Sermon Snippet – What the Cross of Christ Confirms – Part II
INTRODUCTION – Last October on Communion Sunday, I preached the first part of this message. We found that the Cross of Christ confirms that He loves us, that He forgives us, that He finds joy in us, and that He wants us to be with Him and that He wants to be with us. The death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is a central part of the Christian faith. Today, let us consider three more things that the Cross of Christ confirms for all Christians.
1. THE CROSS OF CHRIST CONFIRMS THE SERIOUSNESS OF SIN
Colossians 2:13-15 describes both the transactional and transformational aspects of the substitutionary atonement of Christ Jesus. Paul uses the imagery of an official document of debt to tell us that all of our sin is written down – staring us in the face, undeniable – and that we have no means of paying that crushing, limitless, personal debt. Only the individual intervention of Jesus could avail against these overwhelming obligations: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross” (verse 14). Note that He did not simply write off our debts or even pay them off with heavenly riches. No, He took our sins and shed His blood for them, dying to blot out that infinite IOU: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver or gold… but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:18a, 19). The death of Jesus is my death, your death, our deaths. The fact that this real physical and spiritual death of God Himself, God the Son, is the only way to remove our debt of “all trespasses” (verse 13) confirms the seriousness of sin – and our Savior was deadly serious on His Cross.
2. THE CROSS OF CHRIST CONFIRMS THE PERIL OF OUR POSITION
This point is closely connected to the first. Without the Cross, each one of us is spiritually dead: “And you, being dead in your sins” (Colossians 2:13a). A dead person can do nothing about his debt of sin, cannot even pay back a pittance. Our situation is such that we cannot take even a halting half-step toward the Holy One. We are not dead men walking, for we are not even walking: “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Romans 3:10b-11). No, He seeks after us. The Cross of Christ confirms the peril of our position.
3.THE CROSS OF CHRIST CONFIRMS THE GLORY OF GOD
Colossians 2:13 states emphatically that God has given us life eternal (“quickened”) and has done so “openly” and triumphantly (verse 15). The words of Galatians 6:14 well summarize this truth: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” This “world” of wickedness and woe seeks signs and wonders but callously and carelessly discards the One Whom Scripture calls “Wonderful” (Isaiah 9:6). John 6 records the miraculous feeding of more than 5,000. Rather than follow Jesus, the vast majority demanded another miracle. Free food or free, full, and forever forgiveness – there is no comparison! Yet, “from that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him” (verse 66). “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign: and there shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:39-40). A temporary sign or everlasting salvation – again, there is no comparison! The greatest “sign” of all was still given to that “evil and adulterous generation” …
CONCLUSION – … for Jesus died on that Cross and rose the third day, as He had predicted, to secure our salvation. The Cross of Christ confirms the seriousness of sin, the peril of our position, and the glory of God. May we meditate upon and marvel at these divine truths as we partake of the emblems of our dear Savior’s death on the Cross.