THE COMPLETE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE CROSS

  Romans [ESV] 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 

  2Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 

  Have you ever heard or read that the whole message of Christ’ crucifixion is that Jesus died for our sins in order that we may be forgiven? If you have, think again for the statement is incomplete in that it does not encompass all that Jesus accomplished.

  Jesus foretold that He would provide complete freedom from the law for those that trusted Him; freedom from the weight of rules, rites, and regulations. “free indeed”. Paul explained this. James called it the “perfect law of liberty”! (Jn.8:32, 36; Jam.1:25; 2:12, 16, 19) Said liberty being in, by, with Jesus, thanks to His complete efficacious work on the cross. This He verified when He said “It is finished”. (Jn.17:1-26; 19:30)

  Jesus enables John 1:12 brothers and sisters as dead to sin, alive to God! Indeed sin did not die nor has not died . . . our old self is crucified with Jesus, we are dead to sin; forgiven and free from sin’s power in our lives!

  Romans 6:1-22 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 

Slaves to Righteousness. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 

  Galatians 2:18-21 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. 

  Colossians 2:16-23 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion [rules, rites, and regulations] and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. 

  For some reading this as they trust the Word (Jn.1:1; 2Tim.2:14-16; 3:16; 2Pet.1:20) they have been living in Jesus “free indeed”. For others it is revelation to be accepted and lived. For yet others this truth will be rejected as they continue to embrace traditions as did so many that Jesus walked and talked among those many years ago.

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