Jesus Christ volunteered to be lynched for His enemies…and His enemy was me.

Isaiah 53, Exodus 12, John 19:30, Romans 1:1, Hebrews 1:1-4, 2 Corinthians 5:21

There is no one like Jesus Christ. When I think about the incarnation of the Son of God and the cross that He bore, I am left in in awe and rightly humbled before Him. All my accolades and prideful desires for glory from others, are reduced to nausea in my stomach at the sight of God offering up Jesus on the cross.

We foolishly toy around with sin and silliness here in this world, when it is no game to God. We would do well to look at the cross of Christ every day, in order that we might take sin much more seriously than we do. No one has and no one will ever suffer like our Savior. The Gospel is this: Jesus suffers the wrath of almighty God in proportion to how sinful I am and how Holy God is.

Jesus receives the wrathful brunt of all of God’s Holiness for my depraved sinfulness. What this means is that every single sin that you and I could  and will ever commit in our lifetime, Christ suffered because of it. But he suffers for them, in proportion to how Holy and Righteous God is, not merely how sinful I am. I am redeemed at the cross, but more importantly, God’s glory is redeemed at the cross.

The cross of Christ Jesus is about worship of God

Christianity is not about being good, it is about the glory of God.  Christ redeems the glory of God by fulfilling and upholding God’s law perfectly and with joy while doing it. The joy of the Son of God lay in the cross that he was to bear, and no one, including Satan could keep Him from it. Why?  Because it was and is at the cross that His father’s glory and righteousness was redeemed . This is why God takes so much pleasure in the death of His Son, and so much displeasure in the pride of man. Pride is sin, we are full of it, and God hates sin. How do we know that God hates sin: The grisly murder of His Son.

            If you want to see how much God hates and detest yours and mine sin, just look at Christ as your and my sins are pinned into the cross in His body,  and as he hangs his head in death, with His last breath, Christ my savior, says of me and my many sins, “it is finished” (John 19:30). Such love and mercy, is Christ to us. We will never be able to fathom all the love that is in God, this side of eternity. By Faith, the Holy Spirit applies the death of Jesus to us and the righteous life of Jesus to us, not by our good works, but by His finished and perfect work on the cross, on our behalf. Truly there is no one like Yahweh, our God.

The cross shows us that God is love.

Love finds it origins and beginnings in the triune God: The Father and His love for His Son, The Son and His deep love of the Father, and the Holy Spirit,  the personification of the glorious love that is between the Father and the Son. The Eternal Trinity from eternity past is where love starts and ends. Only now it is different. Now, the Son of God, having become a man in Jesus Christ, brings us into the holy and glorious love that is within the Godhead, by His life, death and powerful resurrection from the dead.  This is the Gospel of God (Romans 1:1)

Jesus is God’s grace to us.

Instead of a pat on the back for being “good” from God, those who reject Christ, will be cast from the presence of God and be cast unto to the only place fitting for sinners who have spit in the face of Christ. That place is Hell.

Hell is the only place fitting for sinners like me if not for Christ. The only reason I am a Christian (and hopefully you are too) is because of Jesus Christ.

Hell, only makes sense because God is as glorious as He says He, and because Jesus is as worthy as God the Father says He is. The glory of God is Christ Himself (Hebrews 1:1-4). God gives us His one and only Son to die in our place. Paul tells us why God did this in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Christ becomes our sin on the cross. Christ on the cross is the mercy seat of God where God graciously meets with us sinners. Christ is the only place where God will meet with sinful mankind. The common denominator for every person’s eternal destination, is Christ.

                    God’s mercy to us is Christ on the cross, our Passover lamb (Exodus 12). For, it is in Christ alone on the cross and in the resurrection, that the father passes over our deep depravity and sin. God DOES NOT pass his wrath over His Son, and therefore He is the means by which God’s wrath is satisfied. All those who put their faith and trust in Christ, and not in themselves, will be spared God’s wrath.  If you are reading this, put your hope and faith in Christ alone, for He is the righteous king of God who is coming soon.

Church, be encouraged Christ is everything to the Father, and you are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10)

If you do not know Christ, I am warning you, to ask God to change your heart and grant you repentance, faith and trust in Jesus Christ. God is Just, and the cross tells us so. God is loving and merciful and the cross of Christ tells us so. (Hebrews 10:31)