Luke 23:20-23

Even pagan Pilate realized that Jesus had committed no harmful, hurtful evil – certainly no grounds for the death penalty. Yet these Jewish leaders and teachers of the law were all the more dogmatic and outraged – their mantra simply, “Crucify!” “Crucify!” Interestingly, all the evil ever to be committed would be placed upon Jesus on the cross. The perfect sinless One would endure the wrath of God for all the sins that man was held responsible for – past, present and future. Paul tells us:

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8 (NIV)

Christ’s death on the cross was a substitutionary death – a death in place of ours. He died for the feeble and powerless; He died for the ungodly sinner; He died for even His enemies. Scripture tells us:

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 (NIV)

“He is a physician good to all diseases, especially at the binding up of a broken heart. He died that He might heal our souls with the plaster of His own blood, and by that death save us. Shall our sins discourage us when He appears only for sinners?” Richard Sibbs, 1630 Puritan Pastor.

Scripture also tells we are cooked apart from Jesus work on the cross:

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NIV)

Justified through faith, because of Jesus’ work on the cross, we have received access to stand in the very presence of God. He has covered us with His righteousness by His blood:

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2 (NIV)

God declares us righteous on the basis of our faith in Jesus. Oftentimes, we read these verses so lightly forgetting our grave condition prior to Jesus’ work on the cross. Paul tells us in Ephesians:

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. Eph 2:1-3 (NIV)

Alienated, Paul goes on to say, “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12) concluding with:

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. Eph 2:13 (NIV)

“So let me encourage you to make the most of every opportunity to share this Good News. With so much emphasis on hope generated by our current president, we have an obvious inroad to the cultural psyche. Our Christian testimony, as Peter reminded his readers, is that, ‘we have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of the dead’. Who else has the answer to the frailty of life, the reality of death and the certainty of judgment than Jesus, who by His death destroyed him who holds the power of death and frees those whose lives are enslaved by the fear of death?” Alistair Begg

“Amazing love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” Charles Wesley

“Man needs, above all else, salvation.” Norman Goodacre

Do you know Jesus?