Friday, August 27, 2010

A Condemned Man

It would seem, when sifting through Scripture, that the cross was an entirely planned and orchestrated event, determined and designed by Divinity from before even the sin of Adam.  “…you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.  He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake…” 1 Peter 1:18-20.  The cross was planned and at the ingenuity of Divinity, it could not be thwarted.  However, there is another part to history….
  It is the part that humanity plays in producing the God/Man drama.  A holistic perspective of crucifix history causes us to realize that logically, the human heart was prone to do exactly as it did to Jesus Christ.  God was well aware that Laws of Death would one day reach a climax at the cross.  He presented His Life, in the Son, at the exact moment in history when our hearts were ripe with anger and ready for an execution.  Without direct spiritual connection with our Divine Creator, every human individual runs the gamut of responses to injustice and collides head first with a desire to destroy Creator God.  
All fingers directed themselves at Christ.  He was ultimately to blame for our human victimization.  And the intense beauty of the story is that He took it.  He took the blame.  He became for us the victimizer although He was the victim, the accuser although He was the accused, the liar although He had been lied to, the murderer although He hung there murdered.  He took our guilt as though He had committed our crimes.  And He took the guilt of those who mistreated us as though He had committed their crimes.  “…and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all…” Isaiah 53:6.
All of our proneness to sin against God and man was laid on Christ.  All of our injustices.  And Jesus took them Lawfully.  Under human conviction, He lowered Himself to the position of the guilty.  He was Lawfully crucified as a condemned man.  He handed to humanity the right to penalize His life.  Here is a hammer and take this nail.  You have been given the right to execute…
In the form of condemned humanity, He said not a word of defense.  When we elected the verdict of “guilty” He honored our authority and obeyed its ramifications unto death.  At that moment in history, He did not grasp at godship… .He didn’t appeal to His own authority to judge us; rather, He willingly excepted our Lawfully just judgment upon His Humanity.  In history, in representation of the whole human race, in human court, He really was a justly condemned Man.
“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” Philippians 2:8.


No comments:

Post a Comment

My Blog List

  • Prayer Equals Peace - “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow w...
    6 years ago