Q: Does the culture in which you live find any significance of value in the death of Christ? That is, how important is Christ’s death for the people around you?
Beliefs about Christ and his death fall into several categories:
- Those who believe that Christ was not a real, historical person who
lived and breathed in real history. - Those who affirm that Christ was indeed a real, historical person who lived and breathed in real history.
Of these who affirm Jesus Christ’s existence, they can be further subdivided into two categories: - Those who believe Christ was just a man.
- Those who believe Christ is the Son of God.
The latter of these final two categories could rightly be called “Christian” though perhaps we might subdivide it further.1 Even though there are many professing Christians, a vast majority of them, however do not live as though Jesus is the Son of God. Most of the general public in our culture, then, would fall into either the first category (1) or the second (2a) — whether in word or in deed. All this to say:
To most people, the death of Christ is just his death. Nothing more.
It holds no special meaning, gives no import, nor bears any weight. The deduction is that if Jesus was “just some religious figure,” then his life, and therefore his death, are “drops in the bucket” — merely one more human being to catalog in the annals of history, nothing more, nothing less.
Q: In what ways do you think we can promote the significance of the death of Christ in our own lives and that of those around us? That is, if the death of Christ is the climactic moment in human history, how can we live under that light and share that momentous event with others?
The most significant way that we can “promote” the significance of the death of Christ is by being obedient to him.
If Christ’s death is to mean anything at all, it must be that his blood washes us clean, not just from sin but to holiness. There is a decidedly skewed impression in our culture — both by the unsaved and within the church — that Christ saved us from sin solely because he loved us. “For God so loved the world…” as John 3:16 says. We like to quote that, and sometimes even let ourselves get as far as verse 17, but rarely do we make it down to verse 20:
[21] But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
John 3:20 (NAS)
In other words, our lives change, completely, when we come to God. We no longer walk in darkness. The “words of our mouths” and the “meditations of our heart” become “wrought of God.” Our lives should be examples of the abundant life that Christ died to give us.2 We are commanded to confess Christ before men,3 but we are also commanded to “be transformed” by our entire way of thinking being changed.4
Christs death is meaningless if it does not create real change in our lives.
And if it doesn’t we have genuine cause to doubt whether we really are confessing Christ as Lord of our lives. We are to live as slaves of Christ. A lord has complete control over his slaves; slaves, likewise, have no will of their own — they live in complete submission to the will of their lord. If our lives are not diametrically different from those in our culture, we have very good reason to question if we are saved.5 For the unsaved there are two responses to a Christ-centered, cross-centered, gospel-breathing life: Hate or Conversion.
Hate
[13] Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. [14] We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:13 (NAS)
Conversion
[14] “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden ; [15] nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. [16] “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-15 (NAS)
Our lives should be continuously burning lamps. Everything we do, everything we say, every choice we make, every thought we think should be held captive to the death of Christ, that we may not cheapen it, sure, but that we might cause him to be glorified by the sacrifice of our lives.6
We are either salt, or gravel.
Footnotes
- 1That is to say that, insofar as one “confesses with his mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believes in his heart that God raised him from the dead, he will be saved,” we might say that there are two additional groups: those that confess and those that don’t. For the sake of simplification of the argument alone, we will leave this out.
- 2John 10:10 (NAS) “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy ; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
- 3Matthew 10:32-33 (NAS) “32 Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”
- 4Romans 12:1-2 (NAS) “1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
- 51 John 2:4-6 (NAS) “4 The one who says, I have come to know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”
- 6Romans 12:1 (NAS) “1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
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