Christ Crucified for Us

Christ Triumphant - A Devotional by E.G. White

Christ Crucified for Us

Today's Text: And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Luke 23:33

The Message:      For transgression of the law of God, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Christ, our substitute, was to suffer without the boundaries of Jerusalem. He died outside the gate, where felons and murderers were executed. Full of significance are the words "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."-The Desire of Ages, 741.      Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. He was counted a transgressor, that He might redeem us from the condemnation of the law. The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father's mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father's reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by us. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt.      Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father's acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish that the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father's wrath upon Him as the sinner's substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God.-The Desire of Ages, 753.      Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father's acceptance heretofore given Him. He was acquainted with the character of His Father; He understood His justice, His mercy, and His great love. By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father's favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor.-The Desire of Ages, 756.

Commentary: My friend, how little we comprehend the great sacrifice that was made in our behalf.  For the divine Son of God to give His life for ours, is a demonstration of the love of God that we will be studying for all eternity.  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16).  This is the gospel, that the Father, the source of all life, gave His Son, His only begotten Son to die for the sins of a fallen world. In order for us to more fully understand the great sacrifice that was made in our behalf, we must understand that Christ was truly the Son of God, and that the Father gave us His Son.  To believe otherwise diminishes the sacrifice given and destroys the gospel.  The doctrine of the trinity, though it looks to be true on the outside, in reality destroys the gospel and makes God to be a liar. The trinity claims that the Son of God is not truly a son, for in order to be a son, one must have a beginning.  The trinity teaches that the Son is co-equal and co-eternal, two terms that are not in the Bible, and means that the Son has no beginning.  For this to be true then the Son is not truly a son, but is only a title or a metaphor that one of the god-beings assumed for the salvation of man, thus destroying the father-son relationship and the whole of the gospel.  Of this John wrote in 1 John 2:22, 23 saying "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.  Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."  The great suffering that Christ suffered on the cross was also experienced by the Father, because He gave His Son to die for our sins. Today the vast majority of the church is worshiping a false representation of God, and though God winks during times of ignorance, He gives the people ample opportunity to know the truth.  He has given us the Scriptures that we may know the truth.  In these last days He has sent to us a final message through His Son, the Faithful and True Witness to the church of Laodicea.  Those who reject this message, grieve away the Spirit of God, and will be weighted in the balances an be found wanting. My friend, the trinity is a lie, and a false representation of God.  It is high time that we study to show ourselves approved of God.  The spirit of the trinity is the spirit of antichrist, and since the church today has adopted the trinity, it has supplanted the One true God of the bible for a counterfeit.  The spirit that is leading the church today is not the Spirit of God, but the spirit of antichrist.  "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." (Jude 1:4). May you look away from the trinity unto the One true God through His Son Jesus Christ today. God bless,

Video of the Week The Godhead by Pastor Bill Taitague Retired pastor Bill Taitague presents a important message for our time.  This message was presented in June to a group of people in California.