25/04/2024
The Other Side of the Cross
I frequently speak against the “sovereignty of God” and “God is in control” culture found in many churches. The obvious result of these teachings is the spiritual paralysis of believers, fatalism, and a total lack of believing of what Jesus died to give us.
If we are still in the Old Covenant, dealing with a mysterious God who “gives and takes away,” then why did Jesus come? Did anything change when He sat down at the right hand of God? What is the “new creation”? What happens when we are born again and delivered from the power of darkness? What does it mean to have the Greater One living in us?
The Old Covenant side of the cross is filled with mystery, but the New Covenant is filled with revelation.
“But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” (Mt. 13:16-17)
The prophets and righteous men of the past (including Job) did not see and hear what we see and hear. We have had God revealed to us in Christ. We have heard the gospel that translates us from the law of sin and death into the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus! (Rom. 8:2)
To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1:27)
Christ in us? Wouldn’t that make the words of Jesus and the revelation of Paul of much more importance than the partial revelation of the prophets and righteous men of the past who desired to know what we know? They couldn’t see the “new creation” and being “seated with Him in heavenly places”. They didn’t fully understand the “gift of righteousness” and the “spirit of faith”. They didn’t know that all of the promises are “yes” and “amen”. Their experience with God was limited by sin. Ours is a gift of His grace.
It's time to live on the other side of the cross.
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Rom. 8:32)