…who Himself bore our sins in His own
body on the tree… —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of
God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of
Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell.
There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable
than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the
entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with
God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way
for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to
Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of
Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was
manifested in the flesh…” from “…He made Him…to be sin for us…” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2
Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in
the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross
is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems
of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the
Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience.
The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and
every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass
right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ.
The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The
Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision
and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the
collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
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