-Strength for Today- "The Cross Was God’s Plan." - 1 Corinthians 1:18-19.

    As hideous as it were, the cross was God’s plan. The cross is a “dramatic demonstration” of His “unconditional love,” and is an example of the kind of love that He wants us to have for Him and for one another. And to this He said, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and thy soul, and all thy mind, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself” - Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18. 

 Even though the cross has become a “symbol of Christianity,” it’s so much more than that. The cross was God’s “divine planned platform, for justice” on which His willing Son was “crucified.” There Jesus’ “sinless scourged body,” was nailed and His death “appeased,” God and our “salvation was secured.” 

So, because of the “fallen nature of all mankind,” the cross, through faith in its accomplishment, welcomes all “marginalized,” “criminalized” and “ostracized sinners,” to come by faith and be saved. Because on the cross, “Jesus was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace (with God), was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed” -Isaiah 53:5. 

    As believers, we must understand what happened as Jesus died on the cross so we too can be thoroughly convinced of its “supreme significance.” The crucifixion was God’s plan, although the Jews and the Romans both played a role in putting Jesus on the cross, but God was the one who’d already planned the death of His Son as an atonement for mankind’s sin. His plan was motivated by three things: 

1.  The sinfulness of mankind. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). 
2. His unconditional love. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” - Romans 5:8l, and 
3. His justice. Ezekiel 18:4c says, “...the soul that sinned, it shall die” Although God loves us, He can’t ignore our sin, because the “Wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a), because this wouldn’t be just, and He can't deny Himself or act contrary to His nature. 

   So, the cross was where: 

•  Our sin and  
• God’s love and justice met.  

   Jesus died on the cross as the “divine payment” for sin. But as planned, once and all, as planned, because of God’s love for us, His “love,” “grace,” and “mercy” sent His Son to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin with His death.  He alone was qualified. He was the only one who ever lived a sinless life. Our sin was laid on Him, and He died in our place, thereby satisfying God’s justice. 

Author: Plez Lovelady, Jr., PhD