The Life You Save

"What God says, is 'The life you save is the life you lose.' In other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself, and only a life given away for love's sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of human wisdom, he was a Perfect Fool. And if you think you can follow him without making something like the same kind of a fool of yourself, you are laboring under not a cross but a delusion." - 

Frederick Buechner

The Cross is the Foundation of the Bible

“The cross is so extensive a field for meditation, that, though we traverse it ever so often, we need never resume the same track: and it is such a marvellous fountain of blessedness to the soul, that if we have ever drunk of its refreshing streams, we shall find none other so pleasant to our taste.”
—Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae (1832), vol. 8, p. 323.
“The cross is the foundation of the Bible: If you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume, you have hitherto read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a heaven without a sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without a spring or weights, a lamp without oil. It will not comfort you; it will not deliver your soul from hell.”
—J.C. Ryle, Old Paths (London, 1977), p. 248.
“There is no end to this glorious message of the cross , for there is always something new and fresh and entrancing and moving and uplifting that one has never seen before.
—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross: God’s Way of Salvation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1986), xiii.
“Oh that I could have the cross painted on my eyeballs, that I could not see anything except through the medium of my Savior’s passion! Oh, Jesus . . . let me wear the pledge forever where it is conspicuous before my soul’s eyes.”
—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The Lord’s Supper—Simple But Sublime!” (1866), Sermon #3151, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
All cited in James M. Gordon, Evangelical Spirituality (SPCK, 1991; Wipf & Stock, 2006).

Justin Taylor

Christ was Forsaken For Our Acceptance

"Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land

until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour

Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 

'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' that is, 

'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'

Matthew 27:45-46

At the cross, for the first (and only) time in eternity, the Son experienced abandonment. Jesus called out to his Father, but got no answer. Jesus looked to his Father, but only saw his turned back. Jesus cried out to him, but received no comfort. Only absolute abandonment. The Son was forsaken. 

This is the grave, yet beautiful truth of Christ's substitution. Jesus experienced the pain of having the Father turn his back on him, so that we wouldn't have to.  Because Jesus turned to God and only saw the back of the Father, when we turn to the Father, all we experience is open arms. Whereas Jesus reached for the comfort of His father but received none, when we reach for the Father, we receive comfort. Though we were the ones who deserve absolute abandonment, Jesus' love is so great that he came to earth to experience the forsakenness we deserve, so that we would be united to Him. The Father turned his head away from Jesus so that he would never have to turn his head away from us. Jesus saw the Father's back; closed off and forsaken. We see the Father's face; open, and ready to embrace sinners who  turn to Him.

All Of Grace

The Heart of Substitution

The concept of substitution may be said to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone. 

If the essence of the atonement is substitution, at least two important inferences follow, the first theological and the second personal. The theological inference is that it is impossible to hold the historic doctrine of the cross without holding the historic doctrine of Jesus Christ as the one and only God-man and Mediator. Neither Christ alone as man nor the Father alone as God could be our substitute. Only God in Christ, God the Father’s own and only Son made man, could take our place. At the root of every caricature of the cross there lies a distorted Christology. The person and work of Christ belong together. If he was not who the apostles say he was, then he could not have done what they said he did. The incarnation is indispensable to the atonement. In particular, it is essential to affirm that the love, the holiness and the will of the Father are identical to the love, the holiness and the will of the Son. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

- John Stott, The Cross of Christ
Vitamin Z

He took it lovingly

“And the legendary ‘Rabbi’ Duncan concentrated it all into a single unforgettable sentence, in a famous outburst to one of his classes: ‘D’ye know what Calvary was? what? what? what?’  Then, with tears on his face — ‘It was damnation; and he took it lovingly.’”
J. I. Packer, In My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, 2007), page 95.  Italics original.
Ray Ortlund

Sit Down and Eat

Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?' -Genesis 3:11

Elyse Fitzpatrick:

We are all the same. We have plucked fruit from that forbidden tree. We have proudly declared that we know best, that we can take care of ourselves. We have crowned ourselves deities. 'Have you eaten from the tree?' Oh, yes and yes, over and over again in ways both glaring and hidden.

But the God-Man has been slain. The Lamb's blood has been spilt, and it covers us. Our rags have been replaced with his robes. The garden has been reopened; we've been invited back in. 'Here, eat of this, it will give you life.'

. . . Have you eaten from that tree today? Have you satiated your soul with the luscious fruit that grows from this blood-soaked ground? Have you nourished your heart with his strength, his righteousness, his perfection, and the gospel? Have you shunned self-righteousness, self-reliance, self-improvement? Which tree are you most aware of?

Eat from the blessed tree, friend. Eat and eat and never stop. When you are hungry for something else, something more, something new, run to that tree. Stay there; rest in his shade. The door is open; the meal is ready. Sit down and eat.

--Elyse Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time (Crossway, 2009), 137-38
Dane Ortlund

Only One Motive

An excerpt from a 1984 letter by the late Jack Miller, Philadelphia pastor and father of the wonderful Sonship ministry/movement and then World Harvest Mission--

What I finally came to as I walked and prayed for you is the old, old story of getting the gospel clear in your own hearts and minds, making it clear to others and doing it with only one motive--the glory of Christ.

Getting the glory of Christ before your eyes and keeping it there--is the greatest work of the Spirit that I can imagine. And there is no greater peace, especially in the times of treadmill-like activity, than doing it all for the glory of the Lord Jesus. Think much of the Savior's suffering for you on that dreadful cross, think much of your sin that provoked such suffering, and then enter by faith into the love that took away your sin and guilt, and then give your work your best. Give it your heart out of gratitude for a tender, seeking, and patient Savior. Then every event becomes a shiny glory moment to be cherished--whether you drink tea or try to get the verb forms of the new language.

--C. John Miller, The Heart of a Servant-Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (ed. Barbara Miller Juliani; P&R, 2004), 22
Dane Ortlund

Was The Cross Really Necessary for Forgiveness?

This question is best answered by considering it from God’s perspec- tive. He created a perfect environment for Adam and Eve. He loved them and provided everything for them. The Serpent provoked them to make their own judgments about things rather than trust God and his direc- tion. They refused God’s authority, putting themselves in his place as their own gods. If God had simply forgiven them, he would have vindi- cated them as sinners and accepted Satan as an equal.

Furthermore, God would be endorsing evil by passively accepting it. Simple forgiveness seems merciful at first. However, what it really does is give God’s blessing to Satan and evil by approving such things as rape and murder. Because God is just, he must distinguish between good and evil by promoting the former and opposing the latter. Mere forgiveness would destroy God’s holiness, justice, and righteousness by not distinguishing between good and evil. Because God is good, he cannot approve of or ignore sin and its consequences.

Basically, the debt of sin must be paid, or evil is vindicated. That debt is paid either by the sinner in the torments of eternal hell or by our eternal God Jesus Christ dying on the cross in our place for our sins.

The great reformer Martin Luther put it well: “Since [Jesus Christ] became a substitute for us all, and took upon himself our sins, that he might bear God’s terrible wrath against sin and expiate our guilt, he necessarily felt the sin of the whole world, together with the entire wrath of God, and afterwards the agony of death on account of this sin.”

The cross demonstrates the loving desire of God to forgive and heal. When God was confronted with the first sin of humanity, he was really angry. But instead of destroying everyone and everything he had made and being done with us forever, God called to Adam and Eve, promised that Jesus their Messiah was coming, and mercifully made coverings for their shame (Genesis 3).

This desire to heal and forgive with compassion, grace, and total justice comes together only at the cross. James Denney put this very suc- cinctly: “Nothing else in the world demonstrates how real is God’s love to the sinful, and how real the sin of the world is to God.”

God “just did it” by providing the full solution in his death and res- urrection. Will you “just do it” and receive his gift of eternal life?

- Mark Driscoll, Death by Love: Letters from the Cross (Re:Lit)

He atoned for your sins on the cross

“One of the sweetest statements from the lips of Jesus . . . is this: ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt. 25:34b). There is a plan of God designed for your salvation. It is not an afterthought or an attempt to correct a mistake. Rather, from all eternity, God determined that He would redeem for Himself a people, and that which He determined to do was, in fact, accomplished in the work of Jesus Christ, His atonement on the cross. Your salvation has been accomplished by a Savior, One who did for you what the Father determined He should do. He is your Surety, your Mediator, your Substitute, your Redeemer. He atoned for your sins on the cross.”
- R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross (Orlando, FL; Reformation Trust Pub., 2007), 152-153.
Of First Importance

Always something new and fresh

“There are certain things which have to be said over and over again, of necessity, and yet this is the marvel and the wonder of the cross, that however many times a man may preach about it, he has never finished preaching about it.  There is always something fresh to say, always something new.  There is a great central message that is always there, but nothing is so wonderful as to see that one thing in different ways . . . . During these twenty-six years in my Westminster pulpit there have been times when in my utter folly I have wondered, or the devil has suggested to me, that there is nothing more for me to say, that I have preached it all.  I thank God that I can now say that I feel I am only at the beginning of it.  There is no end to this glorious message of the cross, for there is always something new and fresh and entrancing and moving and uplifting that one has never seen before.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross (Westchester, 1986), pages 155-156
Ray Ortlund

Is it accurate to say that God died on the cross? by R.C. Sproul

The famous hymn of the church “And Can it Be?” contains a line that asks a very poignant question : “How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” Is it accurate to say that God died on the cross?

This kind of expression is popular in hymnody and in grassroots conversation. So although I have this scruple about the hymn and it bothers me that the expression is there, I think I understand it, and there’s a way to give an indulgence for it.

We believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. We also believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross. If we say that God died on the cross, and if by that we mean that the divine nature perished, we have stepped over the edge into serious heresy. In fact, two such heresies related to this problem arose in the early centuries of the church: theopassianism and patripassianism. The first of these, theopassianism, teaches that God Himself suffered death on the cross. Patripassianism indicates that the Father suffered vicariously through the suffering of His Son. Both of these heresies were roundly rejected by the church for the very reason that they categorically deny the very character and nature of God, including His immutability. There is no change in the substantive nature or character of God at any time.

God not only created the universe, He sustains it by the very power of His being. As Paul said, “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If the being of God ceased for one second, the universe would disappear. It would pass out of existence, because nothing can exist apart from the sustaining power of God. If God dies, everything dies with Him. Obviously, then, God could not have perished on the cross.

Some say, “It was the second person of the Trinity Who died.” That would be a mutation within the very being of God, because when we look at the Trinity we say that the three are one in essence, and that though there are personal distinctions among the persons of the Godhead, those distinctions are not essential in the sense that they are differences in being. Death is something that would involve a change in one’s being.

We should shrink in horror from the idea that God actually died on the cross. The atonement was made by the human nature of Christ. Somehow people tend to think that this lessens the dignity or the value of the substitutionary act, as if we were somehow implicitly denying the deity of Christ. God forbid. It’s the God-man Who dies, but death is something that is experienced only by the human nature, because the divine nature isn’t capable of experiencing death.
Reformation Theology