* The following is a sermon, the first in a series that I wrote as Lenten reflections. I don't usually post sermons here, because (at least in my practice) they work better as a spoken medium, and this blog is devoted to the written medium. But they do give a good look at the significance of Christ's death on the cross, so I offer them here as a fitting follow-up to our recent celebration of Holy Week.
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The Meaning of the Cross, Part 1 (Romans 3:25-26)
We’re currently now in the church
season known as Lent, which leads us up to Easter. And traditionally, Lent is a
time to meditate on Christ’s death on the cross. So for the next four weeks
leading up to Easter, we’re going to look at the cross of Jesus Christ, and
we’re going to ask, “What was it that Jesus accomplished there? What’s the
meaning of the Cross?” Our topic today should be familiar to most of us—it’s
one of the main themes of the gospel message—that the Cross means that Jesus
took on himself the punishment for our sins. There are other aspects of the
meaning of the Cross that the Bible also highlights—some of which might not be
quite as familiar—and we’ll get to them in the next few weeks. But today we
start with what theologians call the “penal substitution model of the
atonement,” which means that Jesus’ death on the cross paid the punishment for
our sins.
And as we think about the meaning
of the Cross these next few weeks, the one theme that I want us to see, each and
every time, is the love of God. The Bible has more than one way of talking
about what Christ accomplished on the Cross, but the end goal of each view is
the same—it’s because God wants to draw us into relationship with him. But we
couldn’t get there on our own, so he took the initiative, out of his love for
us, to open a way for that relationship—a relationship with the living God.
I want to start with a little
illustration of the love of God, taken from the life of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning. Some of you may know that name—she was one of the best poets of the
Victorian Age, and she wrote some beautiful, beautiful poems. If you’ve ever
heard the one that starts, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”, that’s
one of hers. Anyway, she started out as Elizabeth Barrett, and then she married
another poet, Robert Browning. But her parents were dead-set against their
marriage, and when she went through with it, they cut her off entirely. So for
every day for ten years, she wrote a letter to her parents—a letter of love, a
letter expressing her hope for reconciliation. Every day, for ten years. And
then, after ten years, she received a box from her parents. And when she opened
it, she found all of her letters inside, still sealed in their envelopes. They had
never read them. But even after that, she still kept writing letters to them,
hoping that someday they would return her love and be reconciled.
It’s a sad story, but I think it’s
a wonderful picture of the heart of God. God desires to be in relationship with
us, and he’s constantly drawing us towards that. Like Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, he has sent us his love letters—and nowhere do we see their message
clearer than in what happened on the Cross. And no matter how many times we’ve
ignored him, no matter how many times we’ve turned away, he’ll still keep
showing us his love, beckoning us back, to be reconciled with him. So for those
of you who already know the love of God, deep in your hearts, take the time
this morning to savor with me the wonder of God’s love. And if you’ve never
experienced that love, then listen to the message of the Cross this
morning—it’s the message of God’s love for you.
1.) The Problem
Today we’re looking at a few verses
from Romans chapter 3—25 and 26. This describes, in Paul’s words, what God
accomplished through Jesus’ death. [Read
text] There’s some interesting theological ideas here, and we’ll dig deeper
into these verses in a minute, but right now I just want to point out the fact
that they imply that sin is a crime against God—a crime which must be punished.
Well, what is sin? Most of us know
it when we see it, because our consciences tell us. Sin is anything that goes
against the holy, righteous character of God. In the Old Testament, the word
for sin is the same word that we would use to describe “missing the mark” or
“falling short” of something. We were created in the image of God—created to be
holy and righteous, which we can only be in relationship with him. But when sin
gets in the way—maybe selfishness, or gossip, or lust, or any number of
things—when sin gets in the way, we miss the mark. We’re less than what God
intended us to be, and our actions stand in defiance of his character.
Well, okay, you may say. But what’s
the big deal? Isn’t God big enough and kind enough to shrug off sin? Why can’t
he just let it slide?
The Bible gives us lots of reasons
why sin is a big deal. One reason is simply that because God is the creator and
sovereign of all things, everything is answerable to him. We’re not our own
masters, as much as we’d like to be. We are citizens in the kingdom of God
So, all that to say—sin is a big
deal. It’s a crime against God. That’s not all it is, as we’ll see in the
coming weeks, but it is at least partly a crime against God. And I don’t say
that to make you feel guilty or condemned—I say that because that’s what
Scripture says. And what doesn’t get said enough is that we’re all in the same
boat on this one. We’re all sinners. That’s what v.23 says, just a few lines up
from our passage. Everybody has sinned. Thanks to Adam and Eve’s decision to
disobey God, the human race has become a race of rebels, programmed by our
self-will to fight against God’s holy authority. So sin is a big deal, but
we’re all caught in the same problem together.
With that in mind, now we have the
difficulty. God desires to be in relationship with us, because he loves us. But
because of our sin, we’re separated from God. Sinful people cannot exist in the
presence of a holy God. And because of our sin, we stand under the judgment of
God’s righteous punishment of sin. Paul talks about it as the wrath of
God—because of our sin, we have divine punishment looming over our heads. And
in that situation, we can’t have fellowship with God unless something is done
about the problem of sin.
Which brings us to our second
point. Unfortunately, too often we stop with what we’ve already said. Much of
the world thinks that the church is only a place where sins are pointed out and
people are made to feel guilty. They don’t listen any further than the hard
news that we’re all sinners. But if we stop there, we end up with a warped view
of God. You’ll end up with a picture of an angry, tyrannical God who is
meticulously counting our sins and holding them against us. But that’s a false
view of God! If you have that view of God, then you’ve only listened to half of
the story. Now that we understand the problem, we have to take a look at the
solution, and this is where the glorious love of God is demonstrated.
2.) The Solution: Christ’s Sacrifice
The word “gospel” means “good
news”! And that’s what the story of the cross is. Unfortunately, we have to
start with some bad news—the truth about sin—but that’s only because our
society has forgotten what sin is. Once we understand our situation as sinners,
though, the Gospel is entirely good news. It tells us that God took the
initiative to solve our problem. The Gospel isn’t bad news about sin, it’s good
news about the forgiveness of sins.
So what was God’s solution? Look at
our text. “God presented him (that is, Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement.” The
NKJV translates it as “propitiation”—which is the better term, but the NIV went
with “sacrifice of atonement” because no one knows what a propitiation is
anymore. It’s not a word that gets used a lot. It’s a very technical
theological term that refers to something that takes away wrath. If you
propitiate your friend, that means that you do something to settle them down,
so that they’re not angry with you anymore. So to say that Jesus was a
propitiation for us means that Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross took away God’s
anger against our sins. It means that Jesus completely paid the penalty for our
sins.
And what was the penalty for sin?
From other places in Scripture, we know that the penalty was death. If sin
separates us from God, and God is the source of all life, physical and
spiritual, then to be separated from him means death. We’re cut off from the
Fount of Life itself. That’s why the whole sacrificial system of the Jews was
based on the practice of killing animals. Whether it’s a sheep or a bull or a
dove, the principle behind the sacrifice was that death is the penalty for sin,
and so if we don’t want to die, we need to find a substitute. But the whole OT
system was just a pointer that directed us toward Jesus. The blood of bulls and
sheep has no power to take away sin—the book of Hebrews tells us that
specifically. But they pointed the way towards Jesus, who is the final and
ultimate sacrifice for sin. He took death on himself—the death that we should
have died. And because of that sacrificial death on the Cross, taking our
place, the penalty for our sins is paid. He was fully human—because only a
human can pay the price for humanity’s sin—and fully God, because only God can
cover and forgive sins. And his death on our behalf wipes away our sin.
That’s the wonderful message of the
Gospel. We have nothing to fear from God! Because of Jesus, his wrath is gone. And all that remains toward us is
an ocean of his love.
Now, some critics might say, “Hold
on there! So a wrathful God decides to kill his son for our sake? Isn’t that
like divine child abuse? How can God kill an innocent man for someone else’s
crimes?”
Well, in response to that, we have
to remember that the three persons of the Trinity are really one God. We may
not entirely understand it, but it’s true. So it’s not that God the Father
poured out his anger on his innocent Son—because at the heart of it, they are
united as one God. Here’s the truth of the matter: God himself took our punishment on his own head. Because he loved
us, he came to bear the penalty for our sins. His wrath is a wrath against sin,
not against us, because his sacrifice on the cross wiped away his wrath against
us. We stand now in the love of God.
Imagine that you commit a
crime—let’s say that in a rage of fury, you murder your next-door neighbor. And
they bring you into court. And everyone knows what you did—the evidence is
indisputable, and you know that you’re guilty. They’re going to find you
guilty, and lock you up for the rest of your life—maybe they’ll even give you
the death sentence. And you go into the courtroom and hear the verdict
read—guilty! But then the judge looks at you. And he says, “It’s okay. You can
go free. I’ll take your punishment for you. I’ll take the death penalty in your
place.”
It would never happen in our world.
But God did exactly that. He didn’t have to. He could have held our sins
against us. But instead, he treated us with unbelievable mercy.
3.) Acquitted!
The problem was that sin is a crime
against God. And God’s solution was to take the penalty for that crime on
himself, through Jesus’ death on the cross. And now, because of that, we stand
acquitted. Because of Jesus, our sins are gone—as far as the east is from the
west. Later in this book of Romans, Paul proclaims that there is no
condemnation for those who are in Jesus! God is no longer angry with us! He
delights in us, and our sins will never be held against us!
Now, there are two extreme points
of view that I need to address. One of them takes the truth of the Gospel and
twists it to say, “Oh, now that my sins are forgiven, I can go ahead and sin as
much as I want!” And the other says, “Even though my sins are forgiven, I have
to be careful not to ever sin again, or God might condemn me all over again!”
The fact that our sins are forgiven
doesn’t mean that we can just go ahead and sin as much as we want. It’s true
that God doesn’t hold our sins against us, but if we’ve actually been saved by
his grace, then we have the Holy Spirit working inside of us, transforming us.
We’re still going to struggle with sin in our lives, but if we’re truly a
Christian, our desire for sin should be melting away in our heart of hearts. So
if you think that it’s fine for you to go on sinning as much as you want, then
you’ve missed the point of the gospel. It’s not about setting us free so that
we can sin more, it’s about setting us free from the slavery of sin altogether.
And the opposite extreme is also
wrong. There are Christians out there wringing their hands in anxiety, worrying
that if they sin that they might be right back where they started. When I was
serving in Africa , I was shocked to find out
that a lot of pastors there believed that if you happened to die with an
unconfessed sin in your life, then you would be sent to hell. So, for instance,
if I thought a prideful thought and then stepped off the curb and was hit by a
bus—too bad for me! I didn’t get a chance to repent, so now I’m going to be
condemned! Some people actually think that, but it’s a lie. It’s a lie straight
from the devil. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Look at
Hebrews 9:26. Here the author of Hebrews is talking about how Jesus is
different from the OT priestly system, where sacrifices had to be offered every
year. [Read text] What does this
mean? It means that Jesus died “once for all.” His death covers all of our
sins, past, present, and future. If we’re following Christ, not even the little
sins that plague us can keep us from the love of God. All your sins—even sins
you haven’t yet committed—are covered by the love of God in Jesus Christ, as
long as you keep following him. We have nothing to fear! Sometimes people will
ask you when you were saved. And they’re usually asking what age you were when
you accepted Christ. But the correct answer to that question, according to the
Bible, is this: When were you saved? I was saved 2000 years ago! Jesus’ death
is what accomplishes my salvation; nothing that I do can earn God’s favor.
Jesus death was once for all, and it covers all
of our sins! That’s the wonderful message of the Gospel.
So what does this all mean? It
means that we serve a God who loves us so much that he sacrificed himself to
bring us to him. And if that’s true, he will not let us go easily. Like
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, he will keep on sending us messages of his love. We
no longer have to fear God’s anger. God is on our side! We serve a God who is
consumed with love for us.