The Cross: God's Glory at stake

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a great sermon up at my church's website from this past Sunday. In it my pastor talks about the necessity of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. He went on to talk about how Christ's deity is absolutely vital in light of the Cross. Essentially, he went on to say that if Christ was not God incarnate, if he was simply a wise man with profound compassion for the downtrodden, then His sacrifice was useless. Pastor Ryan said that Christ had to be God because God's glory is at stake, that if it was not God who redeemed us (in the form of human flesh) then that would enable us to glory in someone other than God. God had to die in order that He alone would be honored in our redemption.

That really stuck with me and I spent the past few days just chewing on it. When you get right down to it, this could be/ probably is the primary problem with various religions such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, and even Roman Catholics. If you get the Cross wrong it all gets screwed up. To Muslims Christ is nothing but a prophet, to the Catholics Christ is a God whose sacrifice wasn't quite good enough to wipe their slates clean without them having to do something too, and the JW don't believe He was God in flesh. All these views of Christ are wrong because they get the power, glory, and necessity of Christ as God wrong.

If Christ was not God in the flesh, if His sacrifice was not good enough to quench the wrath of the Father, then we're all in a lot of trouble. Furthermore, if Christ was not God as He said He was...well, then not only is His sacrifice worthless but He is guilty of blasphemy and the Jews were right for putting Him to death. Either He was God and has fully and completely washed His children clean, or we're a bunch of fools who are walking a path straight to hell. There's no in between, and I for one am incredibly relieved to know that Christ is who He says He is...God.