The Man and His Knife (Part 3)

Hi, this is Dave Scherrer, and you found Kingdom Offerings, and you found also Part 3 of a story that I wrote almost 30 years ago called The Man and His Knife. And in order for this podcast that you're listening to right now, for in order for this to make sense, I would suggest that you listen to the past two podcasts here at Kingdom Offerings, found at our 100 Full Ministries homepage, and you listen to those back to back so that the story is fresh in your mind. I think that will help us as we try and unpack some of the doctrinal truths in it, because each of my stories has a dominant doctrinal truth that is played out in the narrative. And there are several other smaller themes to discover as well. In our most recent story, I want to look at these doctrinal themes with you. The Man and His Knife, there's a key theme or a central theme, and then a couple of smaller ones. And so let's start with this largest and most important theme of the story. This doctrinal theme is non-negotiable to an orthodox understanding of the Christian doctrine of salvation. That's kind of a full sentence. Let me say it again. The most important theme, the central theme to this story of A Man and His Knife, this doctrine is non-negotiable to an orthodox understanding of the Christian doctrine of salvation. So this critical doctrine, though, is often, I don't know, unmentioned or not talked about very much from the pulpit. And that doctrine is that we must have a Savior who does not share our sin. We must have a Savior who does not share our sin. That is non-negotiable. Let me say that just a little bit differently, though. We need a sinless Savior. We need a sinless Savior. So let's talk about that theme in our story. The stranger in our story of The Man and His Knife is our Christ figure, and you've probably figured that out. So the stranger is the Christ figure. The vine, that vine condition, which is the universal deadly disease in our story, that's an allegory for our human condition of sin. We discover in Scripture that sin is indeed the human condition, reading that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All would be all. That's in Romans 3. Additionally, we also read that the wages of sin, the wages of engaging in sin, is death, and that's in Romans 6. When we join those two ideas in our story, we read that the vine is like sin, the universal human condition, and it's also this vine, like sin, that will ultimately kill you. So every person on earth has sinned against God, and death is the penalty or the resultant, the wages. We earn death by our sinning. This is why Scripture calls it wages. The wages of sin is death. So in order to escape, we need someone from the outside of our human condition to save us. That, of course, would be God, and we need that person to be without sin themselves. Otherwise, their own death would simply pay for their own sins and not someone else's. We need a sinless Savior. You see, the sin that humanity has collected is an eternal debt, an eternal debt of a billion souls or more, and these sins of humanity are ever before the throne. So only eternal blood can pay that kind of debt, can pay an eternal debt, thousands of years of sin. Jesus Christ was sent to pay that debt. He came willingly to pay the ransom to set us free from this eternal debt. And so, in doing so, he has gathered for himself billions of image-bearing, freewill, redeemed kingdom citizens who will worship Jesus as we ought. This is the gathering of the kingdom to himself by his redeeming blood and sacrifice on the cross. In this story, we learn that sin is a life-and-death matter, and it's not to be trifled with. Death by any other means is, I want to say, mere death, but death by sin is eternal judgment. And the fact that we need a sinless Savior is the central theme of this story. It's also the central theme to our own life story. Everyone needs a sinless Savior, the central theme of the man with the knife. Let's look briefly at a couple of other themes. Another smaller theme in this story that you might have caught is this sense of these acts of personal courage, laying down one's life. Donel, the hero of sorts of this story, struck out on a dangerous voyage, hoping to save the life of his wife, knowing that it could end poorly for him. It was a dangerous trip. But he left, risking his life, out of the love for his family. And these acts of courage are typically engaged out of a deeply held value, like the love of freedom or some kind of religious fervor that will drive a person to sacrifice their own life. But more often than not, this kind of valor has a motivation of love. Soldiers will tell you that they die on the battlefield for love of country, but not so much for love of country in the moment. They risk their lives for their fellow soldiers, their band of brothers. They risk their lives believing that their sacrifice will help to assure the safety and the security of their loved ones back home. Freedom, yes, but it's love that drives us. Jesus said to his disciples, a little bit of my paraphrase included, it's because that I love you that I lay down my life. I would put myself between you and death every time. You see, greater love has no one than that they lay down their lives for a friend. That's another small theme associated with this, is this sense of self-sacrifice that's built into this story. All right, let's tackle another important theme, somewhat difficult, because it's the blood theme that's in this story. It is by the blood that we are saved, we are told. And so, we need to go back to the Old Testament just for a minute to understand this idea of how important blood is. So, in Leviticus chapter 17, God gives instructions regarding sacrifices and offerings, mostly on the proper, well, slaughtering of animals. It doesn't sound like much fun, but the people of Israel to bring each animal to the tabernacle, to the temple, for the priests to offer. And the blood of the animal was never to be treated as common food. The blood belonged to God, who is the giver of life. And so, the blood of the animals had to be drained and offered to God on the altar. It's an offering of life. It's not the killing so much that's important as it is the offering of blood. You see, blood was God's ordained means of establishing atonement, covering. This is God speaking in the topic of Leviticus 17. Here's this quote, "...for the life of a creature is in the blood, God speaking, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life." So, that's pretty clear. Atonement for sin was achieved by sacrificing an animal's life in a substitution for my own blood, my own life. The shedding of blood is the critical element. Because it is in the blood of the guiltless substitute, in this case, the lamb, the spotless lamb, guiltless substitute, a perfect substitute, who is offered on the altar that served as payment for other people's sin. That's in Leviticus 16 verse 15. That's the Old Testament reading. Now, we can pull this forward into the New Testament. In Hebrews 10, we read, "...the old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview, of the good things to come. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship." See, the meaning of the life is in the blood would ultimately be revealed in Jesus Christ. When Jesus came and offered up his life, he willingly sacrificed himself, he poured out his blood on the cross, and that became the perfect and final atonement or covering. And so, that covers all of humanity, those who believe and receive that offering. The book of Hebrews goes on to say, actually a little bit before that quote, in Hebrews 9, it says, "...just think how much the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins." It's about his blood. So, one more thing, in allegories and stories, they don't always answer all the questions. They're not intended to. So, if you go to one of the stories of Christ, one of the kingdom parables, you'll find some answers, but you won't find all the answers. For instance, the great but incredibly short kingdom parable about the man who finds a treasure hidden in a field, then buries it, and he sells everything he can to buy the field, tells us a little bit about the kingdom of God, and especially how we must sacrifice everything to participate in the kingdom. We must turn our back on the world and pursue the kingdom and the kingdom only. These parables serve to pique our interest and to make us ask questions. They're not there to explain everything. So, here's where my story falls short. In the man and his knife, the stranger merely cuts his hand to expose his blood. Our King Jesus suffered and died and rose from the dead. Our story in the man and the knife has none of that. Again, it's in the dying, it's in the shedding of blood that Jesus atoned for our sins. So, in this story, the power to heal was only an inconvenience, really, for the stranger. He suffered a mere cut. So, those of you who are disappointed in this allegory for not going far enough, actually, I agree. It doesn't go far enough in that respect. But this story wasn't intended to replace Scripture. It's here to whet our appetite for Scripture. So, this story is written specifically to inspire us to worship the sinless Savior. Well, thanks for listening into my stories. I really would welcome a visit to daveat100foldministries.org. Let me know whether you liked the story and whether you thought something else should have been written. Well, peace to you. And the man with his knife loves you very, very much. Peace.