Scripture Reference: Hebrews 9:22
The secular and material world is bold and blatant in its rejection of the gospel of atoning blood. They refuse and repudiate the whole message of redemption, stating their opposition bluntly, rudely, and brutally. They say if we have tractors to move mountains, we do not need faith. If we have penicillin, we do not need prayer. If we have positive thinking, we do not need salvation. If we have the state, we do not need the church. If we have manuals on science, we do not need the Bible. If we have an Edison or an Einstein, we do not need Jesus. They define life altogether in secular and material nomenclature.
The Christian Religion Is a Message of Redemption
The gospel of the Son of God addresses itself to a far deeper need of humanity than penicillin, government, or manuals of science. The Christian faith addresses itself to the need for regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, a new life, a new heart, a new way, and a new day. The religion of Jesus Christ is one of deliverance and redemption from the judgment of sin. You see that in the very definition and description of the faith itself. The Christian faith is not, in the first place, an ethic, although it is ethical. It is not in the first place a theology, although it is theological. It is not in the first place reformational, although it has social, cultural, and political overtones. The religion of Jesus Christ is first, foremost, and always redemptive. He was delivered for our offenses, and He was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). You can see that in the advocacy, the sign, and the symbol of the Christian religion.
The sign of the Christian faith is not a burning bush. It is not two tables of stone bearing the Ten Commandments. It is not a seven-branched lampstand. It is not a halo above a submissive head. It is not even a golden crown. The sign and the banner of the Christian faith is always a cross, a cross in all of its naked hideousness, as the Romans would have it; the cross in all of its philosophical irrationality, as the Greeks would have it; but the cross in all of its saving power and potency, as Paul would have it. “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .” (Galatians 6:14). This is the very epitome and summation of the redemptive message of Christ.
The Descent and Sufferings of Our Lord
Our minds can hardly enter into the most significant and dramatic of all of the events in human history, the descent of our Lord from the highest glory to the lowest humiliation, the immeasurable distance between His throne in heaven and the ignominy of His cross in the earth. Down and down and down did the Lord descend until He was made in the likeness of a man, made out of the dust of the ground, a slave, poor even among the poor. He was finally executed in a manner reserved for the criminal, raised between heaven and earth, as though He were rejected by men and scorned by God, reviled and abused. As though abuse were not vile enough, they covered Him with spittle. As though spittle were not contemptuous enough, they crowned Him in the mockery of thorns. As though the thorns were not sharp enough, they drove great nails through His hands and His feet. As though the nails did not pierce deeply enough, they thrust Him through with a Roman spear, and the red, crimson flow of His life poured out. Even the sun in the sky refused to look upon such shame and suffering.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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