The Importance of Understanding the Death of Christ

Here's the post. I'm going to dive right into the quotes.

First, it wasn't ONLY a human sacrifice that took place. Christ is God. God died. Try to think about that one for a moment and see if changes your view of things at all. Jesus was God and Man at the same time, and He died.

Pilot was also duty-bound to stop it. The religious rulers of the Jews in that day had been waiting and waiting for their Messiah to show up. Why do you think this is so ghastly? Because all the people who SHOULD HAVE KNOWN were the people who killed Him. No, had you and I and everyone else in the world been there at that time, apart from the grace of God, we too would have cried out, "Crucify Him." It's not that we are held responsible for that crime - no, that crime falls specifically on those who committed it. We are held responsible for the attitude that we have against Him NOW. For looking at what happened and saying it's unreasonable to believe. For doubting that Christ's sacrifice was worth as much as it was, for down-playing what actually happened on the cross, for currently spitting in the face of the Son of God. We did not drive the nails into His hands, but we do the equivalent when we negate what He suffered there or how much we need it.

I think everyone should go through the process of imagining a new fantasy world full of characters and rules and their own system of days and nights and weeks and months. It's a very interesting thing to do. Then, after you have that system created, consider just how silly it would be for one of your characters, that you made up, to say, "This gravity doesn't make any sense. It can't work like that."

This is the arrogance and the folly of people who say that God's system doesn't work because they don't think it makes sense. He's God. His system is the one that is in place; His system works because He is all-powerful and He made it. Questioning that is ridiculous.

In God's system, Adam was a representative of the race of humans. He was given a simple rule, one that was easy to keep. He broke it and humanity gained a sin nature. God is not unjust for putting that system in place. Nor would I be unjust to put a system in place in my created world that only allowed short people, like myself, to be able to jump. It's not unjust because it's mine.

An eternity is Hell is NOT worse than what Christ suffered on the cross. If it were worse, then Christ didn't pay our penalty, and we would still owe something. No, what Christ suffered was so far WORSE than an eternity of Hell that it counted for hundreds of thousands of eternities in Hell. God poured out the WHOLE cup of His wrath on Christ - what do you think those three hours of darkness were about? Just because it was a cool effect? That was when the hammer fall, when God struck His own Son, when the breach in fellowship between the Persons of the Godhead happened.

Consider who has it worse: There are two people, we will call them John and Jack. John has had delicious food his entire life. He's eaten whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Jack has lived on plain, white rice, sometimes going without for a day or too. Suddenly, all they both have to eat ever again is tasteless bread. Who will that effect more? Obviously, John is going to have a much harder time with that.

Consider the glory that Christ had, the companionship with the Father, the sweet fellowship, the oneness. Think about being in perfect harmony with the person you love most, where everything you do makes them love you more and everything they do makes you love them more, until it is just a boundless swelling of joy and love and admiration. Consider that kind of perfection. Now think if that was the way it had ALWAYS been. You had NEVER been without that.

And then it's gone. How would every second, for the Being that can experience simultaneously so much more than we can fathom, NOT be the equivalent of an eternity? A day with God is as a thousand years and a thousand years are as a day. Do you know that in Gethsemane, Christ was not bemoaning only the physical pain? Honestly, I have a hard time thinking that was on His mind at all when faced with something so much more horrendous. It was the separation from the Father that was the blow, it was the weight of disgusting, putrid SIN being on the perfect Son - not the physical stuff.

And then the author calls it a "pathetic moral spectacle." Christ's death is pathetic? Even if Christ were ONLY a man, how dare you say something about such a gruesome and horrific event? Where is there an ounce of respect in that? This I find offensive and hypocritical because I have heard both of the publishers of this blog talk about respect and tolerance. And then they publish a quote from a man who looks at a terrible event in history and the sacrifice of a Person's life when He had done NOTHING to deserve it and he writes, "Pathetic!"

No, dear readers. THAT statement is nothing less than the same hatred and disdain that the crowds displayed when they cried out, "Crucify Him!" That is lacking in common decency. The lack that is evident in those who are lost when faced with the Light that shines on their sins. That is the backlash of salt poured on a wound.

I've written a lot, so just one last note about the last paragraph. Yes, the elect were chosen before people existed. Yes, the others were ordained to Hell. However, for any who sit there wondering if they are or aren't Christians, I refer you to the book of I John, which has a list of ways for you to KNOW - either way. Do you love God? Do you love God's people? Have you not remained in habitual sin? The Bible is underrated for having the answers. Oh, lots of people say it has them, but then they have a question, and they suddenly seem confused as to where to go for the answer. Go to the Word. God gave us answers. He's a loving God. The existence of the Bible is probably the second greatest proof of that, next to the sacrifice of Jesus.