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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Cross of Christ - A Divinely Prepared Turning Point

Spans in the Bridge of Salvation

A double barrier separates God and the sinner. Sin has caused man to be offended toward God as truly as it has caused God to be offended toward man. The Cross of Christ shall have failed to deal adequately with sin if it only removes the cause of offence in its Godward aspect and does not equally remove it in its manward aspect.

And this is exactly what the Cross of Christ does. "We love him because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). "By grace are ye saved through faith." The grace of God built the bridge of salvation before ever a single sinner made a start toward crossing it. Grace took God into the garden in the cool of the day to seek the first two sinners and to offer them the gracious promise of salvation through a Saviour even before He dealt righteously with their sin in pronouncing upon them the judgment of the curse. Even in the prophecy - promise given in Eden God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God took the initiative in effecting reconciliation by giving His Son to die.

Romans 5:10, "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by his life."

Colossians 1:21, 22, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled.  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight."

2 Corinthians 5:18, "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ."

The Son of God endured the suffering and the shame of the Cross that thereby He might tell a world of sinners who have turned their backs on God that God loves them with an everlasting love. When the sinner sees the Saviour suffering, the just for the unjust, when he sees Christ crucified by his sin, dying his death, enduring his punishment, then his heart is melted, his rebellion is removed, his whole attitude toward God is changed from enmity to love, from estrangement to fellowship, from indifference to devotion, from fear to faith, from shame to peace.

In Christ crucified God has provided such propitiation and reconciliation as has made possible the removal of the barrier of separation between God and man, and has opened a merciful yet righteous way of access and acceptance; thus giving to every man who will avail himself of God's grace the opportunity for full restoration to God's favor and fellowship.

The Cross of Christ - The End of the Old Creation and the Beginning of the New

Through propitiation and reconciliation accomplished in the death of Christ adequate provision has been made for a change of relationship between the sinner and God which effects a radical change in the sinner's position before God. But is there provision for a change in his condition also? The natural man is a slave, "sold under sin" (Romans 7:14).

Where sin abounded grace did much more abound. God's boundless grace was undaunted by the sinner's helpless, hopeless condition. God's right to proprietorship through creation still remained but it had been lost to Him through man's surrender of himself to the sovereignty of another. But God would Himself go down unto the slave market of sin and buy back that which was His own. He would then take the sinner out of the sphere of satan, out of the slave market of sin, and set him free in the glorious liberty of a new life in Christ.

Such redemption demanded a ransom. it required a life for a life. "The life is in the blood." To redeem the race from the bondage of sin involved the paying of a price which was nothing less than the precious blood of the spotless Lamb of God. To buy back His own for a possession God paid the costly price of His own blood.

Acts 20:28, "take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God,  which he hath purchased with his own blood."

1 Peter 1:18, 19, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

Revelation 5:9, "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."

But God did not go into the slave market of sin only to buy the captive sinner but also to bring him out from that old sphere of bondage and set him free in a new sphere of liberty. Not alone would He lead him out of Egypt but He would bring him into Canaan. Christ Jesus would become not only the sinner's Saviour but He would be the believer's Lord and Life. In the Cross of Christ God rejected the old order of fallen, sinful humanity "sold under sin" through the first Adam's disobedience that He might raise up a new order of holy, heavenly beings redeemed from sin through the last Adam's obedience.

The death of Christ upon the Cross not only redeems but it re-creates; it not only provides complete emancipation from the old life but abundant entrance into the new.

Exodus 13:3, "And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place."

Exodus 13:11, "And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee..."

Titus 2:14, "Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 1 - "The Cross of Christ - The Place of Decision that Determines Destiny.")

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