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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