The Father and The Cross

“The cross is not the sacrifice that God needed to love us, but the sacrifice we needed to love Him.” Wayne Jacobsen from “ He loves Me”

When it comes to this time of year we all are thinking about Jesus and the cross. Many of us have a distorted view of what happened at the cross and what was accomplished there. We have been taught that God the Father punished Jesus on our behalf so that our sins could be paid for and we could go to heaven when we die. That God is holy and needed to pour out his wrath on someone because He is just and sin had to be punished. So God sent Jesus and He took our place, and was punished for us. I want to challenge some of what is stated above and hope to clear up some things. I do not claim to have it all figured out, but I no longer view God the Father as the one who punished Jesus on the cross.

Lets first take a look at sin. Sin is not actions that we do, it is something else. In our day we call behavior sin, but actions are just a outworking of sin . Sin is not an action but it is a disease, something deep within us, something that is a part of our make up. We are flawed at a deep level and scripture calls it sin. All of us have it, and none of us can get rid of it on our own. We need a cure for our disease not just a change in our behavior. Even if you have socially accepted behavior you still have sin. You may have never done anything bad in your life, still you have sin. What is sin exactly? I am not sure anyone can answer that but we can see what it causes. It causes a fear of God. It causes guilt and shame. It causes us to run from God instead of to Him. Just read Genesis 3 and you will see. We have in religion used guilt and shame and fear to motivate people to serve God. This is why people try so hard to do all the right things like read the bible, pray, give and they still feel empty and no closer to God. Religion uses the guilt to pressure us into doing even more, with the same empty results. Isaiah 53 tells us that “ by His stripes we are healed” Jesus said that the sick need a physician. Scripture uses language that says we are sick with the disease of sin.

What is the cure for sin? We will answer that in a minute, but first lets talk about wrath. We are told that we need to fear the wrath of God, but we are not clear what the wrath of God is. We think the wrath of God is when God has had enough and blows His stack. That is the picture of an abusive dad not God our Father. God”s wrath is “ when God brings all of who he is , against that which has hurt His beloved”. Now that is a very different view of wrath. God's wrath is not against us but against sin, because sin is what has hurt us, the ones God loves. Now that you know what wrath is you don't have to ever fear it again. In fact wrath is what consumes sin. It is part of the cure.

How do you cure a disease? You have a host and you give them the disease and allow them to develop anti-bodies to the disease. Then you take the anti-bodies and produce a cure. If sin is a disease like the measles then how did God cure it? Well God need a host to bear the disease, so a anti-body could be produced. Jesus was God in the flesh, He became the host for the disease. Scripture says Jesus became sin for us. He was without sin, holy and pure. Yet He became a willing host so we could be cured. The wrath of God consumed sin in Jesus. The wrath of God burned up the sin disease that was in Jesus, so we could be cured. The cure was that we could be given a new heart that was free from the sin disease. Our old hearts were corrupt and stained by this disease making us very selfish, and only out for ourselves. We became the center of our world and everything was about us. Think two year old, it is all about them. Me, me, me. We have even seen a me generation.

What happened on the cross was this. God knew none of us could ever live a perfect life, because we are diseased. He also knew that we could not cure ourselves. How many ways has man tried to change his nature and failed? So God came in the form of a man, Jesus! Jesus became sin on the cross, He took all of the disease. God the Father did not turn His back on Jesus as some have said, 2 Corinthians 5:19 says That God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Hebrews 9:14 says that by the Eternal Spirit Jesus offered Himself up. So they were all there! The fullness of God was present at the cross obtaining a cure for us. You may think about what Jesus said, My God My God why have you forsaken me! I think it was either the perception of Jesus ( He felt like the Father was absent) or He was pointing us to Psalm 22 a prophetic view of the cross,which starts out, My God My God why have you forsaken me. In the end Jesus is fully confidant that the Father is with Him. “ Father into your hands I commit my spirit!” God at the cross produced the cure for sin!

What happens now? We are given a great invitation to come and know God. Because sin has been dealt with, we can enter into a relationship with God without guilt, fear and shame. This is the good news of the Gospel! That God has made a way for us to know Him in a personal way. We no longer need a priest or a sacrifice to come to Him. We no longer stand outside looking in. We have been invited by God to come to Him and find rest. Jesus said in the upper room several things that we should rejoice over. I go to prepare a place for you....John 14:3. I don't think he is talking about heaven here, but our hearts. He was going to rid us of the disease so He could come and dwell with us and in us. I will send the Spirit and he will lead us into all truth. We no longer need teachers for we have the spirit of God living in us. We will be lead by Him alone, not by denominations and religions. We have been given the greatest invitation ever, come and know God!

The cross was God destroying sin in flesh, the resurrection was the proof that it was accomplished! Jesus defeated death, sin and the grave! Now because of that we can find our life in Him! He moves into our lives and gives us His life, we become new creations! It is an ever expanding coming to know who God is. A personal relationship, between you and God! God has invited you not only for you but to share it with others who know Him too, He called this the church. We get to see God at work in the lives of others around us. The good news of this time of year is that God made a way to cure sin, so that we might know Him! We have a Father who loves us completely and wants us to know and love Him as He has loved us!