Annual Sermons: Vol. 5 No. 16 Text: Mt. 26:27, 28 Concord Baptist Church: 1991 Bob Marcaurelle THE CROSS AND FORGIVENESS Christianity is a religion of forgiveness. Rahab was a prostitute from Jerico; Manasseh murdered his own children and Paul had Christians put to death. But each went to heaven changed and cleansed and treated as though they had never sinned. The old hymn says it well, The vilest offender who truly believes/that moment from Jesus a pardon receives. God says He will remember our sins no more (Heb. 8:12). God says that though our sins be read as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool (Isa. 1:18). How wonderful it is to have the past done away with and to be delivered from guilt and the fear of punishment. Where do we find this forgiveness? The New Testament clearly and persistently tells us we find it at the cross and ONLY at the cross. We come to the foot of Calvary, acknowledge our guilt, accept the sacrifice of Jesus for us and give Jesus our sins to forgive and our lives to change (repentance). In that instant we are forever forgiven! When He instituted the Lord s supper, Jesus held up the wine as a symbol and said, This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (Mt. 26:28). Heb. 9:22 says, Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. John wrote, The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin (1Jn. 1:7). Forgiveness is found at the cross and ONLY at the cross. Thus another hymn says... There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emanuel s veins And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day And there may I, to vile as he Was all my sins away.
Many people, some of whom are devout Christians, have a problem with the cross. They cannot see why a loving, merciful, heavenly Father cannot just forgive us when we come to him and say from the heart that we are sorry for what we have done. The Old Testament God pictured Himself as One who delighted in mercy (Mic. 7:18) and was slow to anger and filled with compassion (Ps. 103). Jesus, when He walked on earth, freely forgave people and never once said, I am going to die on the cross for you, and on the basis of that, I will forgive you. In Jesus most beloved story, the prodigal son comes home and finds the Father s arms outstretched in full forgiveness and the cross is never mentioned. Thus many people cannot understand why God had to come to this earth in Jesus and suffer the shame and pain of Calvary to forgive us. A full explanation will never be found because the necessity of atonement for sin by God is a mystery locked up in the nature of God. Even Jesus cried, WHY hast thou forsaken me? And asked if there could be some other way to forgive (Mt. 26:39; 27:46). What we must remember is that God is more than a private person, He is the moral ruler of the universe. It is one thing for me to forgive my child, it is quite another if I am a Judge or a school principal and my child is brought to me, guilty of wrongdoing. I must administer mercy along with what is right and honorable and fair and just. God is holy and righteous and opposed to evil. How then can He forgive sin without impugning His honor and appearing to condone it? Martin Luther called this, A problem worthy of God. God s answer was the cross where He both demanded a price for sin and paid it. Let s see why the cross and forgiveness go together.. At the cross
I. WE SEE THE NEED OF FORGIVENESS In the cross we see first the need of forgiveness. Twentieth century man like all before him has a high opinion of himself. He is a troubled being, and looks for peace or purpose or meaning or fulfillment. The last thing he looks for is forgiveness because he feels that is the last thing he needs. Society supports him in this and all his problems are seen as sickness instead of sin. The drunk suffers from alcoholism. The homosexual is the way God made him. The serial killer is a sociopath who needs help. An irritable grouch at home and at work suffers from depression. We are not sinners. We are sufferers. If you don t believe this, just listen to the modern jargon. Even the church supports this nonsense. My denomination s official soul winning tract begins, Do you want to have a full and meaningful life? When I asked why they didn t begin with sin, they said that was too negative. No wonder Karl Menninger, the renowned psychologist, wrote a book, Whatever Happened to Sin where he noted the pulpit s silence concerning sin. We pander to the pride of man. I like what another wrote: In olden days when people heart Some swindler huge had come to grief They used a good old Saxon word And called the man a thief But language such as that today Upon man s tender feeling grates So they look wise and simply say He re-hy-poth-e-cates -Author Unknown 1. Man At His Highest The cross exposes our sins because it shows us man at his highest. Jesus, the image of God (Col. 1:15) is man as man is supposed to be. Not one unkind word fell from His lips. Not
one selfish or unworthy motive soiled His actions. He lived for others. He died for others. He did not lay down His life for His friends but for His enemies. He was love incarnate, goodness incarnate, kindness incarnate. And He was courage incarnate. He did the will of God even though it sent Him to the cross. When we see ourselves in the light of who and what He is, we should say with Simon Peter, I am a sinful man, O Lord (Lk. 5). 2. Man At His Lowest (Acts 2:22-23) But more than this, we can see ourselves on Calvary. Peter, two months after Calvary, told the thousands of people who heard him speak, YOU...put Him(Jesus) to death by nailing Him to the cross (Acts 2:23). Historically, this was true. Most of these worshippers were not even at Calvary. But spiritually it was, and still is, true. They, along with us, were at Calvary. We join the butchers. We raise our hammers. The human race, because of sin, took the beautiful Son of God, beat Him beyond recognition (Is. 52:14), stripped Him naked (Most historians), and gave Him back to God on a piece of wood with His hands and feet nailed to it. That is man! That is me! That is you! That is sin! The world s song is Crucify Him! Our sins was there. Are you ever proud? The pride of the Pharisees caused His death. Have you ever lied? It was false witnesses at His trial that helped convict Him. Have you ever been cruel? So were the soldiers who beat him. Have you ever stood by and done nothing, while someone was being hurt? That was the sin of Pilate who didn t want to hurt his reputation, of the disciples who ran away out of fear instead of standing up for Him in court, and of the spectators who didn t want to get involved. The old spiritual asks, Were you there when they crucified my Lord/Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree? The answer of each of us is that not only were we there, we were INVOLVED. Calvary shows the hideous nature of sin and what it is capable of. It shows the NEED of forgiveness.
At the cross II. WE SEE THE COST OF FORGIVENESS (Mt. 26:28, Acts 2:23) Calvary was not just the sinful act of man against his fellow man and his God, it was also the sacrificial act of God for man. Jesus said His blood was poured out (Mt. 26:28), it was NOT wrenched from Him as some helpless victim. Peter told the crowd at Pentecost, not only that they killed Jesus, but also that He was handed over for death to them by the set purpose and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23). I like what Sangster said, If Jesus was a man, Calvary was murder, if He was God it was an offering. If He was a man, it was a martyrdom, if He was God, it was sacrifice. If He was man, we should admire Him, if He was God, we should give ourselves to Him. The cross was an act of God and it was the most costly thing God ever did. When God wanted a vast universe with its billions upon billions of flaming suns, all He had to do was say the word. He didn t have to expend any energy at all. This universe cost God nothing - not time, for He created time, not materials, for He created materials, and not effort, for He doesn t need effort to do anything. But when He forgives you and forgives me, it costs Him the sacrifice of His Son. Why? Because sin cannot go unpunished in the universe ruled by a holy, moral, righteous God. God must both punish sin and pardon sin when He saves us. No wonder Luther called this, A problem worthy of God. Jesus violent, vicious death was an acceptance of our punishment. The Bible says, The Lord (God) has laid on Him the sins of us all (Is. 53). It says, He died, the just for the unjust to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18). God, because He is God, cannot simply say, That s all right, I forgive you! And let sin go. Our sin must be punished and God bears our punishment for us.
And remember this, His suffering was far more than physical. It involved being made sin (2 Cor. 5:21). It involved being forsaken by his Father (Mt. 27:46). Christ in Gethsemane did not shrink from physical death. He was a stronger man than that. He shrank from the awful horrors of experiencing hell for you and for me. It cost God and it cost Christ to forgive us, but they were willing. Cecil Alexander said it well... We may not know, we cannot tell What pains He had to bear But we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there There was no other good enough To pay the price of sin He only could unlock the gate Of heaven and let us un. Calvary was an awful place because sin is an awful thing. It shows us our need of forgiveness. Calvary as an awful place because punishment in God s world is necessary. It shows us the cost of forgiveness. But it shows us something else... At the Cross III. WE SEETHE FACT OF FORGIVENESS In six short hours, like a snapshot in time of the heart of man through all time, we see the wickedness of us all. But out of this terrible darkness shines the bright light of God s grace and love and willingness to forgive. When man was at his lowest, God was at His highest. When hate showed its steel teeth and strength, love came out stronger. The Son of God, God incarnate, looked into the hate filled faces around Him; looked at His wounds and all that man had done to Him, and said, Father, forgive them! (Lk. 23:34)
It is precisely here that the deity of Christ takes on its greatest meaning. If this is God, in human form, offering forgiveness, then there is hope for every man. There is no sin God will not forgive. There are no depths of evil we can reach that take us beyond the reach of God s love. We can beat the life out of God but we can t beat the love out of Hm. We can nail His hands to a cross but we cannot stop those hands from reaching out to touch us in love. When I was 22 years old this prayer of Jesus led me to salvation. I came to the cross and prayed a prayer something like this, Lord I am a sinner from head to toe, but I believe if you forgave those people who beat you and spit on you, you will forgive me. I cannot live the Christian life but right now I give you all my sins to forgive and I give you my life to change and control. I had never heard of the word atonement but right then and there I was forgiven, changed and born again. I know it was real because it is still going on. Because of the new birth I repent and trust Christ to forgive me and help me live for him every day. (1 John 1:8-10) The main thing is - don t miss it. Don t die and go into eternity un-forgiven. God offers forgiveness but we must accept it. Being saved is not a matter of figuring out why Jesus had to die. We don t have to pass a test on the atonement to be right with the Lord. But we do have to accept Him and His sacrifice for us. We have to come to Him, as Spurgeon says, with the noone around our neck, admitting our guilt and crying out for mercy. Don t forget the cost of forgiveness. God is not some grand old man who pats us on the head and says, That s all right! That kind of forgiveness does not deal either with the sinner or with sin. God is the One who paid an awful price to forgive and in this price, each of us can see our VALUE to Him.
William Barclay tells the story of Muretus who was a wandering scholar in the middle ages. He was very poor. In an Italian town he became ill and was taken to the hospital and placed in what we call the charity ward. The doctors looked down at the poor wretch and discussed his case in Latin never dreaming that he could understand them. They suggested that since he was such a worthless wandered they might use him for medical experiments. He looked up at them and in their own learned tongue said, Call no man worthless for whom Christ died. When God wanted a universe, He just said the word. When He wanted to forgive me and you, He stretched out His arms and died. In that act we see the need, the cost and, praise God, the fact of forgiveness. Don t miss it! Don t miss it!