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The Cross of Christ
Words could not make it clear that Jesus Christ died not because of anything in Himself but because of something in us; that it was not the wages of His sin but of ours that He paid on the cross. It was our sin He put away, our sins that He bore, our iniquities which were laid upon Him. Death had no claim on Him; then the death He died was for the sake of others and to accomplish something for them which they were unable to accomplish for themselves. The death of Christ was obviously for the purpose of taking up the sin question and dealing with it in such a way as to bring salvation to man. Even more, would it also deal with it in such a way as to bring satisfaction to God? God has an unalterable, irrevocable attitude toward sin which is most clearly revealed in His judgment upon it. "The wages of sin is death." (Rom 6:23) Death is the expression of God's implacable condemnation of sin. Death is the racial doom. In Adam ALL die because in Adam ALL sinned. Sin separates from God. God cannot stay in the presence of sin even when that sin is upon His own beloved Son. Then there's the "cup". Could the salvation of man be fulfilled without drinking that "cup?" This is the "cup" that caused the agony of soul in Gethsemane - an agony so terrible that His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to a sinned stained corrupted ground, an agony so awful it took Him back three times to the Father to cry out for release; an agony so intense that a heaven sent angel appeared to strengthen Him. This is the "cup" that caused the intolerable anguish of spirit, which wrung from the sufferer upon Calvary that heartbreaking cry: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" There were no other way in which sin could be dealt with to God's satisfaction and man's salvation.
The "hour" had come. The event foretold and foreshadowed for centuries had taken place - "the most stupendous event in the history of man, the only event in the history of God." It was the pivotal hour in the life of both heaven and of earth. "The Son of God had died at the hands of men. This astounding fact is the moral center of all things. A bygone eternity knew no other future; an eternity to come shall know no other past. That death was the world's crisis." The death Of Christ Jesus is the pivotal fact in Christianity. By the mouth of all the prophets God foretold that Christ should suffer, wounded, bruised, scourged, oppressed, afflicted. On the way to Emmaus as He walked and talked with the two disciples who were recounting to Him the tragedy of His crucifixion He said to them: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" Luke 24:26
A suffering crucified Christ was the Christ preached by the apostles and to them His sufferings were a vital factor in the sinner's salvation because of their expiatory nature. Paul testifying before King Agrippa preached a suffering Christ.
"Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles." Acts 26:22-23
Peter told us that it was through the victorious atoning sufferings of Christ that men were brought back to God.
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit..." 1 Peter 3:18
"Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." 1 Peter 4:1-2
"For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Hebrews 2:10
Respectable sinners will flock to the church today to listen to hear ministers preach on the life of Jesus, many are even not reluctant to listening to an occasional sermon of the death of Christ, providing that death is preached only as the greatest example of sacrificial love, or as the culminating event in a life of obedience, or as an act of martyrdom in a good sense. But in this age there is a widespread refusal on the part of the man in the pew, and of the part of the man in the pulpit a conspicuous rejection of the Biblical, evangelical teaching regarding the death of the cross.
The cross of Christ, the great divide.
The cross of Christ makes a clean cut cleavage between the two spheres, the sphere of death, darkness and disorder, and the sphere of life, light and liberty, and it challenges sinners to decide in which they purposed to live. The cross of Christ is the battlefield on which the conflict between Satan and God over the sovereignty of human lives is being waged and it compels man to take sides either for or against God. The cross of Christ marks the boundary line between the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God and it calls subjects in the one to come out and to become subjects in the other. The cross of Christ finds men on the natural and opens for them life on the spiritual and then appeals to them to enter the open door. The cross of Christ is the great divide; it separates men into two classes, the unsaved and the saved.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. " 1 Corinthians 1:18
The Cross of Christ - a double exposure
The cross of Christ is the place of exposure. There as nowhere else is revealed the hatred of man for God and the Love of God for man. Sin is seen at its worst and love is seen at its best in the cross.
"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" Acts 2:23
The desperate, despicable wickedness of the human heart is uncovered at Calvary. In the crucifixion of the Holy One sin came out into the open and disclosed its inwardness. "Him...ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" Sin nailed the Savior to a cross and so expose to the world its ugly hideousness. Sinners stained their hands with the blood of their Savior and thereby revealed the length and breadth, the height and depth of the infamy of sin. The sin of man could not outstrip the Love of God. God, the Father, spelled out in capital letters on the cross His unquenchable Love for sinners. Only in the laying down of His sinless life in death as the sinners substitute do we see the perfect outshining of His infinite, limitless love. The cross of Christ is the heart of God broken by sin. It discovers to us unfathomable depths of God's love.
"in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. “Romans 5:6-8
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16
"...our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father...” Galatians 1:3-4
The cross of Christ - the place of Victory
Salvation from sin and all its consequences, deliverance from Satan and his allies, were gained for the sinner at the cross.
"... Surely he hath borne our grief’s, and carried our sorrows....
... and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all....
... when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand...
... for he shall bear their iniquities...
... and he bare the sin of many... “Isaiah 53:4, 6, 10-12
"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Hebrews 9:28
"And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin" 1 John 3:5
"in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." Hebrews 2:17
Sin had brought on the human race four terrible consequences for which Christ as sin-bearer assumed responsibility.
The first is guilt. The whole world is guilty before God. (Romans 3:19) The whole of man is defiled. That this guilt might be removed God made Christ sin and then treated Him as sin.
"for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21
The second is death. "The wages of sin is death." The sentence of death rested upon the whole human race. Christ became man so that by dying a real death He executed the death sentence upon sinners.
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 5:6
"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man... that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;" Hebrews 2:9, 14
The third is the curse on all who transgress. Sin is lawlessness and the penalty for broken law is the curse. Christ voluntarily offered Himself and was made a curse for us.
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Galatians 3:13-14
The fourth consequence of sin is the wrath of God. God hates sin. God's holiness and righteousness demanded that sin be expelled and punished. On the cross the full force of God's wrath against sin was upon Christ even to the point of conscious separation from His Fathers presence.
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Romans 5:9
"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin..." Isaiah 53:10
The cross of Christ is God's starting point and centrality of victory over Satan and his allies.
"He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. “1 John 3:8
"... that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it (that is in the cross)." Colossians 2:14-15
By the death of Christ, Satan’s head was bruised, his doom was sealed. The hour of Christ death was the hour of Satan’s defeat.
"Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." John 12:31
The death of Christ meant an open and decisive victory for God over all the principalities and powers in rebellion against Him. It severs the believer from the power of darkness. The devil has two active, aggressive allies in his diabolical work of keeping sinners living in self will and rebellion toward God. They are the "world" and the "flesh." For both God has made provision in the cross of Christ.
"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” Galatians 6:14
"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Galatians 5:24
In the cross of Christ the sinner who truly desires it may find complete deliverance from the evil one and all his entanglements. Satan's reign may end there if he seeks release through the cross.
The cross of Christ - a divinely meeting place
Sin made every man unrighteous in God's sight, (Romans 3:10-12) and created an impassable chasm between a righteous God and an unrighteous sinner. Sin also disqualified man for doing anything to bridge this chasm, placing upon God the whole responsibility of making a way of access into His presence and of providing a meeting place between Himself and the sinner. How could God provide such a meeting place and not deny Himself through compromise?
Before God was a law that was holy and right. It was the expression of His own character, the essence of His own nature. Before God was not only a broken law but also a broken relationship. Viewing the sinner in his relationship to God his fundamental need is a way of access and acceptance with God despite his guilt. It is equal to even this even