The Price Of The Cross (Good Friday)

It was good and well.

Glorious and pure. 

For a time, He walked among us. 

Adam and Eve, for sure. 

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But a lie came through

the blissful ignorance.

And twisted the truth, 

burdening us with brokenness. 

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Our pride was seeded.

Our lust bloomed. 

Our eyes turned from God to self.

And our soul blackened doom. 

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What once was life

became death. 

What once was easy

became labored breath. 

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Sin of one man became all. 

A festival of plenty. 

Yet, starvation gnawed the soul,

for we were dead among many. 

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Sin was still dead without a law.

And then the Law came.

Convicting all of our fall. 

We were the ones to blame. 

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And justice… 

Dare we shout it in the streets? 

For true justice is our death,

a punishment for our defeat.

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For who can conquer death?

What kind of man is there? 

If the first man fell, then who

is left? Who would dare? 

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Ah, but the first is of dust.

A type of One who was to come. 

For Adam is a type of Christ, 

Jesus is the God-Man to pay our sum. 

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Through one man many fell.

Yet, through Christ all sin is forgiven. 

His bloodshed was pure, 

and He can be our destination. 

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For the wages of sin is death. 

Thus, sacrifices were needed. 

Life was to be taken. 

Replace the offender, interceded. 

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But wait, animals weren’t enough.

They couldn’t change the conscience of a sinner.

Thus, worshippers still sinned.

They needed Someone to be human and purer.   

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Sin requires that man die for his sin. 

We are all guilty of this.

An animal can’t take our place, and so

we are broken from unity, from spiritual bliss. 

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Yet, the Groom is coming! 

HE HAS COME! 

To cleanse His Bride! 

To fulfill what has been done! 

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Atonement is our ransom. 

Christ paid it in full. 

He lived as a Man, and understands 

our weaknesses. He drank from the bowl

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Of God’s wrath. He took on

our full punishment of our sin. 

He became sin on the tree. 

He became a curse so we can be free.

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Redemption is only given

after a ransom is paid. 

We cannot be free in any other way. 

This is how the new man is made.

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The old man lives dead to Christ.

But the new man lives to Christ and dies to sin. 

The old man lives with closed off ears and eyes.

The new man hears and sees eternity on the rise.

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For this life is the beginning, not an end. 

There is much we have yet to see. 

Faith comes from hearing the word of God,

so we can see with eyes of eternity. 

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My friend, we cannot pay for our souls on the cross.

We are impure, tainted with sin. 

Our eyes are focused selfishly. 

Our ears hear what we want to win. 

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The price of the cross is too great. 

A grace we can’t bestow. 

A love we do not understand. 

In this life, we will never fully know.

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What it meant to become a Man?

What it took to become a Servant? 

Still God, but never using it to your advantage. 

To be completely submissive, even until death. 

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Nothing in our life compares to this love. 

Nothing in our life compares to this great sorrow. 

The pain He experienced so we wouldn’t have to. 

The hope He brought of eternity’s tomorrow.

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We are spared from the greatest pain 

we could ever experience. 

We are spared from the greatest sorrow

because He took God’s wrath in acceptance.   

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THIS is the price of the cross. 

Our lives now should be turned toward Him.

For if we do not have the Savior on the cross,

then our lives and eternity truly is grim. 

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For pride is still growing.

Lust continues to bloom.

We are still focused on self, not God.

And our tainted soul awaits incoming Doom. 

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My friend, the punishment WAS paid.

It doesn’t have to be this way! 

For the cross now is empty, 

as is the tomb where He lay.  

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Christ died for our sins because we are a sinner and sin separates us from God. Sin also makes us impure, no matter how many righteous deeds we perform, that righteousness is still tainted, like filthy rags. We needed Someone, a human, to die in our place, if we wanted to escape the punishment all sinners justly deserve.

Jesus Christ did exactly that. He was born and lived as the God-Man. He experienced our troubles, first-hand. He experienced sorrow, grief, physical pain, spiritual pain, mental and emotional pain. Everything we could go through or be tempted with, He was.

He was poor, from His birth. He became homeless. He relied on others to help Him with day to day struggles, like eating, shelter, warmth, and friendship. He desired fellowship with others, just like we do. He understands loneliness and being misunderstood.

He lived the perfect life, but my friend, please do not think, for a second, this life was easy and just handed to Him. How could He die in our place (to be the perfect sacrifice), if He truly didn’t understand and experience human struggle? How could He be tempted, at all, if He never struggled? To be tempted is to be given an opportunity to sin, and to consider the attractiveness of sin.

Christ understood this. He only was able to continue to be a Servant and to be obedient to the will of the Father (not His own) because He submerged Himself in prayer, worship, scripture hearing/reading, and study. He was God and, yet, He lived as a humble Man instead, never using the fact He was God to His advantage.

Scripture says He learned obedience through suffering. Our Savior suffered, and He experienced suffering from the moment He was born. He also experienced blessings, joy, contentment, fellowship, humor, the list goes on. He sought the joy of the Lord and He showed us how we can find the joy of the Lord THROUGH suffering. He had eyes focused on eternity. Knowing the reality of what He went through would be costly with great suffering, He remained obedient! Understand, obedience is hard! He prayed with sweat and blood because He knew! Does this seem like Someone who just “casually” died and took our place on the cross? Do we not understand how PERSONAL the cross is to us? Are we numb to the truth? Do we not care about this?

This is why He is our Hope. Our suffering does not have to be meaningless. Our life does not end here when we die, it is just the beginning! God can use all things for His glory and our refinement. Suffering, included. If Christ learned obedience through suffering, why do we think we will be spared? Do we think we are greater than the Savior? Do we think God should spare us, when He didn’t spare His own Son?

But God did spare us from something the Savior experienced and suffered. The wages of sin is death, and this punishment is to experience the wrath of God forever.

God, by giving us the Savior, gave us the opportunity to be spared from this punishment. Someone had to take our place. Someone had to die because this is what justice called for. Sin required a penalty and Jesus offered up His own life to take our place. He became sin on the cross. He drank the wrath of God because this is part of the punishment of sin. Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the punishment of sin. He died, and then He rose. HE CONQUERED DEATH! The wages of sin…is what? It’s death. Christ broke the bondage to sin!

That is why Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He became our atonement, but then He becomes our redemption. He becomes our way, truth, and life in this dying world.

This poem came from a study on Atonement I am doing with fellow sisters in Christ. We all are independently studying the topic and sharing what we find. The goal at the end of each study is to have a blog post, a summary, a poem, or something similar. The idea to be able to summarize well what we have taken away from the study. This poem is inspired by my study, and here are the scriptures I studied while studying Atonement, many of these scriptures you see are referenced in the poem. I’ve learned the importance of understanding how atonement is separate from redemption. Though both are very similar, redemption cannot happen unless atonement is paid in full first. I hope this poem shows why.

• Isaiah 53:09-10
• John 8:36
• Romans 3:10, 3:20, 3:25, 4:15, 5:12 & 14-15, 6:18 & 20-22, 8:01-02, 05 
• 1 Corthians 15:56-57
• Galatians 3:13
• Ephesians 2:08, 2:10, 5:25-26
• Hebrews 2:14, 2:17, 5:07-09, 9:09, 9:22-24
• Titus 2:14
• 1 John 2:02, 3:05

Why would a loving God kill His Son – Please See: Why Did A Loving God Kill His Son? (Does God Hate?)

Scripture To Memorize/Meditate On – (ESV) Romans 5:08, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Community Prayer –  March ‘21 

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