The Cross where Jesus died is the Cross where I died.
1) The Passover and the Message of the Cross
| God sent ten plagues to Egypt to save the Israelites. However, getting the Israelites out of Egypt was not the Lord’s only purpose. Through the ten plagues, God judged all ten of the idols that the Egyptians worshiped, displaying to all that the Lord was the only true God. There was only one problem with the Judgement of Egypt: The Israelites living in Egypt had to be included in that judgment. This was where the Wisdom of God was revealed. He commanded to prepare a lamb without blemish. The lamb was the sacrifice that would take their place for their atonement. The people Israel believed and obeyed. They painted the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and pillars, ate the lamb, and stayed indoors. A thorough judgment was carried out on all the firstborns in the land of Egypt. Not a single house was excluded. Those that prepared the atoning sacrifice would have cried out, “Lord, do not look at me, a sinner, but look at the blood of the lamb that was slain in my place and pass over my judgment!” Sin is me, I am sin. We are existential (ontological) sinners. At last, Jesus Christ came to this earth, dying and rising in my name and my status, in order for His judgment to pass over us. |
》Scripture Prayer
(Exodus 12:21-23) 21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
(Roman 3:23-26) 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
》Pray that the Word may become the Conclusion.
1. As beings who are inseparable from sin (existential sinners), we deserved to be condemned and put to eternal death. But when we could not avoid God’s righteous judgment, He revealed His own righteousness to us. Only those who acknowledge their helplessness can take hold of God’s saving hand of grace. Let us pray with thanksgiving for His favorable grace, towards undeserving sinners.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, (Ephesians 2:8)
2. ‘Propitiation by His blood (Romans 3:25)’ can only be received when offered in faith. Let us believe in the historical event and the reality of the payment that Jesus Christ made for my sins, and let us participate by faith in the Cross of Jesus Christ. God counts our faith as righteousness. Let us come before the Gospel with complete faith.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”(Romans 1:17)
2) Unite in faith with Jesus Christ, the perfectly atoning sacrifice
| In the Old Testament, God provided a means of grace by which sinners could come to Him. He gave them ‘Laws for offering’ (Lev 1~9). A sinner would bring an animal to be offered before the priest. As he lays his hands on the offering and confesses his sin, his sin is transferred to the offering. The offering and the sinner are now one. The offering is then killed, skinned, gutted, disemboweled, washed with water, and burned with fire. This offering was to be offered daily. The question is: why was this tedious process repeated on an already slain offering? The answer is because our ‘life’ consists of more than our breath. Life is not just the act of breathing and living, but it is the totality of our self. Our knowledge that is higher than God, our emotions that are not bound by God, our will, our plans, our wishes, and so on. Our ‘self’, every aspect of who we are and what we do must be dismembered by a perfect and thorough atonement through death. |
》Scripture Prayer
(Leviticus 1:3-9) 3 “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. 4 He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. 5 Then he shall kill the bull before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 6 Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, 7 and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. 8 And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; 9 but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
》Pray that the Word may become the Conclusion.
1. Jesus became a complete human. And on the cross, He completely fulfilled our atonement. The judgment that He received was completed to me. Let us proclaim in faith how His complete death set my old self free from the bondage of sin.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians2:20)
2. Let us surrender to death the areas of our being and life that deserved death (old self, stubbornness, ideas, experiences, emotions, ambition, greed, unforgiveness, etc.) Pray and receive the new life of our risen Savior Jesus Christ in faith.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:3, 10)
3) The Cross, the place where Jesus Christ died with me
| Jesus’ incarnation was an event more valuable and significant than anything else in the universe. Our Creator denied Himself to come in the form of a creature. Among the many sacrifices this world has seen, His self-denying sacrifice is unequaled to any other. The Creator was conceived in a woman’s womb, became an embryo, drank human milk, learned to speak, and learned to walk. He went through all the stages of a human being from birth to death, in order for the Gospel to become real for us. The Son of God did not need to go through birth, growth, circumcision, baptism, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus became me and lived a life identical to my own life. Everything that happened to Him was for me. Therefore, I have been united and made one with Jesus in faith. I am one with His suffering, His resurrection, and His ascension. In the past, I saw Jesus and myself separately, but now, through the cross, Jesus and I are one. Likewise, before I saw only Jesus on the cross; now I see myself crucified with Jesus on the cross. The Cross is the cross on which I died with Him. And now, united to Jesus’ resurrection, I have been raised with him and have Jesus’ life. Therefore, I can now enjoy His glory and share in His sufferings with joy. |
》Scripture Prayer
(Isaiah 53:1-6) 1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
》Pray that the Word may become the Conclusion.
1. Let us proclaim in faith that my old self, the lord of my own life, seeking only my desires have been crucified with Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. Make the decision to stand on faith by believing that my sinful body, which was enslaved to sin, has been completely destroyed.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:6-7)
2. Those who have been crucified with Christ no longer live. Let us remember that we live only through Jesus who dwells within us forever. Let us pray and resolve to stand firm on this truth by faith and to live bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)
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