SALVATION FROM A TO Z
Bob Marcaurelle
freesermons@homeorchurchbiblestudy.com
Website: Yahoo search homeorchurchbiblestudy.com bob marcaurelle
Copyright 2005 by Bob Marcaurelle
2014 Revision by Bob Marcaurelle
Message 2
FORGIVENESS AT THE CROSS
“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Heb. 9:22 / Lev. 15) “This is My blood of the NT shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:28)
THE NECESSITY
God gives the condition on which He will forgive us and that is the sacrifice of the life of His Son for us and our acceptance of it by faith. Christ knew this in eternity past as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 5 ). Somewhere in His young life at Nazareth Jesus found out this was His mission. After He left He said:
“The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28) “The Son of Man must suffer many things / They will hand Him over to the Gentiles who will mock Him, spit on Him, flog (scourge) Him and kill Him. (Mark 8:31 / 10:33-34)
At a young age Jesus knew He would undergo crucifixion described in Psalm 22 and the stripes of scourging in Isaiah 52:12 and 53: that made him not look human was His destiny. It is easy to see how He would go up into the hills and have his first Gethsemane experience, asking God, why, and if there could be another way. The important thing is He yielded to the will of the Father”
We will see in a later message why the world’s gospel of reformation – do your best, try to be good, etc. is rejected by God. One of those reasons is based on the nature of our crime. We have in us the same sins that killed Jesus (Heb. 6). We are guilty then of His death. If I killed your child, no amount of sorrow or service for you could obligate you to forgive me. Forgiveness cannot be earned. It can only be given as a gracious gift. That must come from you love as a gift to me.
THE MYSTERY
“Father, if there is another way, please take this cup away / My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me.” (Mt. 26:39-42; 27:46)
We do not fully understand why Jesus has to die for us to be forgiven. If Jesus asked “Why” and wondered if there could be another way, we know the answer is not simple. There have been three basic interpretations in church history and each contains some part of the truth.
1. He is Punished in Our Place
Rom. 3:24-27
“We are justified (declared not guilty) through the redemption (a price paid) which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation (atoning sacrifice) in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness (justice-NIV) because in His forbearance He had passed over* sins previously committed.” (NASV & NIV) * (NIV= Had let go unpunished)
The normal term for punishment is never used to explain the death of Christ, but it seems to be the teaching here. We have done wrong to ourselves, others and God and if God is moral and righteous, our wrongdoing must have consequences.
Any judge who sets a guilty person free with no punishment is immoral and unjust. As God places us on the right side of the Judgment even though we have hurt others, Satan cannot charge Him with injustice. The scars on Jesus’ body were payment enough and the best song we can sing in that moment is” “Jesus paid it all / All to Him I owe”.
Martin Luther says how a just God can forgive the sinner and remain just, was a problem worthy of God, and He solved it on the cross. In describing punishment we should not set God against Jesus. God punished Himself. The Bible says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world back to Him.” (2 Cor. 5). God drew the knife across His own heart. Paul, talking about God, not Jesus goes so far as to say, “He purchased the church with His own blood.” (Acts 20)
Luther dreamed he stood before God at the great Judgment Day. Surrounded by millions of people and angels, it became time to stand before God. All the sins of his life kept coming before him as he stared into the face of a Holy God. He knew he was guilty and had no excuse. He felt the flames of hell licking his feet. Satan was screaming to God and all the hosts at the Judgment, “He is mine! He is mine!” Luther said he felt like he began to slip into hell. Suddenly a presence was next to him. He turned and saw Jesus with the scars on His brow. Jesus smiled and said to God, “Let him in Father, he is one of mine.”
2. He Defeated Satan for Us
“He forgave all our sins; erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them.” - Col. 2:14-15, NIV, NRSV
The term “Triumph” was used when a Roman General came home in a parade with the spoils of war and enemies chained behind the chariots. Calvary then, was a victory over the forces of evil (Eph. 6). In Genesis 3:15 the Bible’s first reference to the cross, it is predicted that Satan would “strike out” and hurt God’s Messiah; but in that conflict Satan’s head would be crushed.
Jesus won the victory on the battlefield of daily live as He resisted every temptation hell threw His way. Doing so He won the right to let anyone He chooses into heaven. The last battle perhaps was the way He did not give in to anger and forgave His murderers from the cross. Just as His righteous death as one “made to be sin” (2 Cor. 5) paid for our punishment, so does His righteous life become ours in His sight. In death He paid a debt we could not pay and in life he lived a life we could not live. He offered up that life for us, “as a sweet smelling sacrifice to God (Eph. 5:2).
3. He Wins Our Love on the Cross
“We love Him because He
first loved us.” (1 Jn. 1:19)
Jesus came to earth to tell us “God is love”. But He also came to love and thus as God, revealed God’s love.
In my early twenties I never heard of terms like atonement, propitiation or theories of the cross. All I knew was I had hurt a lot of people and the Bible said Jesus would forgive me. I didn’t know ten Bible verses but I knew he prayed from the cross, “Father forgive them”. That became my verse and my hope. I got out of my car one day and standing in the rain I said, “Lord, I’m filthy from head to toe. But you forgave those who stripped you naked, beat you, spit on you and cursed you, I believe you will forgive me. I give you all my sins to forgive. Lord, I can’t promise I will live for you as I should, but I am asking you to change who I am and take control of my life from now on.” He forgave all my sins and changed my life right then and there. His love had won me. My song from that day to this, over 50 years now is:
“Were the whole realm of nature mine
That’s a present far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
THE PRACTICALITY
“We preach Christ crucified. To the Jews this is offensive, a stumbling block; and to the Greeks it is nonsense. But to those of us God has called, whether Jew or Greek, it is the wisdom of God and the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:23-24)
Luther looks at the cross and sees it as the solution to a problem worthy of God. We who have found salvation there think it makes sense. A missionary spokesman when invited to speak at conferences before other religions emphasized that Jesus’ death is the only adequate solution to the sin problem. All other religions foster pride in “good” people and despair in weak, sinful people.
The cross encourages the weak. All other religions emphasize that we do something good. This, he says, is bad news to the weak. They fail time and time again and are filled with shame, guilt and hopelessness. The cross picks them up and tells them Jesus has lived this life for them, paid the price for their guilt and loves them no matter how evil they have been.
At the same time it humbles the strong and proud. A “lift yourself up” religion invariably produces pride. The achievers see themselves as above those who fail. Jesus pictured one praying with a hated tax collector thanking God he was not like “him” (Lk. 18). He had no concept of God being the one who made him strong or of helping this hated one beside him come to the Lord.
The cross brings these proud ones down and charges them with the same sins that killed Jesus. Pride, jealousy and anger like theirs nailed Him to the tree. Calvary picks up the humble and lowers the proud to become humble so they too may be saved.
1. We See the Need of Forgiveness
“You nailed him to a cross!”
(Acts 2:23)
“If they fall away (from Christianity) they crucify the Son of God.”
(Heb. 6:5-6)
We see it in the suffering that was there.. Suffering is in this world because sin is in this world (Gen. 3). A world with cancer, hurricanes, cruelty, disease, death, etc. is God’s judgments on sin. Use your logic. If God punishes wrongdoing on this side of the graveyard, what makes us think He won’t punish it on the other side? Every hospital; every death; every disease; every ambulance cries out that sin is serious and God punishes it.
We see it in the sins that were there. Peter’s words at Pentecost (Acts 2) were almost two months after Calvary and spoken to a crowd of Jewish pilgrims, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with the murder of Jesus. The passage in Hebrews (Heb. 6) was written thirty years after Jesus’ death to people who had nothing to do with His murder.
God says the same thing to you and me, separated from Calvary by thousands of years because sins like ours tortured this good and loving man. The greed of the priests whose business was hurt by Jesus; the anger of the Pharisees whose hypocrisy was revealed by Jesus; the cruelty of the Romans, born of prejudice; the cowardice of Pilate who let an innocent man die to keep his job; live in you and me.
2. We see the fact of forgiveness
“Father forgive them!” (Luke 23:34)
Jesus was God on earth (Jn. 1:1, 14) offering His forgiveness to those who killed Him. The most beautiful for our deliverance from guilt is forgiveness. We understand that.
Throw away your dictionaries, forgiving love cannot be defined, it can only be described. Forgiveness is God, the Father in Jesus’ parable of the lost boy, running to meet his dirty son with open arms (Luke 15). It is God in the OT comparing Himself to a husband who goes to the slave market to buy back his wife even though she is now a prostitute (Hosea 1-2). Most of all, it is Jesus on the Cross saying, “You who beat me almost to death; you who stripped me in front of my mother; you who spit one me; you who mocked my prayers; etc. I forgive you. (Luke 23:34).
If ever any crowd did not deserve forgiveness it was the howling, motley crowd around the cross. And the worst of these were the two criminals who died with Him. Matthew says they both took part in the mockery. At least they should have had some sympathy, some sense of comradeship. Of all the people they deserved to go to hell.
But one of them didn’t. After hearing Jesus say, “Father forgive them” he called Jesus the King of Heaven and asked Him to remember him when He came in His kingdom. Jesus saved him on the spot and said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise (heaven).” Lk. 23:42. When the sun came up that morning he was a child of the devil. When it set that night he was a forgiven, changed child of God.
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emanuel’s veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains
The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day
And there may I though vile as he
Wash all my sins away
3. We see the cost of forgiveness
“You know what was paid to set you free / It was the costly sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who was like a Lamb without defect or flaw.”
(1 Peter 2:18-19 TEV)
We may never know fully why Jesus had to die for us to be saved, but we do know that He was willing to pay the terrible price for each one of us. He loves us that much.
“Jesus looked at the cross and saw hell, but he went there anyway because He didn’t want to go to heaven without you and me.” – Max Lucado
4. We See The Rejection of Forgiveness
“One of the criminals hanging there, was hurling abuses at him, and said, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Then save yourself and save us.’ But the other criminal said, “Don’t you fear God?” (Lk. 24)
The three men on those three crosses represent the whole human race. Jesus died for sinners as our Savior. One criminal died to sin as a way of life and was saved. The other criminal, unbelieving, unrepentant, and rebellious to the end, died in sin and went into eternity unchanged and unforgiven.
The tragedy is that Jesus loved that man as much as He loves anybody. He offered that man forgiveness. I said in my first sermon ever preached, that Judas did not go to hell because he betrayed Jesus. He went there because He refused to go to the foot of the cross and ask Jesus to forgive him and make him the right kind of person. Judas is the man who went to the wrong tree. Instead of going out and hanging himself, he should have gone to the cross where God was dying for him.
God loves people in hell. I know where hell is; it is on the wrong side of the cross. In heaven will look to Calvary and say,
“I love to tell the story, of unseen things above / Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love / And when in scenes of Glory / We sing a new, new song
Twill be the old, old story
That we have loved so long.
That is the song of heaven. Looking at the cross and saying, “Thank you.” The sounds that come from hell are not songs, but if words are set to the music of despair, they would be:
Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these / It might have been
