Come and Die

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“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ [who loved me and gave himself for me] lives in me.” —Galatians 2:20

As they made their way up Mount Moriah, Isaac asked his father a question that should have brought a cold chill to Abraham’s heart. “‘The fire and wood are here,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for the burnt offering’” (Genesis 22:7). But such was Abraham's faith in God that his next words were not words of dread, but words of profound trust: “Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son’” (22:8).

God’s instructions to Abraham to offer his only son as a burnt offering is one of the many scarlet threads of redemption that cover the pages of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Isaac, on his way to his death, is spared when God provides the ram caught in a nearby thicket. Blood is shed, but not Isaac’s.

Every breath that you and I take is one breath less. And any one could be our last. Like Isaac, we were on our way to our deaths. But God, rich in mercy, provided His own sacrifice, Jesus, to take our place. Blood was shed, but it wasn’t ours. It was the blood of Jesus.

Peter writes: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree...” (1 Peter 2:24). But there is more than just forgiveness of sins involved here. Oddly enough, at the cross we avoided one death to embrace another. The verse goes on: “...so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”

Jesus came to offer us life at His expense. John writes, quoting Jesus, “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). But He also asks us to die to sin and to selfishness. Paul writes: “…count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires…but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life…” (Romans 6:11-13).

Jesus told His disciples that commitment came at a cost (Matthew 10:16-49).  “All men will hate you because of me…A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master…If the world hates you,” He warned, “…keep in mind that it hated me first” (Matthew 10:22, 24; John 15:18). He would model by His death what might be required some day of them. His call was a call to share His cross. It was a call to die: “…anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:28).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (The Cost of Discipleship, 1937). Bonhoeffer was living in the United States at the beginning of the Second World War, but chose to return to Germany. He felt that he would have no right to help in the restoration of Christian life in Germany if he had not shared in the suffering of his own nation and her people.  Bonhoeffer not only lived what he believed but was executed in Germany in 1945, just before the end of the war, because of those beliefs. He was thirty-nine years old.

One of the many reasons Good Friday is an essential celebration is that it reminds us not only of Christ's death as our substitute, but it also reminds us that we have been spared so that we can die to sin and to self, so that we can live righteously and so that we can embrace personal sacrifice, as we walk in the way of Jesus.

What better time to renew that commitment to “die” and to live like Jesus than on the day set aside to remember what it cost Him to make living abundantly, and dying daily, possible.

Divine Gratuity

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“For you know that it is not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect.” —1 Peter 1:18, 19

On the hills outside of Jerusalem shepherds guarded the lambs that would be sold to petitioners coming to the Temple to make their sacrifices for sin. They had to be careful with their charges—an injured or marked animal was useless. A perfect lamb was more valuable than the shepherd who watched it—shepherds were the lowest of the low in the society of that time. Max Lucado speculates in Six Hours One Friday that some of those shepherds might have wondered at the futility of so many dead lambs, so much shed blood—rituals that led to more dead lambs and more shed blood year after bloody year. I wonder if any of those shepherds discovered for himself, on that terrible day when Christ died on that cross, that Jesus was THE Lamb who would die once for all, shed His blood once for all, and provide forgiveness once for all time for anyone who asked? I wonder if any of them discovered that there would never have to be another lamb sacrificed for sin?

Did any of those shepherds do as we do: lift our heads to look into the face of Jesus Christ and be thankful, thankful for something we can’t adequately describe, but about which countless volumes have been written?

Romans 6:23, one of the most recognizable verses of Scripture, says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The word gift in the original language of the text is charisma. It means a divine gratuity and that captures my attention.

We reward people for services rendered well by giving them an extra percentage, a tip, a gratuity. But they had to DO something to GET something. The better they do their jobs the more they get from a grateful public. We withhold the tip if we don’t get what we want delivered in the way we want to receive it.

But God gives us something for doing nothing—it’s a gift—no sacrifice or service necessary on our part. And it isn’t just any old something—it’s forgiveness at the cost of the lifeblood of His Son. It was given long before we ever knew what it was, long before we appreciated it, long before we asked for it. We never did anything to earn it, nor could we have earned it no matter how hard we worked, or how much time we had been allotted to work off the debt—even if we could! 
James Kennedy writes, in Cross Purposes, Discovering the Great Love of God for You: “We need to remember that apart from His protective blood shed on the cross, we have no hope. In providing that blood, it was necessary that the Lamb should die. Substitution. Propitiation. The innocent dying for the guilty. This was God's omnipotent plan—that pure innocence should die for utter depravity. So Christ came to be the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world” (page 57).

Peace: The End Game

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“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” —Colossians 1:19, 20

There could be no worse, no crueler death than to be crucified. Christ suffered the worst so that we could receive the best: “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God...Christ suffered in his body” 1 Peter 3:18, 4:1.

John Piper writes in The Passion of Jesus Christ: “We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us. But when, by grace, we awaken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say, ‘In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the [wrath-absorbing] propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 4:10)” (page 21).

But it’s the end of the story that explains the necessity of the means required to get there.

I read the story of the Battle of Britain recently. In one chapter the author described one way in which the British authorities addressed the desperate shortage of raw materials with which to build up their war machinery. At one point an appeal was sent out to all the households on the island asking women to sacrifice their pots and pans so that the aluminum could be recycled into Spitfires, the most popular and powerful of the fighter planes that the Brits used against the Luftwaffe. Tons of aluminum were collected and the most humble of housewives felt personally involved in the war effort just by imagining that the enemy was being thwarted by their kettle or frying pan!

The cross was a sacrifice, but Jesus knew that the glorious end justified the terrible means. There would be reconciliation—two parties whose relationship was fractured would have that relationship restored. Two parties in conflict would find peace.

This truth is often pictured for us as a deep gap, or gulf, called sin. On one side of the gap is God. On the other is man. The breach is so wide and so deep that it is impossible to get across. Then, in the gap between God and man, a cross is placed. Its horizontal arms bridge the space between the two and provide a walkway that allows for a holy God to bring a sinful man back into His presence and for that man to cross the barrier created by his sin.

In the place of a dysfunctional relationship and conflict comes reconciliation and peace.

That’s the end game of the cross.

Paul writes in Romans 4:25-5:1, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Undeniably Visible

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“‘But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.’ He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.” —John 12:32, 33

The reference cited here from John 12 is to events that took place in the wilderness as Moses guided a rebellious people in a dreadfully circuitous route to the Promised Land of Canaan. This journey, which should have taken weeks, turned into one of years. That “detour” was something that Israel had brought upon her own head. Numbers 21 describes one of the reasons it took God’s people forty years to get across the wilderness. They had gotten impatient and had begun to complain about their lot, and the Lord sent a plague of snakes to get their attention. People were bitten and began to die. It was the perfect portrait of Eden—bitten by a snake! When God’s people repented Moses was instructed to make a bronze snake and attach it to a pole. He was to tell the people that anyone who looked at the serpent would live.

Jesus used this Old Testament event to illustrate what would soon happen to Him. Like that serpent He would be raised up upon a pole and anyone who looked to Him in faith would be saved from death.

I find Jesus’ choice of words interesting. His manner of death would “draw all men” to Him. There is nothing in history that has caused more criticism, consternation, comment, and conviction, than the claim that the Son of God sacrificed Himself on a Roman cross as the only means through which sinners could be saved from a fate quite literally worse than death itself.  

I was surprised to discover that Elvis Presley is attributed with the words to this song, part of which we used to sing in Sunday School. It highlights my point:

So high you can't get over Him
So wide you can't get around Him
So low you can't get under him
You must come in at the door
(So High lyrics, Elvis Presley, 1966)

All men are drawn to the cross. Some will be repelled by it and others will be remade by it. But everyone will confront it. They must.

In his book, Six Hours One Friday, Max Lucado writes: “There is a direct correlation between the accuracy of our memory and the effectiveness of our mission. If we are not teaching people how to be saved, it is perhaps because we have forgotten the tragedy of being lost! If we're not teaching the message of forgiveness, it may be because we don’t remember what it is like to be guilty. And if we’re not preaching the cross, it could be that we’ve subconsciously decided—God forbid—somehow we don’t need it” (page 75).

If we are not preaching Christ lifted up on the cross, to what then will men be drawn?

Embracing Death

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“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” —Philippians 2:8

In the space of one week three people I knew well, along with the stepfather of a friend, died.  Death isn’t usually so busy during an average week in my life. It was unsettling. But though we try hard to minimize it, death is inevitable. Even our language is designed to avoid its reality. We talk about people “passing away” or “promoted to glory” or “in a better place” or “with the angels.”

In a sense, death is the final frontier (with apologies to Star Trek fans) and we are not eager to talk about it, or to cross its boundaries. In some cultures even the mention of the word is frowned on just in case it invites “the grim reaper” (yet another way to avoid calling death what it is) to come and collect another trophy.

But Jesus embraced it. As God-become-Man He identified with us right to the last excruciating breath, crossing our final frontier just as we will someday cross it, but via suffering that we can only imagine. 

One of the big discussions of our generation has revolved around physician-assisted death—the right of people in extremis to legally end their lives at their own convenience. The argument is that when the end is inevitable and the pain is too much, people need to have the opportunity to end the suffering as quickly and efficiently as possible.

When we look at the cross we find a Saviour who “suffered” the cross and refused to excuse Himself from any of its torment. The Scriptures tell us that He would not even accept drugged wine to ease His pain (Matthew 27:34). The cheap wine given to the Roman soldiers would have been laced with something bitter such as myrrh or wormwood to dull His senses.

Matthew Poole commenting on this, writes: “Certain it is, that it was an ordinary favour they showed to dying persons, to give them some intoxicating potion, to make them less sensible of their pain. It is probable it was something of this nature; but our Saviour was not afraid to die, and so had no need of such an antidote against the pain of it; he refused it.”

He felt more than we will ever be called upon to feel and, as one commentator suggested, refused comfort so that we could find that comfort.

Jesus called death what it was, embraced it, and then crushed it so that we might never have to fear it.

Paul writes, quoting two Old Testament prophets: “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54b-57).

Beginning and End

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“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” — Hebrews 12:2

It’s so simple—just look. Look at Jesus. He is the scarlet thread that runs through the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. He holds together every truth that we, as His followers, believe. He anchors the promises of God. In Him is wrapped up the justice of God and in Him we discover the reality of God’s mercy.

Jesus appears in Genesis 3:15 in a promise made by God to our fallen forefathers, Adam and Eve. God told them that Satan would attempt to thwart the plan that would rescue them from their own folly. But He also assured them that One descended from their own line, God’s own Son with “skin,” would not only thwart Satan’s plans but destroy them forever. 

Throughout the Old Testament the journey of Jesus to the cross is foretold, though nowhere more prominently than in Isaiah 52 and 53 where the suffering Saviour is described in brutal detail: “…pierced for our transgressions…crushed for our iniquities…a lamb to the slaughter…” (Isaiah 53:5, 7).

The New Testament shouts His Name and His purpose: “…he [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:13, 19).

God’s revelation to us in Scripture ends with the promise given about a time that is coming when Jesus will return: “Look, he is coming in the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him” (Revelation 1:7).

He is the beginning and end (Revelation 22:13) of everything we are, and everything we hope for as believers.  So we must look to Him.

The cross was a shameful thing—the worst possible death, reserved for the worst possible criminals. It offered the most extreme suffering, but more to the point, it was the pinnacle of public humiliation. Even today, in a society where exposing flesh is an art form, it still is just a bit beyond the most jaded unbeliever to present the Lord as he would have been as He hung there. The Lord of life, the Creator of the universe, God Almighty, was left totally exposed before a mocking crowd.

But the writer to the Hebrews insists that Jesus rejected the thought of allowing even such humiliation to deter Him. He looked beyond the worst that man could do to Him toward the best that was awaiting Him—the joy of completing the mission only He could complete and then being reunited with His Father in glory.

No matter at what point we look at Jesus, whether it be at the beginning of history or at its end, we cannot help but see the shadow of a cross.

So it is there, to Him, we must look.

The Gift

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“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift” —1 Corinthians 9:15

Charles Spurgeon, that great preacher of a past century, is quoted as saying: “While others are congratulating themselves, I have to lie humbly at the foot of Christ’s cross and marvel that I am saved at all.”

It is one of those unexplainable marvels in life that God would sacrifice Himself for me—or for any of us.

The humility displayed in Spurgeon’s comment is rare today. And perhaps that is why it is so easy for us to skip over the cross and hurry past its humiliation in our scramble to get to a happier event. It’s hard enough for us to consider how little we deserve any mercy from God, but to admit that we don’t deserve any mercy at all is especially difficult. There has to be something redeemable about us, doesn’t there?

In recent years the trend has been away from “worm” theology—the idea that we are nothing. When Isaac Watts (1674-1748) first wrote the classic hymn At The Cross, the first stanza went like this:

Alas, and did my Savior bleed?

And did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

By the time we get to 1993, that last line had become For sinners such as I? That was fine—we are sinners. But in editions of some hymnbooks back as far as 1976, the words for the last line had been changed to For someone such as I? We seem to have gotten better over time.

In recent years the focus, both in secular society and in religious society, has been to build self-esteem—something “worm” theology doesn’t do too well. In an effort to soften the impact of the last line of the poem on our delicate psyches, someone has taken the opportunity to change the words of the old hymn.

Perhaps that is one reason, however minor, that has helped to dull our senses to the huge impact that the cross has on our lives: past, present and future. When we forget what we are we also run the risk of forgetting just how incredible a gift was given to us that day at Calvary.

Remember the drawing of the little boy and the caption underneath his picture that said: “I know I’m somebody ‘cause God don’t make no junk!!!!” that became a catch phrase some decades ago? Essentially that saying is true—God doesn’t make junk. What the phrase fails to recognize is that though God doesn’t make junk, we have “junked” ourselves because of our sin, the sin that separates us from the God who created us and who loves us beyond our capacity to understand.

Perhaps we are not quite worms (that might be to insult the hapless, innocent worm), but we are certainly hopeless, helpless sinners.

When we recognize just how far we have fallen from the “good” that God declared His creation to be in Genesis, and just how trashed our lives have become, then we can, like Spurgeon, kneel in awe at the foot of the cross and declare that the gift of God in His Son crucified on a cross to restore us to “good,” is indescribable.

Until we develop a “holy horror” toward just how bad we are, we will find it difficult, if not impossible, to appreciate the cross and our desperate need for the Saviour Who hung there in our place of judgment.