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The High Cost Of The Cross


Copyright c by Joe Crews.
  All rights reserved.


After his disastrous defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon, so the story
goes, met with some of his leading generals to analyze the
battle's flawed strategies.  In the course of their discussions,
the little general pointed at England on the colored map before
them and said bitterly, "Except for that red spot I would be
master of the world."  Satan could say the same thing today
except he would point to a cross on a hill outside the walls of
Old Jerusalem.  Aren't you thankful for that red spot of Calvary
that rescued this world from the control of our great enemy?
That was the place, the time, and the contest that settled the
destiny of planet earth.  Satan has been a defeated foe ever
since.  There it was that he met his Waterloo and suffered a
decisive defeat from which he will never fully recover.
How few of us understand the real meaning of Christ's suffering
and death on that cross.  We have only a dim comprehension of
the conflict He passed through and the kind of agonizing death
He experienced.  Could our eyes be opened to grasp the true
significance of His sacrifice, there would be no more miserable
collaborating with Satan. Our weakness would be turned into
courage and
victory.
The Bible writers struggled to explain, in human language, the
mysterious incarnation and atoning death of the Son of God.
Often we weep under the power of their inspired testimony.  We
get glimpses that boggle our minds, but still, we are only
scratching the surface of a subject which will continue
unfolding for all eternity.
Paul wrote, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus:  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God:  But made himself of no reputation, and took
upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of
men;  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself,
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
Philippians 2:5-8.  These sublime words describe the
condescension of Jesus from the throne to the manger and then to
the cross.

From the Highest
to the Lowest!

There is not an illustration in all the vast reaches of time or
space that could properly portray what Jesus did.  Sometimes we
try to fabricate imaginary circumstances to convey the idea of
His sacrifice.  A diseased pack of wild dogs is described,
covered with many scabs and running sores. It is postulated that
if one human being would only submit to become one of the dogs,
the entire pack could be saved from imminent death.  Could
anyone be found who would voluntarily lay aside his human
condition, and suffer the unspeakable indignity of turning into
a dog?  Dramatic as it may sound, that is a feeble illustration
of the humiliation of the divine Son of God.  We cannot grasp
the glory and position from which He separated when He emptied
Himself and came into the condemned, dying family of Adam.
This is why it is so difficult for Christians to grasp the
atonement.  Why do so many treat casually the events of the
cross?  Surely because they do not understand what their
salvation cost the Son of God.  It is only when we know the cost
of something that we begin to appreciate it.  We value most
highly that which requires the greatest investment.
All of us have encountered people who display a mystifying
indifference toward the sacrifice of Christ.  At the end of one
of my crusades I visited a businessman who had attended every
night but who had made no commitment.  We had developed a warm
friendship during the four-week series, so I felt bold to ask
him why he had made no decision for Christ.  His vague answer
indicated to me that he had no understanding of the seriousness
of accepting the gift of salvation.  He had never made any kind
of response to the gospel and, under my gentle questioning,
confessed that he had no assurance of being saved.  Finally, I
asked him point blank, "Do you mean, Sam, that if you died
tonight you would have no hope of eternal life?"  He answered,
"No, I have never made any kind of profession of Christianity."
Shocked by his obvious unconcern I gathered the courage to ask
this question:  "Sam, suppose that you could pick up $10,000
tomorrow morning from your banker in exchange for a paper
containing the signatures of ten men in this city.  Would you be
willing to drive around the city tonight and get those
signatures?"  He answered, "Of course I would."
"Would you run any risk of losing one of those signatures on the
paper?" I asked.  "Absolutely not," Sam replied, "I know a good
thing when I see it."
The truth was that Sam did not recognize a good thing when he
saw it, and I felt constrained to tell him so in the kindest way
that my outraged spirit could manage.  I said, "Sam, you would
not take the least chance of losing $10,000 between now and
tomorrow morning; yet you have stated that you do risk losing
eternal life if you die tonight.  You place more value on the
money than you do on eternal life.  Your appraisals are wrong.
You don't have the faintest idea what it cost to provide for
your salvation, or you wouldn't value it so lightly."
It was easy to see why my friend was so noncommittal toward the
cross of Christ.  Even though he had been around Christians all
his life and had heard hundreds of sermons, he held the typical
"martyr" view of the death of Jesus.  It is simply not true that
He died just like all the thousands of others who were crucified
on crosses around the wall of Jerusalem.  There can be no
comparison.  Christ did not die because of the nails, spear, or
physical abuse.  No amount of blows or pain could have produced
the agonies of the cross.  Others were enduring the same torture
of the flesh, but none died from the same causes which took the
life of the Son of God.  His death was different.   How was it
different?
What kind of death did He suffer?  The Bible says that "he by
the grace of God should taste death for every man."  Hebrews
2:9.  Think of that for a moment.  He died my death, and yours,
and every other person's.  How could that be?  Will we not have
to suffer our own death-experience at the end of our days?  Yes,
we will.  And therein lies the mystery and the wonder of what He
did for us.  He did not take our place in passing through the
first death.  He experienced the second death for every soul who
has ever been born.
Christ Died the Second Death

It is so important that we distinguish between the first and
second deaths.  Only then will we be able to understand why God
the Father turned away from His Son on the cross.  Angels were
not permitted to minister to Him.  Jesus had to be treated as
though He were guilty of every terrible sin which has ever been
committed.  Under the weight of that condemnation and guilt, He
sweat great drops of blood and fell fainting to the ground in
the Garden.  On Golgotha's Hill, shut off from the approving
presence of His Father, He cried in torment, "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?"  Matthew 27:46.
Do you begin to see what Sam overlooked?  He did not sense the
real suffering of the cross and, therefore, had no true
understanding of the cost of salvation.  We shall attempt to
expose some of those "hidden costs" which Sam did not recognize
and which many today do not properly appraise.
Paul wrote, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned."  Romans 5:12.  Several fundamental
questions are raised by these words of Paul. If only one man
sinned, why did all have to die?  Do people have to pay the
penalty for other men's sins?  When Adam was in the Garden of
Eden, he represented every person who would ever be born.  As
the head of the race he stood before God as though he were every
man.  You and I were there, represented by the genes and
chromosomes which later produced the hereditary pattern of
Adam's children.  As partakers of his body and mind, all his
descendants had to be affected by what affected him.  He is our
father, and there are laws of heredity which reproduce the
genetic pattern from age to age.
What happened to Adam which also affected his children?  God
placed him on probation in that original paradise. The test was
simple and direct:  obey and live, disobey and die.  We remember
so well the story of the tree in the midst of the Garden.  God
said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die."  Genesis 2:17.  His continued existence in the perfect
atmosphere of Eden depended upon obedience.  Adam's happy future
was conditional upon staying away from the forbidden tree, but
he did not meet the condition.
No provision had been made to remove the penalty or to lighten
it.  The issue was clear-cut:  obey and live, disobey and die.
At the age of 930 the sentence was fully carried out, and Adam
died and was buried.
All of Adam's children were born after his nature had become
depraved through sin.  They could inherit only what their father
had to give, so they were born with a sinful, fallen nature.
Please note that they did not inherit the guilt of their father,
but only his weakened, sin-loving nature.  There is no such
thing as original sin, in the sense that Adam's descendants were
accountable for his sin.  It is true that they also were subject
to death just like Adam, but their death was not the punishment
for Adam's sin.  They died because they had received a mortal
nature through the laws of heredity.  Their death resulted from
the degenerated constitution which Adam transmitted to his
offspring.  Only Adam's death was the punishment for his sin.
From the moment sin became a fixed fact, every human being who
would live became subject to the first death. In fact, if God
had not intervened, it would have been an eternal death.  Adam's
probation ended when he sinned.  As far as that first offer of
life was concerned, it was finished.  He had forfeited all hope
of life under the proposal God had made.  Now only death awaited
him--a hopeless, final death.  And if God had done nothing more,
that's the way it would have ended--for Adam and all of his
descendants.

A Second Probation Provided

But immediately after Adam sinned and before the sentence was
fully executed, God introduced the plan of salvation through the
seed of the woman and gave Adam a new trial (Genesis 3:15).
This second probation was conditioned upon acceptance of a
Saviour who would bear man's penalty through His own
substitutionary death.  A new hope was set before Adam and all
his posterity through this second arrangement, but it did not
alter the consequences of failing the first probation.
That brings us to a very crucial question.  How could God uphold
His integrity by carrying out the penalty of the first failure,
and still hold out the offer of a new life to everyone through
another probation?  God met that puzzling dilemma in such a
simple way that we are amazed.  He would let men live their
limited life span and then die, regardless of whether they did
good or evil.  That first death would take care of the Adamic
consequences of failing the first test.  Then, let all men be
raised from that first death, into which they fell through no
fault of their own, and let them stand before God to answer for
their own personal sins, for which they are responsible.  Then
their destiny would be determined on the basis of the second
probation (between birth and the first death), and how they met
the conditions of salvation through Christ.
If they are found guilty of personally failing the second test
they will suffer the same penalty that Adam faced--death.  In
this case, however, there will be no further probation extended,
and their death will be the second death--final, eternal
extinction.
Now we can better understand the words of Paul, "For as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."  1
Corinthians 15:22.  The plan of salvation involves a
resurrection of all men from the first death, so that they can
be placed beyond the effects of Adam's sin.  This is necessary
so that they can be judged on the basis of their personal
actions and choices.  Adam died because he ate the fruit of the
forbidden tree, not because of anything he did after that.  But
if, after the judgment, Adam is found worthy of the second
death, it will not be because he ate the fruit, but because of
other sins committed after that experience which were not
confessed and forgiven.
Some may charge God with being arbitrary and cruel to bring the
wicked back to life again only to destroy them in the lake of
fire.  Why not just let them remain under the power of the first
death?  That would not meet the conditions required by the
second probation. The first death is not the punishment for sin
for any of Adam's posterity.  Justice requires that each
individual be held accountable only for meeting the conditions
of his own salvation.  Without a resurrection no such judgment
could be made, and no just retribution could be given.  It is no
wanton act on God's part, but a fulfillment of the standards of
divine justice.

The Second Adam Meets the Test

With that understanding of the first and second deaths we are
prepared to examine the roles of the first and second Adams.
Just as the entire human race was represented by Adam in the
Garden of Eden, so every man would be represented by Jesus, the
second Adam.  "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of
one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."  Romans
5:18, 19.
As we have seen, whatever happened to the first Adam affected
all those whom he represented.  Now we are told by Paul that the
experience of the second Adam will directly affect all men.
Jesus, the Creator, was incorporated into humanity, and stood
before God as though He were every man. This is why Paul wrote,
"I am crucified with Christ."  Galatians 2:20.  "We are buried
with him by baptism."   Romans 6:4.  "As Christ was raised up,
...  even so we also should walk in newness of life."  Romans
6:4.  The life of man is deeply associated with the events of
Christ's life.
Because Jesus came to redeem the failure of the first Adam, He
had to do it in the same flesh that mankind possessed when He
was born.  "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made
like unto his brethren."  Hebrews 2:17. Had He possessed any
supernatural advantage over His brethren in conquering sin Jesus
would have given support to Satan's charge of injustice.  God
had been accused of requiring an obedience that was unreasonable
and even impossible.  Christ came to disprove the devil's false
accusation by meeting the requirements of God in the same human
nature that any man may obtain through faith in the Father.
It was that perfect victory of Christ over sin and death which
provides the basis of all salvation.  All the descendants of
Adam lay under the influence of his weakness and failure, making
it impossible for any of them to obey the law.  In that dying,
condemned family of Adam they were doomed to perpetual struggle
and defeat.  But the victory of the second Adam opened a door of
escape for the family of the first Adam.

Changing Families

The first Adam passed on the results of his sinful experience
through physical birth--weakness, sin, and death.  The second
Adam passed on the results of His sinless experience through
spiritual birth--partaking of the divine nature, victory, and
eternal life.  All the effects of the first Adam's failure are
completely counteracted by the second Adam.  Please don't miss
the point that one can join the new family only through  a
spiritual birth.  Through faith in Christ a new creation takes
place, lifting man out of the hopeless, carnal state of the
family of Adam.  "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature:  old things are passed away; behold, all things are
become new."  2 Corinthians 5:17.
The change of families constitutes one of the least understood
blessings of the Christian experience. It is not a theoretical
or mystical transaction with no practical results.  Just as the
transformation of nature is dramatically real, so the privileges
of the new family are also real.  One of the hardest things for
the newborn Christian to accept is the total change of position,
authority, and ownership under the new family arrangement.  They
are now eligible for all the riches and advantages of the
children of God.
Incredible promises are included in this new spiritual
relationship.  "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are the children of God:  And if children, then
heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."  Romans 8:16,
17. It is easy to understand why the human mind boggles at this
concept.  We tend to probe for hidden reservations and secret
meanings in verses like these.  A joint-heir is one who holds
equal rights to all the family estate.  We ask ourselves how it
is possible to become sudden  heirs of such unlimited wealth.
From abject poverty we now hold title to the universe!  The
holdings of God include galaxies and island universes in space.
By faith we try to grasp hold of the reality:  Jesus and I share
and share alike in all the spiritual riches of the Father.
Whatever He gets, we also receive.  Paul describes the boundless
resources of the Spirit-filled life in these words:  "That ye
might be filled with all the fulness of God."  Ephesians 3:19.
Who can comprehend such language?  The great, loving God who
made us, and who gave up His only Son to die for us, now wants
us to have everything His Son has, and also everything that He
has!
Along with the staggering assets of a King, we also actually
inherit the family name and the family resemblance.  We even
begin to look like our new Father and Elder Brother.  "And have
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him."  Colossians 3:10.  In the
beginning Adam was made in the image of God, and was called a
"son of God."  In Genesis we read, "In the likeness of God made
he him. ... And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat
a son in his own likeness."  Genesis 5:1-3.
Like father, like son.  Adam looked like God, but the
resemblance was lost through sin.  So Adam's son did not look
like God; he looked like Adam.  But under the new birth, man
begins to lose his Adamic features and to look like the One who
created him--Jesus.  Is this resemblance real or imagined?  Does
God create only an illusion to make it seem that man is being
restored to the divine image, or does He powerfully provide for
the change to take place?  There is a theological debate as to
whether God's righteousness is only accounted to man or whether
it is truly imparted as well.  Those who feel that man is only
accounted righteous, do not believe that he can really overcome
sin and live a holy life, even in Christ.  But Paul's words are
clear, "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
Romans 5:19.
Along with the family likeness this new spiritual birth brings
deliverance from the second death, which was inevitable under
the Adamic nature.  Christ did not change the first death
penalty for Adam's failure under the first probation, but He did
abolish the second death for all those who received Him under
the second probation.  This was made possible only because He
submitted to suffer the horrible penalty of the second death in
place of man.  He became sin for us, and voluntarily accepted
the punishment which sin demands.   On the cross, with no ray of
hope from the Father, Jesus was enveloped in the darkness of a
billion lost souls.  He tasted death for every man.  Hebrews
2:9.

Abraham's Fiery Crucible

Was it easy for Jesus to have such an experience?  Was it easy
for the Father to withdraw from His beloved Son and treat Him as
though He was guilty of the most atrocious blasphemy and crime?
Only one man in the world has come near to understanding the
intense suffering of the Father and the Son in that situation.
That man, Abraham, gave up his only son also, and became the
first human to share the agony of the cross.
Paul wrote that "the scripture, foreseeing that God would
justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel
unto Abraham."  Galatians 3:8.  Jesus also recognized that
Abraham had special revelations on the atonement.  He said,
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and
was glad."  John 8:56.
To understand how this Old Testament patriarch had such
prophetic insight into the work of the Messiah, we must go back
to his experience on Mount Moriah.  Because he had initially
failed to believe that God could give him a son from Sarah's
dead womb, Abraham was subjected to another test concerning life
from the dead.  God told him to slay his only son Isaac on an
altar.  The account of that lonely journey to Mount Moriah is
one of the most moving stories in the sacred Word.
Abraham had no doubt about the validity of the order.  He was a
friend of God and had learned to recognize His voice.  There was
no way for Abraham to comprehend the reason for this bizarre
command. The promise had been confirmed repeatedly that Isaac
was the seed through whom the Messiah would come.  Now he was
asked to take the life of that child of his old age through whom
the world would be blessed and redeemed.  How could the Saviour
come through Isaac if he was slain on the altar?
By the time father and son reached the base of the mountain
Abraham's faith had resolutely claimed God's resurrection power.
He said to the servants, "I and the lad will go yonder and
worship, and come again to you."  Genesis 22:5.  This time there
was no weak faltering over the seeming impossibility of the
promise.  No resurrection from the dead had ever occurred, but
Abraham believed that God would fulfill His promise concerning
Isaac's seed.
As Abraham lifted the knife over his submissive son, he was
meeting the most severe test ever faced by a human being. It
would have been terrible enough to take his son's life, but with
one stroke of the knife he was about to destroy the only hope of
salvation for himself and every person who would be born.  No
one except Jesus would ever hold the destiny of a world in his
hand as Abraham did in that moment.  It was more than the test
of fatherly affection.  By killing Isaac, Abraham was depriving
the world of a Saviour.  The knife was at his own throat also.
God's unfailing word had assured him that no Messiah could be
born without Isaac.  Do you begin to see into the fiery crucible
of Abraham's test?  No wonder Jesus spoke of Abraham being able
to see His day.
Even though his hand was stayed and God provided another
sacrifice, Abraham really did give up his son that day. He
experienced all the pain, heartbreak, and horror that attends
the death of an only child.  Holding the power to save His son's
life, he would not exercise it. God intervened only after it was
fully apparent that Abraham would not hesitate to offer up
Isaac.  Thank God for the faith of Abraham and for the equal
faith and submission of his beloved son.  No one can miss the
impact of that very moving, human story.  It brings the love and
sacrifice of the atonement within the understanding of every
child of Adam.  Now we can grasp a little better how the Father
and His only begotten Son suffered at the cross.  The cost of
our redemption becomes clearer.

   How the Cross Provides
Forgiveness

But now we must consider another aspect of this heavenly drama
which will further illuminate God's love and sacrifice. How does
the death of one man, the second Adam, provide forgiveness for
all who have sinned?  The Bible says, "Without shedding of blood
is no remission (of sins)."  Hebrews 9:22.  Remission, of
course, means forgiveness.  The question is, How does Christ's
death make it possible for Him to forgive sin?  This brings us
to the crux of all we have learned so far.  It was necessary for
Jesus to suffer the second death in order to acquire the power
to forgive.
The germ of all forgiveness is rooted in an act of substitution.
Whoever forgives another person must actually substitute himself
for the one he forgives, and be willing to suffer the
consequences of the wrong done.  For example, if I forgive
someone a debt, I must be prepared to suffer the loss of the
amount.  If I forgive a blow, I must be willing to suffer the
pain of it, without requiring the one who gave it to be
punished.
Justice requires that every offender be recompensed in
proportion to what he did:  an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth.  The one who gives a blow must also suffer an equal blow
in return.  Forgiveness, though, relieves the offender from
receiving what he legally deserves.  The forgiver accepts the
consequence himself in order that the guilty one can go free
without punishment.  Thus there is clearly a substitution of the
innocent for the guilty in every act of forgiveness.
As a further demonstration let us imagine that a murdered man
could forgive his murderer from beyond the grave. He would, in
effect, be consenting to his own death in order that the killer
would not be punished.  By accepting the results of the offense
against him, he allows his own death to satisfy the penalty
which could be legally laid upon the murderer.
This illustration brings us very close to the heart of the
atonement.  We are dealing here with the readjustment of a
jarred relationship.  That is what atonement really is. Two
parties are always involved, the wronged and the wrongdoer.  In
this case it is God, the wronged, and man, the one who sins
against Him. Justice demands an adequate expiation of the sin.
Only two courses are possible:  either justice will exact the
prescribed penalty, or there must be forgiveness from the
offended one.  If forgiveness is extended, the forgiver will
have to accept the consequences of the sin, and suffer it in
place of the guilty.  The penalty for sin is death.  So in order
to grant forgiveness to the sinner, Jesus must be willing to
bear in His own body the same punishment that the broken law
would demand of the sinner.
The punishment for sin is not the first death, but the second
death. That is why the protracted agony of Jesus on the cross
was totally unlike any other death. Thousands of criminals were
crucified in the same physical way that Christ was nailed to the
cross, but they suffered only the bodily pain of the first
death.  He experienced the awful condemnation and separation
from God that the vilest of sinners will feel in the lake of
fire.  His sensitive nature was traumatized by sharing
vicariously the guilt of foul rapes, murders, and atrocities.
He became sin in order to allow the full wrath of the law to
fall upon Him in exactly the same way it would fall upon the
lost.
In no other way can we explain the mysterious anguish of spirit
which surrounded our Saviour in His closing hours of life.  From
the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus bore the accumulated sins of
mankind on His breaking heart.  Not one ray of light was
permitted to penetrate the blanket of total alienation from His
Father in heaven. In order to take the place of guilty sinners
and to provide forgiveness there could be no difference in their
penalty and His penalty.
Let no one suggest that the Father did not suffer equally with
His Son.  The divine forbearance of God in allowing wicked men
to torture His Son to death is the ultimate proof that He loves
us with the same love that He loved Jesus.  The choice He faced
was very simple.  He could spare the Son or He could spare us.
There was no other choice. The law had been broken--the law
which was holy and perfect.  As a reflection of His character it
could not be changed or destroyed.  The penalty had to be paid.
The Father loved those who had broken His law, but He also loved
His Son.
Look again at the scene around that cross. God looked upon those
wicked men as they spat upon Jesus and hit Him in the face with
their fists. They were unworthy to touch the hem of His garment,
but they were mauling Him to death.  He held the power in His
hand to smite those little men into oblivion.  He could save His
Son from cruel taunts and blows, but if He intervened not one
human being would ever live again.  Adam, Abraham, Joseph,
Daniel, and every other child of Adam would be lost for
eternity.  Their resurrection depended wholly upon the death and
resurrection of His Beloved Son.  In His omniscience God must
have remembered every individual face and name, even of those
who had not yet been born.
In that moment God thought about you and me.  Even though He saw
all our miserable failures He still wanted us to be with Him for
eternity.  He knew the great majority would not accept the offer
of eternal life with Him, even though it would be provided at
such a fearful cost.  But He also knew that a few would love Him
and gladly receive the substitutionary death of His Son in their
behalf.  So God turned away from His Son, and allowed Him to be
crushed to death under the weight of sins He did not commit.
Even the sun hid its face from the terrible scene, and the earth
shuddered in protest.  "It is finished," Jesus cried, and
yielded up His life.  John 19:30.

Was the Price Too High?

The price of redemption had been paid.  Was it too high?  For
multiplied millions it was an empty investment, a wasted
sacrifice.  They would lightly esteem the entire transaction and
reject it out of hand. But what about you?  Now that you see a
little clearer what it cost, do you find yourself responding to
the investment He made in your salvation?
So far we have focused upon the enormous scope of the atonement-
-how it provided for every man, woman, and child who has ever
lived.  This emphasis should not obscure the terribly personal
aspect of what He did.  The quality of that love which brought
Jesus to His death on the cross was such that He would have made
the same sacrifice for even one soul.  I need to remind myself
every day that God not only "so loved the world," but He so
loved me, that He gave His Son.  The genius of the entire plan
of salvation revolved around the application of His death to
individuals.
Christ's love for people is repeatedly dramatized in the Bible.
We see it in His time-consuming, one-person interviews.  Some of
His most significant spiritual discourses were delivered to
single individuals.  We see it also in the dangerous voyage He
made across the sea to deliver the Gadarene demoniac. It
occupied fully two days of His precious time to cross that
stormy water and return.  Only one man was directly contacted
during that unpleasant excursion, but that man, later, turned
the whole countryside toward the Saviour.
We must watch Jesus relate to Nicodemus, the leper, the harlot,
and the despised tax-assessor before we can understand the value
of a single soul.  He took time with people regardless of their
position or possessions.  The woman of Samaria was just another
shameless community "character" when Christ took the opportunity
to engage her in a conversation that turned her life upside
down.
Undoubtedly Jesus looked at each person as a candidate for
eternal life.  How else can we explain His association with
Simon, Zacchaeus, and Mary Magdalene?  He saw in every soul the
glorious potential of reflecting His own holy character for both
time and eternity.  He saw there the reason for His incarnation.
Each soul was the one He had come to redeem.  Those were the
faces which came into His mind as He hung on the cross,
strengthening Him to drain the cup of His suffering.
One of the most astounding statements in the Bible about the
atonement is found in Hebrews 12:2,  "Looking unto Jesus the
author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God."
How could that terrible experience on the cross have any joy
connected with it?  We are assured that some joyful motive
girded Him for the shame and humiliation of the crucifixion.
What was "the joy that was set before him"?  Here lies the
secret of His self-abnegation.  He did it in the strength of the
anticipated joy of opening wide the gates of Paradise to welcome
us into His never-ending kingdom.  It was love for us, and the
desire to be with us for eternity which led Him to endure the
unendurable.  Here is a  positive assurance that He was thinking
of you and me as He bore the wrenching cruelties of the cross.
Is one soul worth such an infinite price?  In the light of
eternity the answer is Yes.  Consider the amazing fact that one
redeemed soul will outlive all the combined years of earth's
total population.  Eventually, in eternity, the life of that one
person will outstrip by a million times all the life spans of
all the inhabitants of this world put together.  In this sense,
one saved person represents more life, more accomplishment, and
greater fulfillment than all the lost people combined.  Jesus
must have recognized that truth every time He looked into the
face of a man, woman, or child.  In even the most degraded human
being He saw a life that could memorialize His love for longer
than time had been computed.
With these glimpses into the real costs of Calvary, how could
anyone lightly esteem His mission to planet earth?  You can be
that soul who will bear an everlasting witness to the love and
grace of our Saviour.  Never has so much been provided for so
little.  By a single step of faith we may exchange the deadly
birthrights of the first Adam for the unsearchable riches of the
second Adam.  In a moment of surrender and acceptance we begin
to share the life He deserved, because He was willing to bear
the guilt, condemnation, and death we deserved. What an
exchange!  It will be the exhaustless theme of our study for all
eternity.  And as ages roll by, we will continue to get new,
thrilling insights into the nature of His atoning love and
sacrifice.  "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great
salvation?"  Hebrews 2:3.  So great?  So very great!  There is
no answer to the question because there is no escape.  Accept
that salvation now that costs so much to provide.  Don't neglect
it another moment.

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