April 6, 2012 Two Messages – Law and Gospel
Matthew 27:45-46 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 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?”
1 Corinthians 1:22-24 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
I. The Law of the Cross
When God created Adam and Eve and brought them together He said, “What man has joined together, let man not separate.” Marriage was created to be a triangle, with man and woman joined together under God; both giving glory to God and serving Him. Their relationship was created to help them grow closer to each other and also to serve and love God in the process of it all.
Satan played upon the relationship with man and woman to bring about a separation between both of them and God. Adam was present when Satan tempted Eve, and the Scriptures say that he was not deceived by the serpent’s cunning. (1 Timothy 2:14) Nonetheless, Adam allowed his wife to lead him into sin as well. So, it would appear that Adam chose to love his wife more than he loved God when he ate from the Tree that he knew he shouldn’t have eaten from.
As a result, something terrible happened. Adam and Eve still remained on the same side, but at the cost of their marriage with God. They had become divorced from God and bound to Satan. When God came into the Garden, they ran from Him and treated Him like a monster. Imagine how God felt, having His own creatures that He gave positions of power and prestige run from Him and treat Him so. That’s when God told Satan that He was going to do something about this unholy marriage of humanity with Satan. He said,
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
The only way that God could re-establish a relationship with us was by ruining the relationship between us and Satan. He would have to put “enmity” between us; cause us to hate each other; show us that Satan has not freed us but imprisoned us in our own selfishness and sin.
God said in marriage that no one should separate the love of a man with a woman. What happens often is that something or someone does separate a man from a woman. It might be another man or woman. It might be a job or a hobby or a drink. Usually the attraction attacks one of the spouses which draws him or her away from the relationship with the other.
Something completely different happens in the case of God. Within the Unity of the One God we have a Triune God; three Persons. These three Persons have lived in perfect unity for eternity. This Triune God also decided to create humanity; with which He has a perfect and unconditional love. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all love humanity in a way we cannot understand; not based on anything in us but instead based on everything in Him. So it His common love for humanity that ended up causing an internal divorce within Himself. The only way He could eternally love us was if He temporarily hated Himself.
How can we explain this? When a husband and wife truly love each other and they are together for many years and one of them dies, it feels like a part of them has died as well. It sometimes doesn’t take long for the other to die shortly thereafter. Jesus, the Son of God, lives in an eternal relationship with the Father. The very nature of being called “the Father” indicates that you must have a Son. You can’t be a Father without a Son. So the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have existed into eternity.
Read through the words of the Gospel and it is quick to note what a bond the Father had with the Son. At His baptism the Father spoke from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) Listen also to the way that Jesus talks about His relationship with the Father. In John 5:19-20 He said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.” The Father took great pride and joy in the Son; and the Son loved to give glory to the Father. They had been One for eternity, and even in Jesus’ humility they still had an intimate bond that none of us could understand, not even a conjoined twin.
Yet this eternally One God decided that out of a mutual love for us, He would undergo a divorce within Himself; for US. The way the Scriptures describe this is just awful to think about. Listen to the words of Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:5-6 We considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced . . . he was crushed . . . the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Imagine if your neighbor was a 350 pound lineman for a professional football team, and his daughter was molested and murdered, and he thought YOU did it. Imagine the anger and hatred he would have at you as he approached you. This is not even close to the way that the Father looked at the Son; not as a mistaken identity; but as an agreement of love; because of US; because of our guilt and our sin. This was no play acting. There was genuine hatred and anger over sin that was placed on Jesus, where God decided to separate from Himself and treat Himself as if He were the criminal.
Turn out the lights. Close your eyes. Feel the darkness. Hear the silence. The quiet wrath of God is building up in the air during that silence. Jesus is about to receive something He didn’t deserve. Don’t even try to step in; coward that you are. You couldn’t bear it for a minute. Then feel the wrath of God come crashing down on the Son. Shout the painful words of abandonment and Divine divorce, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachtani.” That was for you. That was your fault. God didn’t do that to the Son because of what the Son did, but because of what YOU did. God forsook God because He hated our sin; because He hates who we are. It was our fault. That is the truth.
II. The Gospel of the cross
When you do something really bad, it is awful to think about or remember. You can get stuck in the past and feel worthless for the rest of your life because of your past sin. Or you might try to brush over it and act as if it wasn’t that bad, making excuses for what you did. Both ultimately do no good. Blaming yourself and kicking yourself over a foolish sin doesn’t pay for it, and brushing over it doesn’t excuse it either.
The fact that we caused Jesus to go the cross and our own human race put Him to death; it is a shameful thing. But Paul explains it in such a way that doesn’t condone what we did; but neither does it make us wallow in guilt for the rest of our lives. Instead, he speaks of the cross in a miraculous way that actually makes us feel good and safe and loved by God! 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Paul calls this tragic incident the “wisdom and power of God.” Wisdom is different from knowledge. Knowledge is the ability to know facts and do things, but criminals learn to use their knowledge in an evil way. You can educate a criminal and unlock his brain power and give him knowledge, but that won’t necessarily make him wise. His new knowledge might make him a more dangerous criminal. Wisdom goes beyond knowledge as it is able to apply it in a good and beneficial way according to God’s will.
The cross is God’s wise solution to a terrible situation; it is God’s remedy to our sin; the most wise solution that there could be. One of the ugliest situations that can happen in life is when a spouse is unfaithful. The anger of rejection and betrayal is sharper than anything around. It is almost impossible to remedy. God felt that anger and rejection. How else could a holy God who absolutely hates sin and who must punish sin deal with it? How could He be just and loving at the same time, without letting sin go without getting punished? In His wisdom He put Himself on the cross; finding a beneficial place to spend His wrath; offering the one Divinity for the mass of humanity as the place where His wrath could come crashing down as the substitute for us. As Paul wrote in 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.”
The fact that He still loved and still wanted us after that; and the wisdom to put Himself on the cross; that is an amazingly wonderful thing for us. Paul says in vs. 30 of this chapter that "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." In giving Christ our sin, God then could give us His righteousness. Instead of only looking at this tragic moment in history with regret and shame, we now see God’s wisest solution in order to achieve our salvation.
Paul also refers to the cross as God’s dynamis, the Greek word for power, which we use in the word “dynamite.” He refers to the cross as God’s dynamite; His power. The power of a dam comes from the water that comes flowing over it, generating energy. As long as the river keeps flowing and the dam doesn’t break, the power continues to generate. This is what the cross is, the power source of God’s forgiveness.
When Samson tried to love Delilah she took advantage of his admiration of her and got him to tell her the secret to his strength. Once he told her that he was under a vow that said his hair couldn’t be cut, she went and told Samson’s enemies. They came in during the night and cut his hair. As a result of his trust and somewhat foolish love, he became vulnerable and was taken prisoner as a result. People look at that story and say, “Samson sure was an idiot for loving such a wicked woman. I hope I never do something like that!” Maybe they’ve already made the mistake and say to themselves, “Never again!”
Samson’s love made him vulnerable and made the indestructible destructible. We can’t excuse his reckless love. Yet even in his weakness God worked it out for His good. In their pride the Philistines put him in between two supporting pillars that held their temple to Dagon together. The LORD granted the defeated warrior one last burst of strength as he pushed the pillars apart and put to death hundreds of Philistines in the process. (Judges 16) His death caused greater death than any of the men he killed while living. So even in his death, God still provided one last feat of strength to help defeat the enemies of the Israelites.
Call it reckless if you will and even a foolish type of love, but never regret the love of God, for it was only His love that ended up causing Him to be exposed to Satan and having His Son put to death; and that death was no mistake. God didn’t regret it for one bit. In the eyes of this world, God’s love was His weakness. But through the eyes of faith and in the words of Paul, God’s love that caused His weakness was His strength. As Jesus hung on the cross, He provided a place for God’s wrath to land instead of us. As His bloody hands stretched out, Jesus shoved down Satan’s pillars of sin and guilt against us and caused them to land on Himself instead of us. In going through such a weak and powerless death, He also powerfully destroyed Satan’s ability to accuse us of sin. Our Samson smashed the gates of hell.
Instead of regretting His love or being embarrassed about it, God said to the world, “This is my strength. This is how I love. This is what I want you to have.” This cross would prove to be the generation of forgiveness; the everlasting flow through which God could pour His Son’s righteousness and holiness and give Him an excuse to save us on Judgment Day. With a resurrected body, the death of Christ is able to continually flow into all eternity; providing eternal righteousness for all who believe and are baptized. The cross is proof of how powerful God’s love really is.
In Germany they have passed a law saying that it is a crime to deny the holocaust ever happened. They don’t want the people ever to forget the crimes that were committed so that they won’t repeat the crimes again. In America some people have put on their bumper stickers, “9-11 Never Forget.” Why? I’m sure everyone has their own reasons.
When a Mormon boy came into our home he noticed all the crosses on our wall and he said, “Why are all those ‘t’s’ up there?” He didn’t realize what the cross was, because it is not central to the teaching of Mormonism. The cross is not even central within much of mainline Christianity, as Jesus has turned into a financial guru and self-help expert on how to love, rather than a sacrificial God of the cross.
May it never happen with us. The law of the cross always reminds us what a terrible thing that we made God go through for us. Yet it also displays to us the wisdom and power of God in finding a place to both punish our sins and forgive our sins; to hate us and love us; in His S O N. Never forget. Amen.
