“’He saved others,’ they scoffed, ‘but He can’t save Himself! So He is the King of Israel, is He? Let Him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in Him! He trusted God, so let God rescue Him now if He wants Him! For He said, “I am the Son of God”’” (Matthew 27:42-43 NLT)
The power and efficacy of the Cross is often veiled by our own sin. We can’t see who Jesus is because we’re blinded by our own lostness. So like the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders who mocked Jesus, proclaiming their willingness to believe Him if He’d only come down from the Cross. The problem then and now, isn’t the power of Jesus to do what only He can do, it’s our unwillingness to believe He is who He claimed to be.
Had Jesus come down from the cross, which He certainly could have, it wouldn’t have led His mockers to salvation as they professed. The truth is Jesus had already demonstrated His true identity in the miracles He’d already done. Think of the four men who brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus. The crowd was so great they had to tear away part of the roof in order to lower their friend into the presence of the Lord.
The verse that followed this tremendous act of faith is one of the most powerful incentives in all of Scripture for those of us who are believers to bring our friends to the Lord. Mark wrote in chapter 2:5: “Seeing THEIR faith,” (the man’s friends’ faith, not the man’s faith) “Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven.’”
How did some of the very men who now stood mocking Jesus on the Cross, respond to Jesus’ words of forgiveness to this paralyzed man? “What is He saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins?” PRECISELY! Jesus knew exactly what He was doing and why. He portrayed in actions what His words had failed to accomplish in these men’s minds – He was God in human form! He was unequivocally the Son of God!
They didn’t believe Him then and they wouldn’t believe Him now as they stood mocking Him as He gave His life for their sin. How like us to be so shallow when we think of ourselves as so “deep;” how insincere in our pronouncements when the Lord can so clearly read our heart; and how shallow and stupid to make declarations of our intent when we have no intention of doing what we say we’ll do.
Tim Keller wrote: “The heart of the gospel is the cross, and the cross is all about giving up power.” Think of Jesus, the most powerful man to ever walk earth’s pathways, voluntarily hanging helpless on the Cross, demonstrating for all to see, not His weakness, but His strength. Who of us would have laid down our lives for the sin of all mankind? But even if we’d been willing it would have been to no avail.
How can a sinner pay the penalty for another’s sin? We can’t even pay the penalty for our own sin, let alone anyone else’s. Yet, as Jesus set aside His all-powerful privilege to die in our place, implicit in our coming to Jesus is our willingness to lay whatever measure of power we might possess at the foot of His Cross, trading our power for His, demonstrated by His willingness to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
As a Jesus follower we don’t walk in our strength, but His; not our holiness, but His; not our glory, but His; not our faith, but His; not our works, but His; not our wholeness, but His!
The heart of the gospel is indeed the Cross, but it isn’t only Jesus who laid aside His power to declare the glory of His Father, it’s you and me – every moment of every day – who must lay aside any aspirations of doing or being anything in and of ourselves that might bring any glory to ourselves. We lay it aside in order that Christ alone may be magnified and glorified in and through every avenue and dimension of our lives.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 