| The Skull Sin happens in people—in the mind. The solution is not erasing something written in a book, but changing us. The cross did not change God’s attitude toward us, because he does not change![142] The cross was to affect us. God does not repeat things that are unimportant. We are told in 3 of the 4 gospel records that Jesus died at “a place called Golgotha[143], which means, “The Place of the Skull.”[144] He made his sacrifice there, for it was in “the skull”—the mind of man—that the false picture of God was.[145] The Bible nowhere speaks of God having to be reconciled to us. Every text speaks of God reconciling us to himself. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”[146] “When anyone is joined to Christ, he is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends, and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making all mankind his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends. Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!”[147] “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”[148] “For it was by God’s own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God. Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven. At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought. But now, by means of the physical death of his Son, God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure, and faultless, into his presence.”[149] |
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| 142 Malachi 3:1 143 or Calvary 144 Matthew 27:33; Mark 15:22; Luke 22:33 145 Remember how Adam and Eve began to fear God for no reason—Genesis 3:8-10. 146 Colossians 1:21-22 NIV 147 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 TEV 148 Romans 8:5-11 NKJV 149 Colossians 1:19-22 TEV |
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