It's Not the Physical Cross

Yesterday, during the service of the Lord's supper, I was thinking: what makes the cross so special?

Then I thought, it wasn't the cross that made Christ's sacrifice unique. 

So often we only limit Christ's sacrifice to the contents of the earthly cross. If it was the cross alone that made the death of our Saviour so special then every innocent soul that had been condemned to the death of the cross is worthy of our worship. It wasn't the stripes on his back or the crown of thorns on His head either, though all these things fulfilled prophecy of the coming Messiah, but even those things should not be the center of our worship. 

Then my mind went to the question,

How did Christ save me?

And the answer was: He took upon himself the punishment for my sins.
Just that answer sounds significant... though not significant enough.

So my mind took a more specific route for defining what happened that day on the cross:

God is holy, so even the act of promising someone something good and not being able to fulfill that promise is punishable in His sight. His only form of punishment is not earthly (that will be taken care of on its own) but is more spiritual: the only just punishment a holy God can give us is spiritual death. 

Just for that empty promise, we have to face the wrath of God...GOD'S WRATH...the God that is beyond our galaxy! How intense is that? And this is all only for an empty promise! Now imagine a lie!

God calls "lying" a sin He DETESTS. So imagine the wrath God must have against liars! We are ALL liars, and so we would have to face this scary wrath.

My mind, then took a more global path...

Jesus had to endure the WRATH OF GOD that was stored up for me...but He didn't die ONLY for me...
He died for every single soul that ever existed and will ever exist in this world. Just paying the price for my sins must have been unbearable!

The countless times I have sinned...

If there was a bank account for the number of sins I've committed, it would be overflowing! The amount of wrath God should have against me is inconceivable...but Christ had to endure the wrath that God had for every unholy and imperfect inhabitant of this earth!

And just thinking about the age we live in now! People define our age as being worse than the days of Sodom and Gomorrah! People sin countless times in one HOUR!

So Christ had to pay for all the sins that are happening now, that already happened, and the sins that

are to come until the rapture in that one moment in history!

God poured out ALL of His wrath on one man! Just thinking about this makes me cringe and cry at how filthy and unworthy I am to have this Man, this Jesus Christ, bear my sins and my guilt and my shame upon Him!

It's not worth it to consider committing a small sin intentionally because it will not have a huge impact! That sin adds on to the pain that Christ...my beloved Christ had to endure!! Those small sins aren't worth adding to the wrath God poured out! Just this thought brought new light to the amazing significance of Christ's sacrifice.

It's not the cross that should be the center of our worship...but the spiritual event that occurred during that dark hour; the outpouring of all of God's wrath on an innocent and perfect Son Who is the only One worthy of life. He received death that day, while we got life. We are such selfish and filthy human beings if we decide to live for ourselves after this beautiful sacrifice that took place on our behalf.

But don't get me wrong! God is no tyrant! It was His plan for this to happen! He didn't want to pour His wrath on us! But He would have had to because He is a just Judge. So He came up with a plan, the only plan that would work, so that we wouldn't have to face this painful wrath. 

He did this because He loves us. And He wants to have a relationship with us. 

God is so merciful and we don't deserve the honour of being His children and don't deserve to be in the likeness of His Son... and yet we have the opportunity to be.