![]() This terrific cost reveals God’s moral concern for sin. Curtis has well expressed it thus: “And so, there alone, our Lord opens his mind, his heart, his personal consciousness, to the whole inflow of the horror of sin-the endless history of it, from the first choice of selfishness on, on to the eternity of hell the boundless ocean and desolation he allows, wave upon wave, to overwhelm his soul” ( The Christian Faith, 1905, p. His cry of dereliction is the measure of his sacrifice. In those few but fateful hours on the cross Jesus tasted the unspeakable horror of eternal death. He who could say, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29) had to endure the displeasure of the one he delighted to serve. ![]() To secure man’s salvation the Son of God let the blow of divine justice fall on himself. The final words of Christ in the Garden were these: “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11). This was the price that Jesus must pay for our salvation. The penalty for sin is separation from God. He was paying the penalty for sin-not his, but ours. When Christ cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Mark 15:34), he was experiencing something far deeper. Our Substitute took the torturous trail of a lost soul, walking out into the labyrinthine depths of outer darkness. What was it, then, from which he shrank in anguish of spirit? It was his Father’s face turned away from him in the awful hour when “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. But such cavilers are utterly ignorant of the true significance of that hour. What was this cup from which he prayed to be delivered? Carping critics have said that Jesus cringed with cowardly fear at the thought of death. There he cried out in agony of soul, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Then he bowed his head in humble submission and said: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. What did Jesus’ death mean for Him? The answer is best suggested by his prayer in Gethsemane. He accepted it as the will of God for the salvation of man. His was a completely voluntary decease-“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:18). The death of Jesus differed from that of every other man. Precisely it means here the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, by which three events he made his departure from this world back to the heavenly glory. But the Greek word is exodos-exodus, departure. On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared to the praying Christ and “spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). This is the Gospel, the greatest good news the world has ever heard. From the Cross salvation flows to every believing soul. All the divine paths of the present and future lead from it.Īt the Cross all the sin of the ages was placed on the heart of the sinless Son of God, as he became the racial representative of all humanity. All the divine paths of the past led to it. But there also love revealed the heart of God.Ĭalvary stands at the crossroads of human history. There hate was seen in all its heinous horror. It was the brightest hour because divine love came to its fullest flower. It was the blackest hour because human hate came to its fiercest focus.
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