The Murder That Saved The World
The murder of God’s Son shined the light on the depth and extent of man’s depravity. At the same time, it undraped the masterpiece of God’s total forgiveness for all mankind. “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do,” (Lk.23:34 KJV,) applies to Christ’s killers. It is what Christ’s Father forgave, and who Jesus interceded for. We identify with His intercession, but we also own the crime.
The slaying of Christ, manifested the highest concentration of sin’s sinfulness of all time. It not only implicated the immediate participants and their capability of evil, but it also incriminated all the sin potential that lies in every sinner everywhere. It proved that the worst thing possible, is possible in us, in me! We should all cry, “how could we do such a thing?”
From God’s perspective, every other manifestation of sin is comprehended in this event. Every act of sin is like a hammer blow of the nails, or lash of the whip. They’re all implicated in the murder of His Son.
It is here that God applies His forgiveness thereby touching every other sinful behavior. The possibility of guilt for any other sin is overruled because nothing could ever be worse than Crucifying His Son. Every member of Adam’s race who believes in Christ’s intercession therefore, is justified forever, i.e., “just as if we never sinned.”
The murder of God’s Son is the epicenter of God’s forgiveness. Its seismic waves ripple out in all directions and depths to all the other acts of mankind, everywhere and forever, past and future. It eventually reaches every sinner and every sin ever committed. But it arrives as a Father granting His dying Son’s last request for those who killed Him. This is also how it must be received.
“You killed The Son of God,” is the message that shook the world of the early church. It equalizes everyone and everything by revealing how God sees sin. The indictment applies to all mankind but so does its answer for that sin, “Father forgive them for…”
“But I wasn’t there”
Isaiah 53 detailed the crime and identified the perpetrators thousands of years in advance. “He is despised and rejected of men…and we hid as it were our faces from Him, He was despised and we esteemed Him not… Peter reinforced the accusation on The Day of Pentecost when he preached to thousands and indiscriminately declared to all of them, “Him…have you taken, and by wicked hands have slain and crucified.”
The responsibility of rejecting God’s Son is shared by the whole world. That day a random crowd realized that included them as well and 3000 were saved. You say, “but I wasn’t there!” Neither was Isaiah.
The Power of The Gospel
Paul calls this, “the power of the Gospel.” Its tremors will persist until Christ returns, when “they which pierced Him,” shall see Him.” The most powerful paradox of all time is the murder of God’s Son. It not only condemned the world because of the heinousness of the offense but at the same time forgives all who acknowledge it by Faith.