Have you ever stopped to consider just how strange it is, that Christians are identified with the cross? This morning we are singing some familiar and well-loved hymns about the cross, and we’re used to seeing a cross on buildings and books and Bibles, and maybe on a chain around your neck. But have you stopped to consider just how strange that might seem? Maybe you’re not a Christian - you’re very welcome to be with us - but you wonder why we go on so much about the cross. And well you might wonder.
After all, to be crucified was a terrible death. The agony was, well, excruciating - a word which literally means ‘out of the cross’. It doesn’t bear thinking about. In fact, polite Roman society wouldn’t even talk about crucifixion, much less think about it, so terrible it was. It was a death reserved for the lowest of the low, a form of execution. To give you a modern equivalent, it would be like having an electric chair or a guillotine on your necklace.
Given its gruesomeness, why do Christians sing about the cross, and talk about the cross, and rejoice in the cross? To help us discover just how important the cross is, we’re going to look at this short snippet of a letter written by the apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome. In these six verses, we see just how wonderful the cross of Jesus really is - and why it matters so much to us.
The passage starts with these two words: ‘But now.’ (21) That means that a change has been brought about. It used to be like this, but now it’s like that. And what is the change that has been brought about? Well, up to this point in the letter, Paul has been showing how none of us are in right standing with God. First of all, he showed how the Gentile world was far from God in a number of ways. And he could hear the Jews looking down on the Gentiles, condemning them for their sinfulness.
The problem was, though, that even the Jews were just as bad. They knew what God wanted. They had the Law. But still they failed to do it. And just before our reading, do you see, Paul gives a series of quotations from the Old Testament to show that ‘There is no-one righteous, not even one.’ None of us are in right standing with God. That’s the bad news. But now Paul gets to the good news.
‘But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.’ (21) The Old Testament Law and Prophets point forward to this righteousness, but it’s not earned by keeping the law. We can’t make it by ourselves. So how do we receive it?
‘This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.’ (22)
Just in case we miss it the first time, we’re given two related words to show how we can receive this righteousness. It comes ‘through faith in Jesus Christ’ and it’s ‘to all who believe.’ When we believe this promise, when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, then we receive this righteousness. And it’s available to all who believe - Jew or Gentile; no matter your religious background; no matter where you come from; if you believe you will be made right with God.
That’s what Paul goes on to show: ‘There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.’ (22-24).
Maybe you remember learning Romans 3:23 as a memory verse at Sunday School. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ It’s a helpful summary of our condition without Jesus - what Paul has been showing up to this point in the letter. It’s a picture of an archer firing his arrow at the target, only for it to fall short, to miss the mark, to fail to meet the standard.
But did you notice that it comes within a bigger sentence? And the point Paul is making is that there is no difference whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re right-handed or left-handed - all sorts of people have sinned, and all sorts of people are justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
That word redemption is a word from the slave market, where a slave is redeemed, bought back, freed. And that’s what Jesus does for us - he buys us back for God. He frees us from our slavery to sin. And how did he do it?
‘God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.’ (25)
Jesus gave his life on the cross as a sacrifice to pay the price of our sins. Jesus, dying on the cross, was ‘a sacrifice of atonement.’ To atone is to make ‘at-one’ - to bring together again, to reconcile. We, who have fallen short, have been separated from God, we are brought back to him through the blood of Jesus. We are made at-one with God. But did you notice again that it only happens when we trust the promise, when we believe that he did it for us, ‘through faith in his blood.’
In the cross, we see the love of God - Jesus dying to bring us back to God because he loves you so much. But in the cross we also see the justice of God. You see, God is so holy that he must punish sin. But God also longs for you to be with him and to glorify him and enjoy him for ever. How can the two fit together?
God punishes our sin in the Lord Jesus. Jesus, the only perfect man who never sinned, he stood in our place, condemned and guilty - dying the death we deserved. And he gives us his perfect righteousness. He gives us his life. God is just, and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Do you see again - it’s faith in Jesus that means we are justified, declared innocent, just-as-if-I’d never sinned. And it’s made possible through the cross of Jesus. This is why we delight to sing these songs about the cross. This is why we make such a big deal of Holy Week and Easter. This is why we are people of the cross. Because in the cross we are redeemed. In the cross we find atonement. In the cross we are free. In the cross we are forgiven.
Perhaps you’ve never really understood the significance of the cross before. Perhaps you’ve never knelt at the cross, and felt the burden of your sins roll away. Jesus offers you forgiveness and peace and life and so many more blessings today, if you’ll come to him, and trust in him to be your Saviour.
Perhaps you would find it helpful to pray this prayer. I’ll read it out first, and if you’d like to pray it, then you can join me the second time through:
Lord God,
I’m sorry for my sins, all the wrong things I have done.
Thank you that Jesus died for me.
Thank you that you will forgive my sins and make me new.
I trust in Jesus today.
Help me to live for him. Amen.
This sermon was preached at the Seniors' Easter Service in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Monday in Holy Week 15th April 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment