Everything that Matters was Nailed to the Cross - Even You.

I was reading a book about how our salvation worked through Jesus' death on the cross. The author said it is mysterious and we won't understand it in this life.

I was telling my husband about this and he said, "I don't see why people don't get it. Jesus died on the cross and the law died on the cross. We are saved because he kept the law, was equal to the law (since he made it) and we can't keep the law so he did it for us."

I was a bit stunned because number one, I'm not a Bible scholar, and number two I had never thought about the law being nailed to the cross. I had heard from my church that it was only the ceremonial law that was nailed to the cross, but my husband showed me that was wrong. All law was nailed to the cross.

So, I was thinking about the 10 Commandments being nailed to the cross and Jesus too and then I remembered what Jesus said about taking up our own cross and following him.

"Then he (Jesus) said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.  Luke 9:33

I started studying and I saw that it isn't our own separate cross we take up; we were nailed to Jesus' cross along with him.

 "For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20

"But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin."  1John 1:7

Imagine being nailed to the cross with Jesus. His blood would pour out on us.

So, now the 10 Commandments are on the cross, Jesus is on the cross and we are on the cross.

Is anyone else on the cross?  Yes! God the Father and the Holy Spirit were on the cross because they are one. The Father is in Jesus and they are both in the Holy Spirit and they were on the cross there suffering with Jesus in their hearts and minds.

For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 2 Corinthians 5:19

I read that the law was like a contract signed to buy a house. But you don't have good credit so you get a co-signer. Maybe your parents. Then you decide you can't keep the house. It is too much money, it is too hard to pay and you walk away. The house must be paid for. No getting the bank to forgive that loan, so the co-signer must pay. 

Someone had to pay for the laws of the universe being broken and this is where the hard part comes in, understanding why.  All I know is that the co-signer has the money. You don't; he does. And he is glad to pay it for you! It is a sacrifice for him but he loves you. You can even live in the house- he gives it to you free of charge.

Okay, so this is what I've been thinking about for two days and I'm not sure why, but I love the image of the cross with the broken Commandments, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit and me hanging there all together with the blood of Jesus covering everything.

When you think about it, everything that really matters in the universe is hanging on the cross.

Thorns: The Curse of Adam. The Crown of Christ.

Tonight I read a wonderful sermon by H. Macmillan. He was a preacher in the 1800s. I have never heard or read a sermon about the thorns Jesus wore. Mr. Macmillan ties them to the thorns that were allowed to grow after Adam's fall.

"And God said to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field." Genesis 3:17,18

I've never studied how thorns grow, but Mr. Macmillan did. It's quite interesting. He writes, “A bud by some means or other becomes abortive; there is a deficiency of nutriment to stimulate its growth; it does not develop into blossom and fruit. Its growing point, therefore, is hardened; its scaly envelopes are consolidated into woody fibre, and the whole bud becomes a sharp thorn.” 

“Leaves are also occasionally arrested in their development and changed into thorns, as in the stipules of Robinia, of the common barberry, and of several species of acacia. The middle nerve of the leaf in a few instances absorbs to itself all the parenchyma or green cellular substance, and therefore hardens into a thorn; and in the holly all the veins of the leaves become spiny. In all these cases thorns are not necessary, but accidental appendages, growths arrested and transformed by unfavourable circumstances; and nature, by the law of compensation..."

He also explains how if we cultivate the land in an area for some years and then leave it to itself, it will then grow more thorns and weeds than before. He compares that to our lives in Christ. We must cultivate the soil of our hearts each day by prayer and Bible study. If we do not, weeds and thorns will grow of themselves. Our only protection against this is Jesus living inside of us.

Then he writes of Jesus and how he accepted the crown of thorns - a symbol of sin. 

 “Jesus had, therefore, to wear the thorns which man's sin had developed, in order that man might enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness which Christ's atonement had produced. And what is the result?

By wearing these thorns He has blunted them, plucked them out of our path, out of our heart, out of our life. By enduring them He conquered them. The crown of pain became the crown of triumph; and the submission to ignominy and suffering became the assertion and establishment of sovereignty over every form of suffering. Evil is now a vanquished power.”

Thank you Jesus for wearing a crown of thorns for us. Thank you for becoming sin itself for us. Thank you for your courage, endurance and patience as you went through terrible suffering for us.

To read H.Macmillan's sermons go to: http://biblehub.com/sermons/authors/macmillan.htm