In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: The word that best describes what happened in the atonement is the word substitution. The Father substituted His Son in the worst form of death possible, and He bled and died on the cross in your place and mine. In His shedding of His blood, He atoned for and He paid the sin debt of the entire world in one single act.

Guest (Male): Easter, it’s the time of year Christians set aside to remember the sacrifice and victory of Jesus. The events may be familiar, but what took place at Calvary isn’t just historic drama. Today’s edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, reminds us that the truth of the resurrection has the power to change your life today and forever. Stay with us as we learn about the eternal significance of the cross of Christ.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Well, I see them hanging in automobiles in front of the windshield. Then I see them oftentimes on the wall. Sometimes I see them around people's necks, and then I oftentimes see it in a hymnbook. Sometimes people have them on their rings, sometimes they have something in their pocket. They think it's a good luck charm. I'm talking about the cross. The cross is not a good luck charm. It is an object that has the most profound message the world will ever hear, and that's what I want to talk about in this message: why the cross?

As we begin the message, you'll understand rather quickly why I question the idea of why a cross. The apostle Paul made a statement in Galatians that is an astounding statement when you think about who he was, all the things that had gone on in his life, and the things he accomplished in life. He made an awesome statement in the sixth chapter of Galatians. I want you to turn there if you will for a moment. He'd been talking and writing to the Galatians about their dependence upon the law and so forth, and the freedom that you and I have as a result of a personal relationship with Christ.

Then he says in the 14th verse, "May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world." Now, it might be interesting for you to know that the whole idea of the Christians and the use of the cross did not begin when Jesus was crucified. That was not when it all began. I want you to think about it for a moment because the origin of the cross started with the barbarians who were on the sort of the edge of the world at that time, uncouth race of people.

They invented the idea of executing somebody with a cross. It was invented in such a way that the person who was crucified would suffer the longest amount of time in order to cause them to suffer to the greatest extreme. In fact, there is no instrument today to equal the pain of the cross. There they would hang in the hot summer sun and the cold of the evenings with nothing, almost naked. They could last for days, depending upon whether they drove nails in their hands or whether they just roped them there. But they hang there. It was the most despicable way a person could die, the most horrible way, with the most excruciating pain. It went on and on and on until they finally died.

It was handed down from barbarians to the great culture of the Greeks and then to the Romans. Now, if you were a Roman, it would be against the law to be crucified. Crucifixion was allotted only to those who were foreigners or to slaves, but never to a Roman citizen. Why? Because they abhorred the whole idea. Then when I think about the Jews, for example, they had a second reason for abhorring the cross. Not only because of the excruciating pain of it, but secondly, because according to Jewish law, anyone who was crucified or hanged on a tree in any form or fashion was accursed of God.

When you think about crucifixion and you think about the cross, I wonder how often our idea just sort of gets limited to thinking about Jesus dying. We emotionally just sort of skip right by it. When you think about it, it didn't start with Jesus. In the catacombs outside of Rome, where the Christians were oftentimes found as a result of being persecuted by Rome or desiring to worship secretly, they etched on the walls and the ceilings of the catacombs such pictures as of a fish, for example, or a dove. You and I could sort of see how that would be true.

But sometimes it was Noah's Ark, sometimes Daniel in the lion's den, or a cross. Finally, after many, many, many years, the symbol of Christianity became a cross. I want you to listen carefully because this is really the heart of the whole Christian message. You can take this Bible from cover to cover. The central theme all the way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion, His death, what the purpose of it was all about, because the resurrection is God's way of doing what? That God the Father accepted His crucifixion as full atonement for our sin. If Jesus had died and just died and was buried and that's the end of it as all other prophets, then we'd say he was just one of them. No. Rising from the dead settled that whole issue.

Now, when Paul spoke of it as the one thing in life and only one thing that he would boast of, there's a reason for that. Because when Paul looked at the cross, he looked at his past life, recognized where he was, and looked at what happened at the cross. You remember when he was converted on the Damascus Road, he spent some time in Arabia doing what? Listening to the Spirit of God help him to understand what really and truly happened. This is why when he spoke to the Corinthians, for example, in 1 Corinthians, he said in this first chapter, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Now, in light of the way they looked at the cross, it would be. They'd think you've lost your mind. What are you talking about, believing in somebody who died on a cross, the most despicable way to die? When he went to the Corinthians to preach, here's what he said in the second chapter beginning in verse two, because this will tell you where the heart of his preaching was: "And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined my focus. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

He says that is the heart of my message. "I was with you in weakness and fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." So, the apostle Paul said, "I have one message, and my message really and truly is simply this: My message is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ because therein lies all the truth about why God and how God brought about our salvation." So, when I look to see the things that Paul preached and how he talked about it, he understood what it was all about.

If you look in 1 Timothy, for example, in the second chapter and all through his epistles, but in this second chapter, here's what he says. He says, "There's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave Himself a ransom, an exchange for, a ransom for the testimony given to all of us." Here's what he's saying, simply this: that Jesus Christ came into the world as a ransom, God's ransom for us. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 20, verse 28? He said, "I didn't come to be served." He says, "I came as a servant and to give my life in exchange for your life, as a ransom."

Paul understood better, I think, than anyone else in the scripture, probably even up to the apostle Peter. He had the clearest explanation of why the cross. If I should ask you why didn't God do it some other way, couldn't God have done this some other way? We say that His sovereignty rules over all and He has all power. Why couldn't God do it some other way? There had to be some other way. I mean, this bloody, cruel way of sending His only begotten Son into the world to die in the worst form of death, it doesn't make sense humanly speaking.

But that brings us to the other attitude about the cross. Whereas the first is it is a symbol of shame, suffering, and death, the divine viewpoint is it is a symbol of salvation and life eternal. Now, I want to bring you to the most important passage in the New Testament, I believe, when it comes to understanding why. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three, and I'm going to read these verses, and I know what you're going to think. You're going to think when I read them, "Well, what in the world is all that about?"

Look at this third chapter, and let's begin with the 23rd verse. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Now, we get that. "Being justified," which means to be declared no longer guilty, to be declared righteous, "being justified as a gift by His grace." This is something God does for us. "Through the redemption," that is the saving grace of God, "which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly on the cross as a propitiation or as a sacrifice in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, the righteousness of God, because in the forbearance of patience of God He passed over the sins previously committed."

That is, in the Old Testament, they brought sheep, goats, lambs. That was a foreshadowing of that which is to come, which God credited to them because it was faith as a result of shedding blood. For the demonstration, I say, listen, of His righteousness, whose righteousness? The righteousness that is the holiness of God. Now watch this. He says whom He demonstrated at this present time so that He, God, would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Now watch this. Here's the issue: How could holy God, who is holy and can commit no sin, how could holy God, who said, who passed the law, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," "The wages of sin is death"?

That being true, we say, "Well, how do we know that's true? Look at the Garden of Eden." He said, "The day that you eat of this tree, you shall surely die," physically and spiritually and eternally. That's the law of God. So, here's the question: How could God, who is righteous, that is holy, and he keeps referring to that, how could God, who is holy, forgive, declare no longer guilty, a person who is guilty of sin, who sinned over and over and over again against holy God, who does not believe in God? How could He justify a person like that and declare them no longer guilty when His law is they will suffer eternal death? How can God remain holy God and declare us not guilty when we're so guilty?

There is only one answer to that question, and here's the answer: that God sent a substitute in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the perfect sinless Son of God. Upon Him, He placed all the sin, all the guilt of all mankind once and for all in one moment in time in history. So, how can you and I be saved? Because somebody took our place. Listen, the word that best describes what happened in the atonement is the word substitution. The Father substituted His Son in the worst form of death possible, and He bled and died on the cross in your place and mine. In His shedding of His blood, He atoned for, He paid the sin debt of the entire world in one single act. That is the only explanation to the question: How can holy God remain holy and forgive sinful man of his sinfulness? It is the only explanation.

There is the gospel truth, and that is the heart of the whole Bible: the substitutionary, undeserved, vicarious death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Our acceptance of that and of Him as our Savior is the only way to get there. Now, that being true, how should I respond? Some very specific ways. Number one, to ask Him to forgive you of your sin based not on your conduct but based on your relationship. Listen to Him through the cross. Ask Him to forgive you of your sins, repenting of them. Secondly, accepting Him as your personal Savior, Lord, and Master of your life. Third, to surrender your life to Him, because the moment you do that, the Holy Spirit comes into your life to enable you to live a godly life. And then, to serve Him.

When I think about the way He suffered and died, how could I ever say to Him, "I don't have time to serve God"? How could I ever say to Him, "I can't give anything to get the gospel around the world"? How could I ever reserve anything for myself when He gave everything and denied Himself totally? And the last response is: I've got to tell somebody. If you've been saved by the grace of God and you understand the work of the cross, you've got to tell somebody.

Can you imagine understanding this and then coming to the last moments of your life and the Holy Spirit were to say to you, "Who are you going to meet in heaven as a result of your testimony? Who's going to be there because you introduced them to Jesus?" And as you lie there facing death, there's nobody's face that comes to your mind and heart. What a horrible way to die. You say, "Well, am I going to be lost because I didn't win anybody?" No. But you're going sort of empty-handed.

So, I would simply ask you this question: In the light of the truth that you've heard today, and you've only heard the message of the gospel of the Word of God, have you ever asked Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins? Now watch this. If this is not what you've done, what have you done to make yourself acceptable in the eyes of God? How much did you do? Did you do enough? Have you done it long enough? Could you have done more? Was what you have done really motivated properly? You see, there's no answer to any of that.

There's only one way to be saved: asking the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins, trusting Him as your personal Savior, surrender your life to Him, and then you'll want to tell it and you'll want to serve Him if you walk in obedience to Him. That is my prayer for you. You say, "Well, what do I say to Him?" Here's how simple it is if you mean it in your heart: "Father, I have sinned against You and I am undeserving of eternal life. I'm asking You to forgive me not on the basis of anything about me, but what You did when You went as my substitute to the cross and died for my sins. I'm asking You to forgive me. I'm accepting You as my personal Savior, and from this moment on, by Your help, I want to live a godly life."

The moment you do that with all of your heart, and I meet people all the time who say to me, "One day I was watching, one day I was listening, you told me how to be saved, I got saved sitting right there in my bed, in my living room, in my den, driving down, radio, television, it doesn't make any difference what." That's how you get saved. If you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, remember this one thing: You will never be able to stand before Him and say, "I never heard, I never understood." Can never tell Him that. It's my heart's desire that you understand and that you're wise enough to receive Christ as your personal Savior and watch Him do His awesome, wondrous work in your life.

Father, how grateful we are that we know that we can make that statement to anybody on this globe and know in our heart that You keep Your Word. You forgive sin. You save, You write names in the Lamb's Book of Life. Not only do You save us in this life, but You keep us forever and ever and ever. We want to praise You today and thank You for the crucifixion of Jesus, His resurrection, and now to be able to say with the apostle Paul, "I am crucified with Him, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me, and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God." And we ask that in Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. The crucifixion wasn't something that happened to Jesus; it was planned for Him in order to offer redemption to the world. In gratitude, humble yourself before the Lord, ask Him to forgive you and surrender your life to Him. To study more about who Jesus is and what He came to do, visit intouch.org. Follow the link to today on radio to listen to this message again. And if you go to the bookstore page, you can order a copy of today's complete message, "Why the Cross?" All that and more is at intouch.org. To call or text, it’s 1-800-INTOUCH. You can write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357.

What does it mean to have the gift of eternal life? Encouragement is on the way in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

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You're listening to In Touch. A Christian has been fully pardoned by Christ's sacrifice. We'll be quizzed on our understanding of what that really means in a moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Now let me ask you a question. How many sins did He die for?

Crowd: All!

Dr. Charles Stanley: That's a very weak answer. How many sins did He die for?

Crowd: All!

Dr. Charles Stanley: You trusted Him as your personal Savior and you asked Him to forgive you of your sins on the basis that His shed blood paid your sin debt in full, correct?

Crowd: Yes!

Dr. Charles Stanley: You sure about that? That's what He says. Well, let me ask you a question. When He paid your sin debt in full and you trust Him as your personal Savior, what did He give you? Eternal life, right? How long is eternal? Forever and ever. Well, let me ask you this question: How then can you be saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, when He died for all of your sin—past, present, and future—now how can you tell me that now you got saved but now you're lost? Answer that question. If He died for all my sin—you say, "Yeah, but I've sinned since"—let's get this straight. We are talking about your salvation is the moment in time when God pardoned you for all your sin, period. What does He do when you and I sin against Him? He disciplines us as His children, not punishes us as unbelievers. We are pardoned once and for all in one act.

Guest (Male): Learn more about God’s gift of salvation at intouch.org. Don’t keep your faith to yourself; share what you’ve learned and start by telling us. Next time on In Touch, join us for an explanation of the hope we find in the rest of the story of Easter. That’s next time on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.