The Triumph of the Cross

Some time back, I remember hearing a famous pop singer prating on about being “born this way”. To her, the package with which she entered this world constituted an excuse for anything she might do as an adult that others might consider immoral, perhaps including God himself. To be “born this way” explains and justifies all.

In that respect, she spoke for much of her generation.

Born Dead

Scripture talks about being born a certain way also. It says we were born dead. Our natural state was not cause for celebration. We were, as the apostle Paul writes, dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh. You and I stood condemned.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

The world wants to tell us that our natural state is our excuse for whatever we may want to be and do. The Bible tells us that in a fallen world, our natural state is being born with the sentence of death hanging over us like the sword of Damocles. Our hearts and consciences confirm the truth of the latter, and no amount of distraction, noise or celebration of sin and decadence as “normal” can free us from the sense of God’s impending wrath.

Two Strikes

Humanity has two legal strikes against it the heavenly courtroom, against which the sentence of death is the only possible natural outcome: trespasses and uncircumcision.

Strike One: My trespasses. In my six-plus decades on this planet, I have accumulated a list of personal transgressions and violations of God’s law that would suffice to sentence me to an eternity apart from God, banished from his presence by my deeds — were it allowed to stand. That’s an awful fate to contemplate.

Strike Two: Even if I had somehow managed to navigate this life speaking, thinking and acting righteously 100% of the time, I’d still have a second strike against me, and that’s the uncircumcision of my flesh. You don’t “get uncircumcised”. It comes standard issue. It’s part of the human package. Uncircumcision is a picture of natural spiritual defilement. It illustrates the legal condemnation that stands against me not because of what I have done, but because of who I am in my natural state. I was born in sin. As a child of Adam, I bear his nature. I’m not just a sinner because I sin; I sin because I’m a sinner.

And in Adam, all die.

The Cross of Christ

Both “strikes” left me under the judgment of God. A solution that dealt with only my trespasses would never be adequate in the courtroom of heaven. Moreover, it would never be adequate to deal with my own troubled conscience. This is why a religious program of good works and law-keeping never satisfies the human heart. It utterly fails to deal with the uncircumcision of the flesh. Even if you erase my history of moral failure, I remain unfit for the presence of God.

Apart from the cross of Christ. That’s where God set aside the record of my debt. That’s where it was nailed up — publicly displayed — for all the spiritual rulers and authorities to see. That’s where every possible accusation against me was forever removed, the slate wiped clean and the future forever ensured.

But beyond all this, I have been “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ”. The natural state in which I was born no longer testifies against me because I have been raised with Christ, a new creature with a new nature.

This is the triumph of the cross, and it’s why only the Christian faith can satisfy the human conscience.