My wife committed her life to Jesus Christ while she was a junior in high school. Shortly after she became a follower of Jesus Christ, she had a conversation with a friend who was a Jehovah’s Witness about whether or not a Christian should wear a cross. Her friend reasoned that since the cross was the way Jesus was executed, it was totally inappropriate for someone who claimed to be a follower of Jesus to wear one. If your brother was killed in a drive-by shooting, you wouldn’t wear a silver assault rifle. If one of your ancestors had been lynched you wouldn’t wear a gold noose.
In some ways, my wife’s friend had a point we often fail to miss today. You see, after 2,000 years of church history we have a difficult time understanding how scandalous the cross truly was to the people in Jesus Christ’s generation. So far as we know, death by crucifixion on a cross originated with the ancient Persians, but it was the ambitious Greek military general Alexander the Great who made it a popular form of execution. By the time the Roman Empire came to power, crucifixion on a cross was a form of capital punishment reserved for only the worst criminals. To the Jewish mind, being nailed to a cross was such a shameful way to die that they considered any who were crucified to be cursed in God’s sight. The Roman author Cicero wrote, "Let the very name of the cross be far away not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but even from his thoughts, his eyes, his ears" (cited in the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, 1:1038). Had the early Christian church hired a Madison avenue marketing group to help them come up with a logo for the Christian faith, a cross wouldn’t even be on their list it was such a revolting, shameful and offensive symbol.
Yet the cross has endured the test of time as that which seems to capture the essence of the Christian message. In spite of the fact that the cross was a scandal to the Jewish mind and an offense to the Roman mind, the apostle Paul sums up the message of the New Testament as "the word of the cross" (1 Cor 1:18).
Galatians 6:14-- May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ... (NIV).
1 Corinthians 1:17-- For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-- not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power (NIV).
Popular Christian author Max Lucado says "[The cross] rests on the time line of history like a compelling diamond...History has idolized and despised it, goldplated and burned it, worn it and trashed it. History has done everything but ignore it...Never has timber been regarded so sacred" (The Cross 1).
We’re in a series called WHAT DO CHRISTIANS THINK? We’ve been looking at the basic beliefs of the Christian faith, and exploring these beliefs in a way that both irreligious people and Christians can understand. So far we’ve looked at what Christians believe about God, the Bible, the world, and Jesus. Today we’re going to look at what Christians believe about the cross. Today we’re going to explore four pictures that the Bible paints about what happened on the cross.
1. A Courtroom
We’re going to start with the image of a courtroom. The Bible consistently presents God as the judge of the universe. You see, we live in a moral universe where there’s a fixed pattern of right and wrong that God has woven into the fabric of life, and none of us has lived consistently with the moral order of our universe. All of us have failed to conform our lives to what’s right, whether it’s breaking the ten commandments in word or in spirit, or whether it’s simply not living consistently with our own internal moral compass. The Bible’s word for this is the word "transgression" which means to step over a fixed line. All of us have transgressed God’s absolutes, we’ve stepped over the line separating right from wrong, and as a result of that action we stand before God guilty of breaking his law, we stand as transgressors.
Now immediately we protest, "No one’s perfect. After all, I’m not as bad as so-and-so." That of course is our reflex reaction, to justify ourselves, to point to others who’ve failed worse than we have, and if God graded on the curve we’d probably be okay. But since the standard isn’t what other people do but it’s God’s perfect character expressed in God’s absolutes, all of us fall short, we’ve all stepped over the line and become transgressors.
So God’s dilemma is how he can genuinely forgive people who’ve transgressed his law. You see, if it was just a personal injury against God, then God could just forgive and forget. In our legal system, if a person is suing me in civil court over a injury or damage, that person is free to drop the suit and forgive. But if it’s a criminal matter--a violation of the law--then the injured party can’t just choose whether or not I’ll be prosecuted, that’s up to the government not the person. Breaking a law is a public act and the state has an obligation to seek justice--even if the injured party forgives the person who broke the law. So the question is how God can show forgiveness to people like us without compromising the integrity of his justice. If God just looked the other way, he’d compromise his integrity and he’d no longer be righteous. You see, when we transgress God’s law it creates a legal debt that God can’t just pretend doesn’t exist.
So we stand before God guilty of stepping over the line. This isn’t always the emotional feeling of guilt, but it’s an objective kind of guilt that speaks to our status in relation to God’s justice no matter what we feel. We stand with a moral debt, with a legal problem that not even the slickest defense attorney can get us out of.
2 Corinthians 5:21--God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (NIV).
This of course is talking about Jesus Christ. Jesus never transgressed God’s law, he never disobeyed God or stepped over the line. Thus he’s the one person who doesn’t stand in God’s courtroom guilty, the one person who could legitimately stand up and say, "I’m innocent, I’ve broken no laws." Yet this one who knew no sin went to the cross--the one very place reserved for the very worst law breakers--in order to satisfy justice.
When Paul says Jesus was made sin for us, that doesn’t mean that he became a sinner but that he died a sinner’s death in our place, as our substitute. Thus the cross makes possible a divine exchange between Jesus and us--that our transgressions were placed upon the back of Jesus so we might be covered with his integrity.
1 John 2:2-- He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (NIV).
On the cross something the Bible calls an "atoning sacrifice" was accomplished. An atoning sacrifice is the means by which justice is satisfied. The sins of every human being who’s ever lived and who ever will live were placed upon Jesus as he died on the cross.
What does this picture tells us about the cross? Since sin has made us guilty before God, the cross is where God provides forgiveness.
Since God couldn’t be like a parent in denial of his son’s failures, since he couldn’t just pretend that we hadn’t sinned, he did what was necessary to satisfy justice so the scales of justice could be balanced and his forgiveness could be a real forgiveness.
Have you stepped over the line of God’s absolutes? Do you feel the crushing load of guilt, of standing before an infinitely righteous God with bloodstained hands and a guilty conscience? Then come to the cross, come to the place where transgressors find forgiveness. The gavel sounds, the judge speaks, "Guilty but forgiven through the cross."
2. A POW Camp.
But the courtroom isn’t the only picture the Bible gives us; there’s also the picture of a Prisoner of War Camp. The Bible consistently presents sin as a mysterious power that imprisons people. Maybe you remember the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, the young heiress who was abducted by a terrorist group. Although Patty was captured against her will, as the weeks rolled by she became more and more of an active participant in her own captivity. This culminated when her captors robbed a bank and a video surveillance camera showed Patty Hearst at the bank robbery holding an assault rifle. It became hard to separate just how much of Patty’s captivity was against her will and how much was voluntary.
Our dilemma is similar although it occurs opposite to Patty Hearst’s, because our captivity started out voluntary but it led to imprisonment. No one twists our arm and forces us to disobey God, but when we do we become ensnared by our own choices, and we find that what began as a free choice has become a prison. Our sinful choices become barbed wire of our own making, as we find ourselves so entangled in that barbed wire that we’re trapped. We can see this clearly in the process of addiction, that as a person makes the free choice to smoke pot, ingest speed or shoot heroin, that person’s freedom is gradually forfeited and soon that person is trapped in a prison we know as addiction.
I know what it’s like to be enslaved in this way, to be hopelessly tangled in the barbed wire. Anyone who’s struggled with an addiction knows that hell, that sense of powerlessness, that feeling of hopelessness and despair. Maybe it’s drugs and alcohol like it was in my life, or pornography, or overeating, or any other destructive behavior that becomes a self-defeating addictive cycle. Once we’ve become imprisoned, we lack the power to set ourselves free.
Mark 10:45-- "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (NIV).
Jesus described his death on a cross as a ransom to purchase our freedom. This word ransom was commonly used to describe the price a government would have to pay in order to get back a prisoner of war.
Colossians 2:15-- And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (NIV).
This passage gives us another perspective on our captivity, that not only do our addictions hold us in bondage, but that there’s a spiritual dimension as well. The powers and authorities refer to the demonic realm, that these demonic spirits exploit people’s choices to keep people enslaved to sin. In the death of Jesus these spiritual forces-- the co-conspirators with our enslavement--are stripped of their weapons, publicly exposed for what they are, and conquered. The cross then becomes a symbol for our spiritual victory over the power of sin in our lives.
Here we find a second way of looking at the cross. Since sin has imprisoned us, the cross is how God sets us free.
The cross is the announcement, that the worst the enemy could throw at God--the brutality and the shame of death by crucifixion--has been conquered, because three days later that grave was empty. Are you tangled in the barbed wire of your choices? Has an addiction become a prison for you, something you’ve kept hidden from everyone else but you know you’re a captive to a behavior that seems out of control? Then come to the cross... the place where prisoners are set free.
3. A Broken Relationship
A third picture of the cross is the picture of a broken relationship. The Bible presents all of humanity as living in a state of alienation from God, like a person stranded in a desert all alone. We try to cover up this desolate alienation in our lives with God-substitutes--what the Bible calls idols--but these God-substitutes of money, power, relationships, and pleasure only heighten our sense of alienation.
Perhaps no other story in the Bible captures this sense of isolation stemming from our broken relationship as the story Jesus told about the prodigal son (Luke 15). You remember the story, about the young man who asked his father for his inheritance early so he could live life in the fast lane, a life of sex, and drugs, and rock ’n roll. No sooner had the prodigal cashed the check, he left his family behind, he burned the bridge to abandon himself to the pursuit of pleasure. Yet he ends up utterly alone, broken, desperate, and humiliated. Yet how could he go back, he’d burned the bridge, he’d scandalized his family’s name, he’d spurned his father’s love.
All of us can relate to that story because there’s a prodigal within each of our hearts. We too have spurned God’s love, replacing it with the trinkets and playthings of contemporary life, whether it’s a sports car or a ski-boat. We’ve burned our bridge with God, we’ve pursued our own selfish pleasures and broken his heart. And yet we find ourselves alone, utterly alone, humiliated yet unable to face the shame of coming back. How could we gaze at the wonder of God after the filth we’ve seen, how could we walk into the holy presence of God after the places we’ve gone, how could our hands serve God after the many people our hands have used, how could our mouths praise God after the many people we’ve cursed?
Broken relationships are like that, you know, that after time goes by no one wants to make the first move back. I meet people all the time who have family members they haven’t talked to in decades. I spoke to a man this week who’s disowned his daughter because she was a prodigal, and now he never wants to see or speak to her again. Who will humble themselves and make the first move?
The cross was God’s way of making the first move.
Romans 5:8-- But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (NIV).
While we were living as prodigals, still squandering our inheritance, God does something very public, something very costly, something incredible to make the first move. God demonstrated his love through the cross. God made his intentions known through an action, so rather than saying, "I still love prodigal sons and daughters" God demonstrated it.
This last Tuesday I had the honor of speaking at a memorial service for all the California Highway Patrolmen who’ve been killed in the line of duty. These men and women who’d given their lives were said to have paid the ultimate price for their devotion. It’s one thing to say you live by the CHP code of conduct, but to die in the line of duty is to demonstrate that with action. In a similar way the death of Jesus was God’s ultimate demonstration of his love for prodigals. Before we even had a thought of coming back to God, God demonstrated his intentions through the cross.
Here we find the truth of this third picture. Since sin has alienated us from God, the cross is how God shows us His reconciling love.
No wonder the church has consistently written worship songs and hymns with the words "Amazing love" in them. There’s no other way to describe this kind of love than amazing, unexpected and unprecedented. Charles Wesley expressed it this way: "This is a love that’s so amazing and divine that it demands my life, my soul, my all."
Are you a prodigal? Have you wandered away from what you knew to be right only to find yourself lost in the desolate desert of alienation? Have you squandered what God has given you on your own pleasures, wasted the riches of life to satisfy your own desires? Do you wonder if it’s too late for you, if too much has happened, too much time has gone by for you to ever come home? Then look to the cross, the cross of Jesus, the lover of your soul, the one who made the ultimate sacrifice to invite you to come home.
4. A Hospital
A final picture of the cross that we’ll look at is the picture of a hospital. You see, the Bible constantly presents sin as being like a deadly virus that’s infected our lives.
Mark 2:17-- Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (NIV).
Jesus is equating being healthy with being right with God and being sick with being sinful. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 that the human heart is both deceitful and beyond cure, in other words that it’s both sinful and sick. Thinking of sin as a deadly virus that infects our lives helps us understand how serious the problem of sin truly is. Ten thousand times worse than AIDS, the virus of sin kills all who it comes in contact with, it destroys our relationships, it poisons our hearts with bitterness.
Not only does our own sin infect our lives, but the sins of other people against us infect our lives as well. The little girl molested by her uncle, the husband who’s wife leaves him for another man, the little boy who’s brother is killed in a gang shooting...these things infect the victoms’ lives with poison of bitterness and hatred.
But the strange thing about being sick is that nobody likes to admit it. How many of us like going to the doctor? Sometimes the cure seems more painful than the sickness, so we live on in denial. Yet our lives are still infected with sin’s deadly virus.
1 Peter 2:24-- He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed (NIV).
The picture here is Jesus on the cross experiencing all that the virus of sin can throw at him, experiencing every awful symptom. So it’s by the wounds of Jesus on the cross that we find healing. Some have thought that this refers to a promise for physical healing, but that misses the entire point. Sin is being pictured here as a terminal disease infinitely worse than any physical disease, and it’s a disease we need healing from.
This brings us to the meaning of this final picture of the cross. Since sin has infected our lives with its deadly virus, the cross is the means of God’s healing.
Christ’s death doesn’t merely mask the symptoms or help us live more comfortably, but it destroys the virus and heals our lives.
Has your life been infected by your own sins and polluted the sins of others. Do bitterness and resentment brew in your heart? Are you weary of fighting the symptoms, ready to just lie down on your bed in defeat? Then come to the cross, the place where sin sick people find healing, the place of restoration, the place of wholeness.
Conclusion
What do Christians believe about the cross? The cross is not just a symbol of a martyr’s death or a symbol for all that’s wrong with our world. The cross is the place of God’s forgiveness, the place of freedom, the place of reconciling love, the place of spiritual healing.
So in spite of my wife’s friends protests, the symbol of the cross stands at the heart of the Christian faith. But to come to the cross we must make a very difficult confession: We must admit we need the cross, that we are guilty before God, that we are imprisoned by our sin, that we are a prodigal, that we are sick. Those who come convinced of their own righteousness, convinced of their own ability to free themselves, convinced that they’ve never broken God’s heart, convinced that they can heal themselves will find nothing at the cross.
