Sinners At The Cross

Sinners at the Cross

Read: Matthew 26:26-30

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Matthew 26:28

“At Calvary, the naked truth is staring down at us, challenging us to drop the pose and own the truth.”

—Roy Hession

IN WORD Our human responses to sin would be amusing if they weren’t so contrary to truth:

• We cover it up, like Adam and Eve in the Garden. We know it’s there, but we don’t admit it to God, and we certainly don’t let others see it—that would be too humiliating.

• We deny it’s there. We come up with justifications such as “Everyone is basically good,” and “I’m OK, you’re OK.” We relegate sin to the aberrant folks who end up in prisons and psychiatric wards.

• We redefine it. It’s not sin—it’s a weakness, a character flaw, human nature.

• We try to compensate God for it. We do good works, we come up with all sorts of religions and rituals, we make vows of obedience for tomorrow to make up for disobedience yesterday. We try to make the good in us outweigh the bad.

IN DEED But the Cross—the disfigured, bloody form on the tree, the picture of the penalty we deserved—undoes all of our approaches to the problem. There, in plain daylight, the innocent sacrifice takes our shame upon Himself. We can either own up to the need for that sacrifice, or we can persist in one of the pitiful solutions above. But when we really see God’s assessment of our situation—that we were worthy of this brutality, this ultimate ransom for our rebellion—how can we degrade the sacrifice with our shallow attempts to deny our need? “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3).

We can’t. No, at the Cross we see who we are, and we are humbled. We see the ugliness of our sin, and we are speechless. We know we can make no claim of our own righteousness before God. But Jesus is our claim. We bow before Him. We know He is there for us.