Worship team testimony, part 2

A few weeks ago I posted the first part of a testimony that I wrote several months ago at the request of the worship team. Here's the second part (of approximately five parts).

By the way, it is especially fitting to post this section now, since I'm going to be teaching about the precious cross this Friday in TIGS.

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Can theology “traumatize” you?

The first “trauma”: the cross

One particularly “traumatic” event: I was walking around campus reading a book listing fifty reasons why Jesus came to die (for some reason, it is now titled Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die :) Coincidence? I think not. :) ). The first chapter blew me away. It explained that God could not let sin go unpunished—not even one! God does not sweep sin under the carpet of the universe. God must punish all sin. As the Bible says, “God is a righteous judge,” and “the wages of sin is death.”

But we know that God saves people—sinful people! How does God do this without being unjust? He cannot let the guilty go unpunished!

The answer: He put Jesus on the cross, and Jesus absorbed all of the punishment that we deserve. He took all of the hell that we deserve, and He swallowed it up. God did not spare the punishment one bit. He meted it out fully on Him Who knew no sin, and thus He saved His people. (If you want to see this for yourself, read through Romans 3:25-26 [try to read around this reference to get the context], then think through it, and then treasure it.)

When I saw the justice and mercy of God in this, I saw God as bigger and scarier and more beautiful than I had before. I can't get the cross out of my mind, my theology. It is too big and too precious.

I don't stand before God on the basis of what I do—my pitiful attempts at obeying my conscience or doing quiet times or at being a good son and student and employee and friend. I remember failing my conscience so often in college but then coming back to the cross—staring at what I could see of God's love. I remember riding on the BART soaking in this medicine for the soul, holding my little Gideon's Bible close and whispering to myself passages like Romans 3 and Romans 8 and Hebrews 10 (“we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all...by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified”).

My “good works” did not endear me to God, nor did my evil deeds take away the justification that Jesus secured for me. I only stand before God on the basis of what Jesus did. He did it perfectly, and nothing can shake this. Nothing can shake God's love for or hold on me.