Beyond the cross

[pescador]

Beyond the Cross

Much of the focus of today’s church is on the cross, or more properly, Jesus’ sacrificial death and what it has accomplished for all people. Those who have not heard the message of the efficacy of his blood in removing the penalty of sin and establishing a new covenant with God need to hear it and believe it. They need to understand that when Jesus died we all died, and when he was resurrected we all were resurrected with him. But the Christian life goes beyond that. We are resurrected into something.

When we are born it is the beginning of our life. As we grow into childhood and into maturity our life becomes fuller, richer, and more complex. So it is when we are born a second time -- spiritually. As Paul makes abundantly clear in his epistles, spiritual growth can be a confusing and sometimes difficult process, but through it all we are dearly loved by our Father in heaven, as we love our children through childhood and adolescence, only more so..

When we are young we are taught the fundamentals of manners, morals, and consideration of others -- “you must share your toys” -- but as we grow older we are taught issues of greater complexity: honesty, compassion, and responsibility, both personal and social. We do not teach our adolescents the same lessons that we taught them as toddlers. If they bothered to listen to us they would rightfully say “But I already know that. Why are you telling me it to me all over again, as if I were still a baby?”

The parable of the good Samaritan begins with these words (Luke 10:25-28)…

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

Unfortunately too many churches focus on just the first part of this lesson or some variation thereof. God loves me, I love God, God gives me his grace, I am dead to sin, I am alive to God in Christ Jesus, etc. Every thought contains either “I” or “me”.

But as the Scripture clearly shows, we are to also love others -- actively, not just in our minds. The priest and the Levite, most probably coming down from the temple in Jerusalem, passed by the injured man. Were they repulsed by him, were they afraid, or were they wrapped up in their own religiosity? Scripture doesn’t tell us, but what it does tell us is that they did not reach out to their neighbor.

Any church that focuses primarily on itself is not fulfilling the spiritual lesson of the parable or fulfilling the great commission of Matthew 28. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit not to feel good about ourselves and our relationship to God but to bring the light of salvation to the unsaved of a dark world, just as Jesus and the apostles did.

John 3:16-17 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

God gave Jesus to the world because he loved the world. It was a deliberate act of love on his part and we should follow his example. We should actively love the world regardless of the sin that exists in those who haven’t accepted Christ as their savior. God didn’t send his son to condemn others and neither should we condemn others, regardless of their sin.

The church and the gospel message doesn’t need to be protected from the world or, as some preach, from other Christians. We have been given armor from God to be soldiers on his behalf, to participate in warfare against the dark forces of the spiritual realm. Not the natural world (people) but the spiritual world (demons).

If we are not loving others as ourselves, regardless of their “worldly” status or their sins, then we are not truly living as God intends us to live. God didn’t just bless the world and stop there. He did something: he gave us his own, dearly loved son. He didn’t utter a blessing as did the Old Testament patriarchs, thereby giving us future prosperity, he gave us a living being who, by his resurrection, gave us a new life. We are empowered by his Spirit to do something: to actively, personally, love others as our selves..

 

[Steeno7]

I understand what you are saying about the resurrection, and you are absolutely right. Just to clarify one point, when we, as did the NT writers, reference the "cross" it is not just to the material cross we refer. But to the theological significance of the cross...the "finished work" of Jesus Christ....inclusive of His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, Pentecostal outpouring and complete eschatalogical expectations.

 

[thesunisout]

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

To live this new life we must be crucified with Christ. A lot of Christians don't know anything about the cross and its connection to the new birth. It is something that should be taught more frequently, not less frequently in my opinion.

 

[Bramwell]

Jesus death and resurrection is very important to us as Christians. That said, I feel we tend not to give enough attention to the things He actually taught, choosing instead to give priority to the salvation now made available through Him.

In the Great Commission, Jesus instructs us to teach people to obey His teachings. But most of us don't even know what Jesus taught, specifically, during His earthly ministry. What can we do to change that?

 

[BryanW92]

In the Great Commission, Jesus instructs us to teach people to obey His teachings. But most of us don't even know what Jesus taught, specifically, during His earthly ministry. What can we do to change that?

Most active Christians that I know do know his teachings and follow them. They don't follow them perfectly, as many here claim is the only standard of success, but they do work to follow them.

Now, the cultural Christians do not know his teachings and really don't bother to learn anything about their religion (not faith, but religion, as most cultural Christians do not really have faith).

But another problem we have in Christianity is that people take those teachings and use them for secular agendas, which forces people to add limitations to the teachings. As an example, "Love others" becomes "Love the sinner and hate the sin" because people try to use "Love others" to mean "Love them and their sin because they aren't going to stop sinning." If people listened to his teachings on sin as much as they do his teachings on love, then we could have some real and authentic Christianity.