Purpose of the Cross

I must make the attempt to say that which cannot be conveyed in words, but only through revelation by the Spirit of God. But words are necessary (Jesus used them) to bring light into a world which needs words to confirm what is being revealed.

Recently I heard a sermon on the cross. The speaker was very gifted in dramatic presentation, and many were profoundly moved by his sermon —and with good reason.

First off, the speaker made it very clear that as awful as crucifixion was, it was not what made man right with God. (Thousands before Jesus endured the same awful death.) Rather Jesus endured the most awful form of death to demonstrate the effects of sin on the family of mankind —how it causes betrayals, cruelty, the breakup of families, etc.

Like Jesus, the speaker made use of the parable, even bringing people onstage to represent Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and mankind. He emphasized that God is love and God is One, though in that oneness are three unique parts which we know as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He had those three join hands to demonstrate their oneness, being love, loving itself from all eternity. Then he showed that circle of love extending its circle by creating man in its own image (with three parts —body, soul, and spirit) and including them in their community— as portrayed in God communing with Adam in the Garden. Then he showed man getting the idea that he could go it alone and willfully leaving the circle (In the day you leave this circle you will surely die, the Lord had said).

Now God knew this was going to happen and before the foundation of the world he made a plan to get man back into the circle —for He considered it worth what it would cost. So, according to plan, God sent the angel Gabriel who appeared to a virgin and told her that she would bear a child who would receive life not from the sperm of a man, but directly from God Himself when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. So Jesus left the circle and became a man —to pay the price necessary to return man to the circle.

As Jesus was on the cross, suspended between heaven and earth, God and the Holy Spirit turned their backs on Him. For the first time in all eternity He experienced what it was like to be out of that circle of love; and for that reason, He cried out, My God, why have you forsaken me?

He sweated drops of blood in the Garden as He anticipated this most awful state and cried out for God to find some other way to get mankind back to Himself. But there was no other way; God had to pour out His wrath against all sin on His Son —that was the cost of getting man back into the circle.

Since all creation was held together by the authority of Jesus, by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:4), creation didn’t know what to do during these three hours —hence the earthquakes and the sun being darkened (Matthew 27:51; Luke 23:45). The speaker wept as he presented this scene to us. In this act, Jesus took all the punishment for every sin committed by every person for all time.

After descending into hell, Jesus was raised from the dead, took the hand of mankind and brought him back into the circle. Now all a person has to do to be included in the circle is say the sinner’s prayer and mean it (or cross the line of faith), and instantly he is in. Why would anyone want to stay out when it is so easy to get back in? We were asked by the preacher to get our lost friends and bring them to church the next day when he was going to preach the same sermon again so that they can see how easy it is and will no longer choose to stay outside that community of love.

This presentation did not move me as it did others, and I had to ask myself why. I knew in my heart that there was a season in my life when it would have. Upon awakening the following morning, I began to understand some things. I know that that speaker has experienced God’s love, acceptance, and forgiveness. It is very real to him, and this presentation is his parable of how God can and does love and accept him who knows himself to be undeserving of God’s love and acceptance —as do we all. Countless others are in this same place of need, asking themselves, How can God love and accept me into fellowship with Himself when I am such a mess?

This presentation gives them an answer which enables them to both understand and receive God’s love —in part. (1Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.) And that is a good thing, a very good thing. It is an important step on this journey from glory to glory (2Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.) People have to receive the love of God in any way that they are capable of receiving it. None of us have known and received it in its entirety, since it passeth knowledge (Ephesians 3:16-19 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.)

So I have no criticism for this sermon; I have no doubt it has helped many to further know God’s love.

But the sermon did not minister to me as it did to others, because that picture to me is inadequate —for many reasons. [I’m equally convinced that, compared to the reality, the picture which I see is just as inadequate and just as in part; but still I must attempt to present my picture for the benefit of those who may come to know God’s love from this picture.]

First off, since we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:), I see man in his true identity (as Spirit, not as a material being) as having always been in that circle of love. I see the creation of man in the image of God not as man’s origin, but rather as his being brought into physical manifestation so that he could experience and enjoy who he was in his true being (Spirit —Luke 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have).

I see God and man (in his true identity) outside of time. I cannot see all mankind from Adam to Jesus (including Enoch, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, and Daniel) outside that circle of love. Nor do I see man as willfully leaving the circle, thinking that he knew more than God and could make it on his own without God; rather, I see man (in his physical being) forgetting his origin in God and thinking that he was in some way inferior to and separated from God and consequently needed to DO something to close that gap and be loved, approved, and accepted.

Remember, Jesus “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.” (Galatians 1:4). I see Jesus and the Holy Spirit (the ascended Jesus) being sent into this world to show us that this world with all its evils is a product of our human thinking —believing that this physical, seen body and world is who we are and where we are. Jesus both taught and demonstrated what it looks like to know that we are one with the Father and that we live in the kingdom of God where we are not subject to this world and all its systems and limitations. He prayed in John that we would come to understand our oneness with Him and with the Father and with one another.

It was at the cross that Jesus demonstrated that all the most horrible effects of our carnal thinking had no real effect on the one who understands his true identity. He said many times before His crucifixion that He would arise on the third day (Matthew 17:23). He also said that no one could take his life from Him, that He would lay it down when He chose and take it up again when He chose (John 10:18). Nor did He show any real concern about Lazarus’ death which He referred to as sleep (John 11:11). He demonstrated to us the unreality of death in the kingdom of heaven. He showed that death has no victory, but is swallowed up by Life.

1Corinthians 15:54  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Paul tells us what took place at the cross:

2Corinthians 5:17-21  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath [past tense] reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

What I see is not God turning His back on Christ and offering Him up as the sacrifice necessary to appease His anger and absorb His wrath against us or our sin. I see rather God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. If sin is nothing more than the carnal thinking that we are separated from God (see “One with God“) (and all that we normally think of as sins are merely the effects of that carnal thinking), then for Jesus to be made to be sin would be for Him to think as a man —thinking that He was separated from His Father (hence His cry on the cross).

The Bible also states that Jesus was the first-born among many brethren (Romans 8:29 (KJV) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.) and that it was God who raised Him from the dead. For Jesus to think that He was separated from His Father was to be made sin, and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

And isn’t that the only sense in which Jesus died? For He was Life and could not die, just as we are Life and cannot die. But we can think that we are separated from our Father, thus becoming sinners and experiencing that death.

Matthew 27:46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

These were not the last words spoken by Jesus on the cross, but rather:

Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

Even while dead in sin, Jesus called on the name of the Lord and was saved, born again, or raised from the dead —by God, not by works that he had done— the same way we are saved.

Romans 10:13

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

2Timothy 1:9

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Titus 3:5

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

Ephesians 2:1

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Ephesians 2:5

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

Colossians 2:13

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

Jesus’ descent into hell was into the same hell that we make our beds in (Psalms 139:7-8 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.), but neither He, nor we, could or can ever escape from the Spirit and Presence of God —for we are one Spirit (1Corinthians 6:17 (KJV) But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.) (there is only one Spirit —Ephesians 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;).

Paul says in Romans 6 that we were buried with Christ and also raised with Him to newness of life. He also says in 2Timothy that God hath saved us in Christ Jesus before the world began. I see this as outside time as we experience time. The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). The cross in physical manifestation in this world enables us to see the darkness that we have been in and the way into the Light, the way out of death into Life.

Likewise, the coming of the Holy Spirit into manifestation in our earth or physical realm is to bring to our remembrance what we have forgotten of our beginnings in God and that we have never been separated from Him except in our minds:

Colossians 1:21  And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.

The following verses say to me that God is my Father, has always been my Father, that I came from Him and that the same is true for everyone, as it was true for Jesus and as He prayed in John we would know is true for us. 1Corinthians 8:7  tells us that not all of us have that knowledge (or Jesus wouldn’t have prayed for us to get it).

Acts 17:28

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Matthew 23:9

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

1Corinthians 8:6-7

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge.

Ephesians 4:6

One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

As I said at the beginning of this writing, I know that I see only in part, that this is just an imperfect picture of what IS. But perhaps this picture may help someone else increase in their knowledge of God —who is Love.

We do know this —no matter how good we think it is, it is really much better than that!

1Corinthians 2:9

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Romans 11:33

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

Ephesians 3:20

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. …