64. How the Cross Uncovers Sin

How the Cross Uncovers Sin

Here is therefore the complete and eternal uncovering of sin. Here we behold the limitless lengths and the damnable depths to which it will go. Here we look upon the final fruitage of that choice which shuts God out of the heart He made for the sake of His own unmeasured love. For when the Son of God yielded Himself to the will of sinful men and let them do to Him whatsoever their hearts desired, they there told forth to an amazed and outraged universe that, under sin, the finished product of man’s power is the infinite God hanging on a Roman gibbet; the utmost limit of man’s wisdom is the Saviour of sinners driven out of the world He came to save; the final accomplishment of man’s religion is a murdered Messiah stretched between heaven and earth. What an unspeakable crime!

Man had been led to adopt that satanic philosophy of life that the place of perfect welfare and happiness is in the realm where the creature’s own will is supreme, with the Creator’s will rejected and cast off. The Son of God, to remedy this condition, in due time leaves the bosom of the Father, the infinite peace and purity of heaven, the worship and adoration of angels, and, laying aside a glory inconceivable to man in sin, comes down into this scene of darkness and discord, of selfishness and strife, of ruin and rottenness, and with a compassion of which only God is capable, seeks to show mankind that the only sphere of perfect happiness and welfare is in the will of God. But though He stands and knocks at His own door, He finds it barred in His face, for “His own received Him not.” And then, although He is in His own world, He wanders, an unknown outcast, for “the world knew Him not” (John 1:10-11). He gathers about Him a little handful of men to be His disciples and companions, yet in the hour of His supreme darkness, even they betrayed, denied and deserted Him, for “they all forsook Him and fled” (Mark 14:50). As He seeks to show men that their attitude toward Him has no influence on His love for them, it only serves to widen the moral chasm, thus uncovering more fully the nature of sin. For the more He goes about doing them good, the more they seek to do Him harm; the more blessings He pours upon their lives, the more curses they have for His; the more love He lavishes upon them, the more He wins their sullen hatred. In return for the crown of loving kindness and tender mercies He seeks to put upon their brows, He receives a crown of thorns for His own; for the robe of God’s righteousness with which He seeks to cover the shame of their own unrighteousness, He receives a robe of mockery and scorn for Himself; for the gift of eternal life He comes to bestow on them, He receives the most shameful death known to man. His compassion wins nothing but cruelty, His kindness nothing but outrage, and His measureless love nothing but murder.

Those He came to save stand before His cross, and with unspeakable insult, jeer Him in His imagined helplessness, mock Him in His frightful suffering, and make fun of Him in His immeasurable agony. While earth trembles and shudders under the weight of crucified Deity, and the sun hides his face from the awful scene, men gloat over the sight as with the glee of demons, defy Him with the ultimatum of their sin—“We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14), and then hurl Him from His own world through the gates of death. They rise up against Him and “kill the Lord of glory,” and thus dethrone God and enthrone man.

He came to destroy the power of sin over man, and men rose up and destroyed Him. He came among them as the Prince of Peace, and they made war on Him until they had driven Him to apparent defeat, with a spear thrust in His side as their parting salute, as they left Him dead on the field of action. He had come to bring them forth from their graves in sin, and they defied Him in their sin and hid Him away in a grave. His whole life had been one continual love story from the heart of God, but it ends amid the outrageous hatred of men and the hellish laughter of demons.