Equipping Eve: The Cross of Christ

Well hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve. I'm your host Erin Benziger and we are going to talk about the truth here today just like we always do. Sometimes we talk a little bit more about false teachers or false teachings always with a focus back to Christ and to his Word and to his truth, but ultimately if we don't point back to the truth, if we do not focus on the truth, then it does not matter how much error we point out.

There needs to be a priority and that priority needs to be on the truth of God and his Word. So speaking of error and speaking of truth, let's talk about error first so that we can get to the truth because I have to find a segue, right?

That's the nature of radio. So I'm sitting here at my desk and I am looking over at the corner of my desk. I have this little trinket that I purchased not too long ago. It's called a Buddha board. Yeah I know it's a Buddha board.

I bought it because I was intrigued by it, not because I thought it had any validity to it whatsoever, but what's interesting about it is so it's this little it's a mini Buddha board. Apparently there's a large Buddha board.

I have the mini. It's this little plastic case and you open it up and inside you find a paintbrush and this special little board that you are supposed to paint on. Now you're you are only supposed to use water on the board.

You cannot use a pen or actual paint. If you do, you will ruin your Buddha board. Don't want to do that. So it says here in the little insert that came with this, it says that the Buddha board gently encourages the user to value the present and then it tells you what you do.

You paint on the board's special surface with water. The image darkens and then it slowly fades away effortlessly bringing out the creative side that exists in all of us. And so you see focus on the present.

What are you thinking right now? What's your creativity telling you? And you draw on this and then it fades away and and you can do something new. Something new in your new present. This insert also says Zen.

The past is over. The future may never be. The present is all that exists. Live each moment to the fullest. Well there you go. There is bad theology 101. Buddhism is not the way of truth. Jesus Christ alone is the way of truth.

The Cross of Christ Versus Buddhist Present-Moment Thinking

And in fact Christianity hinges, does it not, on an event that happened in the past. An event that has massive ramifications for your present and even larger ramifications for your future. An event that before it even happened was foretold by the prophets in the Old Testament.

And that event is the cross. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came to this earth, humbled himself, the Son of God, lived on this earth for approximately 33 years, perfectly keeping the law of God, which we cannot do.

We break God's law every single day. But Jesus did not. He was perfectly obedient to his Father throughout his entire life. And that includes at his crucifixion. He was wholly obedient to the Father. So that's what I'd like to talk about today, ladies, is the cross of Christ.

I'm not talking here about the necklace you may wear around your neck or that decoration that may hang in your church or on your wall, though there's nothing inherently wrong with those things. And we will circle back to that at the end of the show.

But I thought we'd think today on two aspects of the cross. The world's view of the cross and God's view of the cross. So ladies, if you will turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I've been reflecting on 1 Corinthians for the past couple of weeks and there's so much in this book.

And I've been listening to various sermons taken from different passages here, especially in the first three chapters or so of 1 Corinthians. And it's triggered a lot of ideas in my head. But certain things have really stuck out to me in reading and rereading this particular passage.

And one of those things is the cross of Christ and how we view the cross of Christ. So if you'll turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I'm starting in verse 18, reading through verse 24. Paul writes,. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Christ crucified, ladies, to those who are called who are elect in Jesus Christ, whether Jew or Greek, Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God. As I said, there are a lot of things in that passage and beyond that I would love to talk about, but then this would be about a five-hour show and I wouldn't have anything to talk about next time I hit record, so we'll just break it up over time and as the Lord wills.

And as I said today, let's talk about the cross of Christ. So first let's think about the world's view of Christ. We see it right here and what Paul is writing that the cross is seen as a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks or to the Gentiles.

Why is that? Why was that, especially in the first century as Paul was writing, why was the cross or the message of Jesus Christ crucified, a crucified Savior, why was it viewed in such a way by these groups which really encompasses all people in the world, Jews or Greeks?

It's important, ladies, to remember that crucifixion back in the first century and long prior to that was a common form of capital punishment. It was used throughout history and then culminated, of course, there in with the rule of Rome when Jesus was crucified and didn't really cease being used as a form of capital punishment until the time of Constantine.

So this was not something that was unique to Jesus. He wasn't, you know, the first person crucified and in 500 years. No, it was a very, very common form. There is an article that you can find online at the Master's Seminary.

It's in the Master's Seminary Journal written by Don Green called The Folly of the Cross and Pastor Green details there how crucifixion was, as I said, a very common form of death, capital punishment, and a very cruel form of death.

Mass crucifixions, individual crucifixions, it was not a pretty way to die. And oftentimes when we think of the cross, we think of that which is hanging around our neck or on our wall and it's sanitized and it's even romanticized and that's an anemic view of the cross and that's why it's so important to think rightly about the cross of Christ.

So as far as the Romans were concerned, those who were crucified were criminals. Typically Roman citizens were not crucified, but criminals against the state of Rome would be put on the cross and crucified and there was no dignity in this.

They were degraded. They were demeaned. Don Green writes in his article, the victim's indignity went beyond their alleged crimes or military defeat. The Romans crucified their victims publicly to deter crime and help maintain public order.

Further, they had rather systematized crucifixion so that it thoroughly tortured and demeaned the crucified. First, the victim was flogged with a leather whip studded with bone or metal. This flogging reduced the back and shoulders to throbbing ribbons of bleeding flesh.

The condemned then shouldered the crossbar upon which he was to be hung and carried it to the place of crucifixion. As he walked, a placard around his neck indicated the crime which he had been convicted.

Once at the execution site, he was stripped naked and his outstretched arms were tied or nailed to the crossbar. Then the crossbar was hoisted and fastened to an upright post. A small peg gave the condemned a place to sit to somewhat relieve the strain on his arms.

The time on the cross was one of grotesque agony for the victim. Though death could be hastened through breaking the legs, it was often delayed for days as the crucified slowly succumbed to exhaustion or suffocation.

The final indignity came when the corpse was left on the cross to rot or provide food for animals and crows. Occasionally the body would be given to relatives or friends for burial. So you can see, ladies, why the crucifixion or the message of a crucified Savior would be seen as foolishness to the Gentiles, to the Greeks who viewed crucifixion through the eyes of the Romans.

And this is how it was carried out and this is how it was viewed. So what about the Jews? How did the Jews view crucifixion? If possible, ladies, the Jews actually detested the crucified even more than the Romans.

Why? Because they believed that those who were crucified were actually cursed by God. And they got this from Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 22 and 23 read, If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day.

For he who is hanged is accursed of God, so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. So the Jews absolutely detested the practice of crucifixion for many reasons, but then viewed the victim with such disdain precisely for the reasons perhaps similar to the Romans because of their criminal qualities, but then because they fully believed, based upon Deuteronomy 21, that those who were crucified were accursed by God.

So you can see, ladies, why these cultural attitudes caused the Gospel, the Word of the Cross, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1 .18, why these attitudes would would cause this message of a crucified Savior to be a stumbling block to the Jews or foolishness to the Greeks.

You can see why it would be an obstacle to them coming to faith. The world's view of the cross in the first century, when Paul was writing, was one of utter contempt. And the world's view of the cross today is the same, but for very different reasons.

But the world will always be opposed to the message of the cross. We are told that in Scripture. And this passage in 1 Corinthians is one of those places where it is explained to us that this message, and this phrase in verse 18, the Word of the Cross, really encompasses the whole of the Gospel message.

It is just ridiculousness to the world. But how does God view the cross? How does God view the crucifixion of Christ? What did the cross mean to God? John MacArthur offers a sermon that is called, What the Cross Means to God, and he details a few qualities, a few characteristics of the crucifixion of Christ, and what it meant to God the Father.

MacArthur says that, first of all, the death of Christ was a sacrifice to God. He says, all sacrifices and all offerings prescribed in the Old Testament, all of them were offered to God. There was never a sacrifice offered to man.

God was the recipient of every sacrifice. Every sacrifice that was given was to rise to God as a sweet-smelling savor in his nostrils. Incense rose to God as a symbol of prayers that were lifted up before him.

The offerer was guilty, and by sacrificing, he was acknowledging his guilt, and that that guilt had come upon him because he had violated and offended and dishonored God. God needed to be appeased. The offerer brought an animal to the priest, but the offering was not to the priest.

It was by the hands of the priest, and with the hands of the offerer, laid on that offering, offered to God. So the Cross of Christ, the atonian sacrifice of Christ, was a sacrifice to God. And the amazing thing about Christ's sacrifices, those sacrifices in the Old Testament, they were just shadows of this perfectly atonian sacrifice that Christ would offer, because he did it once and he never has to do it again, which is what makes the Roman Catholic Mass so abominable, because they, in a sense, are re-sacrificing Jesus Christ every single time they perform the Mass, because they do not believe in the sufficiency of this one sacrifice of Christ.

But Hebrews 9, 23 says,. Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

Nor was it that he would offer himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world.

But now once, at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

He sacrificed himself once. Verse 11 of that chapter, Hebrews 9, 11,. When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood.

He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh.

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? The sacrifice of Christ, the cross, as seen by God the Father, was an offering to God, an offering for the sins of those who would believe, an atoning sacrifice.

MacArthur goes on and says that, secondly, the death of Christ was a submission to God. A submission to God. Turn your page, if you're still in Hebrews 9, to Hebrews 10, verse 5. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God. After saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.

Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Christ came to do his Father's will. John 4, 34. Jesus said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. John 10, 17. For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.

No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from my Father. Jesus Christ came to do the will of his Father and the will of his Father was that he would be sacrificed, that he would be crucified to obtain salvation for his people.

So the sacrifice of Christ, the cross of Christ, through the eyes of God the Father was an offering to God. It was a submission to God and it was a substitution to God. If you go back to Hebrews 9, it talks about Christ being offered once to bear the sins of many.

Second Corinthians 5 talks about Christ dying one, one died for all. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. It was a substitution, a substitutionary death.

First Peter 2, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds we are healed. First Peter 3, he died the just one for the unjust. Jesus Christ, as we said before, lived a perfect life.

He did not deserve the wrath of God that was placed on him at the cross, but he bore that as a substitute for you and for I who do deserve that wrath of God. The cross of Christ was a substitution to God.

It was also a satisfaction to God. It satisfied the wrath of God that we just spoke about. Jesus Christ at the cross propitiated for the sins of his people. Romans 3, ladies, turn to Romans 3 verse 21, but now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.

For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In other words, all of us deserve the wrath of God. But verse 24, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.

This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The wrath of God that rests upon sinners is satisfied through the cross of Christ for those who repent and believe upon him. First John 2 .2, he himself is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but for those of the whole world.

First John 4, verse 10, in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The cross of Christ was a satisfaction to God. And finally John MacArthur says the cross of Christ was a salvation for God.

A salvation for God. First Peter 1, verse 18, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

That spotless blood, that unblemished blood of Christ provided salvation for those who would believe. Titus 2 .14 says Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

First Timothy 2 .6 says Christ gave himself ransom for many, the testimony given at the proper time. The cross of Christ was a salvation to God. John MacArthur says Christ did what he did on the cross to provide a salvation for God that God might gather into his presence a redeemed humanity that would forever and ever serve and honor and praise and glorify him.

The great theme of the entire universe is God's glory. I mean that's what it comes down to, doesn't it ladies? I mean we see then how the world views the cross as foolishness or as a stumbling block or both and then we see how God views the cross and everything that the cross accomplished and ultimately, ladies, I know we're told Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we're tempted to think it's all about us.

Jesus Christ ultimately died on the cross in obedience to his father to bring glory to God. MacArthur closes his sermon. He says they say 30 ,000 Jews were crucified around Palestine in that time in human history.

A lot of people were crucified. A lot of people were flogged. We see in the book of Acts that the apostles were flogged the way Jesus was. That's not what it's about. It's not the temporal physical aspects of his death that matter to us.

It's the theological realities of his death and mark this, it all redounds to the glory of God. All of this is about the glory of God. The cross of Jesus Christ is about the glory of God. So in light of this, in light of the foolishness of the cross in the world's eyes, in light of the offense of the cross to the world, what should the church do?

What should the church do, ladies? Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. We are not to be ashamed of the cross.

Why? Because it is the power of God unto salvation, which we see again in our original verse, 1st Corinthians 1 18. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

So what do we do knowing that the cross is a stumbling block, knowing that the cross is an offense? We do not shrink back from preaching the cross. We do not shrink back from proclaiming the cross with all of its offenses.

Why? Because when we proclaim the cross and when we preach the cross, God is glorified. Again, turning to John MacArthur, this time his commentary on 1st Corinthians, he says, the only message a Christian has to tell is the message of the cross, of God the Son becoming man, of his dying to pay the penalty for our sins, and of his being raised from the dead in order to raise us to life.

In 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 2, Paul says, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Chapter 1 verse 23, but we preach Christ crucified. We are called to preach Christ crucified.

Why? Because the crucifixion of Christ was for the glory of God. It is central to the gospel. Without it there is no gospel. We must have a crucified Savior. There's no magic, of course, in the symbol of the cross, whether it's your necklace around your neck, whether it's the cross hanging on your wall, but ladies, if you have those outward symbols, if you wear a cross necklace, I wear a cross almost every day, let those outward symbols bring to your remembrance the realities of the cross, and not just the physical aspects.

You know, I think of movies like The Passion of the Christ, and they're so vivid in their depiction of crucifixion, of the crucifixion of Christ, and so often we focus on the physical reality of crucifixion, and it was gruesome, and it was torturous, and it was awful, and it was demeaning and degrading, and I can't even fathom it, and the thought that my Savior endured that, I can't even grasp it, that he would do that for a sinner like me out of obedience to his Father, but that's not ultimately what it's about, because as we've seen, it was common.

Christ's death was not an uncommon death in the physical sense, but it's those theological realities, like MacArthur said. Think on those things when you see that symbol of the cross. Let it remind you of Jesus Christ, of Jesus Christ your Savior, who obediently and willingly died for your salvation, and let it remind you of Jesus Christ, your Lord, your Master, who purchased you, not with gold or silver, as Peter says, but with his own blood.

The cross of Christ is something we must never lose sight of. It's so easy, because it is an offense, and it is a stumbling block, to downplay the message of the gospel in whatever seeker-sensitive way our current society tells us to.

You know, we've seen that here in America. We've seen seeker-sensitive churches actually remove the physical cross from their buildings because it might offend an unbeliever. Well, sorry. God tells us that his cross is an offense to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.

We do not remove the offense of the cross in our preaching. We are called to proclaim, with boldness and with courage, Jesus Christ and him crucified. For I determine to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And why? Because that is the only message that can save. Ladies, are you bold in your proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ? And I say proclamation, not sharing the gospel. No, proclaim it. The cross of Christ is worthy of being proclaimed.

Okay, ladies, I hope thinking on these things has been an encouragement to you today. Think of how the world views the cross of Christ, but then think of how God views it, and think of what that cross means for you as a Christian who has been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ.

So until next time, ladies, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped. Thanks for listening.