I recently saw a message on YouTube that seemed to be getting a lot of buzz called "God loves Barrabas." I am sure that for most people at first glance, this word comes across as a beautiful exhortation about forgiveness mercy and reconciliation. Yet as I carefully listened to the preaching, I could not help but notice how subtle and crafty were the specific words chosen by the preacher delivering this sermon. "The love of God," he said, "is so inclusive, scandalous, wide, even when not being acknowledged by others etc..." These words are all common, coded statements used by speakers when they seek to announce incognito the doctrine of universalism. The belief that all will one day ultimately be saved by the love of God.
"We are all Barrabas," the preacher said, "Go on living your life because Jesus already paid it all. Why else,"the preacher argues, "would this name and his deeds be mention in relation to Christ in the scriptures if not to symbolize our lives that can now go on to be free from guilt even if we don't recognize what Jesus has done for us?" Well, I will argue that in the text of the scriptures, Barrabas does not represent how sinners, humanity or Christians can go free without guilt. To the contrary, this man's freedom exemplifies the apostasy of all those who rejected Christ's work and vision of salvation for Israel. He is like the old testament scape goat that was cut off, excommunicated from the congregation, never to return to the camp. He is not free from the guilt--he is condemned to forever carry the load and burden of all its evil (Leviticus 16).
The writers of the gospels are very careful to illustrate how this criminal represents the irony and confusion of how the masses did not understand Jesus' message. Very much like today, little or nothing has changed. See, Jesus was perceived as a threat to the Powers of Rome and a misleader of the Jewish nation. The truth was that Barrabas, not Jesus, was the real threat to the Roman empire, the actual revolutionary causing Israel to go astray into the kind of war that will cause the destruction of the nation. This was the very destruction that Jesus warned will come upon all the people unless they repented from pursuing their aspirations for revolution. The freedom of Barrabas constituted the abandonment of their Messiah and the ultimate down fall of the Hebrew people.
They should have followed Jesus' path and model of sacrifice, non-violence and self-denial, if they wanted his salvation and free gift of eternal life. They were supposed to repent, turn around from their evil ways and follow his example of the suffering servant on the cross. Did they repented? No, they asked for Barrabas and we are ironically still asking for the same today. They wanted to go on pursuing revolution and we like them desire to continue engaging in the corruptions of our sinful life-styles. Letting Barrabas go free was the judgement and condemnation of Israel and the rejection of Christs' work, sacrifice, and mission towards the Jews. Let his blood be upon us and our children the crowd said (Matt 27:15-26). The blood was indeed given for them and their children but not so they could go on unregenerate, unrepentant, and unchanged but so they could experience the transformation of Christ's power in a new way that will enable them to become God's true covenant people. This is the same mistake we are engaging on today, treating the blood and the sacrifice of Christ as something common that removes our shame but does not require our transformation. Consider this scripture:
Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies. For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:26-29, 31 NLT)
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