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The Vicarious Lifeby Travis Brown Download Article
Do you live vicariously through someone? Perhaps you never became the professional athlete you wished you would be as a child and now you live vicariously through a sports player you see on television. Aside from sports heroes, movies stars, and millionaires, there is someone else we all live vicariously through, Jesus Christ. The concept of vicarious living is an ancient one. In the book of Genesis found in the Bible and or Torah, God gives an example of his respects towards vicarious living.
And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes... And he (Abraham) said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. - Genesis 18:26&32 (KJV) God was going to allow the whole city of Sodom to live vicariously through the lives of ten righteous men. However, the set price of atonement, ten righteous men, could not be found and the city was destroyed. Such an event was to reoccur centuries later. Once again, God was going to destroy a place for its wickedness. This time it was not just a city, but the whole world. God was going to let the world live vicariously through others, but instead of ten righteous men, the set price of atonement was one righteous man...and for him to die for everyone else. The righteous man was found and his name was Jesus. Instead of God sending his wrath upon the world he placed it upon Jesus during his sacrifice on the cross. On that day Jesus saved the world and allowed for us to continue living. This is why we can say that all live vicariously through Jesus Christ.
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. - 1 John 2 (NIV)
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