The Cast of the Cross: God

Rom 8:31-32

Last week we talked about how various people, including ourselves, betrayed Jesus. Few of us would argue our culpability in the terrible events of the cross. But what you would you say if I told you that God also betrayed Jesus? That’s what it says in our text we just read. How could a God who loved his son so much also betray him?

And, as much drama that was happening by the visible characters in this story there was just as great a drama being played out by those unseen. God and Satan were just as intimately involved in the cross as any of the people involved. It’s imperative to understand God’s role in the cross to be able to understand God and his view of us.

PRAYER

I. At the Cross, You can See the Holiness of God

A. The cross and its connection to sin.

1. As you read NT scripture, it’s clear that the cross is connected to sin.

a) 1 Cor. 15:3 Paul tells us that Christ died for our sins.

b) 1 Pet 2:24 says that Christ bore our sins on the tree

c) Heb 9:28 says that Christ was sacrificed to take away the sins of people.

2. Sin made the cross necessary

a) If man had not sinned, the cross wouldn’t have been necessary.

b) The question we ask is why? Why was the cross necessary? Why did God’s forgiveness come as such a terrible price?

B. God’s forgiveness

1. That has been one of the questions I have struggled with my whole adult life.

a) If God could speak the world into existence with a single word, if He is the most powerful being to ever have existed, why couldn’t he just forgive man and go from there?

b) If God demands that we forgive each other, why doesn’t he just forgive us?

2. The problem is that we are asking the wrong question about forgiveness.

3. The real question dealing with God and forgiveness should be, Why forgive us at all?!

C. The cross shows the holiness of God

1. It isn’t Grandpa God

a) Most of us with children have a hard time believing our parent’s behavior with our kids. They aren’t the same people who raised us. They became this sweet couple that want to spoil the kids and often let the kids do things that they would have killed us for.

b) That is how many people view God. He is this sweet old guy up in heaven that just pats everyone on the head and says “l love you.”

c) Yet, when you look at the cross, that sweet image of God fades very quickly.

2. Brothers and sisters, you need to understand that God hates sin.

a) God and sin cannot coincide together.

b) It’s like trying to mix water and oil; they simply cannot mix.

3. Not only does he hate it, he MUST punish sin.

a) Being absolutely holy and allowing sin to go unpunished would go against his very being.

b) So he came up with a way to punish sin and redeem us at the same time, the cross.

c) The cross show us just how seriously God takes sin, and to what extremes He is willing to go to deal with it.

II. At the Cross, You Can See the Love of God

A. The connection between the cross and God’s love

1. Several passages speak to this thought. The one that seems to have captured the essence of his love for us and the passage we have taken hold of with both hands, is John 3:16

a) "“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, NIV)

2. God’s love for us made the cross a necessity

a) Our sin didn’t force the cross.

b) We haven’t done anything to deserve the cross.

c) God could have very simply remained holy and condemned this sinful world to hell.

d) But he loved us.

e) He loved us so much that the only way for him to reconcile us to him was the cross.

B. The cross shows us the love of God

1. How does the cross show us the love of God?

a) Is it love to let an innocent man, your own son die for others?

b) The answer to that question is that is the ultimate demonstration of love for others.

c) No love could come at a higher price, but God paid it.

2. Look at Rom 5:6-10 READ

3. There is one central phrase here that demonstrates God’s love in several ways.

4. God gave his son to die for US

a) The price paid was for OUR ransom.

b) It was while we were still ungodly, sinner… enemies of God that he did that for us.

5. God gave his SON for us.

a) He gave his one and only child to be the payment for our sins.

b) As Paul said in our Rom 8 passage, “He did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.”

6. God gave his son to DIE for us.

a) At Christmas, we celebrate the fact that God made his son human so he could be among us. That was pretty cool, but it wasn’t enough.

b) That son, in flesh and blood, had to die for us.

c) His son became our sins, so God didn’t have to hold them against us when it was time for us to stand before him.

d) That is humbling.

C. Our schizophrenic God

1. On one hand we have a holy God who cannot tolerate sin.

2. On the other we have a loving God who wants to show mercy to sinners.

3. The cross is the bitter medicine God takes allowing these two aspects of his personality to coexist in harmony and peace.