JEFF TURNER

Every doctrine that gives the Christian faith its shape and substance, every promise that anchors the believer’s heart through suffering and uncertainty, every reason we have to approach God with confidence rather than terror, all of it flows from a single source: the redemption purchased by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Remove that from the centre of Christian teaching and the consequences are total. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Without forgiveness, there is no restored relationship with God. Without that relationship, the hope we speak of is borrowed language with no corresponding reality. And without genuine hope, human existence is reduced to what it always threatens to become without the gospel: a long, purposeless journey toward a door that opens onto nothing.

But because the blood was shed, because Calvary is real, because Jesus Christ rose bodily from the grave and demonstrated that death itself could not hold him, everything changes. The Christian does not stand on wishful thinking.

The blood and the resurrection together produce something in the believing heart that nothing else can: the quiet, unshakeable confidence that we are held.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Romans 8:11