7.4.09
Crucifixion
Today we
will take a serious look at crucifixion.
The Romans had many ways of killing people. Crucifixion was the method used by the Romans
to kill criminals of the worst
kind. Jesus could have been killed in
any number of ways, but the devil made sure He suffered and die in the worst
possible way—death by crucifixion, death on the cross.
It would
do us well to review often the last scenes of Jesus’ life on this earth. We need to remember all that He endured for
us—during the agonizing night in Gethsemane, in His indecent and unlawful
arrest and trial, in the terrible, bloody flogging He received, in the painful,
slow march to Golgotha’s hill carrying the cross on His shoulders, in the
intense pain of the nails piercing His skin and bone, and in the slow and
painful death that happens, once upon the cross.
We need
to remember that He endured all of that for us, so that we might live in peace
with Him forever. We also need to
remember that it was our sins that weighed heavily upon Him, breaking His pure
heart, separating Him from His Father, crushing out His life, and bringing upon
Him the condemnation of the ages.
Yes,
crucifixion was real, and it was demonic.
But it was worth it for Jesus to die for you. Because you are His child, and He cannot bear
to lose you forever. And so Jesus takes
all of our sin and shame upon Himself, and grants us eternal life for the
future, and abundant life for the present.
And this
incredible gift is ours, if we are willing to be crucified as well. Let me explain, rather let’s allow the Bible
to explain:
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died
to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of
us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death,
certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6
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. 7
For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that
Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has
dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to
sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11
Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you
should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as
instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being
alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to
God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not
under law but under grace. Romans 6:1-15
Let us
make one thing clear: Being under grace means being forgiven, and
empowered. God’s grace is freely given
to us to bring us acceptance, forgiveness, a changed life, and power to
live. There is no such thing as grace
that only makes us feel good, or grace that eliminates the need for complete
change and transformation, or grace that ignores our sinful lifestyles. This notion of grace is foreign to the
Bible. God’s grace involves our
crucifixion.
And what
is to be crucified? Our “old man” of
sin. Our sinful nature. Our love of sin. We are to be grateful to Jesus for all that
He has done for us, and we are to willingly die to sin, and live for Jesus.
The Bible
is very clear. We are to reckon
ourselves dead to sin, and alive to Christ.
John Stott, in his book on Galatians, uses three key words to describe
our crucifixion, or death to sin:
Pitiless
The
Romans were certainly pitiless to Jesus.
They had no thought of remorse, they had no scruples, and no compassion
when they crucified Jesus. In the same
way, we are to be pitiless with ourselves, when it comes to sin and the sin
nature. We are to consider our selves
dead to sin, crucified with Christ, and show no pity for our loss of sin.
You know,
sometimes we let go of some habit, and we start to have pity for it. We start to miss it, and dwell on it, and
before we know it, we’re right back in the middle of it all over again! We must show no pity for sin, because sin destroys
and sin separates us from God.
Painful
Jesus’
crucifixion was painful indeed. And if
we are seriously allowing Jesus to crucify our sinful nature, it will be
painful. It can be ugly. It can be difficult. But, oh what freedom and relief is ours, when
we let go and let God!
If you
put to death your sins, and leave them on the cross with Jesus, it will be
painful. Because our sinful ways have
been with us for so long. They are like
family to us. So it will be painful to
let it go. But joy comes in the
morning!
Remember
those two lists we looked at in Galatians 5?
You know, the fruit of the sinful nature, and the fruit of the
Spirit? Well, in the new birth
experience, God takes away the bad fruit, and replaces them with the good
stuff! Amen? And He is able to do just that. Instead of immorality and addiction, there is
self-control and peace, and so on. God’s
grace in action.
Permanent
When
Jesus was crucified, it was a done deal.
In fact, as Jesus said, “It is finished.” The Bible says He died once for all. And our crucifixion to sin is to be permanent
as well.
Now, this
is what we have a hard time with. We die
to something bad, and then somewhere down the road we resurrect it again. We take it off the cross!
Turtle
illustration: There is a story of two Irish guys. They were just sitting on a log talking. And they see this turtle walking around with
its head chopped off! Now, they had
never seen something like this, so they speculated a bit. One of the men said, “That turtle is
dead!” And the other fella said, “No,
that turtle is alive, because he’s still moving around!” So they went back and forth about the turtle,
and the turtle just kept walking around, until a third guy walked up. So they asked the third guy what he thought
about the turtle. And he took a look at
the turtle and said, “It’s dead, but doesn’t know it!”
It’s the
same with us; we don’t know our sinful nature is dead on the cross—we forget
that our old man of sin has been nailed to the cross with Jesus—and we keep
letting our old sinful nature walk around!
And God
looks at us, and says, “Why did you take him off the cross? Why did you withdraw the nails that crucified
your sin with My Son? What happened to
your trust in Me? You’ve repented from
your repentance, and you are yet in your sins!”
In the
same book, Romans, we are told the following:
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:9-11
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Romans 8:12-14
And Galatians adds:
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of
the flesh. Galatians 5:16
The
secret is walking in the Spirit—letting the Holy Spirit lead us day by day, and
surrendering to Him day by day. We do
this through reading the Bible and praying, and yes, it needs to be DAILY, or
WE WILL NOT MAKE IT.
We cannot
die to sin unless the Spirit of God is helping us! Do you believe that? It’s a supernatural thing. Grace is supernatural. Grace is of God, and God can still do
MIRACLES! Amen?
Dead dog
illustration: There is a story of a lady
who was travelling with her dog. The dog
was placed in a crate. When she arrived
at her destination, the men were removing her luggage and such, and they came
to the crate with her dog in it, and they discovered that the dog was
dead! So, naturally they were frantic
and worried about this, so they thought of a plan to salvage their jobs. They went and bought another dog just like the
lady’s dog that had died, and they switched the two dogs. Then, we presented the dog to the lady, with
much relief. When the lady approached,
the dog barked a happy bark. Then the
lady said, with a confused look on her face, “I don’t understand. That’s not my dog. My dog is dead, and I was just bringing it
here to bury it.”
My
brothers, my sisters, we do the same thing with sin! We don’t let it die! We play with it, we compromise with it, and
make deals with it, and we don’t let it die!
And the devil gets us to forget that we have been saved with the
precious, powerful blood of Jesus Christ, and he gets us to take our sinful
nature down from the cross, and he gets us to roll around in it all over again!
The
solution is in our daily surrender to the Spirit. We must yield to the Spirit, walk in the
Spirit, and be led by the Spirit. The
Spirit of God will always lead you AWAY FROM SIN, and INTO RIGHTEOUSNESS.
And this
is righteousness by faith, which alone can save us, and bring us safely into
the arms of Jesus, when He returns in glory.
Three
more words that describe our crucifixion to sin, and one illustration. First the three words:
Fatal:
When we give Jesus all our sins, it is fatal. He will never lead us back into those sins,
or any other sins. The Bible tells us to
put death our sinful natures and sinful practices.
War:
When are born again, born of the Spirit, and are converted, the war
actually just begins. There quite simply
is not war until we come to the cross, and receive Jesus as Savior and
Lord. That is where the real war
begins. Christ Himself declares war on
our sin, our sinful nature, our lust, our intemperance, on everything in our
lives that hurts and destroys. It is HIS
war, and yes we are active foot soldiers in this war. As long as you hang on to Jesus in prayer and
Bible reading, and put to death your old person of sin, Jesus will bring you safely through the battlefield that is
this earth, and this life.
Ruthless:
We need to adopt a ruthless attitude toward our sin. We need to be ruthless with ourselves, not
complacent, lazy, self-assured. As long
as we are in these mortal bodies, we will have to contend with a devil who
wants us to resurrect our sinful nature, and fall back into sin and rebellion,
where he is.
Ruthless! Just like we are with that pesky mosquito
that keeps bothering us! Rutheless! Just like we with that other football team
that our team is playing against!
Ruthless! Just like we are with
that other Nascar driver who keep cutting off our favorite driver!
God wants
us to be ruthless about the RIGHT THINGS!
Ruthless about our disregard for His counsel! Ruthless about our not taking Him seriously
when He reveals something to us!
Ruthless about our lifestyles!
Ruthless about our daily walks with Him.
We’ve been ruthless about everything else under the sun! Let’s be ruthless about our sin, and be
determined to keep it there on the cross where it belongs!
And when
Satan comes to you and he tempts you to violate one of God’s teachings or His
guidance, remember this simple but profound illustration:
Satan
cannot get anywhere with us, unless we provide for him a landing strip. There has to be something in us that responds
to his sophistries and tricks—something in us that has not been placed on the
cross and crucified. Satan will find it!
Satan is
a lonely pilot of an airplane called destruction, and he is constantly circling
overhead, and looking for a landing strip in us so he can land his airplane and
tempt us to sin. If you are doing what
the Bible says, and are crucifying your sinful nature, leaving it on the cross
with Jesus, Satan won’t have any landing strip to land his airplane of
destruction.
So give Satan no landing strip . . . no place to land in your life. When Jesus spoke of the devil at one point, He said this: “the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” John 14:30.
There was
nothing in Jesus that responded to Satan.
Satan is
called the ruler of this world, “the prince of the power of the air”, as we see
in this admonition found in Ephesians:
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses
and sins, 2 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, 3 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. Ephesians 2:1-3
We have
the privilege of being alive with Christ, in fellowship with Christ, to the
point that we too have nothing in us that responds to Satan and temptation.
"The prince of this world cometh," said Jesus, "and hath nothing in me." There was in Him nothing that responded to Satan’s sophistry. He did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought did He yield to temptation. So may it be with us. Christ’s humanity was united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. . . . So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us. God reaches for the hand of faith in us to direct it to lay fast hold upon the divinity of Christ, that we may attain to perfection of character. . . . Every promise in God’s Word is ours. {RC 308.6}
"By every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" are we to live. . . . Look not to circumstances or to the weakness of self, but to the power of the Word. All its strength is yours.--Signs of the Times, Aug. 23, 1905. {RC 308.7}
And so,
my brother, my sister, let us leave our sins on the cross! Don’t resurrect sin when it’s dead! Leave the nails in place. By the power of God’s Spirit, let it be.