THE CROSS - SUBSTITUTION
Actor Kevin Bacon recounted when his 6-year-old son saw Footloose for the first time: He said, "Hey, Dad, you know that thing in the movie where you swing from the rafters of that building? That’s really cool, how did you do that?" I said, "Well, I didn’t do that part--it was a stunt double." "What’s a stunt double?" he asked. "That’s someone who dresses like me and does things I can’t do." "Oh," he replied and walked out of the room looking a little confused. A little later he said, "Hey, Dad, you know that thing in the movie where you spin around on that gym bar and land on your feet? How did you do that?" I said, "Well, I didn’t do that. It was a gymnastics double." "What’s a gymnastics double?" he asked. "That’s a guy who dresses like me and does things I can’t do." There was silence from my son, then he asked in a concerned voice, "But then dad, what did you do?" "I got all the glory," I sheepishly replied. That’s the grace of God in our lives. Jesus took our sin upon himself and did what we couldn’t do. We stand forgiven and bask sheepishly triumphant in Jesus’ glory.
Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Why was the cross necessary? Why did Jesus have to die? To understand Easter we need to understand the cross. When we truly understand what happened when Jesus died then we also understand the significance of his birth and resurrection.
Heb 10:11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
1. PENALTY OF SIN IS REMOVED - Jesus takes our sin
The idea of substitution is clearly seen throughout the Bible. In Genesis we see this in Abraham willing to sacrifice his son Isaac but sacrificing the ram instead. The sheep died in Isaac’s place. God provided the sacrifice. In the Old Testament God gave Israel a pattern to follow which pointed to what would happen on the cross. The sacrificial system which God initiated was a picture of the cross and pointed to the day that the lamb of God would take away the sins of the world forever.
Lev 16:7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats--one lot for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat . 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the LORD and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat
1Pet 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.
Father Maximilian Kolbe, was a Catholic priest and a prisoner at Auschwitz. On August 14 of 1941 a prisoner escaped from the camp. The rule was that if any person escaped 10 prisoners would be killed. All the prisoners were brought out. ’The fugitive has not been found!’ the commandant screamed. ’You will all pay for this. Ten of you will be locked in the starvation bunker without food or water until they die.’
The prisoners trembled in terror. The ten were selected, including a prisoner named Franciszek Gajowniczek (Gah-yav-NEE-chek). He couldn’t help a cry of anguish. ’My poor wife!’ he sobbed. ’My poor children! What will they do?’ When he uttered this cry of dismay, Maximilian stepped silently forward and stood before the commandant and said, ’I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.’ Gajowniczek was returned to the ranks, and the priest took his place.
The Nazis kept Kolbe in the starvation bunker for two weeks and then put him to death by lethal injection. Gajowniczek survived the prison. He died on March 13, 1995, in Poland at the age of 95 - and 53 years after Father Kolbe had saved him. But he was never to forget the ragged monk. Every year on August 14 he went back to Auschwitz. He spent the next five decades paying homage to Father Kolbe, honoring the man who died on his behalf. In October of 1982, Franciszek Gajowniczek, his wife, children, and grandchildren gathered with 150,000 others in St. Peter’s Square in Rome to celebrate Father Kolbe’s victory over hatred at Auschwitz.
Another survivor of Auschwitz described the effect of Kolbe’s action: "It was an enormous shock to the whole camp. We became aware that someone among us in this spiritual dark night of the soul was raising the standard of love on high. Someone unknown, like everyone else, tortured and bereft of name and social standing, went to a horrible death for the sake of someone not even related to him. Therefore it is not true, we cried, that humanity is cast down and trampled in the mud, overcome by oppressors, and overwhelmed by hopelessness. Thousands of prisoners were convinced the true world continued to exist and that our torturers would not be able to destroy it. To say that Father Kolbe died for us or for that person’s family is too great a simplification. His death was the salvation of thousands. ... We were stunned by his act, which became for us a mighty explosion of light in the dark camp."
On the cross Jesus became our substitute. A divine exchange occurred. Jesus took our place and died the death which we deserved. This explains His words from the cross:
Matt. 27: 45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" -- which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
These are the only words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew and Mark. Perhaps this is because they made such an impact on those who heard them. On the cross the divine exchange takes place. Jesus is punished in our place.
2. PARTITION OF SIN IS REMOVED - Jesus gives us His righteousness
On the cross Jesus became our substitute and paid for our sin. Not only is our sin paid for but we are given the righteousness of Christ.
2 Cor 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.
Because we are given the righteousness of Christ there is no longer anything which keeps us from entering into God’s presence. In the Old Testament sacrificial system the priest would enter into the Holy of Holies only once a year and then only with a perfect sacrifice. A rope would be tied to his leg unless the holiness of God killed him and he had to be dragged out. We no longer have to fear. God welcomes us into his presence.
Heb 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
Mark 15:37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. 38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
To say that we are given the righteousness of Christ means that we are credited with all of the good things that Jesus ever did. We do not enter heaven with an empty account. When God looks down upon us all He sees is His perfect son. There is nothing which stands in the way of intimate fellowship with the father.
During the US civil war a soldier in the Union army had had lost his older brother and his father in the war. He went to Washington, D.C., to see President Lincoln to ask for an exemption from military service so he could go back and help his sister and mother with the spring planting on the farm. He got a day pass from the military to go to the White House and plead his case. When he arrived he was told, "You can’t see the president! Don’t you know there’s a war on? The president’s a very busy man. Now go away, son!" So he left, very disheartened, and was sitting on a little park bench beside the White House when a little boy came up to him. The lad said, "Soldier, you look unhappy. What’s wrong?" The soldier looked at this young boy and began to spill his heart out to this young lad about his situation, about his father and his brother having died in the war, and how he was the only male left in the family and was needed desperately back at the farm for the Spring planting. The little boy took the soldier by the hand and led him around to the back of the White House. They went through the back door, past the guards, past all the generals and the high ranking government officials until they got to the president’s office itself. The little boy didn’t even knock on the door but just opened it and walked in. There was President Lincoln with his secretary of state, looking over battle plans on the desk. President Lincoln looked up and said, "What can I do for you, Todd?" And Todd said, "Daddy, this soldier needs to talk to you." And right then and there the soldier had a chance to plead his case to President Lincoln, and he was exempted from military service due to the hardship he was under. Such is the case with our ascended Lord. We have access to the Father through the Son. It is the Son who brings us to the Father’s throne and says, "Daddy, here is someone who wants to talk to You."
3. POWER OF SIN IS REMOVED – Jesus sends the Holy Spirit
Not only has the penalty and partition of sin been removed but so has it’s power over us. Without Christ in our lives we were bound by the law, separated from God and at the mercy of the devil. All that changed because of Jesus.
Rom 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus
Rom 8:3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
A duck hunter was with a friend in the wide-open land of southeastern Georgia. Far away on the horizon he noticed a cloud of smoke. Soon he could hear crackling as the wind shifted. He realized the terrible truth: a brushfire was advancing, so fast they couldn’t outrun it. Rifling through his pockets, he soon found what he was looking for-a book of matches. He lit a small fire around the two of them. Soon they were standing in a circle of blackened earth, waiting for the fire to come. They didn’t have to wait long. They covered their mouths with handkerchiefs and braced themselves. The fire came near -- and swept over them. But they were completely unhurt, untouched. Fire would not pass where fire had already passed. The law is like a brushfire. I cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned over place, not a hair of my head will be singed. Christ’s death is the burned-over place. There I huddle, hardly believing yet relieved. The law is powerful, yet powerless: Christ’s death has disarmed it
Not only are we no longer under the law but Christ has given us His Spirit which guides us into all truth and is, if we allow him, shaping us into the likeness of Jesus
An author named Bret Harte wrote a story about the Wild West, called “The Luck of Roaring Camp.” Roaring Camp was the meanest, toughest Mining Town in all the West. There were more murders and thefts than any other place around. Roaring Camp was inhabited entirely by men except for one woman who made her living in the only way she knew how. Her name was Cherokee Sal. The baby changed everything. And that story gives a small picture of the way the Son of God can transform our lives. Has the Bethlehem Baby changed your life?
Because on the cross the penalty of sin has been removed – Jesus has paid the debt. In the cross the partition of sin has been removed – Jesus has given us His on righteousness so we have free access into the very presence of God. Lastly on the cross the power of sin is also removed. We have been set free and given the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us.
The power of sin is broken in our lives because we have one with us who is able to do what we cannot.
Steve Winger from Lubbock, Texas, had a last college test - a final in a logic class known for its difficult exams: The professor told them they could bring as much information to the exam as could fit on to a piece of notebook paper. Most students crammed as many facts as possible on their 8-1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper. But one student walked into class, put a piece of notebook paper on the floor, and had an advanced logic student stand on the paper. The advanced logic student told him everything he needed to know. He was the only student to receive an "A." The ultimate final exam will come when we stand before God and he asks, "Why should I let you in?" On our own we cannot pass that exam. Our creative attempts to earn eternal life fall far short. But we have Someone who will stand in for us.
