The Importance of the Cross

About once a quarter, our local fairgrounds hosts a “Vendors and Yard Sale Day,” where both professionals and locals rent spaces to sell their items.

Our church will often acquire space at these events. We don’t sell a thing; we give things away. In December, we gave away ten different styles of tree ornaments that featured the real story of Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, since Easter is approaching, we gave away plastic eggs with a small Jesus inside. We also gave away notebooks, pens, candy, and other trinkets. We also offer a gift bag to everyone who passes by. Inside the bag is a New Testament about the size of a stenographer’s pad, a gospel tract, and information about the church.

Talking to people about Jesus is a main way to spread the gospel, so while at these events, I look for opportunities to open conversations about Christ. At the most recent of these events, a young couple came by the table and said that they were with a small group of people who had just started a church. They meet in each other’s homes. I told them that was wonderful and asked a simple question, “What does your church teach about salvation?”

“Salvation?”

“Yes, what do you believe about how a person goes to heaven when they die?”

They went on to explain that to reach heaven, a person needed to obey the ten commandments, live a good life, and, in their words, “To wake up each day and do better than the day before.”

“Why then did Christ die?”

“For our sins.”

“If we make it to heaven by living as good a life as we can, obeying the ten commandments, and being better today than yesterday, then what is the purpose of Jesus’ death? Why not just give us the Bible and tell us to do the best we can, and we’ll find out on judgment day if we have been good enough or not?”

If you understand what “a deer in the headlights look” means, you’ll understand the response to the question. I went on to explain the importance of the cross.

If we are saved by our works, in other words, our good deeds and obeying the ten commandments, then God would owe us salvation because we have earned it. If we are saved by God’s grace, then it is faith that is required. Romans 4:2-5, “For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

Just like Abraham, if we are saved by our works, then we could glory in that. But the Bible tells us that the only thing we are to glory in is the cross. Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

Jesus’ death on the cross is the only thing that can reconcile us to God. Ephesians 2:16, “And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” Also, Colossians 1:20, “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”

To reconcile is to restore friendship or harmony; to come to an agreement on or an answer or solution; to settle or resolve. How is our sinfulness and God’s holiness reconciled? By the cross of Christ.

The problem needing to be reconciled is our sin. We are sinful. Even the best of us have done bad things, things contrary to God’s commandments. As the above verses tell us, the only reconciliation, the only solution to our sin problem is the cross of Jesus Christ.

How does this reconciliation take place? How is the solution to our sin problem applied? How do we receive eternal life?

By having faith in His blood. By believing that our works, regardless of how good they are, cannot save us, and that His death on the cross is the only means of salvation.

Romans 3:21-26, “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

Saving faith will bring about good works, but not in order to be saved, but because we are saved. But that is a topic for another day. As far as today goes, what are you trusting in? The fact that you are a decent or religious person, or that you went through a religious ritual, will not save you, because it does not erase the sins already committed; only the sacrificial blood shed by Christ can do that.

What are you trusting in?