A Paradoxical Reality
Did you know that the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was a Paradoxical Reality? It embraced certain contrasting concepts.
Now isn’t that a paradox? During His death, what was visible to others was the Powerlessness of Christ. But Jesus was not a mere lamb being taken to the slaughter. Matt 26:53,54 reveals that,by “choosing to die”, He would display greater power than His other poweful options that were at hand to help Him escape death.
(Again a contrast!)
"A God who does not punish sin, cannot be just at all.
And a God who is not just, cannot be God at all.”
When justice has to be executed, there is no place for love.Justice demands Punishment! Love requires Forgiveness!
But God showed his Love, by giving up His Son to bear pain and die. The price of man’s sin had been paid and thus the blood requirements of God’s Justice had been met.
More than the physical suffering, what pained Jesus the most, was His rejection by the people.
“To suffer”, by itself, is not so bad.Suffering can be for a good cause. The sufferings of some people are admired by the world. But to suffer and even get rejected is humiliating. (Rejection deprives one of the dignity of suffering!)
The Rejection of Christ at the cross had been foretold hundreds of years before, in Isaiah 53:3.
But, in John 12:32, Jesus speaks about the Cross as His tool for Drawing all men to Himself: as all those who believe in Him, are united into one Body with Jesus as the Head.
The Cross does not stand just for CHRIST CRUCIFIED, but also for “I CRUCIFIED TO THE WORLD”, according to Galatians 6:14. It implies that we must be dead to the world, if we are to obtain Eternal Life.