DID YOU KNOW THAT MORE THAN JESUS DIED ON HIS CROSS?

            Christians look to the cross as the place where Jesus took the sin of the world so that people can be forgiven and so that, with sin out of the way, they can have fellowship with God and look forward to spending eternity with Him in heaven. This is a great and precious truth. And if that were all that happened that Good Friday over 2,000 years ago, that would be enough. In itself, it is breathtaking. But the work of the cross did not stop there.

            What is the cross? The cross is a place of death. The cross in Jesus’ day was an instrument of execution. It had no other purpose. Whatever was put on a cross died.

Death may have one of two effects. It may be the end. Or it may be the beginning. Whatever does not come back from death is ended: if I kill a mosquito, it will never bother me again. But there is also resurrection. And so Jesus died, but He was raised to life. In His resurrection, He was the same (Hebrews 13:8): “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” But there were important differences. His body was different (1 Corinthians 15:42): “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable”. He had a bride (Revelation 19:7).[1] And His enemy the devil was defeated and people were set free (Hebrews 2:14-15): “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

This is the traditional Easter story. On Jesus’ cross, Jesus died and then was resurrected. But so much more happened. Let’s take another look.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

            Forgiveness is a most precious gift of our faith. To know that God holds nothing against us but receives us as a loving Father is a marvelous truth to live. But two things more need to be said about that truth. The first is that our sin is not just forgiven because of the cross; it is also dead and gone because of the cross. That’s all our sin, including any sins we may commit from now up until the time we die. It’s all gone now. In its place is God’s righteousness. I am not a sinner saved by grace. I used to be a sinner. Then I was saved by grace. Now I am a saint who is the righteousness of God.

Romans 6:6-7

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin -- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

            Christians can have the same low self-esteem as is found among people outside the faith. Some feel the weight of their sin as if sin is what defines them. They try so hard to be good Christians, but they wind up feeling like they can never quite make the grade. Their pastors and others may lay heavy loads on them of all the things a “good Christian” should be doing or not doing, and again, they feel that they fall short. If someone praises them for a job well done or comes to say how much what they did was appreciated, they run for cover saying, “Oh, that wasn’t me. That was all God, not me.” It’s as if the wretched person they were before their salvation is still alive and well. And they wonder how God could ever look at them and say (2 Corinthians 5:17): “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

            These Christians know that Jesus died for their sins. But they don’t know that the person they were before Christ, that person stuck in sin, that person who never measured up and never made the grade is also dead. That person was “crucified with him”. And they are no longer slaves to sin “because anyone who has died has been freed from sin”. In this case, death was the end. That old self died and remains dead - “the old has gone”. But, “the new has come”. What is “the new”? It is “the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). This is who every Christian is.

Colossians 2:14

. . . having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

Romans 7:4, 6

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God . . . But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

            Christians who struggle with believing that they’re new creations “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” tend to be believers who, in one way or another, think they have to live up to certain standards. In any way that we have a list that starts “A good Christian should or should not ____”, we are living as if we have to keep some kind of “code”, “regulation” or “law”. Now, Scripture is very clear that no one will ever succeed in this. If we want to be righteous by keeping the law, the standard is to have no slips, ever (1 Peter 1:15-16): “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” The standard in law-keeping is to do as good a job as God. And who can admit to that? All of us had pretty much already fallen short of that standard long before we came to know Christ (Romans 3:23): “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. To make matters worse, if we law keep, we can’t receive grace (even though God is always giving it) or have God help us in our efforts (Galatians 5:4): “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” What a miserable place to be for someone who wants to be holy!

            What is the solution? The solution is to take God at His word. We died to the law. In fact, the law itself also died on the cross with Christ. This means there has to be another way for us to be holy. That way is:

2 Corinthians 5:21

21  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 5

17  For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Romans 9

30  What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;

31  but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.

Romans 10

4  Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Philippians 3

8  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

9  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

The solution happened over 2,000 years ago. In Christ, we have God’s righteousness as a gift, given when we put our faith in Jesus. All we need to do is consider that to be the truth (Romans 6:11): “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Galatians 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

            Not only does trying to do enough good in this world to measure up to God’s standards always fail, but that failure brings a curse on us (Galatians 3:10): “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’” The things that can fall on a person because of this curse are many and fearful (Deuteronomy 28):

15  However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16  You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17  Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18  The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19  You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20  The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.

21  The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.

22  The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.

23  The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.

24  The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

25  The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.

26  Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

27  The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.

28  The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.

29  At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

30  You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.

31  Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.

32  Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.

33  A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.

34  The sights you see will drive you mad.

35  The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

36  The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.

37  You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.

38  You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.

39  You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

40  You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.

41  You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.

42  Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

43  The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.

44  He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.

45  All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.

46  They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

47  Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,

48  therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

49  The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,

50  a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young.

51  They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.

52  They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.

53  Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you.

54  Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children,

55  and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.

56  The most gentle and sensitive woman among you - so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot - will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter

57  the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

58  If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name - the LORD your God -

59  the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.

60  He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.

61  The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

62  You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God.

63  Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64  Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods - gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

65  Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.

66  You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.

67  In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!” - because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

68  The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

But a Christian need no longer fear the curse because Jesus became the curse, and the curse died on the cross. It did not revive. Jesus came out of the grave “a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). There is no more death-dealing curse in Him.

Romans 7:6

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

            Christ is deeply passionate that Christians be free (John 8:36): “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And yet Christians sometimes feel bound: bound to addictions, bound to certain sins, bound to fear or anxiety, bound to the effects in their life of a traumatic past, and so on. To them, those things are alive - more alive at times than Jesus and their faith in His promise of freedom. Yet, although Christians may feel enslaved to these things, in fact, they are not in bondage to them because they died to what once bound them. And a dead person is no longer bound to the troubles of their former life.

Colossians 2:14 (New Century)

He canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross.

We owe God nothing. Our debt to Him was nailed to the cross. This is our freedom. We don’t have to do anything for God. All that we do can be a gift, a freewill offering. Sometimes Christians feel that, after all Jesus did for them, they need to be doing something for Him, as if they owe Him. But consider the following parable:

Joe and Sam were the best of friends - had been since high school. They were both successful businessmen. Joe owned a string of car lots. When Sam turned 50, Joe presented him with a new car. Sam was delighted. It was just the kind of car he had always dreamed of having but could never afford, what with family and kids going to university, and so on. Now, when Joe and Sam went out together, Sam would drive, taking great joy in going out with his best friend who loved him enough to give him such a wonderful gift, and Joe was always delighted to go out in Sam’s car. It felt good to him to see how delighted his friend was with his gift.

            One day, Sam arrived with something for Joe. “Joe”, he said, “I’ve been thinking. That car was such an expensive gift, I thought I really ought to do something in return. So here is a hand-crafted table for your living room. (Sam was a very talented woodworker in his spare time, and he had meticulously made this table to pay Joe back in part for the wonderful gift he had given him.) Joe appreciated the table, but was uncomfortable with the gift. Because it really wasn’t a gift. Somehow, Sam now felt obligated, and this was payback, not a true and free expression of his heart of friendship for Joe. Several months later, Sam brought another gift - this time, a beautiful fishing rod with a handcarved handle - that Joe could take with him when the two went on one of their many fishing trips. “Joe”, Sam said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how much you gave me when you gave me that car, and I just wanted to do something to say “thanks again”. The fishing rod was a beautiful rod, expertly crafted and painstakingly done. But again, Joe, while grateful and appreciative, was uncomfortable. Was Sam giving him these gifts as a friend or because he felt that he owed Joe in some way? Joe had had no intention of making his best friend feel like he owed him. He had just wanted to show his love. Nothing more. He certainly didn’t want his friend feeling trapped by the gift and always looking for how to repay him. Sam’s reaction to his generous gift was beginning to get in the way of their friendship. So long as Sam felt like he owed Joe, all the gifts he gave to Joe felt more like obligations than friendship gifts. He wished Sam could just enjoy his gift and their friendship. Period.

We really don’t owe God anything. To think that we do is to say that grace isn’t grace. It’s to say that we are not saved by grace through faith as a gift (Ephesians 2:8, 9),[2] that God didn’t really mean that. It’s to say that the gift had strings attached, and now we owe God.

But the gift didn’t have strings attached (Galatians 5:1): “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” God wants our love - that’s all. What we end up doing out of a heart of love is great. What we do for any other reason is not so great (1 Corinthians 13):

1  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love delights God’s heart. He is more than satisfied with just us, just as Joe was more than satisfied with his friend Sam without all Sam’s gifts.

Gal. 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

            For any who still may not be convinced that in Christ they are new creations, that the old has indeed fully gone and the new fully come, there is the Scriptural teaching that I died on the cross with Jesus. That old “me” is dead and gone. I have also been “been raised with Christ” (Colossians 3:1),[3] and I ascended with Him to heaven (Ephesians 2:6).[4] This is all past tense. It’s a done deal. We are already living on the glory side of life.

Hebrews 2:14-15

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil-- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

            Jesus’ death destroyed the devil himself. This released from slavery every believer who was held in the grip of the devil by their fear of death. This fear has many faces - fear of: physical death, the end of a relationship, the loss of anything we feel is needed for a full life, job termination, loss of youth, sickness. The list could go on and on. These are all deaths - the end of something good in our lives, perhaps even of something that we feel we could never live without. But the fear of death in all its forms is gone. It died on the cross with Christ. The devil holds no power over us.

Galatians 6:14

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

            A Christian is dead to the world. That’s pretty dead. It’s also pretty important. The world is God’s creation, but Adam and Eve, in their sin, gave authority over the world to Satan when they chose obedience to him over obedience to God. To this day, there are two spirits in conflict with one another in our world - the “Spirit who is from God” and “the spirit of the world” (1 Corinthians 2:12). With regard to the second spirit, 1 John 4:3 says: “This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” This is why the world, although this is not always obvious, hates God and hates God’s people (John 15:18-21).[5] This is why the world is also corrupt and passing away (1 John 2:17).[6] But we have escaped that corruption and been given something wonderful in its place (1 Peter 1:4): “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” And if we are dead to the world, what can the world do to us? A dead person can’t be offended, rejected, hurt or even killed, just as Jesus said (John 11:26a): “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die”. The Lord has swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54).[7] Death has no more sting (1 Corinthians 15:55).[8] We are free from our final enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26).[9] We’ve won.

            On Jesus’ cross, Jesus died and our sin died. What also died there was our old self, our slavery to sin and our debt to God, the standards that everyone, including God, has said we have to meet in order to “make the grade”, the curse that comes to all who fail to keep 100% of God’s law, everything that once bound us, our old life, the power of the devil and the world’s influence in our life. What resurrected with Christ was me - and you if you are a believer - the same, yet so very different - now freed from sin, having God’s righteousness, living life in the new way of the Spirit, and filled with the life of God the Son. Because of the cross, it is absolutely true of all believers that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).