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THE RAP, THE PUMP & THE CURSE

There are three things Jesus accomplished by His death & resurrection that every believer should know and celebrate.
On the Cross
• He took our “rap”, and gave us His righteousness.
• He took our “pump” and gave us His life.
• He took our curse and gave us His blessing.

1. HE TOOK OUR RAP
The death of Jesus was not merely a martyr’s death. On the Cross God transferred on to Jesus all the guilt, shame, condemnation of all of us. He took the “rap” – the blame and punishment of our sin. “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53.6)
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses to them, …
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5.19, 21)
This is the amazing, accomplished of the Cross nearly 2,000 years before any of us alive today were even born, God transferred our condemnation sin and guilt on to Jesus so that it can be lifted from us. It is not a myth – it is an accomplished fact, a done deal.
However, this truth does us no good unless we believe it and deliberately receive its benefits. The gospel is the invitation for people everywhere to believe and receive the benefits of this established fact of history.
When we put our faith in this great fact, not only is the weight of guilt, sin and shame lifted from us, but God transfers the righteousness of Jesus on to us. Wow! He transferred our guilt on to Jesus and now He transfers His legal righteousness on to us. This is what Paul calls “justification”.
From this new restored position, we can now, begin a new life in the care of God with our sins, the
sin of Adam and of our ancestors removed from our record. We are living at the reverse side of the Cross and the reverse side of condemnation, fully restored to the grace of God.

2. HE TOOK OUR “PUMP”
Physicians tell us that the heart is a pump that pumps blood around the thousands of miles of blood vessels packed into our bodies. Jesus speaks of a corrupt heart that is within all of us that pumps evil within us..
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” (Mk 7)
No amount of religion can remove this defiling “pump” or “heart” that we all inherited from our grandfather Adam. Sin came into his heart and it is passed down through the generations to us. There is something within all of us that emits pride, lust greed etc. We do not like it, but it is in us whether we like it or not.
However God promised a solution to this corrupt part of our nature. He promised not only to provide a Savior to bear our sins but to go further and ‘extract’ this corrupt heart from within us.
‘I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.’ (Ezekiel 36.25-27)
This is exactly what Jesus accomplished through His Cross and Resurrection. Not only did He take our rap, He also took that sinful part of our nature ‘the heart of stone” to the Cross with Himself. When we come to Him and deliberately lay down our heart of stone, He will extract this polluting “pump” (heart) from within us and replace it with His own Spirit and nature.
While the old heart pumped corrupt attitudes within us, the new heart/pump, which is the Spirit of Jesus, pumps nothing but love, peace, joy and every kind of goodness within us. This new heart/pump, new Spirit and new nature, is God’s own life. It is His antidote to sin.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.(Galatians 5.19-23)
Jesus came to remove the old pump (which is our old sin nature). He took it to the Cross with Himself 2,000 years before we were born, and then gives to all who will receive His Spirit to be their new heart.
Our part is to deliberately receive the Holy Spirit as our new “pump”, to continually draw from this new “pump” and to refuse to draw from the old “pump”. The old “pump” is not improved nor cannot be - it is removed and replaced. The gift of the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ resurrection gift of life to all who will receive Him.

3. He Took Our Curse
We see that on the Cross Jesus took our “rap” and our old “pump” but He also did another great work for us - He took our curse and gave us the blessing.
Through our first ancestor humanity fell under a curse. By responding to Satan’s advice, Adam opened a gateway for Satan and his demons to oppress us. This is the curse.
On the Cross, Jesus took that curse that oppressed us and restored us to the blessing of Our Heavenly Father.
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Galatians 3.13-14)
"The curse of the Law" (Deuteronomy 28) is the misery that falls on us when we are separated from God’s blessing and providences. The curse include crushing poverty, sickness, disease, mental illness, marital breakdown, addictions etc. etc.
It is the oppression that has come upon us through the sins of our ancestors and through our own personal sin. We can see it plainly in the great social problems of the world today and the sea of misery that sin has created.
Jesus came to take on Himself the curse for all, so that we can be lifted out of this “horrible pit” and restored to the love and blessing of our Heavenly Father.
When we believe in Him and return to the care of God, our Heavenly Father, we are lifted out of the curse and restored to the blessing. Being blessed does not mean that our lives will be without tribulation or problems but that we are lifted from the demonic oppression. and empowered by the Spirit to be a blessing to many.
Just as Abraham was blessed so we believers are blessed now. Like Abraham believers can say that, because of what Jesus has done, we are blessed as Abraham was blessed, and destined to be a blessing to many.
When God lifts us out of the curse we enter into the plans and purposes He has for us. He gives us a new destiny to live as His sons and daughters.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”(Ephesians 1.5)
We can walk in the awareness that we are restored, through the Cross, to the full favor and blessing of God. We are in a new realm of blessing and destiny. We have a new heritage that we could never earn – we are God’s adopted sons and daughters.
Life will still have its tribulations and difficulties, but through it all, and in at all, we will walk as blessed sons and daughters of God’s and be a blessing to those around us.

Conclusion
The historical fact of Jesus’ death and resurrection is celebrated by believers around the world in the season of Passover and Resurrection. However, the reality of what Jesus has won for us through His Cross and Resurrection is only dimly understood by most believers.
Let’s not just celebrate the fact of His death and resurrection but also appropriate the full benefits of what He ACCOMPLISHED for us.
Today ay we allow the Holy Spirit to make active and effective in our lives the fulness of what Yeshua won for us.