It is the twin concepts of God’s love and man’s sin that focuses the Christian message upon the crucifixion of a man 2000 years ago.
Although it was sin that nailed Christ to the Cross, it was God’s love that brought him to earth in the first place. Thus it is in the Cross of Christ that we find the reconciliation of the two important elements of the Christian message:
•The ideal of total love
•The reality of total depravity
Everyone recognizes that the Cross is the primary symbol of Christianity. We see it on our churches, on the covers of our Bibles and even on our websites. But the average person rarely understands what the Cross really represents.
Yet if you take the Cross out of Christianity, you are left only with lofty moral instructions that fail to work in the real world. For it is not in the teachings of Jesus that Christianity finds its unique position in the world. It is in the sacrifice of Jesus that we find a message without parallel in religious thought.
Like Paul’s defining declaration in Romans 1:16, we can then truly say:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...”
As deep as the problem of sin is, so deep is the extent of God’s salvation, accomplished through the death of Christ upon the Cross.
