A New Beginning - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2026

Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
Mark 15:33

A New Beginning
The long and sinful history of man was compressed into the three hours of darkness that surrounded the cross. All man's sin and guilt were laid upon Jesus the holy Victim, as He hung suspended there. All God's wrath and indignation against sin were poured out upon Him, when He took the penalty of sin—death and judgment—which we so rightly deserved. The Scriptures declare, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21); and again, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit" (1 Pet. 3:18).

From God's standpoint then, the moral history of man came to an ignominious end on the cross. But while the cross is the end of man's moral history, it also marks the beginning of a new life in Christ for all who believe. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). There must be, then, clear evidence of this new creation life in Christ. For that reason, Paul exhorts, "that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness" (Eph. 4:22-24).

Finally, it is evident that if God would save anyone now, it must be entirely according to His sovereign grace and mercy, and on the basis of Christ's death of substitution on the cross. We must come to God through Christ, confessing our spiritual and moral bankruptcy, lay hold on the mercy which He extends, and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Richard A. Barnett