©1999 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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4/04/99
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A View From Above
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4/4/99 A View From Above
It is sometimes impossible
to see things correctly
from down below.
Never was that more true
than for those who stood
at the foot of the cross
on which Christ was nailed.
Most of those passing by
or drawn by their morbid curiosity
saw simply one more self-appointed Jewish
"Messiah"
caught in the crushing Roman political
machine,
reaping the consequences
of His treason.
Someone forgot to tell Him
that Rome wasn't doing Messiahs this season.
Obviously this fellow got the message too late.
Let this be a warning to others with the same
aspirations.
From where these onlookers stood,
down below,
this was simply business as usual
in the Roman Empire.
But it is sometimes impossible
to see things correctly
from down below.
For the Roman soldiers there that day,
hanging around the foot of that cross,
sort of on guard,
making sure the nails held,
making sure none of this fellow's followers
tried any kind of a last minute rescue attempt,
this looked like just another bloody,
messy assignment.
Crucifixions were such ugly things.
They took so long,
they always drew a crowd,
and it was hard not get
just a little emotionally involved with
the victims.
It was especially true with this fellow -
He seemed so,
well so NICE.
Not the criminal type, really.
No cursing.
No venom.
No vicious attacks.
And those words He spoke
after the nails had been driven through His
hands and feet
didn't help any.
"Father, forgive them; for they do not
know what they are doing."
Being "forgiven" by the man you were killing
didn't feel right somehow.
A little more wine will help,
well...actually a lot more wine, if you please.
And a little diversion, too.
Let's cast lots for His cloak.
It's obvious He's not going to need it any more.
Nice robe,
good material,
very well made.
Must have been a gift from somebody.
This fellow sure didn't have any money to buy
it for Himself.
And from where those Roman soldiers stood,
down below,
at the foot of the cross,
it was just one more
soon-to-be-forgotten
tragic little human drama
best handled through a full
wineskin
and a lot of rather vulgar jokes
and diversions.
But it's sometimes impossible
to see things correctly
from down below.
And for the disciples of Jesus
slinking around at the back of the crowd,
doing their best not to be seen,
looking up from down below
on the dying form of their Master
this was the greatest tragedy of all.
This was everything good
gone terribly bad.
This was everything right
gone terribly wrong.
This was the triumph of fools,
of idiots,
of all that was worst in human society.
This was evil's ultimate victory over good.
These people standing,
staring,
pointing,
joking...
they couldn't know what this man had done,
what He'd taught,
how He'd lived,
how He'd replaced sickness with health,
hatred with love,
fear with security,
hopelessness with hope.
Matt. 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are
weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you
rest.
Matt. 11:29 "Take My yoke upon you, and
learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble
in heart; and you shall find rest for your
souls.
That's who they were killing.
That was their great threat to the Roman Empire.
It was best not to get too close,
best not to be seen,
best not to be recognized.
Hopefully the executions
would spread no farther.
But from where they stood,
down below,
at the foot of the cross,
this was the end of the world,
or certainly
the end of any world worth living in.
But it is sometimes impossible
to see things correctly
from down below.
Fortunately, however,
the view from down below
is not the only view of the cross
given to us by our God.
Through the writings of the Apostle Paul
we are also permitted to see the cross
from above,
as seen through the eyes of God
Himself.
And what we see from above
looks very different indeed.
In Paul's letter to the Colossians
he allowed us to see the cross
through God's eyes,
and this is what he said:
Col. 2:13 When you were dead in your
transgressions and the uncircumcision of
your flesh, He made you alive together
with Him, having forgiven us all our
transgressions,
Col. 2:14 having canceled out the
certificate of debt consisting of decrees
against us, which was hostile to us; and
He has taken it out of the way, having
nailed it to the cross.
Col. 2:15 When He had disarmed the
rulers and authorities, He made a public
display of them, having triumphed over
them through Him.
Now we're going to need a little help
in understanding what Paul is saying there.
He is talking to a group of Christians,
people who have personally chosen
to place their lives into the hands of Christ.
And he begins by taking them back
to the time before they came to Christ.
He uses a phrase to describe them
that they would likely not have used
to describe themselves.
He says, "...you were dead in your
transgressions..."
Now Paul is not accusing them
or trying to fling around
some sort of holier-than-thou judgement.
He's not saying, "Oh! You people were all such
hideous, awful sinners,
you just make me SICK! SICK! SICK!"
Paul is not accusing anyone.
He's simply stating a fact - you were dead in
your transgressions.
He is saying, "Your sins,
your moral disobedience to God
had separated you from your Creator."
There is a popular idea in human thinking,
an idea that suggests
each of us have a personal moral scale
on which we stack
both our good
and our evil.
If the good outweighs the evil
then we pass.
If the evil outweighs the good
then we have major problems.
In this one phrase
where Paul says, "you were dead in your
transgressions"
he is telling us that the scale idea
is a really dumb idea.
If we're dead we're dead
and nothing is going to change it.
It's a little bit like a person
walking up to a corpse
with a list of the things necessary
for sustaining life.
He looks at this list
and sees that we need water,
and food,
and oxygen,
and warmth in order to sustain life.
And he sees this corpse laying in front of him
and says to himself, "OK, if I can just get
enough water,
and food,
and oxygen,
and warmth into this guy he'll live."
So he cranks the room temperature up to 98.6
and he gets a bunch of hoses and tubes
and starts pumping food,
and water,
and oxygen into this corpse
with the hope of bringing this guy back to life.
The truth is
he could pump food and water into that corpse
until it explodes
and he's not going to live,
because he's dead,
and when your dead your dead.
That's what Paul is telling us
about our relationship with God
when he says, "you were dead in your
transgressions".
It doesn't matter how many "good deeds"
we may try to pump into our dead spirit,
it won't give it life.
Our death certificate has already been issued,
based upon our moral offenses against God.
God is righteous,
we are not,
and nothing we do or try to do
will ever change that.
...you were dead in your transgressions...
But then Paul switches
to that amazing view of the cross
as seen from above.
And in that view
he reveals to us
what God saw
when He looked down on that cross.
Paul says that through Christ
God ... canceled out the certificate of
debt consisting of decrees against us,
which was hostile to us; and He has taken
it out of the way, having nailed it to the
cross.
The visual image Paul is creating in that single verse
is to me among the most powerful visual images
ever given to us by our God.
It's like this -
When God looked down on the cross
that held His Son,
at the same time
God also saw at the base of that cross
every human being
who has ever lived
or ever will live.
He saw me in that gathering,
and He saw you.
We're all there,
standing before the cross
with Christ nailed to it.
And in our hands
each of us holds a scroll,
a rolled up piece of paper
with our name at the top,
and just below it the title,
CERTIFICATE OF DEBT.
On that scroll is written
every moral offense,
every sin we've ever committed.
Every action,
every word,
every thought...
they're all written down on our scroll.
And then,
as we stand there before the cross
God speaks to the entire human race.
And He says to us,
"My creation, understand what I am doing here this
day,
I am making each of you an offer.
I am giving you a choice.
This day My Son
who has committed no wrong,
is offering Himself as the perfect payment for
your sin.
He has chosen
to die for you
in your place
for your sin.
If you want to accept this offer
and share in the payment my Son is making this
day,
all you need to do
is to hand Me that scroll you hold in
your hands,
the one with your name on it,
your personal certificate of
debt."
And whenever another person steps forward
and hands Him their scroll
God takes it
and then turns and nails it to the cross
along with His Son
so that there will be no mistake,
no confusion,
no doubt in anyone's mind.
This death
on this cross
is full, eternal payment
for everything listed on these certificates
of debt.
Peter said it so well:
1 Pet. 2:24 and He Himself bore our sins
in His body on the cross, so that we might
die to sin and live to righteousness; for by
His wounds you were healed.
But Paul doesn't stop there
in his presentation of God's perspective on the
cross.
He goes on to say,
Col. 2:15 When He had disarmed the
rulers and authorities, He made a public
display of them, having triumphed over
them through Him.
The rulers and authorities he is talking about
are Satan and his demonic world rulers,
the ones Scripture calls "the accusers of the
brethren".
And Paul tells us that
through Christ's work on the cross
God forever disarmed them
and triumphed over them.
He's talking about
ripping from their grip
the weapons they have been using against
us,
the weapons that once had the power
to destroy us.
You see, prior to the Cross,
if a man were to reach out to God
for forgiveness,
for a restored relationship with God,
Satan could point to that scroll he held in his hands
and say,
"Sorry, sinner,
that Certificate of Debt you hold in your
hands,
that one there with your name at the top,
denies you access to your Creator.
You have sinned,
and that sin has separated you forever
from your God."
But now that weapon
can never be used against the Christian.
When Satan brings his accusations,
pointing out this sin,
and that moral failure,
we can say in return,
"Oh yes! You're absolutely right,
those offenses are all on that scroll,
and many more like them.
And my name is written at the top of that list.
But if you'll look up there,
up at the top of that Cross,
you'll see that my list is nailed up there
with one of the nails
that held Christ to that Cross.
And across that Certificate of Debt,
written in His blood
it says "Paid In Full Forever".
Satan continues to attack the Christian, of course,
and he continues to fling his accusations at us.
But now all he has to use are lies,
and he only gains power
when we choose to believe those lies.
You see, it is sometimes impossible
to see things correctly
from down below.
And that was never more true
than for those who stood
at the foot of the cross
on which Christ was nailed.
Not only was it not a tragic defeat,
but, when seen from above,
it was the greatest victory of all time.
And of course I cannot stop there,
with Christ on the cross,
paying the debt for our sins.
That is the beginning of truth,
the beginning of our hope,
but it is not the end,
and the picture is not complete
until we see the final result
of that amazing event.
Before the night ended
Jesus breathed His last breath
and His body died.
The body was taken down from the cross,
and the soldiers went back to their barracks,
and the crowds went back to their Passover
celebrations,
and the disciples of Jesus
slunk away into the darkness.
But our God wanted to make certain
His world understood
what had just taken place.
He wanted us to know
our battle with sin was over,
the battle we could not fight for ourselves,
the battle He fought in our place.
And He wanted us to know
He had won the victory for us.
And He wanted visual illustration
of that victory,
one we could never forget,
one that would picture for us
what He now offers to do in our
own lives.
Luke 24:1 But on the first day of the
week, at early dawn, they came to the
tomb bringing the spices which they had
prepared.
Luke 24:2 And they found the stone rolled
away from the tomb,
Luke 24:3 but when they entered, they did
not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Luke 24:4 While they were perplexed
about this, behold, two men suddenly stood
near them in dazzling clothing;
Luke 24:5 and as the women were terrified
and bowed their faces to the ground, the
men said to them, "Why do you seek the
living One among the dead?
Luke 24:6 "He is not here, but He has
risen.
Luke 24:36 ¶ While they were telling these
things, He Himself stood in their midst.
Luke 24:37 But they were startled and
frightened and thought that they were
seeing a spirit.
Luke 24:38 And He said to them, "Why are
you troubled, and why do doubts arise in
your hearts?
Luke 24:39 "See My hands and My feet,
that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a
spirit does not have flesh and bones as you
see that I have."...
Luke 24:44 ¶ Now He said to them, "These
are My words which I spoke to you while I
was still with you, that all things which are
written about Me in the Law of Moses and
the Prophets and the Psalms must be
fulfilled."
Luke 24:45 Then He opened their minds to
understand the Scriptures,
Luke 24:46 and He said to them, "Thus it is
written, that the Christ would suffer and
rise again from the dead the third day,
Luke 24:47 and that repentance for
forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in
His name to all the nations, beginning from
Jerusalem.
Luke 24:48 "You are witnesses of these
things.
Luke 24:49 "And behold, I am sending
forth the promise of My Father upon you;
but you are to stay in the city until you are
clothed with power from on high."
Luke 24:50 ¶ And He led them out as far as
Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and
blessed them.
Luke 24:51 While He was blessing them,
He parted from them and was carried up
into heaven.
And then,
just so that there could be no misunderstanding,
no confusion about the truth
and the power God was displaying
through the resurrection of Christ,
Paul spells it out for us
clearly and simply:
Eph. 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy,
because of His great love with which He
loved us,
Eph. 2:5 even when we were dead in our
transgressions, made us alive together
with Christ ( by grace you have been
saved),
Eph. 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and
seated us with Him in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus,
Eph. 2:7 so that in the ages to come He
might show the surpassing riches of His
grace in kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus.
For our God did not simply offer us
a perfect sacrifice in Christ,
He gave us, also, a risen, living Lord,
a Lord who takes each human being who comes
to Him,
and reaches into our death
and brings from it life,
and hope in Him forever more.
Have you heard the good news?