Before and after the cross. Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to live before Jesus walked the earth? The first thing that enters the mind may be their lack of computers, cars and take-away pizza, or that they were lacking in medicine and knowledge of micro organisms, but what about the thoughts and attitudes, people held at that time? Not so? Well, consider it now! How about God? If you read the old testament, you may easily think that He acted differently then. Why is that? What was it, really, that Jesus accomplished here on earth? I have considered this extensively during the last half year, and sometimes, the "Hollywood trap" surfaces – that everything that happened before World War II, happened in black and white. Yeah, and in the Dark Ages, the sun didn't shine at all, did it? Oh, yes! The sun has been shining at all times, and children have been playing with balls and sticks. They have laughed and cried. Still, there were a lot of things that transpired when Jesus died on the cross, that makes it worthwhile to examine if life in certain ways may have been very different before that time. In Exodus 25:8, God started instructing His people to make a tent for Him to live in, so that God could dwell among humans. Later God moved to the temple. 1. Chron 17:4-12 is a strange section of the bible. Here, God explains to David how He had been moving around from tent to tent, never complaining of not having a house to live in. This shows how God in fact was present among His people. He lived in a tent and walked around. This just sounds totally crazy, but if we had lived in those times, we probably would have taken it for granted. Reading along in the old testament, we see that God did get his quarters in the temple and lived there. He still came out, every now and then, and walked among His people, but His glory remained in the temple. Once a year, the high priest was allowed to visit God in His glory, in the holy of holies. If the high priest had an unrepented sin, or had misconducted a ritual, he died there. In order to get a hold of the body in such situations, he had a rope attached to his leg, and was pulled out if he didn't come out by himself. It was brutal times. All along, the people had a lot of laws and rules to follow. God knew that humans could not live up to this standard, so there were ways to be cleansed from sin, but the cleansing also had to follow certain rules. Altogether it was rather complex and very impersonal. Lets fast forward to the fateful day when Jesus was crusified. Have you seen the movie "Passion of Christ"? It is a very vivid and strong display of how Jesus died, but did you understand why He died? This is what Matthew say: "Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, 'This man is calling for Elijah.' And immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. But the rest of them said, 'Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.' And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook; and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many." (Matt 27:45-53, NASB) Not only did dead people come alive and other strange happenings, but the veil of the temple was torn. The veil covering the holy of holies, where God lived! What happened? Did God move out? Where did He go? The Bible answers this several places: 2.Cor 6:16: "we are the temple of the living God", Eph 2:22: "in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.", Eph 3:16-17: "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love." So, God moved into the believers and started dwelling in their hearts. When Jesus died on the cross, He took upon Himself, the sins of everybody in the whole world, past, present and into all future. Because of this, God could be reconciled with all humans. Also, it's no longer dangerous to enter the holy of holies. We who have recieved Christ as saviour have the holy of holies inside of us, and we may communicate with God whenever and whereever we are, on the bus, while eating, or even sitting on the toilet bowl. It's just awesome to live like this, and all because of what happened at the cross. The crucifixion was a revolution without comparison in history. Then, mankind was set free! It's not without reason we have started counting the years since His birth. Although, really we should be counting the years since His death. The crucifixion was the beginning of a brand new era in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, a lot of us Christians don't understand what we have inside of us – The Living God. Listen to the bible: "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Cor 5:17, NASB) "For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." (Gal 6:15, NASB) In the old testament, the prophet Ezekiel (36:26) was told of this change, long before Jesus was born: "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Jeremiah (31:34), too, had a revelation of what was to come, and how personal it would become: "And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." So, stand up, you who are saved, for Jesus lives in you, leading you day by day, forward, upward and into new and exciting experiences and paradigm shifts. We who are saved have a brand new life to live, which nobody ever lived, before Jesus, and which a lot of people still don't live or experience today, to any extent. But I just want to say: Don't let rules hold you down, but try out life on your own, and find out what's good and worth living for! "If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!" (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence." (Col 2:20-23, NASB) "for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Phil 2:13, NASB) In this way, we can ourselves train our senses to distinguish between good and evil, instead of just accepting everything our pastor, priest or other leaders tell us. Not that what they are saying is not right. Most of the time it comes from a good heart with the best wishes for our lives, but if we don't experience these things ourselves, we will never mature, and without maturity, we react with fear, every time we see something that doesn't match our believes. Maturity also brings us true freedom, so break out and grab it. That's our calling (Gal 5:13), and after the cross, that's also possible! The work of Jesus is fantastic! He deserves all praise and honour! I must give credit to Leif Jacobsen for much of the understanding behind this article. It was his teaching on dispensationalism at the bible school, wheich helped me see all this.