiation for him that he cannot go in the Temple and make. I Myself will provide the lamb. Most translations say, “God have mercy on me, the sinner!” but the Greek word for “mercy” is eleos (ἔλεος) and the word that the tax collector prayed is hilaskomai (ἱλάσκομαι), which means to make propitiation for. And in Jesus I did just that for every one of you. I Myself provided the Lamb for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering. You have nothing to fear. I AM the LORD your righteousness. I AM the LORD your sanctifier who makes you holy like Me. I AM the LORD your healer. I AM there with you now.
And when Jesus died for your sins upon the cross He qualified you all for the sin offering when He prayed to Me, “Father, forgive them THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.” Before Him were the Jews (Pharisees and people), the gentiles (Roman guards and soldiers), and the Church (the believers near Him at the cross) and He spoke for you all.
I tell you, the tax collector went to his house justified, just as you do when you call upon Me and take Jesus as your saving Lord, rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:14-15.
Repent, turn away from sin and self-righteousness, stop trying to win your own salvation and believe in the good news that I have make Jesus propitiation unto you. Now you do good works because you are righteous, not to make yourself righteous. I took care of that.
Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:19-21.
I love you and that will never change. Let Me make propitiation for you. If you confess your sins I am faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And then, forgetting what lies behind, let us go forward to your high calling in Christ! I have prepared a life of good deeds for you in Him, you just have to walk them out with Me. Let My Holy Spirit lead and guide you. I am with you always. I will never leave you or forsake you. And that is something to sing about. Why not sing right now?