The Passion And Death Of Christ Series

Our sins and our iniquities led to our separation from God. Jesus’ death on the cross, therefore, was a great victory for us as it provided the solution for us to be reconciled to God and to enjoy His provisions. Because God dealt with our sin on the cross, it meant that all the misery and suffering that is a result of sin, was also dealt with. The cross has freed us not only from sin and Satan but also from death. It is the place where the love of God and His righteous judgement meet. His righteous judgement demanded the death penalty for sin, the shedding of blood. His love met His own demands and Jesus, the Son of God, died in our place. At Calvary we see the greatness of God’s love and greatness of man’s sin. When God created man, He created a perfect being in His own image and likeness. However there was a moment in history when a single act of disobedience led to man’s expulsion from God’s presence. Separated from God’s presence, man lost his essential communion with Him and thereby the ability to maintain God’s image and likeness. The result was the loss of his dominion that depended on his being in the image and likeness of God. Now instead of inner peace and harmony, he was filled with guilt and condemnation and has since never been free from sorrow, suffering, sickness and hardship. The cross was God’s way to restore man and it meant suffering and the shedding of blood. The blood flowed freely from His back, His head, His face, His hands, His feet and His side. As the Roman soldiers laid deep stripes on Jesus back with their whips, His blood flowed for our healing. As the Roman soldiers took a crown of thorns and forcibly drove it onto Jesus’ head, the blood flowed to sanctify our minds. As the soldiers pierced His hands and feet with nails, His blood flowed to cleanse our hands and feet. And as one of the soldiers after His death pierced his side with a spear His blood and water came out providing for us a river of life. The tragic sight of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross was more than even God Himself wished to witness but He went through it for our sakes. Jesus Christ was not merely identified with our iniquity; He also endured all the evil consequences of that iniquity. Now in exchange, God offers us all the good that was due to Jesus. None of us has ever done anything to deserve such an offer, and none of us can ever do anything to deserve it. We receive it when we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Sin cannot coexist with God so God’s only begotten son hung on the cross bearing the sins of the world to reconcile us to God. The cross is the price Jesus paid for our redemption. He literally bought us back by paying our debt with His blood. We have been purchased, bought with a price, His blood for our sins. Peter says that we were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ, as a lamb, without spot nor blemish. His blood sanctifies and makes us clean and gives us access to God’s presence. Jesus Christ has not only made it possible for us to have access to God’s presence, He has also made it possible for us to know God personally and to experience the love, peace and joy that fellowship with Him brings. Jesus became a curse to “redeem us from the curse of the law, that we might receive the promises of the Spirit through faith.” Jesus Christ was sold for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. He became a slave to redeem us from the slave market of sin. Jesus bore our shame that we might share his glory. He endured rejection on our behalf so that we might have His acceptance with the Father. On the cross, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and there came no answer from heaven. For the first time in the history of the universe, the Son of God called out to His Father and received no response because He had been made sin with our sinfulness. So fully was Jesus identified with man’s iniquity that the uncompromising holiness of God caused Him to reject even His own Son? This happened that we might be made righteous with His righteousness, a righteousness that we cannot achieve by our own efforts. This is God’s own righteousness, a righteousness that had never known sin. Just like the sin offering the sin of the whole world was transferred to Jesus and by His sacrificial death, He made atonement for the sin of the whole human race. Jesus Christ also made His riches available to us by enduring poverty for our sakes. In the words of Paul we “know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.” Jesus experienced total poverty on the cross. He was hungry, thirsty, and naked and no longer owned anything at all. After His death He was buried in a borrowed robe and in a borrowed tomb. Jesus endured absolute poverty for our sakes so that “God would make all grace abound toward us, that we, always having all sufficiency in all things, would have an abundance for every good work.” The final outcome of sin is death and when Jesus became identified with our sin, it was inevitable that He should also experience death, the outcome of sin. He died that we might have life “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God has provided one solution to all the problems of mankind. Are you looking for solutions to problems in your life? The only place where we can find God’s solution is at the cross of Jesus Christ.