NG Kerk Wynberg

3.3   Die Christus van die Woord

[Kommissie se weergawe: volgende 3 paragrawe]

Die kursus gaan wel op die Persoon en werk van Jesus Christus in. Dit vertel aan ons wat Hy gedoen het, wat Hy gesê het, Sy aansprake aangaande Homself en stel dit bo alle twyfel dat Hy uit die dood opgestaan het. Die kardinale vraag in die kursus: "Waarom het Jesus gesterf?", word egter nie bevredigend beantwoord nie. Hier raak dit die evangelie in sy hart.

Christus het tog gesterf omdat God se strawwende geregtigheid dit vereis. God is 'n barmhartige, maar ook 'n regverdige God. Ons het gesondig en só die ewige lewe verbeur. Ons is totaal bedorwe. Ons verdien die ewige straf van God. Christus se dood voldoen aan dié straf (Rom 3:25; 1 Joh 2.2). Alpha beskryf God nie só aan ons nie en ruim geen betekenisvolle plek vir die oordeel (straf) van God in nie.

Gumbel se illustrasies bring ons nie by die kern van die saak uit nie. Christus word gereduseer tot die daad van liefde, maar sender om enige werklike verband te Iê met die werklikheid van die oordeel van God waaraan voldoen moet word. Aan God se barmhartigheid word tot op 'n sekere hoogte reg geskied, maar nie aan sy regverdigheid nie. Al indruk wat by die kursusgangers gelaat word, is dat Christus Homself geoffer bet om ons van die gevolge van sonde te verlos omdat die een of ander onpersoonlike en willekeurige juridiese sisteem dit vereis. Dit is nié die Christus van die Skrifte nie.

[Aanhaling uit kursusmateriaal: Gumbel 1995] Many people today go around with a cross on their earrings, bracelet or necklace. We are so used to seeing this that we are not shocked by it. We might be if we saw someone wearing a gallows or an electric chair on a chain; but the cross was just as much a form of execution. Indeed, it was one of the cruellest forms of execution known to mankind. It was abolished in AD 315 because even the Romans considered it too inhumane.

Yet the cross has always been regarded as the symbol of the Christian faith. A high proportion of the Gospels is about the death of Jesus. Much of the rest of the New Testament is concerned with explaining what happened on the cross. The central service of the church, the Communion service, centres on the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. Churches are often built in the shape of a cross. When the Apostle Paul went to Corinth he said,'I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Corinthians 2:2). Most leaders who have influenced nations or even changed the world, are remembered for the impact of their lives; Jesus, who more than any other person changed the face of world history, is remembered not so much for his life but for his death.

Why is there such concentration on the death of Jesus? What is the difference between his death and thedeath of Socrates, or one of the martyrs, or war heroes? Why did he die? What did it achieve? What does it mean when the New Testament says he died 'for our sins'? These are some of the questions I want to try to answer in this chapter…43-44.

[Aanhaling uit kursusmateriaal: Gumbel 1995] We all have a need to deal with the problem of sin in our lives. The greater our understanding of our need the more we will appreciate what God has done. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, wrote:'The central theme of our faith is the sacrifice of himself by our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins.... The deeper our appreciation of our own need the greater will be our love for the Lord Jesus and, therefore, the more fervent our desire to serve him.'23 The good news of Christianity is that God loves us and he did not leave us in the mess that we make of our own lives. He came to earth, in the person of his Son Jesus to die instead of us (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). This is what John Stott, author of many books and Rector Emeritus of All Souls, Langham Place, calls the 'self-substitution of God'. In the words of the Apostle Peter, 'He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree...by his wounds you have been healed' (1 Peter 2:24, italics mine).

What does self-substitution mean? In his book 'Miracle on the River Kwai' Emest Gordon tells the true story of a group of PQWs working on the Burma Railway during World War II. At the end of each day the tools were collected from the work party. On one occasion a japanese guard shouted that a shovel was missing and demanded to know which man had taken it. He began to rant and rave, working himself up into a paranoid fury and ordered whoever was guilty to step forward. No one moved. 'All die! All die!' he shrieked, cocking and aiming his rifle at the prisoners. At that moment one man stepped forward and the guard clubbed him to death with his rifle while he stood silently to attention. When they returned to the camp, the tools were counted again and no shovel was missing. That one man had gone forward as a substitute to save the others.

In the same way Jesus came as our substitute. He endured crucifixion for us. Cicero described crucifixion as 'the most cruel and hideous of tortures'. Jesus was stripped and tied to a whipping post. He was flogged with four or five thongs of leather interwoven with sharp jagged bone and lead. Eusebius, the third-century church historian, described Roman flogging in these terms: the sufferer's 'veins were laid bare, and...the very muscles, sinews and bowels of the victim were open to exposure'. He was then taken to the Praetorium where a crown of thorns was thrust onto his head. He was mocked by a battalion of 600 men and hit about the face and head. He was then forced to carry a heavy cross bar on his bleeding shoulders until he collapsed, and Simon of Cyrene was press-ganged into carrying it for him.

When they reached the site of crucifixion, he was again stripped naked. He was laid on the cross, and six-inch nails were driven into his forearms, just above the wrist. His knees were twisted sideways so that the ankles could be nailed between the tibia and the Achilles' tendon. He was lifted up on the cross which was then dropped into a socket in the ground. There he was left to hang in intense heat and unbearable thirst, exposed to the ridicule of the crowd. He hung there in unthinkable pain for six hours while his life slowly drained away.

Yet the worst part of his suffering was not the physical trauma or torture and crucifixion or even the emotional pain of being rejected by the world and deserted from his Father for us--as he carried our sins.

What are the results?

Like a beautiful diamond the cross has many facets. On the cross, the powers of evil were disarmed (Colossians 2:15). Death and demonic powers were defeated. On the cross, God revealed his love for us. He showed that he is not a God who is aloof from suffering. He is 'the crucified God' as the title of the book by the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it). He has entered our world and knows and understands all about suffering. On the cross Jesus sets us an example of self-sacrificial love (1 Peter 2:21). Each of these aspects deserves a chapter of its own, which space does not allow. I want to concentrate here on four images that the New Testament uses to describe what Jesus did on the cross for us. As John Stott points out, each of them is taken from a different area of day-to-day life.

The first image comes from the law court. Paul says that through Christ's death 'we have been justified' (Romans 5:1). Justification is a legal term. If you went to court and were acquitted, you were justified.

Two people went through school and university together and developed a close friendship. Life went on and they went their different ways and lost contact. One went on to become a judge, while the other one went down and down and ended up a criminal. One day the criminal appeared before the judge. He had committed a crime to which he pleaded guilty. The judge recognised his old friend, and faced a dilemma.He was a judge so he had to be just; he couldn't let the man off. On the other hand, he didn't want to punish the man, because he loved him. So he told his friend that he would fine him the correct penalty for the offence. That is justice. Then he came down from his position as judge and he wrote a cheque for the amount of the fine. He gave it to his friend, saying that he would pay the penalty for him. That is love.

This is an illustration of what God has done for us. In his justice -- he judges us because we are guilty, but then, in his love, he comes down in the person of his Son Jesus Christ and pays the penalty for us. In this way he is both 'just' (in that he does not allow the guilty to go unpunished) and 'the one who justifies'--Romans 3:26 (in that by taking the penalty himself, in the person of his Son, he enables us to go free). He is both our Judge and our Saviour. It is not an innocent third party but God himself who saves us. In effect, he gives us a cheque and says we have a choice: do we want him to pay it for us or are we going to face the judgement of God for our own wrong-doing?

The illustration I have used is not an exact one for three reasons. First, our plight is worse. The penalty we are facing is not just a fine, but death. Secondly, the relationship is closer This is not just two friends: it is our Father in heaven who loves us more than any earthly father loves his own child. Thirdly, the cost was greater: it cost God not money, but his one and only Son--who paid the penalty of sin.

The second image comes from the market-place. Debt is not a problem confined to the present day; it was a problem in the ancient world as well. If someone had serious debts, he might be forced to sell himself into slavery in order to pay them off. Suppose a man was standing in the market-place, offering himself as a slave. Someone might have pity on him and ask,'How much do you owe?' The debtor might say,' £10,000.' Suppose the customer offers to pay the £10,000 and then lets him go free. In doing so, he would be 'redeeming him' by paying a 'ransom price'.

In a similar way for us 'redemption...came by Jesus Christ' (Romans 3.24). Jesus by his death on the cross paid the ransom price (Mark 10.45). In this way, we are set free from the power of sin. This is true freedom. Jesus said, 'If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed' (John 8:36). It is not that we never sin again, but that sin's hold over us is broken. Billy Nolan is fifty-eight. He was an alcoholic for thirty-five years. For twenty years he sat outside Holy Trinity Brompton drinking alcohol, begging for money. On 13th May 1990, he looked in the mirror and said, 'You're not the Billy Nolan I once knew.' To use his own expression, he asked the Lord Jesus Christ into his life and made a covenant with him that he would never drink alcohol again. He has not touched a drop since. His life is transformed. He radiates the love and joy of Christ. I once said to him, 'Billy, you look happy.' He replied, 'I am happy because I am free. Life is like a maze and at last I have found a way out through Jesus Christ.' Jesus' death on the cross made this freedom from the power of sin possible.

The third image comes from the temple. In the Old Testament, very careful laws were laid down as to how sins should be dealt with. There was a whole system of sacrifices which demonstrated the seriousness of sin and the need for cleansing from it. In a typical case the sinner would take an animal. The animal was to be as near perfection as possible. The sinner would lay his hands on the animal and confess his sins. Thus the sins were seen to pass from the sinner to the animal which was then killed.

The writer of Hebrews points out that it is 'impossibie for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins' (Hebrews 10:4). It was only a picture or a 'shadow' (Hebrews 10:1). The reality came with the sacrifice of Jesus. Only the blood of Christ, our substitute, can take away our sin, because he alone was the perfect sacrifice since he alone lived a perfect life. His blood purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7) and removes the pollution of sin.

The fourth image comes from the home. We saw that both the root and the result of sin was a broken relationship with God. The result of the cross is the possibility of a restored relationship with God. Paul says that 'God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ' (2 Corinthians 5:19, italics mine). Some people caricature the New Testament teaching and suggest that God is unjust because he punished Jesus, an innocent party, instead of us. This is not what the New Testament says. Rather Paul says, 'God was...in Christ.' He was himself the substitute in the person of his Son. He made it possible for us to be restored to a relationship with him. The partition of sin has been destroyed. What happened to the Prodigal Son can happen to us. We can come back to the Father and experience his love and blessing. The relationship is not only for this life: it is eternal. One day we will be with the Father in heaven--there we will be free, not only from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, the pollution of sin and the partition of sin, but also from the presence of sin. That is what God has made possible through his self-substitution on the cross.

God loves each one of us so much and longs to be in a relationship with us as a human father longs to be in a relationship with each of his children. It is not just that Jesus died for everyone. He died for you and for me; it is very personal. raul writes of'the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me' (Galatians 2.20). If YOU had been the only person in the world, Jesus would have died for you. Once we see the cross in these personal terms, our lives will be transformed..

John Wimber, an American pastor and church leader, describes how the cross became a personal reality to him:

After I had studied the Bible...for about three months I could have passed an elementary exam on the cross. I understood there is one God who could be known in three Persons. I understood Jesus is fully God and fully man and he died on the cross for the sins of the world. But I didn't understand that I was a sinner. I thought I was a good guy. I knew I messed up here and there but I didn't realise how serious my condition was.

But one evening around this time Carol [his wife] said, 'I think it's time to do something about all that we've been learning.' Then, as I looked on in utter amazement, she knelt down on the floor and started praying to what seemed to me to be the ceiling plaster.'Oh God,' she said, 'I am sorry for my sin'.

I couldn't believe it. Carol was a better person than I, yet she thought she was a sinner. I could feel her pain and the depth of her prayers. Soon she was weeping and repeating, 'I am sorry for my sin.' There were six or seven people in the room, all with their eyes closed. I looked at them and then it hit me: They've all prayed this prayer too! I started sweating bullets. I thought I was going to die. The perspiration ran down my face and I thought, 'I'm not going to do this. This is dumb. I'm a good guy.' Then it struck me. Carol wasn't praying to the plaster; she was praying to a person, to a God who could hear her. In comparison to him she knew she was a sinner in need of forgiveness.

In a flash the cross made personal sense to me. Suddenly I knew something that I had never known before; I had hurt God's feelings. He loved me and in his love for me he sent Jesus. But I had turned away from that love; I had shunned if all of my life. I was a sinner, desperately in need of the cross.

Then I too was kneeling on the floor, sobbing, nose running, eyes watering, every square inch of my flesh perspiring profusely. I had this overwhelming sense that I was talking with someone who had been with me all of my life, but whom I failed to recognise. Like Carol, I began talking to the living God, telling him that I was a sinner but the only words I could say aloud were,'Oh God, Oh God.'

I knew something revolutionary was going on inside of me. I thought, 'I hope this works, because I'm making a complete fool of myself.' Then the Lord brought to mind a man I had seen in Pershing Square in Los Angeles a number of years before. He was wearing a sign that said, 'I'm a fool for Christ. Whose fool are you?' I thought at the time, 'That's the most stupid thing I've ever seen.' But as I kneeled on the floor I realised the truth of the odd sign: the cross is foolishness 'to those who are perishing' (1 Corinthians 1.18). That night I knelt at the cross and believed in Jesus, I've been a fool for Christ ever since.'"

If you are unsure about whether you have ever really believed in Jesus, here is a prayer which you can pray as a way of starting the Christian life and receiving all the benefits which Christ died to make possible.

Heavenly Father I am sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. [Take a few moments to ask his forgiveness for anything particular that is on your conscience.] Please forgive me. I now turn from everything which I know is wrong. Thank you that you sent your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free. From now on I will follow and obey him as my Lord. Thank you that you now offer me this gift of forgiveness and your Spirit. I now receive that gift. Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen…p 47-55.

"Die kardinale vraag in die kursus: "Waarom het Jesus gesterf?", word egter nie bevredigend beantwoord nie. Hier raak dit die evangelie in sy hart."

"Alpha beskryf God nie só aan ons nie en ruim geen betekenisvolle plek vir die oordeel (straf) van God in nie."

"Gumbel se illustrasies bring ons nie by die kern van die saak uit nie. Christus word gereduseer tot die daad van liefde, maar sonder om enige werklike verband te Iê met die werklikheid van die oordeel van God waaraan voldoen moet word."

"Al indruk wat by die kursusgangers gelaat word, is dat Christus Homself geoffer het om ons van die gevolge van sonde te verlos omdat die een of ander onpersoonlike en willekeurige juridiese sisteem dit vereis. Dit is nié die Christus van die Skrifte nie."

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Kopiereg © 2002 Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk Wynberg
Laaste verandering: 01/13/12