The Power of the Cross
If you do not want to read about religion – then skip this post. Though, even if you do not – you may just get something out of it. The following article was published over at James Robison website. It can be seen in its original format HERE.
This week, a disturbing video surfaced showing what CNN calls the “largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years.” The terrorist leader proclaimed to hundreds of gunmen, “We must eliminate the cross.”
I am here to declare that they will fail. No man can eliminate the cross of Calvary. Terrorists can demolish physical crosses and activists can remove them from public view, but the landscape of eternity changed when Christ conquered His cross and that will never be undone.
My longtime friend and founder of Kerygma Ventures, Dudley Hall, wrote about the power of the cross. It is fitting to share it with you on this Easter weekend.
Every viable religious system in the world admits that there is something that needs fixing in mankind’s existence. The Polytheists try to appease gods. The Pantheists try to lose individuality in order to emerge into the oneness of reality. The Naturalists believe that time will eventually produce a better species. Monotheists seek to align with the god they worship. All operate from the proposition that there is a problem on earth. We have tried attacking ignorance, but end up trying to fix with information that which cannot be fixed without transformation. We have addressed victimization with reparations and therapy with little temporary and no permanent change. We have sought to change behavior with laws. We have confronted irresponsibility with accountability only to discover that the human heart is deceitful enough to evade such tactics. Finally some have concluded that since we can’t solve the problem we should just redefine normal and declare the broken state to be unbroken. “This is the way it is and the way it is supposed to be.”
The gospel gives the only solution to the problem, but it is controversial.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
…Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to Gentiles.” (I Corinthians 1:18-23)
The diagnosis is dire. Mankind is born in a state of enmity with God. When confronted with God as creator and sovereign, everyone chose to rebel by yielding to the deception of spiritual darkness and its master. This creates a problem that cannot be solved without outside divine help. The modern religious cocktail of “moralistic therapeutic deism” cannot begin to rectify this dilemma.
As children of Adam we were born into a perpetual state of enmity against God. Our problem is much bigger than the various sins we have committed since we arrived. In the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys children were born into the feud. The enmity was there before there was a choice. It didn’t matter to the McCoys how good or badly a Hatfield behaved in his own home. He was the enemy. Likewise we were born children of Adam who was enslaved to Satan’s deception. No matter how much we tried to be good, we were in the wrong family.
The cross changes that.
Jesus died as the second Adam and destroyed the enmity between God and Adam’s race. He was raised from the dead as a new race and those who are in Him are part of the family who inherit the status of Jesus the Son. We are reconciled to God and are thereby invited to share in full fellowship with Him. Now we can resume our calling and purpose to partner with God on earth in discovering the treasures of creation and developing them as offerings of worship to Him.
There is more. Not only did our status have to be addressed, but also our hearts needed to be changed. Adam’s children had his heart. He and Eve had chosen to yield to the serpent’s lies and therefore suffered separation from God. Their awareness of his glory was diminished and they were self-conscious rather than God-conscious. They died as God had promised. They hid behind a bush out of fear and shame, and were placed outside the Garden for their own protection. Since then all of humankind has inherited a heart of suspicion toward God, being harassed by fear and hounded by shame. Unsure of his nature and feeling condemned by failure, we have all lived in dread of judgment and defiant toward the God we couldn’t control.
The cross changes that.
As our representative, Jesus through His death crucified that heart. We died with Him and were raised with Him to live His life. Fulfilling previous prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, God gave us a new heart that not only is alive to God, but also desires to know and please Him. We have experienced regeneration by the grace of God who did for us what we couldn’t do ourselves. Our new heart is capable of trusting Him for whatever His death procured for us.
There is still more. We can’t forget our enslavement. Living in enmity against God we were under the power of the deceiver. We know that we are slaves to the one we obey and knowingly or unknowingly, we lived in disobedience toward God and in obedience to Satan. He is perfectly content for us to be fairly good people promoting religions of man’s own making. This gives him adequate cover for his operation. Generally he does not promote himself, but pushes mankind to trust in his own self. He gets great delight in watching God’s creations squirm in guilt, condemnation, fear, shame, and defiance. His constantly shoots arrows of doubt and suspicion toward all humans. Those without a shield of faith are sitting ducks. Mankind struggles with addictions, compulsions, and perversions trying to find techniques to curb them, all the while neglecting the reality of spiritual battle.
The cross changes that.
When Jesus lived the perfect life, died the sacrificial death, and defeated death, He also exposed Satan.
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them him it.” (Colossians 2:13-15)
Satan’s legal rights to prosecute us were stripped from him. He is now an illegal accuser. He still lies and those who are not dressed in the armor of Jesus will feel the sharp pain of his deceptive arrows. But we are no longer in his family. We are not under the kingdom of darkness. We have been transported into the kingdom (authority) of light (truth). We are now instructed to submit to God and resist the devil. The promise is that he will flee. As we submit to God’s gospel, we are under His authority and thereby have His authority to resist the devil. He must flee because it is not we that speak, but God.
Now we can live as God designed us to live—in fellowship with Him and working with Him on this earth. Since all of creation was affected by the fall into sin, much of our assignment now is to proclaim the message of the cross to all humankind. No one has escaped the effects of Adam’s fall. All need the only solution that has been provided to nullify it. We can see clearly why Jesus’ declaration that He is the only way to the Father is good news. He is the only one who could be a qualified new Adam. Only Jesus could make an exchange of life that would restore us to God. Only His sacrificial death could atone for our sins. Only His resurrection makes it possible for us to live unafraid of death and judgment.
Those who scoff at Jesus’ “exclusivity” obviously think the problem is different and therefore the solution can be altered. It is a mark of defiance. We as deceived people believe we are independent and we want many options. We defy God to limit us to one way. But to those who have experienced the liberating dynamic of the cross, it is good news. We were tired of trying to figure ways to get back into the Garden. To the tired and confused, the message of “one way” is fantastic. We have tried the many options and they are all dead ends.
Through the cross our past has been settled. Our present life is empowered by the Spirit who was sent from heaven when Jesus sat down on the throne ruling His kingdom. Our future is secure because Jesus has gone before us and we are in Him. The revered hymn says it best. “Our hope built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” We are in a new family with a new identity fulfilling a new purpose as we operate with a new power. There is no cure to ailments of creation but the cross of Jesus the Christ.
This weekend we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. If there were no cross, there would be no resurrection. He is alive forever more and we live in Him!
© 2014, Rourke. All rights reserved.
Source: http://modernsurvivalonline.com/the-power-of-the-cross/
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
The power is not the cross. It’s the faith in the Most High of the cross holder that’s the vessel of power. Still appreciate your article. Yah Bless
The cross does have power through Christ Jesus our Lord. It is what Christ did on that cross that gives it power. We have been Justified through His death, blood and resurrection. And when He died we died in Him out of the realm of the old man or Adamic race, Satan, Law, sin and the world system. When Christ Jesus arose we came out of His grave with Him as “New Creations,”in Him and positional we are in Him at the throne of our Father. As for our condition we are still present in our yet un-redeemed bodies but the Holy Spirit has been given to us as a seal. Now this something to get all excited about. So tomorrow especially I will praise His name and give thanks for His resurrection.
Even if Jesus was killed on a cross, which he wasn’t, why would the instrument of his death have power with anyone except Satan? Jesus was killed on what the Greek texts term “stauros”, which has two translations: stake and pole. the cross only entered Christendom (the world empire of false religion) in about 450 C.E. Before then, it was only used in pagan ceremonies. It is the pagan symbol for male genitalia. The Christendom churches use it as an idol. Idol worship is strickly forbidden as far as the scriptures tell us. It’s a great way to become God’s enemy. The scriptures plainly say so. The religions of pagandom and Christendom teach many lies such as immortal soul. None exists. The Bible says when we have the breath of life in us, we ARE a soul, and we don’t have a soul. They teach hellfire. The Bible says NOTHING about hell. It does speak of Gehenna, Sheol, and Hades. Sheol and Hades are described as the common grave of man. Gehenna is described as the second death. The trash heap. No chance of the promised resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. Also, those that die during God’s judgements, die the second death. Such as Noah’s flood, and the coming Armageddon. The only people not to die during Armageddon, are those that strictly follow the Bible, not religion. Following anything but the Bible and the Christianity that it teaches, is called works of the flesh, and puts one at enmity with our God and creator.
All of these things come straight from the Bible. None of what I’ve said comes from any man made religion. If you want to survive, you must become God’s friend, and follow his every command, and be no part of the world. You must live as an alien resident in the world.
Very well stated. Indeed “stauros” is the upright pole, not the pagan cross so revered by deceived Christians. “Jesus” never appeared in scripture until the third edition of the King James. Nothing in pre Constantine writings comes close to the term Jesus either translated or transliterated. In fact, the name of the horned god of the Druids is pronounced exactly the same as Jesus.
Even the term “Bible” is the name of the Eqyptian pagan deity “Biblos”. God clearly stated his terms, conditions and benefits of becoming adopted as a Covenant son or daughter in his Torah. The so-called New Testament is based on the word of one man, the “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, Paul. It claims to derive its authority from the same God it contradicts. God is clear in his condemnation of religion. Torah is conveniently mistranslated as “law” by religious clerics perverting its true meaning of direction, guidance and teaching. God says the way to eternal life is to closely examine and carefully consider the Word in His Torah. It’s truly that simple.
Hi Neocatechumenal Christians, this is for you, I am a so-called Apostate of your community and I know the article above is largely influenced by your image of God and Man. I appreciate what I learnt from you but from the very start I felt that your interpretation of Scripture and Dogma is a blind alley too.
There is a way to understand the exclusivity and sublimity of the Cross without criminalizing Man as the article´s author, the Neocatechumenals, and nearly all other Christians do.
And I found it. Or better say God made me find it.
Is it worth one second of wondering why many people, though they love GOD, reject THIS kind of Christianity, this devilish image of the relationship between God and Man as “natural enmity”?
Can Jesus have meant THIS with His Gospel? No, folks. If this had been meant, He would have turned wine into water and not vice versa. He also would not have forgiven the sinners but rather punished them.
The Father He proclaimed was GREATER, GREATER, GREATER!
“He lets it rain over the Righteous and the Unrighteous.” Thus spake Jesus about the Father.
See, Jesus did say there are righteous people too. Not everyone is a natural born enemy of God. To believe this, taking Saint Paul literally and ignoring contradictory other parts of Scripture, means to slander Man! Moreover Adam “was a Son of God” says one of the Four Gospels in its first chapter! He was not a Son of Satan. Original Sin does NOT go THAT deep.
God loved His children, the Humans, so much that He sent Christ to them in Human form. No matter how gruesome their sins were, no matter how deep their ignorance was. Those sins and this ignorance called for help and God sent Jesus to help.
Why then the gruesome Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, if our Original Sin were not THAT deep-going and our sins were not THAT gruesome as Christians believed before? will ask every Christian now.
I say: because God though He is almighty can NOT do ONe human thing without being in a human form: fully understand human suffering and ignorance.
God in His supernatural form is too much beyond human little miseries and delusions to understand, He rather gets enraged and turns to punishment. See Old Testament.
But God can choose to take on human form, including a human mortal mind which is always more or less confined to a culture and a dogma!
And when He does so He gets the ability to really understand every thought of His “fellow-men”. But to understand everything means to be able to forgive everything.
And this was the real miracle which Jesus did, more praiseworthy than any healing miracle. He tried to understand in order to forgive and to heal – till His last breath. When He addressed the demons in the case of that man who “wept and cut himself with stones” He tried to understand where He could best send them and they said “into those pigs” and there He sent them to free the man´s mind from their influence – see, He did not even hate the demons, and much less did He hate that poor possessed man. He rather ended a state of disorder, sending both back to the places where they belonged, because HE UNDERSTOOD.
And on the Cross He said about His torturers “They dont know what they do” which means they are like madmen, not to be made responsible for what they do, for their ignorance is so deep that they cannot discern between Good and Evil. I.e. the Forbidden Fruit had NOT reached its satanic goal to give Man a pseudo-Godlike discernment between Good and Bad. This meant an universal forgiving, a GENERAL AMNESTY, given till Latter Day for all people who are too brainwashed, or too stupid, to understand love, faith, or righteousness correctly. THUS He took away our sins. It was NOT primarily His horrible, bloody death that purified the world. It was His Godlike UNDERSTANDING.
And why did Christianity, as it was before, rather deepen the darkness of ignorance and rather lead to new, even more gruesome sins, from witch-hunts and Conquista to nuclear warfare and GMO? will ask every Freethinker now.
I say: because they one-sidedly saw the bloody sacrifice of Jesus as an adequate atonement of sins, in Old Testament tradition, and thus concentrated their image of Man, World, and God around the darkness of Guilt, Sin, and Punishment. This turned the Gospel partially into a tool of the Dark Side.
Christians, as long as you keep worshipping the bloodiness of the Death of Jesus more than His heroic acts of Forgiving and Understanding during His path of torment, you keep this barbaric side of Christianity alive!
Our Christian ancestors of Jewish or Ancient Roman origin, including Saint Paul, did their best to understand the Gospel, I say on the other hand (for I DO respect them), and they could not do any better,
for they did not know the universal healing and order-creating power of Understanding as well as we modern people now do;
they had only learned to judge,
to say “You are good” or “You are bad” or “you do good” or “you do bad”,
instead of asking, as we learned to do in our modern societies: “Why does this person do bad things at all instead of good things? from bad will, or from ignorance or weakness? can he or she do better at all?”
Only Jesus DID understand us COMPLETELY, no other Founder of a religion achieved this. And it was on the Cross where He achieved it absolutely, miraculously. This is why I say “In the Cross there is Salvation and Life and Hope” and “No matter under which name(s) you worship God, even if you are a Pagan, you can´t do without the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus; it is the deepest and strongest sign of freedom that ever was found in human history.”
Rebuild Christianity around the understanding Wisdom of Jesus to put it all right again.
God bless.