I think this is my favorite day of the year. And I love the music of Easter. I was thrilled by the choir's presentation this morning of the scripture from 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation. And tonight our hearts will be no less thrilled as they sing to us the cantata, presenting the experience of the centurion. I can't emphasize enough how I hope that you'll be back to share the evening service with us at 6 o'clock. There's an article in the newsletter today I want to draw to your attention.
Not that I want you to read it at this point, but on the back page there is an article entitled I think something like the Order of the Mustard Seed, which tells of an opportunity of prayer and involvement in the lives of our missionaries that I hope that you will take advantage of and be involved in. The title of the message today is The Cross Has No Meaning.
The title appears to be a contradiction to the truth, to what the Bible says, to what we have long preached, and to all that you've ever heard about the cross. So before you stone me for false teaching, please hear me out. I want you to notice that after that statement there are three dots indicating that the statement does not stand alone. There is more coming. I can assure you that I have not changed my theology regarding the cross.
I am not denying the centrality of the cross work of our Lord. However, by completing that sentence, I want to show you that the cross has no meaning in certain contexts. For example, the cross has no meaning apart from the resurrection. We affirm that Christ's death on the cross was essential for our salvation, and for good reason. God's righteous judgment on sin is the death of the sinner. He said, the soul that sins, it shall die.
Therefore, to save sinners from their deserved death, Christ must die as their substitute. He must vicariously give himself a life for them. That is why he came. In Mark chapter 10 verse 45, he said, the Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. I want you to notice the preposition, for. It is a specific one in the original language that means in the place of. He has given his life in the place of many. That is, as a substitute for the many.
He died vicariously, is the word. This is affirmed elsewhere in the New Testament. For example, in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, it says, for God has made him who knew no sin to be made sin for us. That word for is a different preposition in the original language that can have one of two meanings. It can mean in the place of, again, or for the benefit of. But however you take it, the thought is the same.
That God has made him, Christ, who knew no sin, to become sin on the cross for our benefit or in place of us. In order for him to be qualified to be a substitute in our place, two things must be true of him. In the first place, he must be willing to die. I invite you to open your Bible to John chapter 10 and look at his own words in the eleventh verse. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Verse 15 of John 10, even as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Verse 17, for this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. He goes on to say, I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again, this commandment I receive from my Father.
And so let there be no question as to the willingness of Christ to die in our place. He said, no one forces me to do this. No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. He was willing. And in addition to being willing, our substitute had to be worthy. He had to be worthy to die in our place. Is he such? Well, words are used to describe him like blameless, spotless, pure. The Lord Jesus Christ needed not die for his own sin, because he had no sin.
He was truly man, but he was blameless and without sin. And as such, he was worthy to die in the place of sinners. So he was willing and he was worthy. The result is that he provided for sins forgiveness and for the gift of righteousness to all who would believe. He died for our sins. But my point is this, that that cross has no meaning apart from his resurrection. You see, his death alone could not save us. He must also be raised from the dead, just as literally as he died.
He must be raised again. Even as his death was an event in history, so must his resurrection be. Otherwise, his statements regarding his sacrifice must be held in suspect. The trustworthiness of what he said must be questioned, for he said, I lay it down and I take it up again. And he himself said it would be three days later. Now if in fact he did not rise from the dead three days later, how do we know that his statements about laying down his life for our sin were accurate and trustworthy?
You see, it was essential that he be raised from the dead. To prove his statements regarding his death for our sakes. He must be raised from the dead, otherwise we have no assurance that God accepted his work. That's the meaning of Romans 4 25, where the apostle points back to the saving work of Christ and he says, he who was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification.
The apostle is saying there that he was raised so that we might know that our justification stands before God. His resurrection is proof. It is the validation of his death as being sufficient for our sins. If there were no resurrection, we would not have that assurance. He must be raised from the dead, otherwise we have no hope ourselves of escaping the grave.
The apostle writes to the Corinthian church in that great fifteenth chapter, the most complete chapter in the whole New Testament on the doctrine of the resurrection. And he says in part, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. He must be raised from the dead, or there is no hope of escaping the grave.
And those who have gone to the grave before us in Christ have perished. They have not fallen asleep in Christ. They are not absent from the body and present with the Lord. But they are gone and forever gone, never to be seen again. They have perished if Christ be not raised. That's why I say that the cross has no meaning apart from the resurrection. The two must be wed forever together. Secondly, I'd like to say that the cross has no meaning apart from the law, the law of God.
The cross is indeed the expression of God's love. John 3.16, which many of us could quote this morning, for God so loved the world that He gave, there's the cross, He gave His only begotten Son. Why? Because He loved the world. But God proved, God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the proof of His love. Here in His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation or the satisfaction for our sins.
So you see, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the expression of His love. But beloved, it is more than that. The cross is also the evidence of God's holiness. The cross stands for the holiness of God, such as that expressed in the moral law which we call the Ten Commandments. You see that rugged cross, that bloody instrument of execution reveals the justice of God which was required due to the broken law.
Galatians 3.13 says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. What is the curse of the law? It is that the one who breaks it must die. That is the judgment of God's justice. That is the expression of God's perfect holiness. The cross has no meaning apart from that. Walter Chantry says, our Lord's wretched suffering must be tragic and senseless in the eyes of any who have no reverent esteem for the perfect commandments.
On the cross Jesus was satisfying the just demands of the law against sinners. If sinners are unaware of the Decalogue's requirements for themselves, they will see no personal significance in Christ's broken body and shed blood. Without knowledge of the condemnation of God's holy law, the cross will draw sympathy, but not saving faith from sinners. And he is right. You see without this aspect, that of the law, the cross can be reduced to mere sentiment or emotion.
The cross can become only an object of curiosity or perhaps at best an example, a moral example of sacrifice which all men should follow. Apart from the cross, the law rather, the cross has no meaning. It is only as the sinner sees the sinfulness of his sin through the application of the law to his heart that he will understand the necessity of the cross. That is true of even such a one as the Apostle Paul himself, for he was a great enemy of Jesus Christ in the message of the cross.
But he himself said, is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, this is his testimony, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet. Paul is saying there that he would have had no sense of guilt for sin. It would not have been expressed within his own heart personally if it had not been for that tenth commandment that hooked him.
The one that said thou shalt not covet is that commandment which brought the Apostle Paul to the end of his self-righteousness as a Jewish Pharisee. It was as he saw himself as he really was, a greedy, selfish, covetous sinner, that he realized that the law which he exalted fell upon him to slay him because he had broken it. By the way, this is the same commandment which Jesus used, isn't it, with the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, Lord, what must I do to have eternal life?
After an initial conversation about the word good, Jesus went on to quote to him some of the commandments. The young man said, I think with a sincere heart, Lord, I've kept all of these commandments. You see, he was looking at them from an outward expression. He hadn't killed anyone, he hadn't murdered, he hadn't stolen, and so on. And then Jesus said to him, go and sell everything you have and give the money away, and then come and follow me.
Jesus did not quote the tenth commandment to him, but he put his finger on that sin in that young man's life, and that commandment, thou shalt not covet, was activated in him, and it showed to him, the young man, his own sin, for it says that he went away, grieved. He did not go away satisfied with himself. No longer could he be smug in his self-righteousness, but suddenly that word from the Lord had revealed to him the greed, the covetousness within his own heart, and that law exposed his sin.
And so it is with the ten commandments in all of us. God did not give the ten commandments to us, that somehow by keeping them we could climb those steps to be worthy to be saved. As it says in Romans 320, by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in God's sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. The function of the law is to make us aware of sin within our hearts, not to give us a ladder to climb to heaven.
I plead with you, if your religion today is based upon keeping the ten commandments or obeying the golden rule, that religion is false. It will never bring your soul to heaven. It will never make you right with God. Will you understand that God gave that law that your own personal sin might be exposed to you, and that then you might flee to the cross to find their mercy? The purpose of the law is to put the sinner to death, that is to slay him to his own hope of self-salvation.
The cross has no meaning to you, though, apart from the law. Aware of seeking to win to Christ too quickly those people who have no felt need for a Savior, that is, those who have no sense of being lost. For it is only as the sinner sees himself utterly undone, helpless and hopeless in his condition before God, that he becomes a viable candidate for the saving grace of God.
It is only when he sees his own natural hostility toward God that then he will flee to the cross and there find forgiveness and the gift of eternal life. You see, the cross has no meaning apart from the law. And finally, I want to say that the cross has no meaning apart from personal faith. That is, there is no personal vital meaning to the individual himself, to the cross, apart from his own personal faith.
One can sing about the cross, and it's said that the second favorite hymn of all Americans is the old rugged cross. One can sing about the cross, one can wear it as a piece of jewelry about the neck, one can make the sign of the cross when praying, one can remember the cross through ritual and ceremony, one can even, like some cults in the Philippines, allow himself to be crucified on a cross.
But the cross sacrifice of Jesus Christ is without saving effect to that person, without his own personal faith. It is only the powerful saving message of the cross of Christ. As it is understood and personally appropriated by faith, that will save the soul. That is exactly what the New Testament teaches. I remind you of Philip, who was sent by God down to the desert to there meet the Ethiopian official on his way back home from a feast in Jerusalem.
The man had already been led by the Spirit of God to be reading from Isaiah 53. And his question to Philip was, who is this talking about? Is he talking, is the prophet talking about himself or someone else? And it says there that Philip opened the scriptures and began to preach to him Jesus, who is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53. And as they went down the road conversing this way, the man said to Philip, look here is water, what prevents me from being baptized?
And Philip said to him, if you believe, you may. You see Philip was emphasizing to him and to all of us as it is recorded in scripture that it is not some ritual we go through like baptism. That is not what saves us. Baptism pictures something outwardly, but it does not save the soul. He says if you believe, you may be baptized in confession of your faith. So said Peter to the household of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. Listen to his words.
He says, we apostles are witnesses of all the things Jesus did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put him to death by hanging him on a cross. God raised him up on the third day and granted that he should become visible not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead.
He goes on to say, he ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of him all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. You notice again the emphasis on personal faith. Everyone who believes. It is not enough for one to go through a ritual of baptism as a baby. A little water on the head does not save the soul.
It does not bring one into the family of God. Only personal faith, intelligent, understandable faith makes one a child of God and brings to him the forgiveness of sins. Not only did Philip and Peter say this, but I point now to the Apostle Paul. Listen to the words of this man. Brethren, sons of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God, to us the word of this salvation is sent out.
For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither him, Christ, nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfill these by condemning him. And though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed. And when they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead.
And then he went on to preach the resurrection and his conclusion comes to these words. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through him, through Christ, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him, everyone who believes is freed, that is, is justified from all things from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses.
You see, whether you turn to the preaching of Philip the Evangelist, or you turn to Peter the leader of the Twelve in Jerusalem, or you come to Paul the great apostle of the church, you find the very same message. It is Christ's death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, and the necessity of personal faith in that living Christ for the forgiveness of sins. That's why I say that the cross has no meaning apart from personal faith. Now, to believe is more than intellectual assent.
I assume that you are here this morning because you have some kind of belief regarding these things of which we've spoken. But please, let's be clear about what faith is. Faith really involves two actions. On the one hand, faith involves repentance. That word means a change of mind.
To have saving faith means that one changes his mind regarding his current object of trust, whatever his life is currently focused upon for salvation, be that some church, or be it science, or money, or self-works, or religion, or some ritual or ceremony. Saving faith means that I change my mind about what I have been trusting. It's repentance on one hand, but on the other hand, it's reception.
Saving faith means I stop trusting this, and I do now actively commit myself to a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. I receive Him for who He is as God come in the flesh, and for what He did, His death, burial, and resurrection. Saving faith means that I make Him, Jesus Christ, the sole object of my faith. Faith is not an emotion. It is not something that we work up inside. Faith is a decision. Faith is a commitment. Faith is an attitude or a disposition of trust.
Saving faith is placed in Jesus Christ. As someone has said, our faith is only as valid as its object. My friend, what is it that you are trusting this morning, hoping for the salvation of your soul? The cross has no meaning apart from personal faith in the living Son of God. In truth, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the most important events in all of human history. You consider anything you wish to consider.
There is nothing that is more important in all of history than this, His death and resurrection. His coming, His cross, His resurrection have affected you in ways in which you know nothing about, perhaps. But please understand that there is no saving effect until you act to believe on Him who died for you and was buried and rose again on the third day. Charles Blondin was known as the Little Wonder. He was a French acrobat and tightrope walker who enjoyed doing dangerous stunts.
In 1859 and again in 1860, he performed one of the most amazing stunts in the annals of those kinds of events. There was a rope that was stretched across Niagara Falls both of those years and this man walked across that rope. Not once each year, but numerous times. It was 1,100 feet across the American side of the falls, 160 feet down to the raging waters below. Not only did he walk across the rope, but he walked across it blindfolded. Then he walked across it with a wheelbarrow.
And believe it or not, he even then walked across it on stilts. After accomplishing these amazing feats, he turned to the huge crowd that was watching him and he asked them if they believed that he could take another person across with him. And they all applauded and dissented, yes, you can do that. And so then he approached one particular man in the crowd and asked him to get on his back and go with him. The man refused. You see that is the difference between mental assent and real belief.
You know what Jesus Christ did for you. But have you committed yourself to Him alone for the saving of your soul? By the way, the history records tell that there was one man who got on his back and went across the Niagara Falls on that tightrope. That's faith. I think my favorite story to illustrate faith is a very simple and homey one. It is the story of a little boy who was looking for his father at dusk one evening. This was a number of years ago when it was necessary for people to dig wells.
That's rarely done these days as it used to be in the older days in our nation. He finally came to this large hole in the ground where his father had in fact been digging all day with a shovel to create a well for his family. And the little boy looked down into the darkness and he said, Daddy, are you down there? And out of that darkness the father said, Yes, son, I'm here. He said, Daddy, I want to come down there where you are. Most little boys are that way, aren't they?
And the daddy said, Well, son, just jump, I'll catch you. And the little boy said, But Daddy, I can't see you. And he said, Son, just jump, I'll catch you, I promise. The little boy walked back and forth around the lip of the well and said, But Daddy, I don't know where you are. I can't see you down there. The daddy said to the little boy, But son, just jump, I can see you. You may feel I can't see God. How do I know? What's my assurance?
My friend, you may not be able to see Him, but in this book He has given you His solemn eternal Word. And He says to you today, Believe, believe. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet who believe. Just jump. Take Him in His Word. You may not be able to see Him, but He knows you and He sees you. And He will save you. Let's pray. Father, thank You for the message of the cross.
Thank You for the personal message that everyone who believes on the Christ who died on that cross and who was raised from the dead, everyone who believes will receive forgiveness of sins. I pray that You will cause that message to be quickened to hearts across this auditorium this morning. Father, we come from many different backgrounds, some of us perhaps from religious backgrounds, others of us from even agnostic pasts. We come today to the cross and we cannot escape this message.
I pray that the cross will today have meaning to every one of us. Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed. I wonder just before we bring the service to its conclusion, if you, my friend, would pray a very simple prayer of faith and receive Jesus Christ, in your heart would you pray something like this and mean it? Lord, I turn from what I've been trusting in. I turn from my sin. I know that Jesus died for my sin and rose again. And I receive Jesus Christ as my Savior at this moment.
No longer do I trust what I have trusted, but Jesus, I trust You and I leap into Your arms believing that You will catch me and save me. With our heads still bowed, I wonder, my friend, if you prayed that prayer, if you'd be willing to lift your hand just silently where you are.
It is not my intention to embarrass you or to come back to where you are at all, but I'd like you, as an indication of that prayer and the sincerity of your heart, to lift your hand where you are, where you're seated there, so that I might pray for you in closing. God bless you. I see your hand, ma'am. Anyone else? Yes, yes, sir. This means yes, I see your hand back there. Yes. God bless you. By lifting the hand, what you're saying, Jesus Christ alone is my Savior. I believe in Him. Anyone else?
God knows your heart. Father, we thank You for these who today have personally appropriated that message that we have proclaimed of Christ's death and resurrection. Now I pray that as your Spirit brings that message into their hearts and they trust it, that you will cause them to grow in their faith. I pray that that growth will be healthy. Lead them into the things of the Lord in the word and in prayer, into fellowship with a local church where they can be nurtured and encouraged.
Lead them in the decision of public testimony through baptism. But thank you for this beginning of their walk with you where their life has been turned around because of your faithfulness. In Jesus' name, amen.