The Atoning Remittance

Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

Our separation from God creates a distance that is more pronounced at certain times in our lives than others.  Sometimes the quality of our thoughts, emotions, and actions fall so far below Godly standards that His Spirit withdraws and our distance from deity expands.  Left unattended, our behaviors further distance us and may lead into other and more distant and darkened paths – at the end of which a spiritual death awaits, or a permanent separation from God and His righteousness.

Christ’s atoning sacrifice provides the way and the means to close our distance from God that was created by sin. Christ’s atonement offers the fruit of repentance and a restoration of one’s soulful pursuit of righteousness.  Christ’s marvelous and miraculous atoning remittance pays off our debt to sin and its dire consequences. 

East of and not far from the Jordan River is an ancient Middle Eastern land known as Gilead.  There is a tree or bush there from which is extracted a fragrant healing medicine or balm. The prophet Jeremiah, worried about a deficiency in the spiritual health of Israel, referred to this healing ointment when he asked, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”  The only medicine potent enough to heal us from the effects of sin is Christ’s atonement.  The ministry of Christ Jesus in our lives is the only true healing balm.  His tree of atonement continues to bear fruit as we repent and become meek and lowly of heart, and as we experience a loving healing balm that comes into our soul to soothe and remedy our spiritual wounds.

Jesus, in Gethsemane, at Calvary, and throughout His perfect life paid the price for our committed sins.  A “remittance” is a payment sent to someone at a distance.   Our distance from God, created by our sins, is overcome by Christ’s atoning sacrifice.  This act remits our confessed and abandoned sins in full by paying the demands of justice.  It buys for us mercy and reconciles us to God.   Thus, our meditation explores “The Atoning Remittance” made on our behalf by Him who we call - Redeemer.

The Atoning Remittance

…we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
New Testament   Romans 5:10-11

Spiritual death is the wage of sin

But the atonement brings life

Procuring a place for God within

And power over worldly strife

To partake of atonement’s fruit

That which comes of repentance

And a persistent Godly pursuit

Brings an atoning remittance

Then meekness and lowliness of heart

Brings a healing balm for our wounds

As the Spirit purifies and sets us apart

From our sins festering in captive tombs

Repentance comes by faith in the Lord

Unto the fulfilling the commandments

And the balm of sin’s remission is poured

As we receive the sanctifying Sacraments

Then filled with hope and perfect love

We endure by diligence unto prayer

Worthy to ascend unto God above

And are crowned as His eternal heir

Larry Doyle Crenshaw