There is no Easter without the Cross

In light of Easter I took some time to study one of the most important and thorough texts on the resurrection this week, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. In the first four verses the apostle Paul establishes the Gospel by which the believers in Corinth have been saved.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you- unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

So what does Paul say about Christ’s death? Two things: first that Jesus died for our sins and second that He did so in accordance with the promises that were made hundreds and thousands of years before that first Easter morning.

The fact that Jesus died for our sins on the cross is of critical importance to Christianity, but has lately taken a lot of abuse. Theologians call Jesus’ death the substitionary atonement because He substituted himself for believers when it came time to pay the penalty that must be paid.

I read a story once that helped me have a better picture of what this looks like. There was a woman who appeared before a judge because she broke the law. When it came time for her to speak she got up and admitted that she had broken the law but pleaded with the judge to let her go because she didn’t have enough money to feed her children let alone pay the fine. If he sent her to jail for failure to pay then the state would surely take away her children. The woman’s story moved the judge’s heart but he couldn’t ignore the law that she had broken. If he overlooked her actions he would be an unjust judge. Instead the judge stood up, took off his robe, walked to the clerk’s table, took out his wallet, and paid her fine. He then returned to the bench, put his robe back on, and told her that she was free to go. Her fine had been paid.

That’s what God did in sending His Son Jesus Christ to suffer and die on the cross for our sins. God is a just judge so He cannot just look the other way concerning our sins. That might be gracious but it wouldn’t be just and of course God must be perfect in His whole nature.

Why is it so important that we spend time properly understanding exactly what happened on the cross? Isn’t enough to simply tell people that Jesus loves them? No. It’s not, because that doesn’t convey the full Gospel. There are a lot of people who say that Jesus loves you without faithfully telling you about your sin and your need for a Savior.

Emblazoned on the cover of time magazine this week (April 25th 2011) was the provocative question “What if there’s no HELL?” If you saw the issue then you know that the occasion was the publishing of Rob Bell’s recent book “Love Wins” which has gotten the Evangelical community rightfully in an uproar over what appears to be another pastor leaning dangerously over the pit of universalism (all roads lead to heaven).

I would argue however that Bell’s primary problem is just a liberal interpretation of the idea of love. Instead Bell seems to reject the church’s historical position of substitionary atonement as the principle work of Christ’s earthly ministry.

In 2009 Bell wrote another book called Drops like Stars. Along with the book came a lecture series. A friend invited me to come and hear Bell when he came down to Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University. The point of the talk was to ask a different set of questions about the topic of suffering. Instead of asking why is there suffering, Bell wanted to focus on the question what can suffering do for us. Not a bad question. The problem was when Bell later asserted that the point of the incarnation was the shared experience of suffering for Christ to us and us to Christ. I kept waiting for him to say “along with paying the penalty for our sins of course”, but that statement never came. It was later when I saw a DVD of his “The God’s Aren’t Angry” that I realized that Bell has a problem with the idea that Jesus Christ had to die to pay the penalty for our sins.

Bell seems to share this idea with Brian McLaren another leader within the so-called emerging church movement. They’re not alone though. Less harmful but still disturbing views of the atonement are also percolating in our churches.

Why does all this matter? If the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross is not central to Scripture than McLaren is right and we get what he calls A New Kind of Christianity. The problem with McLaren’s new kind of Christianity is that in my estimation it is not Christianity at all. It’s nothing more than another egocentric philosophy that fits into a postmodern ideal that God is a bully if He demands a punishment for sins. This teaching is not only false teaching, it is worse than false religions because it deceives sinners into thinking that they have placed their faith in the Gospel when in fact they have not.

So then, what is the Gospel? The Gospel does not take very long to explain and it’s not particularly complicated but it does include all of the following. God is holy and requires a just punishment for unjust sinful behavior. Man is not holy. We are corrupted by sin from the moment that we were born. We could never be saved apart from the grace and mercy of God because we were tainted by the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God, however, is gracious and merciful and made a way for us to receive punishment for our sins, which would otherwise be eternal separation from God in hell. Instead of paying for our own sins in hell we are allowed to let Jesus receive our punishment instead. When Christ died on the cross He paid the penalty that is required to make atonement for our sins, furthermore when He rose from the dead He made that sacrifice permanent by conquering the power of sin and death. Sinners are called to cry out to God by repenting for their sins, asking God for forgiveness, and then turning their lives to Jesus Christ as Lord.

If you have done this then you understand the absolute necessity of the cross and are a born-again fully-forgiven child of God.