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Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000134S
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00:01 - You know, I've been asked more than once,
00:02 what actually happened at the cross? 00:04 It's a pretty big question. 00:06 So today, we'll start digging into some of the confusion 00:08 that modern Christianity 00:10 just might have brought to that subject. 00:12 [light blues-rock music] 00:33 Once upon a time, on a show in the not-too-distant past, 00:36 we took a look at the inadvertent damage 00:38 caused by the Christian theologians 00:40 who left us under the impression 00:42 that we can arrive at ultimate truth, 00:45 we can trace a path to the throne of God 00:47 just by using unaided human reason. 00:49 And, of course, what that did very slowly 00:53 was lead to a system of philosophy in the West 00:55 that tragically brought us to some intellectual dead ends 00:59 during the 19th and 20th centuries. 01:01 Then we looked at what happens when we use unaided reason 01:04 to build Christian theology 01:06 without comparing what we believe 01:08 against the thoughts actually presented 01:10 in the pages of the Bible. 01:12 The specific example we looked at last time 01:15 was this idea that God will torture sinners 01:17 throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity, 01:20 an idea that seems to hold a lot of weight 01:22 if you just cherry-pick the Bible. 01:24 Now, just in case anybody thinks 01:26 that I'm preaching some kind of universalism 01:28 where everybody can do whatever they want 01:30 and still be saved, 01:31 well, that's not at all what the Scriptures teach either. 01:34 There will be lost people. 01:36 It's tragic, but it's true. 01:38 In fact, I don't know how you can read the entire Bible 01:41 and avoid coming to that conclusion. 01:44 Many years ago, I happened to be sitting in a meeting 01:46 where the subject of preaching the gospel came up. 01:49 And I reminded people that sinners 01:50 are described in the Bible as lost, 01:53 and if they ultimately reject the gift of the cross, 01:56 they stay lost. 01:58 These people are not just misinformed, 02:00 according to the Bible, 02:01 and they're not just a little bit misguided. 02:03 The Bible says they're lost. 02:06 Now, bear in mind that this was a group of Christians. 02:08 When I tell you that I heard that gasp 02:10 down at one end of the table and somebody suddenly said, 02:13 "Well, that's an extreme position," 02:15 which took me by surprise 02:17 because it's clearly the historical biblical position. 02:20 And when I probed this person a little more 02:22 to see why they thought it was extreme, 02:25 she told me that God just loves people too much 02:27 to reject anybody. 02:29 And I guess that's kind of true. 02:32 The Bible does reveal a God of love, 02:33 and it shows us the incredible lengths He went to 02:37 in order to save you because He can't bear the thought 02:39 of living forever without you. 02:42 The very existence of the cross of Christ 02:44 should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt 02:46 that God really is love. 02:49 But we do have to ask ourselves: 02:50 would God actually force somebody into the kingdom of God 02:54 to live there forever 02:56 if he or she didn't actually want to be there? 02:58 What kind of heaven would it be 02:59 if unrepentant sinners were there, 03:01 people who want to live the same way they lived 03:04 in this life, 03:05 the lifestyle that caused all that pain and misery? 03:09 What sense would it make 03:10 to push them into that foreign environment 03:12 that they don't want? 03:14 If they don't like God in this life, 03:16 what makes us think they're gonna want God in the next one? 03:18 Why would God force anybody to be there? 03:21 It doesn't make sense, and it's not biblical. 03:26 It's another example of how human logic 03:28 can really mess things up 03:30 if it's not informed by the totality of Scripture, 03:33 all the information in the Bible. 03:36 Sometimes, to our way of thinking, 03:37 love should always be soft and fuzzy, 03:39 and it never does the hard thing. 03:41 Some of us think that love just shrugs its shoulders 03:44 and looks the other way all the time, 03:45 because, I mean, who wants to be mean? 03:48 But parents know, that's not love. 03:50 That's not true. 03:51 The easy thing is to never discipline your child, 03:55 but then most of us have seen what happens 03:57 just a few years down the line when you ignore those kids. 04:00 You end up with an entitled brat 04:02 who's gonna have a really hard time 04:04 getting along with other people. 04:06 Ignoring early bad behavior might be easy, 04:10 but it's certainly not loving. 04:12 You know, I've often wondered 04:14 if the real reason people don't want God to deal with sin 04:17 is because they just don't want Him to deal with their sin. 04:21 It's what I was talking about the last time we met. 04:23 Sometimes, we look at the cross of Christ, 04:25 and we don't want to think that somehow Jesus 04:27 had to die in our place, that He had to take our punishment, 04:31 because that would say an awful lot 04:33 about just how wicked I really am. 04:37 And if we read the Bible 04:39 and see that God's going to deal with sin once and for all, 04:42 and if we see that some people really deserve what's coming, 04:45 well, that would mean that we deserve it too. 04:48 So we'd like to think that God is just too nice 04:50 to make us answer for our crimes, 04:52 that He's some kind of this absent-minded grandpa 04:55 who loves to pat us on the head and slip us a candy, 04:58 but He never actually deals with us. 05:01 Which brings me back to the subject of the cross, 05:03 because, in recent years, I've met a lot of people 05:06 who refuse to believe that Christ 05:07 actually died in their place. 05:10 They're kind of echoing the teaching of Peter Abelard, 05:14 a clergyman who lived about 1,00 years ago 05:16 and really emphasized the idea 05:19 that the primary reason for the cross 05:21 was to show us just how much God loves us. 05:25 And, of course, I agree with that, at least in part. 05:29 I agree that the cross is a lavish display of God's love. 05:33 It shows us that God is willing to sacrifice Himself 05:36 to save us. 05:38 I mean, that's what Paul actually says 05:39 over in the book of Romans, where he says, 05:42 "But God shows His love for us 05:45 in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 05:51 So, yeah, the cross did demonstrate the size of God's love. 05:53 But that's not the whole equation, 05:55 because that's not all that the cross accomplished. 05:58 So let's read that verse one more time, 06:01 but this time I'm gonna add a little more context. 06:04 Again, starting in verse eight, it says: 06:06 "But God shows His love for us 06:08 in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 06:11 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, 06:16 much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. 06:21 For if, while we were enemies, 06:22 we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, 06:25 much more, now that we are reconciled, 06:27 shall we be saved by His life." 06:30 Now, notice that you and I are supposed to suffer 06:33 the wrath of God. 06:35 That's not an easy thought, but it's a true thought. 06:38 And honestly, it's a divine miracle 06:40 that God hasn't already wiped us out, 06:42 because the way we live is this horrible contrast 06:46 to the actual character of God. 06:48 Our existence has become a lie about the One who made us. 06:52 And if I was in charge, and you can be glad that I'm not, 06:55 but if I was in charge, I would've been tempted 06:58 to wipe out the whole human race and just start over. 07:01 That's the way it plays out in a lot of pagan mythology. 07:05 But fortunately, God's love for you 07:07 kept Him from doing that. 07:09 The Bible clearly teaches that you and I are, quote, 07:11 "justified by His blood," which means that somehow 07:16 the death of Christ liberates us from the penalty 07:19 that we actually deserve. 07:22 Paul reminds us that we are God's enemies, 07:24 but then the death of Christ somehow reconciles us. 07:28 Now, that doesn't mean that you 07:29 and I are suddenly innocent of all charges, 07:32 but we are justified by the blood of Christ. 07:34 We are declared innocent, considered innocent, 07:37 because the Son of God took our punishment as one of us, 07:41 a human being. 07:42 He took our punishment as an actual representative 07:45 of the entire human race. 07:47 You might remember what Paul told the church in Corinth 07:50 when he said, "For as in Adam all die, 07:53 so also in Christ shall all be made alive." 07:57 What Paul's telling us 07:58 is that the first head of the human race, Adam, 08:00 well, he threw all of us under the bus. 08:02 Because when he sinned, he passed on a sinful, 08:06 rebellious nature to all of us. 08:08 It's why we're born corrupted. 08:10 So what God did was become the second Adam, 08:13 and He took the just penalty for our rebellion on Himself, 08:17 so now we can be adopted into His line of the human race 08:20 instead of Adam's. 08:22 I'll be right back after this. 08:24 [light blues-rock music] 08:27 - [Narrator] Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 08:29 we're committed to creating top-quality programming 08:31 for the whole family, 08:33 like our audio adventure series, "Discovery Mountain." 08:36 "Discovery Mountain" is a Bible-based program 08:38 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 08:41 Your family will enjoy the faith-building stories 08:43 from this small mountain summer camp and town. 08:46 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 08:49 and fresh content every week, 08:51 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 08:57 - I should probably point out something 08:59 that's kind of popular in some Christian circles 09:01 and let you know I don't think it's biblical. 09:04 Sometimes you'll hear people saying 09:05 that you and I actually inherited Adam's guilt, 09:08 as if God is going to punish me for something that Adam did. 09:11 But that is not what the Bible teaches, 09:14 and I can prove it from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. 09:17 This comes from Ezekiel 18, where the Bible says, 09:21 "The soul who sins shall die." 09:24 So there you have it. 09:25 The just penalty for sin is death. 09:27 "The son," it continues, 09:29 "shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, 09:32 nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. 09:35 The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, 09:38 and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." 09:42 So does God hold me accountable for something Adam did? 09:46 No. 09:47 What I'm responsible for is my sin. 09:50 And I did inherit a sinful tendency 09:52 from the sinners who came before me, 09:54 I got their sinful nature, but I didn't get their guilt. 09:58 And I wanted to make that clear 09:59 because when the Bible indicates 10:00 that Adam passed death on to all of us, 10:03 that doesn't mean that you and I will die 10:04 because of something he did. 10:06 I'm gonna die because of something I did. 10:09 But then you kind of get the opposite 10:11 when you get the gift of eternal life. 10:13 If you think about it, you're not gonna go to heaven 10:15 because of something you did, 10:17 but because of something Jesus did. 10:19 Now, let's dig a little deeper into this idea 10:21 that Jesus actually died in our place, 10:24 something theologians call the substitutionary atonement, 10:28 because I'm hearing more and more 10:30 well-meaning Christians saying, "Oh, that can't be true. 10:32 He didn't die in my place or take my punishment." 10:35 Instead, they say that all God really did at the cross 10:38 was show us how much He loves us. 10:41 Now, that's something that some people call 10:42 moral influence theory. 10:44 And I think the reason that some people want that to be true 10:47 is because, again, we don't really want to believe 10:51 that our sins are serious enough 10:53 to cause what happened at the cross. 10:55 It would mean that sin is far more consequential 10:58 than you and I can even begin to understand. 11:02 So human logic, when it's not informed by the Scriptures, 11:05 tries to come to a different conclusion. 11:08 Yet the Scriptures are crystal clear 11:10 that Jesus took your place. 11:11 And I'll show you 11:13 from one of the clearest chapters found in the Bible, 11:15 and that would be Isaiah 53. 11:18 This is a very well-known prediction of Jesus. 11:21 It's the prophecy of the suffering servant. 11:24 This is a prediction about a servant of God 11:27 who would suffer in ways that are hard to comprehend. 11:30 So let's take a really quick look at this 11:32 because it's very hard to read this chapter from Isaiah 11:36 and still come to the conclusion that somehow 11:38 Jesus didn't absorb my punishment for my sin. 11:42 And I'm really gonna start in Isaiah 52, 11:45 because, well, remember: 11:47 chapters and verses were only put into the Bible 11:49 about 1,000 years after Christ, a little bit more. 11:52 And I'm thankful for them 11:53 because it makes the Bible easier to navigate, 11:56 but sometimes the start of a new chapter 11:58 can give you the false impression 12:00 that you're starting a brand-new thought. 12:02 In this case, the thought actually begins 12:04 back in chapter 52, and here's what it says: 12:07 "His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, 12:11 and His form beyond that of the children of mankind." 12:15 So here we have a prediction 12:16 of the way that Jesus would be treated. 12:18 Even though the people doing this to Him 12:20 were mostly aware that He was innocent, 12:23 they brutalized Him in a way 12:24 that completely disfigured His appearance. 12:27 Traditionally, we know that victims of crucifixion 12:30 even had their beards ripped out, 12:32 something you find predicted back in Isaiah 50. 12:35 Now, this continues in Isaiah 52:15. 12:38 It says: "So shall He sprinkle many nations." 12:43 Now, the sprinkling of blood is a concept 12:45 taken straight out of the Old Testament sanctuary, 12:48 where the blood of an innocent victim, 12:50 an animal offered for sin, was taken into the holy place 12:53 and sprinkled against the veil. 12:55 And then on the Day of Atonement, once a year, 12:57 that blood was sprinkled 12:59 on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. 13:02 This is a very clear reference to the sanctuary 13:04 and its sacrificial services, 13:06 and the prophet is telling the audience, 13:08 "Look, when Messiah comes, 13:10 He's going to be the ultimate sin offering. 13:13 And then he tells us that Jesus 13:14 isn't just for the nation of Israel, 13:16 but also for the nations of the world, 13:18 something you find all the way 13:20 through the rest of Isaiah's book. 13:22 Now, some people, 13:24 some have suggested that this word "sprinkle" 13:27 should actually be translated "startle" 13:29 because they say the cross should be an astonishing display 13:33 of God's love. 13:34 It should be startling, which, of course, it is. 13:38 But that's not all it is. 13:39 It's not just a big surprise. 13:41 Now, they get that variant, that translation, 13:43 from the Septuagint, 13:45 or the Greek translation of the Old Testament. 13:47 But honestly, they're getting it wrong, in my opinion, 13:49 because the Hebrew word for "sprinkle" is "nazah," 13:52 which means "spatter," 13:54 as in the spattering of blood in the sanctuary. 13:58 It's not "startle," it is "spatter." 14:01 Now, for the sake of time, 14:02 let's just jump down now to Isaiah 53:4, 14:06 where we have the next clear reference to Jesus 14:09 as a sacrificial lamb, a victim who takes our punishment. 14:13 It says, "Surely He has borne our griefs 14:17 and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, 14:20 smitten by God, and afflicted. 14:23 But He was pierced for our transgressions. 14:26 He was crushed for our iniquities. 14:28 Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, 14:31 and with His wounds, we are healed." 14:35 The book of Isaiah was written to a people 14:37 who had been suffering incredibly. 14:40 After all, they were being attacked by the Assyrians, 14:42 who were incredibly brutal. 14:45 And in the near future, 14:47 those people's grief would be multiplied 14:49 when the Babylonians destroyed the temple 14:51 and took a lot of God's people back to Babylon as captives. 14:55 So this prediction is really pretty mind-blowing. 14:58 Messiah would come and take their griefs 15:00 and sorrows on Himself. 15:03 What griefs and sorrows? 15:05 The ones they were suffering as the just penalty 15:08 for their sin. 15:10 But what some people do with this 15:11 is build a case on the next phrase, where it says, 15:14 "We esteemed Him stricken," 15:16 and they say, "Jesus wasn't really smitten 15:18 by God the Father, it just looked that way. 15:21 We esteemed it to be that way." 15:24 You see, that way, with that understanding, 15:26 the suffering of Christ would be the result of human beings 15:29 attacking Him that day, 15:30 and it wouldn't really be God's judgment against sin. 15:34 Then they move on to the fifth verse, 15:35 where it says that Jesus would be 15:37 "pierced for our transgressions," 15:39 and they change the obvious meaning, the plain reading, 15:42 to make it seem a little less harsh. 15:45 "Nah," they say, "He was pierced 15:47 because of our transgressions, 15:48 the ones we committed that day. 15:50 He just suffered because of the way we nailed Him to a cross 15:53 and mocked Him that day, and really only on that day. 15:57 It's just those sins." 15:59 But even some of the most liberal 16:00 Bible translations in the world, 16:02 the ones you would think would wanna take away 16:04 the brutal impact of the substitutionary atonement, 16:07 even those translations continue to render this 16:11 as "for our transgressions," not "because of." 16:14 Why? 16:15 Well, that's what the text actually says, 16:17 and the context doesn't really let you read it 16:19 any other way. 16:20 I mean, sure, if you only had that one statement 16:22 without the rest of the chapter, maybe you could read it as 16:26 "He was pierced as a result of our transgressions that day." 16:30 But given the sheer scope of the prophecy, 16:31 that is not what it says. 16:33 I mean, if you have to nitpick 16:34 over the meaning of one single word 16:36 in isolation from the rest of the context, 16:39 that's not a very strong case. 16:43 And then they do the same thing 16:44 with the next important clause in this prophecy, 16:47 where the Bible says that Jesus "was crushed 16:49 for our iniquities." 16:51 And what they want you to think is that we did the crushing, 16:54 and only on that day, 2,000 years ago, 16:57 as if it's only talking about the single sin of the people 17:00 who nailed Jesus to that cross. 17:03 But again, you have to ignore the rest of the chapter 17:05 to make it read that way, 17:06 because down in verse 10, we find out, quote, 17:08 "It was the will of the Lord to crush Him." 17:13 You know, as a really good friend of mine used to say, 17:15 "If the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense, 17:18 or you'll get nonsense." 17:20 I'll be right back after this. 17:25 - [Narrator] Life can throw a lot at us. 17:28 Sometimes, we don't have all the answers. 17:31 But that's where the Bible comes in. 17:33 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 17:37 Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 17:38 we've created the "Discover Bible Guides" 17:40 to be your guide to the Bible. 17:42 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 17:44 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions. 17:47 And they're absolutely free. 17:49 So jump online now or give us a call 17:52 and start your journey of discovery. 17:55 - All right, we're back. 17:56 And now we're gonna look at verse seven of Isaiah 53, 17:59 where the Bible says this: 18:01 "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, 18:04 yet He opened not His mouth; 18:05 like a Lamb that is led to the slaughter, 18:07 and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, 18:11 so He opened not His mouth." 18:13 It's at this point that we really have no choice 18:16 but to see Jesus 18:18 through the lens of the Old Testament sacrifices. 18:21 Some people, who don't like the idea 18:23 of a substitutionary atonement, 18:24 this idea that Jesus died in my place, 18:28 they want you to think that Isaiah is just describing 18:30 some mob injustice that day, that the audience on that day 18:34 figured Jesus deserved what He was getting. 18:37 But look at it very carefully. 18:39 It's a reference to the hundreds of thousands of lambs 18:42 that had been sacrificed for sin 18:43 in the centuries leading up to the death of Christ. 18:46 Historically speaking, not one Israelite 18:49 looked at that lamb he was about to slaughter 18:52 and said, "You know, this innocent little lamb 18:55 really deserves this." 18:56 I mean, the whole point of the sacrifice 18:59 was an innocent victim that didn't deserve it. 19:03 You confessed your sin over that lamb, 19:05 and then you had to take the life of that lamb yourself, 19:08 which symbolized the idea that someone else 19:10 had to die because of you. 19:13 Your guilt was symbolically transferred to the animal, 19:16 and then the blood was carried inside the sanctuary 19:19 and presented in front of the throne of God. 19:22 The entire system was built on the idea 19:25 that someone else was going to die in your place. 19:29 And as we see in Isaiah 53:8, Jesus would be, quote, 19:32 "stricken for the transgression of My people." 19:36 I mean, just sit down and read the whole chapter out loud 19:40 and ask yourself: Does this really sound like the cross 19:43 is nothing more than a good example? 19:45 Let's just read the rest of it. 19:47 It says, "Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him." 19:50 In other words, it was God the Father 19:52 who took the initiative at the cross, not us. 19:55 That doesn't mean we're innocent of Jesus' death, 19:57 because clearly we're not. 19:59 But notice that the idea of the sacrifice began not with us, 20:03 but in heaven. 20:04 "He has put Him to grief," it continues, 20:07 "when His soul makes an offering for guilt." 20:10 Whose guilt? 20:11 Not His guilt, our guilt. 20:13 "He shall see His offspring," it says. 20:15 "He shall prolong His days. 20:16 The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. 20:19 Out of the anguish of His soul 20:20 He shall see and be satisfied. 20:23 By His shall the righteous one, my servant, 20:25 make many to be accounted righteous," 20:29 not literally righteous, of course, 20:30 but accounted righteous, 20:32 "and He shall bear their iniquities." 20:36 Now, I don't know how much plainer it can be 20:37 than that statement. 20:39 It continues again: 20:40 "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the many, 20:43 and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, 20:45 because He poured out His soul to death 20:47 and was numbered with the transgressors. 20:50 Yet He bore the sin of many 20:52 and makes intercession for the transgressors." 20:56 Look, there's just no way to read this passage 20:58 and honestly suggest 20:59 that Jesus didn't take my guilt on Himself at the cross. 21:03 It's just not possible. 21:06 It says He bore the sin of many, 21:08 which again is a clear allusion to the work of the priest 21:10 in the Old Testament sanctuary. 21:12 And in this case, Jesus is both high priest 21:15 and sacrificial lamb, because He offers Himself. 21:19 Remember, Jesus said in John 10, 21:21 "For this reason, the Father loves Me, 21:24 because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. 21:27 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. 21:32 I have authority to lay it down, 21:34 and I have authority to take it up again. 21:36 This charge I have received from My Father." 21:39 I mean, look, I get it. 21:41 The cross doesn't seem fair. 21:43 That's because it isn't. 21:45 Even a lot of the harshest critics out there 21:47 still like the person of Jesus. 21:49 And I think we all pretty much agree, 21:51 He did not deserve crucifixion. 21:53 We instinctively know that what happened 21:55 was a gross miscarriage of justice. 21:58 And so when we see it, we don't want to think 22:00 that somehow we had a role to play in that. 22:02 We don't wanna think that our sins are actually that bad. 22:07 And I know that some of you grew up in homes 22:09 where somebody constantly told you, "You are bad. 22:12 God's gonna get you." 22:13 And so when you hear that your sins cost Jesus that much, 22:18 there's a part of you that pushes back 22:19 because you think it confirms what you were told as a kid. 22:24 But just forget that for a moment. 22:26 Because it's not just your sins that did this to Jesus, 22:29 mine did it too. 22:31 And so did the sins of your parents, and your neighbors, 22:33 and your fellow churchgoers, and your friends, 22:35 and every person who's ever lived. 22:38 Sin really is that bad. 22:42 But the cross isn't a rejection of you. 22:45 It's God saying, "I love you far too much to lose you, 22:48 and I'm willing to take your place 22:49 to make sure I don't lose you." 22:52 The cross of Christ is a confirmation that God wants you, 22:55 and He wants you pretty badly. 22:57 And I get it. 22:58 Our pride wants to tell us that can't be true. 23:01 But it is. 23:02 And what I recommend 23:04 is that you just stand there for a while, 23:06 stand at the foot of the cross, 23:08 and recognize that it's my pride 23:11 that pushed the crown of thorns into His head. 23:13 It's my unbelief that becomes a spear between His ribs. 23:17 It's my sin that drives those nails through His hands 23:19 and feet. 23:21 And when He suddenly cries out, "My God, My God, 23:23 why have You forsaken Me?" 23:26 well, at that moment, He just took my place, 23:29 separated from a holy Father. 23:32 And then you've got to ask yourself 23:33 why in the world He'd wanna do that. 23:35 I'll be right back after this. 23:37 [light blues-rock music] 23:41 - [Narrator] Dragons. 23:42 Beasts. 23:43 Cryptic statues. 23:45 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 23:50 If you've ever read Daniel or Revelation 23:52 and come away scratching your head, you're not alone. 23:55 Our free "Focus on Prophecy" guides 23:58 are designed to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 24:00 and deepen your understanding of God's plan for you 24:03 and our world. 24:04 Study online or request them by mail 24:07 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 24:10 - You know, human pride is really good 24:13 at finding 1,000 reasons that something isn't our fault. 24:17 And it's on that front that human reason begins to fail, 24:20 because, well, it paints a pretty warped picture of self. 24:24 We've become experts at pushing the blame 24:26 in another direction. 24:28 And to be sure, not everything that's wrong in our lives 24:30 really is our fault. 24:33 But there's enough of your own guilt 24:35 that not one of us is able to claim innocence. 24:38 And I think that, at some level, we all know that. 24:41 If you and I had to stand in the presence of God right now 24:44 without the gift of the cross, 24:47 how do you think that meeting would go? 24:49 Even those little things, 24:50 the tiny misdeeds that we tell ourselves 24:52 aren't all that bad, 24:54 well, I can promise you they're gonna seem 24:55 a whole lot bigger when it's just you and God, 24:58 and He begins to ask some questions. 25:01 And it's scary to admit that, 25:03 because, well, we fear what might happen. 25:06 But here's the thing: the worst has already happened, 25:10 and it happened to Jesus. 25:13 Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:21. 25:16 He wrote, "For our sake He made Him to be sin 25:19 who knew no sin, so that in Him 25:22 we might become the righteousness of God." 25:26 Now, notice again, 25:27 all the initiative comes from God, not us. 25:29 The cross wasn't just a matter of mob injustice. 25:33 It was actually God's solution for you. 25:36 "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, 25:40 so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 25:45 Now, that can only mean one thing. 25:48 I mean, the Bible is crystal clear that Jesus was innocent. 25:51 Peter says He was a "lamb without blemish or spot." 25:55 You'll find that in 1 Peter 1:19. 25:58 So how does Jesus become sin? 26:01 It's because your sin, your guilt, was placed on Him. 26:04 He became a human being so that He could represent us 26:08 and take the penalty for our sin in our place. 26:13 You know, I really like the way 26:14 that a very godly lady from the 19th century 26:17 put this whole thing, and this is a quote I've shared 26:19 more than once on this program because I love it. 26:22 It's just that good. 26:23 Here's the way she phrased the whole thing: 26:26 "Christ was treated as we deserve, 26:29 that we might be treated as He deserves. 26:32 He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, 26:36 that we might be justified by His righteousness, 26:38 in which we had no share. 26:40 He suffered the death which was ours, 26:42 that we might receive the life which was His. 26:46 With His stripes, we are healed." 26:49 You know, sometimes I think the cross really scares us 26:52 because we know what it means if it's true. 26:55 We really are that lost. 26:58 But let me ask you this: how in the world 27:00 could you possibly be scared of a God 27:02 who would go to that length to save you? 27:05 Yeah, your sin really is that bad. 27:07 So maybe just admit it, 27:09 because it's pretty freeing to confess your sin. 27:13 You're lost. 27:14 You need Him. 27:15 And you're going to discover 27:16 that He's been waiting all your life to forgive you, 27:20 and tell the whole universe that you now belong to Him. 27:25 Thanks for joining me today. 27:26 I'm Shawn Boonstra, 27:28 and this has been another episode of "Authentic." 27:31 [light blues-rock music] |
Revised 2025-06-24