Come to Order, Pt. 9
Centrality of the Cross
Study Guide, April 6, 2025
Pastor Clay Olsen
It’s no accident that the image of the Cross is imprinted all over this world.
[pic of Dogwood]
[pic of nature’s cross]
[leaf cross]
[cactus cross]
Col 1:15-17- “He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible… — all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” NASU
All scientists acknowledge that there is a unifying force that is holding all things together. And of course, as children of God, we know that ‘force’ is actually a ‘Person’…it’s the Creator Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
[show Laminin 2]
It’s as though God stamped the image of the Cross throughout even the cells of our bodies as a testament to and a reminder of the fact that it is only through the mercy of the Cross and the grace of Christ that we are even alive at all.
Even when the Israelites were traveling through the wilderness, being led by the Shekinah glory of God…the Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night, even then, as God looked upon His people there was this: God had the people set up their camp in a precise arrangement.
[pic of camp]
Heb 10:8-10- “… “Look, I have come to do Your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.” NLT
Our relationship with God is possible because of what God sees as He looks upon you and me. Again, God sees the Cross imprinted not only within us, throughout the very cells of our bodies, but also imprinted upon us, covering our very life, our very spirit within our soul.
… regardless of our failings, regardless of our faults, regardless of our sins, when we came to the Cross of Christ and asked Jesus to forgive them all and to let us follow Him, He not only forgave our sins, but He did something else with them when He was on that Cross.
Col 2:13-14- “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” NASU
Included in this ‘certificate of debt’ are these ‘decrees of God, called ‘The Law’. It was not only the Ten Commandments, but a reference to all the commandments of God. Remember, Paul said that this perfect Law of God was good.
The purpose of The Law was not to make us righteous in ourselves before God, but to reveal and to help people understand that we are not righteous in ourselves, and thus, our need for Christ to make us righteous.
Rom 3:19-20- “… so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” NASU
Gal 3:23-24- “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” KJV
Also included in this certificate of debt…is a register or record of our sins against the perfect Law of God. For as Paul also said, everyone is under the curse…or under the sentence of sins against the Law or laws of God.
Gal 3:10-13- “But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under His curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” …
…But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing.” NLT
So the perfect Law convicts us of our need to be pardoned and forgiven by the Perfect Savior through His perfect life and death on the Cross on our behalf!
One, a person can repent…and receive Jesus into their life and thus receive His forgiveness. And upon their repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, that record of the Law and their sins against God’s Law is forever fastened to the Cross…
Upon Jesus’ finished work of paying the debt of our sins, His body was taken down from the Cross. But that certificate of our debt of sins will never be taken down or removed from where Jesus finished paying that debt for us.
Your record of sins, past, present, and future… is gone, as far as the East is from the West…God will never hold any of them against you as reason to remove you from a relationship with Him.
As we do sin in the present, we are expected to confess and forsake our sins in order to have a closer relationship with our God and closer fellowship with our God, and to be more useful and pleasing to God as God’s children and His servants in doing His will and His works…
If any person does not turn in repentance toward God and in faith, trust in Jesus… then that record of the Law and their sins against God’s Law shows up when they stand before God at the Great White Throne Judgment of the unsaved.
Based upon this record of their trespasses and sins against the Holiness of God and the perfect Law of God, they will receive the just sentence for their sins, because of their neglecting or rejecting Christ and His Cross and His great salvation…
Not only did God imprint the image of the Cross all over this world…God even imprinted the image of the Cross all over Himself.
John 20:24-29- “..Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”…
When God looks at us, He sees the image of the Cross imprinted upon us. And when we see God, we will always see the image of the Cross imprinted upon our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those scars should have been ours, but Jesus took them for us. And one day, when we see Jesus, face to face, we will forever see the scars of the Cross by which our Savior saved us.