Since Easter is upon us, I thought it might be good to have some sort of contemplation of the cross.
I want to look at four important things that we can observe there.
1. At the cross we observe the awful nature of sin, and the wages it pays. At the cross we observe Man’s inhumanity to Man. Here was one who had gone about doing good. He gave sight to the blind, healing to the leper, food to the hungry; yet ordinary people could be persuaded to cry out, “Crucify Him!” and insist that a criminal be freed and the sinless one condemned. It is interesting to observe that the pagan philosopher Plato declared that if ever an entirely perfect man should exist, people would put him to death at once, because he would show them up.
‘Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to walk,
He gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries! But they at these
Themselves displease and ‘gainst Him rise.
And not content with merely killing him, the same ordinary people must mock him and rail against Him as He hangs upon the cross (Mark 15:29-30; Psalm 22:7-8). Should we be surprised? I think not. Were there not ordinary, outwardly decent people living in Germany at the time of the War who became S.S. Officers or Commandants of Concentration camps and participated in the deaths of millions? Could not ordinary people in Ruanda be persuaded to rise up against their neighbours and hack thousands of them to death with machetes? What about Bosnia? And Syria? Are not somewhat similar things going on at this very moment in the Ukraine? Truly the heart of man, ‘Is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?’ (Jeremiah 17:9).
The Bible tells us that sin separates us from God. Almost the first act of Adam and Eve when they fell into sin was to hide themselves from God, and Cain, after he had murdered his brother decalred, “I shall be hidden from Your face!” And sin has cursed the world. Unbelieving people often ask Christians, “Where is your God of love in the midst of all the suffering and pain in the world? I can’t see Him! What about all these floods and earthquakes? Why doesn’t God do something about them?” Suffice it to say for the moment that we need to understand that the world is not as it was made when God pronounced it, “Very good” (Gen 1:31). It is fallen, because of sin (Gen 3:17), and in among the wonder and the beauty of it, there is ugliness and hardship, disease and death (cf. Rom 8:20ff). ‘The wages of sin is death’ (Rom 6:23). So when Christ suffers and dies upon the cross, He is paying the wages of sin - not His own, for He had none. No, He was, ‘In all points tempted [or ‘tested’] as we are, yet without sin’ (Heb 4:15). He had no sins to answer for, but He answered for us: ‘Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree’ (2 Peter 2:24).
2. At the cross we see the absolute holiness and inflexible justice of God. There are two things that we need to know about God that seem to be forgotten by much of the professing Church today.
Firstly, He is holy; utterly, utterly holy; totally separate from sin. The very first thing that the Apostle John wants to tell us in his first letter, after speaking of his personal witness of our Lord on the earth, is the purity and holiness of God. ‘This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all’ (1John 1:5). Therefore God can have no association with sin. The prophet Habakkuk declares of Him, ‘You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon wickedness’ (Hab 1:13).
The second thing we need to know is that God is utterly righteous; He must judge and punish sin. In Psalm 7:11, the Holy Spirit declares, “God is a just judge…..” I’m sure that every professing Christian will agree with that, but there’s more: “……And God is angry with the wicked every day.” God’s anger against sin is unrelenting and it is also righteous. Sin must be paid for. If, as you leave church tomorrow, you have the misfortune to bang into someone else’s car, then you and the other driver are going to survey the damage and you will think, even if you do not say, “Someone’s going to have to pay for this!” And if you have caused the accident then you or your insurance company are indeed going to have to pay. That is justice- the guilty party pays. Even secular people agree with that principle. People often become furious when guilty people are let off with a fine or a suspended sentence when they should have been sent to jail. The Daily Mail is constantly fulminating against such things. “Where’s the justice?” People ask when some poor child has been killed by a drunken driver who gets away with a driving ban and a few months’ community service. So it is right and proper that God should extract the full penalty for sin- death! Eternal separation from God in hell. ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezek 18:4).
If that were the whole story, then there would be no hope for any of us, because, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one’ (Rom 3:10). We all deserve eternal punishment from God. But, praise His name, that is not the whole story:-
3. On the cross we see God’s plan of Redemption. God is not only holy and righteous, He is also love. He does not want to punish sinners. ‘”Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” Says the LORD God, “And not that he should turn from his ways and live?……..For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the LORD God, “Therefore turn and live!”’ (Ezek 18:23, 32). 2Sam 14:14 tells us that, ‘God devises ways so that a banished person does not remain estranged from Him.’ How can God be just and yet pardon guilty, hell-deserving sinners?
Only through the Lord Jesus Christ. He has taken upon Himself the debt for sin that we cannot pay. He has taken the punishment that we deserve. ‘….He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him’ (Isaiah 53:5). The prophet Nahum asked (Nah 1:6), ‘Who can stand before [God’s] indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of His anger?’ Only the Lord Jesus Christ. There on the cross, all our sins were laid upon His sinless shoulders. ‘For [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us’ (2Cor 5:21). He was made the very epitome of sin and the Father, who cannot look upon sin, turned away. As a sign of this, the sky was darkened and He hung there desolate and forsaken with the baying, jeering mob all around Him; the people mocking, the Pharisees gloating and even the other men on the cross reviling Him (Mark 15:32). The Apostles’ Creed says, ‘He descended into hell.’ This is hell - pain, darkness and separation from God. ‘These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power’ (2 Thessalonians 1:9). And Christ, the sinless, the innocent one suffered it all that we might be spared it.
He suffered anguish that we might know the joy of sins forgiven.
He was cast out that we might be brought in.
He was treated as an enemy that we might be welcomed as friends.
He surrendered to hell’s worst that we might attain heaven’s best.
He was stripped that we might be clothed with righteousness.
He was wounded that we might be healed.
He was made a shameful spectacle that we might inherit glory.
He endured darkness that we might experience eternal light.
He wept that all tears might be wiped from our eyes.
He groaned that we might sing songs of praise.
He endured all pain that we might know endless health.
He wore a crown of thorns that we might wear a crown of victory.
He bowed His head that we might lift up ours in heaven.
He died that we might live forever. [Taken from The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett].
You see, there is a second part to the verse quoted just now. ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2Cor 5:21). Just as our sins were laid upon Him, so His perfect righteousness and obedience are credited to us who believe. This is complete salvation. When God, the Judge of all the earth, looks at Christians, He doesn’t see fallible sinners, struggling and all-too-often failing to keep His laws (Rom 7:14ff); He sees us as clad in the perfect robe of righteousness wrought for us by our Saviour (compare Isaiah 64:6 with 61:10).
No one should imagine for one moment that the Lord Jesus was an unwilling victim of the Father. “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself” (John 10:17-18). Nor should we suppose that by dying on the cross the Lord Jesus extracted from the Father a salvation that He was reluctant to give. ‘In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1John 4:10). It is true, and gloriously so, that the Father gave the Son. It is equally true and equally glorious that the Son gave Himself willingly. Let us not find conflict where none exists.
[continued]
I want to look at four important things that we can observe there.
1. At the cross we observe the awful nature of sin, and the wages it pays. At the cross we observe Man’s inhumanity to Man. Here was one who had gone about doing good. He gave sight to the blind, healing to the leper, food to the hungry; yet ordinary people could be persuaded to cry out, “Crucify Him!” and insist that a criminal be freed and the sinless one condemned. It is interesting to observe that the pagan philosopher Plato declared that if ever an entirely perfect man should exist, people would put him to death at once, because he would show them up.
‘Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to walk,
He gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries! But they at these
Themselves displease and ‘gainst Him rise.
And not content with merely killing him, the same ordinary people must mock him and rail against Him as He hangs upon the cross (Mark 15:29-30; Psalm 22:7-8). Should we be surprised? I think not. Were there not ordinary, outwardly decent people living in Germany at the time of the War who became S.S. Officers or Commandants of Concentration camps and participated in the deaths of millions? Could not ordinary people in Ruanda be persuaded to rise up against their neighbours and hack thousands of them to death with machetes? What about Bosnia? And Syria? Are not somewhat similar things going on at this very moment in the Ukraine? Truly the heart of man, ‘Is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?’ (Jeremiah 17:9).
The Bible tells us that sin separates us from God. Almost the first act of Adam and Eve when they fell into sin was to hide themselves from God, and Cain, after he had murdered his brother decalred, “I shall be hidden from Your face!” And sin has cursed the world. Unbelieving people often ask Christians, “Where is your God of love in the midst of all the suffering and pain in the world? I can’t see Him! What about all these floods and earthquakes? Why doesn’t God do something about them?” Suffice it to say for the moment that we need to understand that the world is not as it was made when God pronounced it, “Very good” (Gen 1:31). It is fallen, because of sin (Gen 3:17), and in among the wonder and the beauty of it, there is ugliness and hardship, disease and death (cf. Rom 8:20ff). ‘The wages of sin is death’ (Rom 6:23). So when Christ suffers and dies upon the cross, He is paying the wages of sin - not His own, for He had none. No, He was, ‘In all points tempted [or ‘tested’] as we are, yet without sin’ (Heb 4:15). He had no sins to answer for, but He answered for us: ‘Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree’ (2 Peter 2:24).
2. At the cross we see the absolute holiness and inflexible justice of God. There are two things that we need to know about God that seem to be forgotten by much of the professing Church today.
Firstly, He is holy; utterly, utterly holy; totally separate from sin. The very first thing that the Apostle John wants to tell us in his first letter, after speaking of his personal witness of our Lord on the earth, is the purity and holiness of God. ‘This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all’ (1John 1:5). Therefore God can have no association with sin. The prophet Habakkuk declares of Him, ‘You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon wickedness’ (Hab 1:13).
The second thing we need to know is that God is utterly righteous; He must judge and punish sin. In Psalm 7:11, the Holy Spirit declares, “God is a just judge…..” I’m sure that every professing Christian will agree with that, but there’s more: “……And God is angry with the wicked every day.” God’s anger against sin is unrelenting and it is also righteous. Sin must be paid for. If, as you leave church tomorrow, you have the misfortune to bang into someone else’s car, then you and the other driver are going to survey the damage and you will think, even if you do not say, “Someone’s going to have to pay for this!” And if you have caused the accident then you or your insurance company are indeed going to have to pay. That is justice- the guilty party pays. Even secular people agree with that principle. People often become furious when guilty people are let off with a fine or a suspended sentence when they should have been sent to jail. The Daily Mail is constantly fulminating against such things. “Where’s the justice?” People ask when some poor child has been killed by a drunken driver who gets away with a driving ban and a few months’ community service. So it is right and proper that God should extract the full penalty for sin- death! Eternal separation from God in hell. ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezek 18:4).
If that were the whole story, then there would be no hope for any of us, because, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one’ (Rom 3:10). We all deserve eternal punishment from God. But, praise His name, that is not the whole story:-
3. On the cross we see God’s plan of Redemption. God is not only holy and righteous, He is also love. He does not want to punish sinners. ‘”Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” Says the LORD God, “And not that he should turn from his ways and live?……..For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the LORD God, “Therefore turn and live!”’ (Ezek 18:23, 32). 2Sam 14:14 tells us that, ‘God devises ways so that a banished person does not remain estranged from Him.’ How can God be just and yet pardon guilty, hell-deserving sinners?
Only through the Lord Jesus Christ. He has taken upon Himself the debt for sin that we cannot pay. He has taken the punishment that we deserve. ‘….He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him’ (Isaiah 53:5). The prophet Nahum asked (Nah 1:6), ‘Who can stand before [God’s] indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of His anger?’ Only the Lord Jesus Christ. There on the cross, all our sins were laid upon His sinless shoulders. ‘For [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us’ (2Cor 5:21). He was made the very epitome of sin and the Father, who cannot look upon sin, turned away. As a sign of this, the sky was darkened and He hung there desolate and forsaken with the baying, jeering mob all around Him; the people mocking, the Pharisees gloating and even the other men on the cross reviling Him (Mark 15:32). The Apostles’ Creed says, ‘He descended into hell.’ This is hell - pain, darkness and separation from God. ‘These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power’ (2 Thessalonians 1:9). And Christ, the sinless, the innocent one suffered it all that we might be spared it.
He suffered anguish that we might know the joy of sins forgiven.
He was cast out that we might be brought in.
He was treated as an enemy that we might be welcomed as friends.
He surrendered to hell’s worst that we might attain heaven’s best.
He was stripped that we might be clothed with righteousness.
He was wounded that we might be healed.
He was made a shameful spectacle that we might inherit glory.
He endured darkness that we might experience eternal light.
He wept that all tears might be wiped from our eyes.
He groaned that we might sing songs of praise.
He endured all pain that we might know endless health.
He wore a crown of thorns that we might wear a crown of victory.
He bowed His head that we might lift up ours in heaven.
He died that we might live forever. [Taken from The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett].
You see, there is a second part to the verse quoted just now. ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2Cor 5:21). Just as our sins were laid upon Him, so His perfect righteousness and obedience are credited to us who believe. This is complete salvation. When God, the Judge of all the earth, looks at Christians, He doesn’t see fallible sinners, struggling and all-too-often failing to keep His laws (Rom 7:14ff); He sees us as clad in the perfect robe of righteousness wrought for us by our Saviour (compare Isaiah 64:6 with 61:10).
No one should imagine for one moment that the Lord Jesus was an unwilling victim of the Father. “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself” (John 10:17-18). Nor should we suppose that by dying on the cross the Lord Jesus extracted from the Father a salvation that He was reluctant to give. ‘In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1John 4:10). It is true, and gloriously so, that the Father gave the Son. It is equally true and equally glorious that the Son gave Himself willingly. Let us not find conflict where none exists.
[continued]
