Our Incomparable Christ—Crucifixion; Col 1:15-23; 11-16-2015; 3rd of 4.
We follow an Incomparable Christ. He is described for us in Colossians 1:15-20, which we are exploring in this series. If you have a Bible, I invite you to follow along as I talk about the passage. So far we’ve looked at Christ’s role in creation. The world was made “through him and for him.” That gives our lives meaning and purpose. We exist for him. We are here to honor God. WWHG: What would honor God? We also looked at his incarnation. The infinite, eternal God laid aside his heavenly prerogatives and entered our world as a human being. We can’t fathom the step down that entailed. Because he is fully God and fully human, he is uniquely able to be our Savior. And because he has suffered as a human, he is also able to understand and empathize with us when we suffer.
Tonight we move on to his crucifixion. (KT) Christ’s death opens the way to God. This is addressed in verses 19 and 20. It says Jesus died to reconcile creation to God. The death of Christ is the hinge on which all of history turns. It impacts not just humans, but the whole of creation. Jesus died to bring the world back to God.
Again, keep your questions and comments in mind and you’ll have a chance to ask them at the end.
We saw in verse 16 that God created things “in Christ,” “through Christ,” and “for Christ.” Now in 19 and 20 we see that pattern repeated. God reconciled the world “in him, through him, and to him.” We have a parallel here. In the beginning God created all things through Christ. In the end God will reconcile all things through Christ. Christ is the key to it all.
In verse 19 Paul says, “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ],” and thus, through Christ, God reconciled the world to himself. God brought the struggling, alienated world back to himself. And how did that happen? “By making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (20). The cross is the crossroads of history. That’s where God intervened most decisively to redeem human destiny.
The next paragraph of the text expounds on this. The human condition is basically one of alienation from God. Paul says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (21). “Alienated from God.” That implies isolation, loneliness, a deep sense of not belonging. And it is the heart of the prob-lem that everybody faces. When we as a people have gone our own way long enough, the ways of God actually begin to seem alien. It changes our thinking. When we are out of relationship with God, our sinful actions twist our minds to take us even further away from God. We begin to see evil as good or natural or just another choice. The more we drift away from God, the more our lives spin out of control.
Christ died to break that cycle of sin and heal our spiritual brokenness. He brings us into relationship with God and his purpose for us. We see the turnaround in verse 22: “But now” (the thought turns) “he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death.” Jesus died the worst kind of death so that we could be reconciled to God. Crucifixion was reserved for the very worst kind of criminals. It’s hard for us to imagine how horrible it was. Physically, it was agony. The victim was beaten near death before ever being put on the cross. Then as they hung by the arms, pain shot through the nerves unrelentingly. As you hung there your diaphragm was pulled up and you couldn’t get a breath. So you had to push yourself up with your feet to get a breath. That multiplied the pain in your feet, and it scraped your lacerated back against the rough wood of the cross. The pain in your feet became so great you couldn’t hold yourself any more, and you sagged down, transferring the weight to your hands again, and the cycle started over. This continued for hours and sometimes days, until you couldn’t push yourself up any more, and you suffocated.
Mentally and emotionally it was just as bad. Not a shred of human dignity was preserved. Artists typically put a cloth around the private parts, but you can be sure the Ro-mans didn’t. They wanted to humiliate their victims in every way they could. Victims were mentally and emotionally beat-en and drained.
Jesus came as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and he was mocked for all three. The soldiers blindfolded him and hit him and said, “Prophesy for us. Who hit you?” His priestly role was mocked as he hung on the cross. “He saved others, but he can’t save himself” (Matt 27:42). His kingship was mocked by the taunts of the soldiers, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (Luke 23:37). So the crucifixion was a contradiction to everything he claimed for himself.
For me, Jesus’ crucifixion convinces me that Jesus is the only way to God. I didn’t read this anywhere; it just came to me in my quiet time a while back. Remember Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). There are plenty of other scriptures that make that same claim. A claim like that seems pretty narrow and exclusive and judgmental in a so-ciety that has elevated tolerance to the highest virtue. Lots of people blow this off as another indication that Christianity is just out of touch with modern thought. How can Christians be so narrow-minded and exclusive?
But here’s what grabbed me. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me” (Matt. 26:39). He knows what’s com-ing, and he’s sweating blood, literally. He doesn’t want to go through with this. He begs the Father, “If there’s any other way, let’s not do this.” Three times he makes this plea. “May this cup be taken from me.” And what is the answer?... Si-lence from heaven.
Now look at this from the point of view of a father, or a parent. Your beloved Son is begging you, pleading with you to save him from the horror he is about to face. You have all the power in the world to do whatever you want. If there was some other way, wouldn’t your heart be moved to save him from this suffering? If there was any other way at all, why would you let him go through with it and not intervene?
Or can you imagine the Father letting the Son go through with this horrible suffering and then, later in heaven saying, “Well, Son, it was nice that you did that, but I’ve decided I’m also going to accept people who come to me in other ways too. If they’re good people, that’s enough. Or if they choose some other spiritual path, that’s fine, as long as they’re sincere.” What an amazing insult that would be to Christ’s horrible sacrifice on the cross! God was silent when Jesus asked for some other way because there is no other way.
And if Jesus is the only way, then that drives us to share the news. We can’t be arrogant or complacent. We have the greatest news in the world. We have to share it. If someone had the cure for cancer, but didn’t share it, what would you think of them? Well we have something better than the cure for cancer. We have to share it.
Someone may ask, “But why did Jesus have to die?” Why couldn’t God just say, “I forgive you,” and let that be that? I thought God was a loving God. How could he make the innocent suffer for the guilty? That doesn’t seem very loving.
What we need is a bigger picture of God. Yes, God is loving. But God is also just and does what is right. As the universal arbiter of right and wrong, God can’t just ignore sin. Imagine the leaders of ISIS were to be captured, and an international court said, “We forgive you. It’s not a big deal that you have killed thousands and driven tens of thousands from their homes and caused millions to live in fear. We’ll just mark it up to some poor decisions and ask you to do better in the future.” How would we feel? That would be a miscarriage of justice. They have done horrible things, and justice demands that the price be paid.
It’s similar with sin. God found himself in a dilemma. He created people to love and honor him, and he loves us dearly. But we chose to go our own way, dishonoring him. If he were just to say, “Oh well, boys will be boys. We won’t worry about it,” then what happens to justice? Would we want to live in a world without justice? So God found a way to love and save us while still upholding justice.
Some years ago in California a young woman was picked up for speeding. She was taken to court, and the judge asked, “Guilty or not guilty?” She said, “Guilty.” The judge brought down the gavel and fined her $100 or ten days in jail. Then an amazing thing happened. The judge stood up, took off his robe, and walked down in front of the bench. He took out his wallet and paid the fine. Why? Well it turns out the woman was his daughter. He loved her, but he couldn’t just say, ‘Because I love you so much, I forgive you. You may leave.” If he had done that, he wouldn’t have been a righteous judge. He wouldn’t have upheld the law. So he required justice be paid, but he stepped down and paid it himself because of his love for his daughter.
That’s what God has done in Christ. He stepped down to pay our debt to sin and demonstrate his love. He found a way to extend his love and mercy to sinful people while also maintaining justice.
Josh McDowell says a lot of people ask him the ques-tion, “Why couldn’t God just forgive?” … People fail to realize that wherever there is forgiveness there’s a payment. For example, let’s say my daughter breaks a lamp in my home. I’m a loving and forgiving father, so I put her on my lap, and I hug her and I say, “Don’t cry, honey. Daddy loves you and forgives you.” Now usually the person I tell that story to says, “Well, that’s what God ought to do.” Then I ask the question, “Who pays for the lamp?” The fact is, I do. There’s always a price in forgiveness, and it’s paid by the one doing the forgiving…. God has said, “I forgive you.” But God was willing to pay the price himself through the cross. (More Than a Carpenter, p. 115-116).
Returning to our text, verse 22 says through Christ’s death God makes you holy and without blemish and free from accusation. But it’s not automatic. We have a role as well. Verse 23: “…if you continue in your faith.” In other words, stand firm. Hold on to hope. Christ’s work at the cross is a work in progress, and we need to respond. HCG Moule put it this way: “Christ does for us what we could not do for ourselves, but we must do, for our part, what he will not do for us” (David Garland, The NIV Application Commentary: Colossians/Philemon, p. 97). In other words, we need to re-spond. We need to trust Christ, depend on him in daily situations, and live into the good news that we are reconciled to God.
Part of that means we live the crucifixion daily. Paul says it in Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). Christ’s crucifixion in the univer-sal sense becomes mine in a personal sense when I claim it by faith. And the new life Christ lives, he lives in me. So Je-sus was my substitute on the cross, dying to redeem me from sin. But in a very real sense he is my substitute daily, here and now, when I let him live in me. He takes my weak and inadequate attempts to live my life, and he replaces them with his personal presence and power. So I can say with Paul, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13).
The purpose of Jesus’ death on the cross was not just to reconcile the world to God, and to win our eternal salvation, although that is huge. It was also to make a difference in the way we live our lives day to day. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” He died so that we would no longer live for ourselves, but live for him. That circles us back around to what we said in the first message in this series. We were created to live for Christ. Because of sin, we couldn’t do it. But Christ’s death on the cross paid the price of sin, so now we can live for him and with him. We live in him and he lives in us. “He died… that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him.”
A pastor named Dr. Lee was on a trip to the holy land. As the tour group came near the place where Christ died, he caught a glimpse of the Hill of the Skull—Calvary. He was so overtaken with emotion that he ran ahead to the base of the hill. Finally the guide caught up with the preacher, whose head was bowed and his lungs panting, and the guide said, “Sir, you haven’t been here before have you?” To which Dr. Lee responded, “Yes I have. I was here 2000 years ago.”
Have you been there? The crucifixion of Christ be-comes real for you when you accept his gift by faith. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). Does Christ live in you?
I was in Peru on a mission trip a few weeks ago. While I was there, a man who had been a part of the church for years came to recognize that something was missing in his life. While he believed in God, he didn’t really have a relationship with Jesus. He was involved with a church, but Christ wasn’t living in him. He said, “I’d like to talk with you sometime about what it means to invite Christ into your life.” I said, “There’s no time like the present.” So, sitting at a Starbucks with our interpreter, he welcomed Jesus into his life. And the change was dramatic. He was so happy. He was crucified with Christ and he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him.
I tell you that because it is possible that someone here tonight is in a similar situation. You’ve been involved with the church, but you haven’t yet surrendered your will to Christ and invited him into your life. If that’s the case, there’s no time like the present. I’d like to offer a prayer, and if you agree with what I say, pray it along silently as I pray aloud.
“Lord Jesus, I admit I’ve been trying to run my life on my own, and I’ve failed in many ways. I’m not what I want to be, and I’m not what you want me to be. Please forgive me. Please come into my life and lead me. Help me surrender to you every day. Let me live no longer for myself, but for you who died for me. Thank you. Amen.” If you prayed that pray-er, as I told my friend in Peru, you need to tell somebody. Don’t keep it a secret. And then get some help to cultivate that new relationship with Christ every day. I’m sure Jason, or any growing believer here in the church would be happy to help you.
We have an Incomparable Christ who came as a servant and who died for us. How can we not be moved by that kind of love? He wants us to live for him every day. “He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him” (2 Cor. 5:15). What might it look like to “live for him”?
It may mean you forgive someone.
It may mean you extend kindness to someone who can’t pay you back.
It may mean you think about Jesus and recognize his presence with you multiple times throughout the day.
It may mean turn your worries over to Jesus and leave them there.
It may mean you put others’ interests ahead of your own.
It may mean you seek more to serve than to be served.
It may mean you make time to spend in prayer with Jesus every day.
“He died that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for him.” I have some little trinkets to give you to help you remember to live for Christ. It’s just a little wooden disk, with some writing on it. It looks like it says, “4X,” but it doesn’t. That “X” is really a chi, the first letter of “Christ” in the Greek alphabet. In the early church chi was often used as an ab-breviation for Christ. So it says, “4 Christ.” It’s a reminder to live “for Christ.” You might put it in your pocket with your coins or your keys. When you touch it, or you pull it out, let it remind you that you live “for Christ.” You may put it in your car, or on your desk or dresser, or in your bathroom. Put it somewhere where you will see it several times a day, and let it be your reminder to live “for Christ” each day.
(KT) Christ’s death opens the way to God, for us and for the world.
Q-A
Unison Prayer
“Lord Jesus Christ, do not allow us, even for a mo-ment, to leave that near and blessed intimacy with You which is our surest defense against sin and Sa-tan. Remain all things to us, our very life and our only strength. Let us believe and sink so deeply into You, that You may be infinitely dearer and closer to us than we are to ourselves, that we may depend solely on you in all time and eternity. Amen. (N.L. von Zinzendorf) “
