The Cross of the Gospel
John 3:14-15
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (ESV)
There are many present options for redemption in the media, daily conversations, and so on, but there is only one that leads to eternal life, to eternal fellowship with God. The crucial questions for our meditation are, What does the message of the Cross mean for us today? and, What is the real meaning of the Cross of the Gospel? In this time of trial that we are going through, it is also pertinent that we add yet another question, What is the meaning of the Cross for the Church here and now? In fact, with the pandemic around us, we are called not only to make sense of what the Cross means to us, but also to encourage our neighbors with the true meaning of the Gospel. I have dealt previously with the Gospel of the Cross (1 Cor. 1:17-18)[1], but now I wish to address another aspect of the Gospel: The Cross. As we look at the Cross of the Gospel, we are reminded that it is the center of the message of Salvation in Christ Jesus.
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Our text takes place during the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus (John 3:1-15). At this point, it gives the introduction to the next part of the dialogue that Jesus was having with that noble man. The next paragraph starts with John 3:16, which depicts the “heart of God,” extending to the end of the chapter. From verse 16 to the end of the chapter, Jesus describes more emphatically the meaning of the Gospel, the Good News.
Jesus is here making the analogy of his death by using an incident that took place in the wilderness, in the land of Edom, according to Numbers 21:4-9, about the Serpent of Bronze. Moses’ narrative in Numbers shows that the Israelites were a rebellious people. As a result, God threatens to punish their sin, but in his sovereign mercy, he also provides the remedy that would “cure” or save those who would repent. We read the following about the fiery serpent, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived” (Numbers 21:8-9).
We should spend a short moment to bring forth a parallel, a comparison which is given by Jesus when he spoke to Nicodemus. Here we see that the world is a rebellious people. As a result, he threatens to punish their sin. We know that every single person on this earth is a sinner. Paul wrote that “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God; They have all gone out of the way; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12). Later on he concludes that, “… there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:22b-23). Therefore, God, again in his sovereign mercy and grace, provides the Remedy: Lift up his Son Jesus Christ.
As we may realize, in both cases — in the wilderness and on Golgotha — the lifting up was done publicly, not privately. This leads to my theme for this message: The Centrality of the Cross in the Gospel.
What the Cross Is Not
The cross is not something that has power in itself. There is no magical power in the cross as we see it as a thing. We are sometimes used to see some athletes, for instance, who make the sign of the cross before entering the pitch (I am talking here mostly about soccer players in Latin America or in Europe).
But, if I may continue, for those who used to watch Dracula movies, the cross was one of the “instruments” used to resist him. Along with the idea, there are numerous people who think that the cross is also an instrument to drive out demons, and the like.
The cross is not an idol. In fact, the bronze serpent ended up becoming an idol among the Israelites. The author of 2 Kings wrote about it when king Hezekiah made a spiritual evaluation of Judah, “He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan” (2 Kings 18:4). Nehushtan means “Bronze Thing.” As we see, the people of Israel turned it into an object of worship.[2]
We hear from time to time people buying “pieces” of the holy cross in Israel, bringing bottles of “holy” water from the Jordan River, etc. We see numerous religious leaders and common people kissing the cross with Jesus in it. The cross is not an idol or an object of worship.
The Cross Is Our Way of Salvation
There is no resurrection without the Cross; that is, the Cross symbolizes the ultimate suffering and death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If the Gospel is void of the Cross, there is no salvation.[3] Jesus Christ went to the cross in our place. We are the ones who should have suffered that death because of our sins. Instead, he took upon himself the guilt of sinners and paid the price of our redemption.
The Gospel of Luke has twenty-four chapters. Out of those, he devotes more than half of his gospel to narrate the way to the Cross in Jesus life. It is in this way that he starts to show that Jesus’ purpose was to die on the cross, “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). As soon as Jesus set his mind to go to Jerusalem, for that matter to end up on the cross, Luke shows a series of obstacles that Jesus had to face until he died. A quick reading of Luke’s Gospel from this point on will show how much Satan tried to take Jesus off his purpose.
Paul, writing to the Church in Corinth, points out emphatically that, “… we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” And later he is eager to let them know that, “… I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” He was clear in affirming that, “… the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2; 1:18).
We, like Nicodemus, unless we be born again we will not believe in the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Our regeneration (new birth) is the work of the Holy Spirit in us which will enable us to believe. I bring here a few passages that will help us in this particular point: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Following in his dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus added, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
Paul expands on this very idea, in a most wonderful way, when he writes to the church in Ephesus. There he is saying that we were once dead in our sins and trespasses but God gave us life, a new life in Christ Jesus, as a special work of his grace. This is how he puts it,
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (Ephesians 2:1-5).
The apostle Peter uses the same theological affirmation in the very opening of his first epistle, as we can read here, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).
The Cross Is Our Life With Jesus Christ
The Christian Faith is a new Reality in the life of God’s people. It is in some ways paradoxical because it brings to us enormous affirmations that seem to not coincide; it is an upside-down Reality as compared to what other religions try to emulate. In the Cross we have Eternal Life and the Cross is our life with Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can certainly make sense of what he said in different ways in the gospels. According to Luke, Jesus said, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). As we follow Jesus, we are carrying our own cross. It means that we are called to die to us and be born again in him. The daily cross is present in our lives as we follow the one who first shed his blood on behalf of you and me.
Paul uses the analogy of baptism to help us understand this. We have been baptized into Christ through his death, “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” and “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:3, 5-6).
A Canadian missionary once said that “the symbol of Christianity is not a rose, it is a cross” (Keith Price). It is sad to see that there has been too many a sermon without the Cross; messages that, although taken from some portions of Scripture, avoid the reality of suffering, of dying to sin, of crucifying our own selves in Christ. The true disciple of Christ bear her or his own cross because they were also nailed in Christ Jesus’ Cross.
We died in Christ so we may live, as declared by Paul to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ 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” (Gal. 2:20, ESV).
Conclusion
I believe that the Cross is the sign that God put among the nations, as the Prophet Isaiah shows in his magnificent book, “I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles” (Isa. 66:19). As such, it is the presence of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ announced among the nations. The Cross is a missionary sign that will, like the bronze serpent, draw men and women to God through the death of Jesus Christ.
The Cross, if taken as a sign, means the Gospel of Salvation that must be preached throughout the world, even here and now: Again, as mentioned before, the message of Paul was the message of the cross.
There has been numerous opportunities to preach the Gospel throughout the generations. There has been times of great suffering and confusion, times when the elected were called into salvation through the clear and urgent preaching of the Gospel. But, as the Author of Hebrews say, as he quoted part of Psalm 95, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness’” (Heb. 3:7-8). But also, let us be reminded that not only the churched people should hear these words, but those who are dispersed around the world without hope.
The Message of the Cross is the power of God because it is centered on the Cross and without it there is no salvation in Christ Jesus. When we recite John 3:16, we are reminded that God loved the world and sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross, which is clearly explained in the text of this message. Without that, no one will be saved. It is a message to be believed, it has power for those who believe, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is only by faith.
The difference between what other religions offer and Christianity is in the Cross of Jesus Christ; and, What a Difference!
Pr. Ehud M. Garcia
Okanogan, WA: April 16, 2020
Soli Deo Gloria!
[1] “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:17-18). — Unless otherwise stated, I am using the New King James Version (NKJV).
[2] No need to be academic at this point, but the danger we incur as human beings to become idolaters is extremely great. I have reasons to think that God has taken care of this problem in some things, places and even events in the Bible. a) If he had left the Ark of the Covenant in “our” hands, we would certainly be worshiping it today, instead of God. b) The same can be said about the first originals of the Bible — we call them “autographa.” If we had them, we only have a few thousand original copies (in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, that come from those autographa), we would certainly be worshiping the books instead of the Author of the Bible. Not to say about the Cross, the place where Jesus was crucified, and even the place where he was buried. Even without a precise location for those two events (crucifixion and burial), multitudes a drawn to Jerusalem to visit and venerate the places.
[3] This statement requires an explanation. In fact, if the Gospel does not have the death, burial and resurrection, it is totally void, completely invalid, so to speak. Since I am here dealing with the Cross, the death of Christ, I am free to make such an affirmation. But I must add for our comfort what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the resurrection, “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain. . . . And if the dead do rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile…” (1 Cor. 15:14, 16-17).