Worship While It’s Warm

There is an interesting conversation going on over at the Parchment and Pen blog about sin what Jesus did not the cross. Some folks seem to reject the notion of penal substitution, that is Jesus being made a sacrifice for our sin, bearing the guilt, shame and penalty of that sin for us. One commenter suggested that what he did was set an example for us to live obediently, in a life surrendered to Him. And I will agree that that is what our life should be about as Romans 12:1 tells us…to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy acceptable to God, which is our spiritual act of worship.

Yes, we must live lives that are surrendered to God. But I have to step and think about what gives me the ability to do this in the first place. It is one thing to have this as our goal but quite another to actually live it out.

For I see in scripture that I am not naturally inclined to want to surrender to God’s will and ways. And especially, apart from Him I am dead in my trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1), a slave to sin (Romans 6:17-20), hostile towards God (Romans 8:7) and unable to comprehend a life of surrender to God (1 Cor 2:14).

So now I come to Christ and believe in Him. I am saved and am born-again. All is right and so my surrender should begin, right? Well, not so fast. Because if first begs the question of what am I coming to Christ for. I recognize that I am a sinner that everything in the previous paragraph applies to me. I cannot in my own efforts be right with God or be reconciled to Him giving me the ability to stand before Him. For God demands holiness, which I am unable to provide. And His righteousness demands payment for sins. But Jesus has made the way. He took on flesh, stepped down from glory to become a sacrifice and bear the penalty of my sin so I can be reconciled to God. Acts 16:21 says to “believe in the Lord Jesus”. When I believe in Him, I am trusting what He accomplished on the cross for me. This is why He is a Savior, because I was a sinking ship with an anchor called sin and needed rescuing. His example could not rescue me. Only the blood of His sacrifice, which provided the propitiation in that it satisfied the demands of God’s righteousness (Romans 3:25).

Yes, we are new creatures in Christ if you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior. But anyone reading this who has had to the desire to please God, to surrender to His will knows that often there is a struggle. There is a battle of the wills and to follow an example just doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Paul describes this as the sin principle in Romans 7:21-23.

But what follows in Romans 8:1-2 is that I am free from condemnation through the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets me free from the Law of sin and death. His payment for the penalty of my sin set me free from a system of “doing good” in my own effort. And this makes the following verses so powerful in Romans 8:3-4

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So the example is fine but it is the sacrifice on the cross that gives me the ability to follow the example. Life in the Spirit is achieved through recognizing that that life is only made available because of what Jesus did on the cross. And this is at the heart of surrender that will allow me to have a life well lived.