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The death of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago was
not just a heroic act that caught the imagination of a band of
religious idealists. Nor was it an act of weakness.
It was a loving, courageous, death-defying
mission of rescue. The result is that the person who trusts in Jesus
Christ is changed in his relationship to God. He is changed in his
relationship to his own sin. And his future is changed, both for this
life and the life to come.
That change is spelled out in four basic
concepts that show the results of what Christ did for us. Here is
what is ours once we have accepted the sacrificial, substitutionary
death of Christ.
1. RECONCILIATION: We are at peace with God.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He made it possible for us to be
reconciled to God and restored to fellowship with Him by faith in
Christ. Enmity is turned to friendship, alienation to sonship,
hostility to faith, and hatred to love because of Christ's sacrifice
on the cross (Rom. 5:1,10; 2 Cor. 5:18-20; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20-22).
2. JUSTIFICATION: We are declared right before
God. When Jesus Christ died, He absorbed our punishment. Therefore,
when we believe in Him, our sins are no longer held against us (Rom.
3:24; 4:5; 5:1,9; 8:30,31; Titus 3:4-7).
3. REDEMPTION: We are ransomed from our sin
and condemnation. The death of Christ also means we have been bought
out of bondage to sin and Satan. The ransom price for our sin has
been paid in full (Matt. 20:28; Rom. 3:24; 1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:13;
4:4,5; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Titus 2:14; Heb. 9:12; 1 Pet. 1:18,19).
4. PROPITIATION: We are free from God's wrath.
This is possible because an acceptable offering has been made on our
behalf. The offering has been made to appease God, to turn His wrath
from us (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).
The irony of all this is that something as
ugly as the cross--something revolting enough to cause people to
reject the best Man who ever lived--is actually our only hope of
rescue from our spiritual helplessness. That's what the Bible says.
And that's what Christ confirmed when He rose triumphantly from the
dead. The cross was not a mistake. It wasn't a good life falling on
bad times. The irony of the cross is that (1) it is the greatest
example of God's love, and that (2) in dying, Christ also showed us
how to live. The first point of irony is this:
Christ's Death Demonstrated God's Love The
great truth of the most familiar and best-loved verse of the Bible is
that the cross was evidence of God's love.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life (John 3:16).
A parallel passage reads, "By this we
know love, because He laid down His life for us" (1 John 3:16).
Some people look for God's love in nature. But
they won't find it guaranteed there, because the message of the
created world gives conflicting messages. Sometimes it seems to tell
us that God is wonderfully loving. The warm sunshine, the gentle
rain, the blooming flowers of the fields, and the watchful care of a
cow for her calf all seem to say, "God is love."
At other times, however, the message of nature
is quite the opposite. Sun and drought make the ground hard and
unproductive. A killer tornado may roar out of a darkened sky without
warning. Or an erupting volcano may wipe out entire villages, killing
hundreds and making thousands homeless. No, the love of God cannot
always be seen in nature.
Nor is God's love clearly evident in history.
A family of immigrants to the United States from Vietnam or Korea may
say that coming to the USA proved to them that God loves them. But if
you talk to the young mother of three children whose husband was just
killed by airplane hijackers, she may scoff bitterly at the idea that
a loving God controls all events. Many of the Jewish people who lived
through the horrors of Auschwitz or Dachau would also reject the idea
that God's love is demonstrated in history.
When Christians talk about God's love being
made known, therefore, they must point to something else as evidence.
According to the Bible, that evidence is the cross. Because Jesus
Christ is God's Son, His death was a profound declaration of God's
love.
God has shown His love for us--but at great
cost. In the person of Jesus Christ, God became a member of the human
family. He lived His whole life without sin. Then, though innocent
Himself, He died a terrible death to make our salvation possible.
Shining through the darkness that surrounded Calvary that fateful day
was the wondrous brilliance of the love of God. Think for a moment
about what Christ suffered, and remember that it was for us.
Stand in awe as He agonizes before God the
Father in Gethsemane until His sweat becomes like great drops of
blood falling to the ground.
Follow in horror as He is arrested like a
criminal, mutilated by a Roman whip, and tortured, mocked, and
derided with a crown of thorns.
Weep for Him as He stumbles under the heavy wooden
beam He is forced to carry to His place of execution.
Cringe in revulsion as hardened Roman soldiers
pound spikes through His hands, drive nails through His feet, and
roughly drop the beam into place.
Listen to Him as He hangs there on the cross,
praying for His enemies, talking lovingly to His mother, and
promising salvation to the criminal who repents.
Be still as you see the sky grow black at
noon, and as you sit through the 3 hours of eerie midday darkness.
Listen to His cry of abandonment, "My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
Remember that on the cross, Jesus endured the
agony of hell for you and me. God was His Father. He had existed with
Him from all eternity in a relationship closer than anything we could
ever know. Yet the Father "made Him who knew no sin to be sin
for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2
Cor. 5:21).
The second point of irony is:
Christ's Death Showed Us How To Live
Not only did the cross give us the highest
evidence of God's love, but it also provided us with a spiritual
principle of life. The love that led Jesus Christ to this
unparalleled deed of self-sacrifice was an example for us.
We are to love as He loved; to live as He
lived. The Lord Jesus had the cross in mind the evening before His
crucifixion when He told His disciples, "A new commandment I
give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you
also love one another" (John 13:34). Calvary love is to be
standard for our love.
Jesus Christ also had His death on the cross
in view when He said this:
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground
and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this
world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him
follow Me (John 12:24-26).
This is the law of the harvest: A seed must
die before it can produce a plant. Jesus Christ was the
"seed" that had to die. Yet His death produced spiritual life
for all who would trust Him. We are the fruit of His suffering and
death.
But the law of death to bring life did not end
with Christ's cross. Jesus declared that it also applies to His
followers. We must take the way of the cross, the way of dying to our
own selfish desires, if we are to bear the kind of fruit that God
created us to produce (Eph. 2:8-10).
The apostle Paul saw this principle in
Christ's death. Time and again he spoke of being crucified with
Christ, of dying to self, and of walking the Calvary road. With deep
conviction he wrote, "But God forbid that I should glory except
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been
crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14).
Because the cross of Christ was Paul's
inspiration and confidence, he could write off the world-system as
something useless and dead. He saw nothing in it to attract him.
When we live by the law of the harvest, we
will be fruitful in our service for Christ. Following His example, we
must first die to self. As we do, we will be able to say with Paul,
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,
but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me"
(Gal. 2:20).
Here again is the irony of the cross. Not only
does it bring God's life to us, but it brings our life to God.
Curtis
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