Near the Cross

Larry Kirkpatrick

We are going to focus today on two questions, namely, what Jesus took to the cross, and what Jesus brought to the cross. Those are actually two different questions.

To weigh what Jesus took to the cross means to focus on what He willingly entered into our world encumbered with; focus on launch and departure. What He brought to the cross focuses on a completed journey and arrival at end-point; what he experienced while here. Both truths cluster together near the cross.

What Jesus Took to the Cross

We'll turn now to our main passage and just two verses from that passage. The first is Philippians 2:7:

But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

Jesus, didn't have to, but He did, make Himself of no reputation. The literal reading in the Greek is that He "emptied" Himself. Of what did He empty Himself? He was God before He came and He was still God when He went back to heaven, but while He was here, although God, he operated as a man. Thus 1 Timothy 2:5 calls Him "the Man Christ Jesus." But He was more than man as per character. He came to this world with His divine character, but He emptied Himself of His divine power and prerogatives. Yet more than this, He left behind His memory of who He was!

How do you know that? Listen to this from Ellen G. White's, Desire of Ages, p. 70:

The child Jesus did not receive instruction in the synagogue schools. His mother was His first human teacher. From her lips and from the scrolls of the prophets, He learned of heavenly things. The very words which He Himself had spoken to Moses for Israel He was now taught at His mother's knee.

Now this is amazing! Is this how we have thought of Jesus? Have we ever imagined that He voluntarily laid aside not only His divine power but even the memory of His life before entering into this world as infant? If you have Desire of Ages at home, pull it out this weekend and read the next chapter, "The Passover Visit." It says there about three or more times that at that occasion Jesus first saw with clarity His mission opening before Him. Jesus was learning from the Scriptures, from watching the services in the temple, and from nature, just what His own plan had been before ever He came here! He left His memory in keeping with His Father. How amazing was the laying-aside of Jesus' divine prerogatives.

He came and took to Himself a humanity identical with our own. We are born into fallen nature involuntarily, without choice; He took on the same by choice. Not because He wanted to get that close to evil, but because in order for Him to be our example, He knew we had to know that He knew what are our infirmities and challenges. He came to the battlefield of our human nature. We had to see Him on that battlefield and know it was Him, Jesus. From this we gather strength.

Wait, some say. Jesus was holy, harmless, and undefiled (Hebrews 7:26). Oh yes, I am with you; that He was indeed. He was separate from sinners in that He never sinned, but He was one of us in that He never sinned yet had for His own our very flesh. He took our broken nature and in it demonstrated that when humanity is united with divinity -- when people consent to cooperate with God -- there is the life of victory.

Again we ask, how then is it that Jesus was "that holy thing" (Luke 1:35)? Well, in the same way that the first to open the womb of all Jewish children was considered holy, And in the same way that John the Baptist was holy. The Scripture says that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even so far back as when he was in his mother's womb (Luke 1:15). We need to study what the Bible teaches about what sin is to be sure we understand these things. Christianity was flooded with mistaken ideas about that answer to that question in the years after Jesus and the apostles had passed from the earthly scene. But we haven't the time this morning to go into that.

We should make no mistake here. Jesus taking a humanity like our own in no way makes Him a sinner or takes anything away from Him. Rather, it adds so much to Him. He loved us enough to descend into the shattered tatters of humanity and walk through this world right beside us. He faced a spiritual challenge very much like our own, and so because of what He took to the cross, we can have confidence that He knows how to save us to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25). As Hebrews 2:18 tells the world, "In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted." He is able to aid us, to give assistance to us in our battles.

What Jesus Brought to the Cross

And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Now He started by taking our humanity. But He dragged that same humanity through 33 years of life in a spoiled environment. And then He brought something with Him to the cross.

Whereas we focused so far on what Jesus had to work with, flesh as poisoned as our own, now we focus on what He did in it and what He finally delivered to His Father. We looked briefly at what He started the journey hindered with, and now at the journey to the cross and what He delivered up right there to the Father.

Right here we need to think back to Satan's charges against God in the great controversy war. Let's not forget our brother Job. You know that the devil came to God one day and he said he was making mischief on the earth, and God turned to him and asked him an amazing question: "Devil, have you noticed My servant Job?" Here's how God described Job to the devil: "a perfect man and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil" (Job 1:8). When the devil came to throw in God's face the fact that he was doing pretty well with his business of destruction, God mentioned one of His people. He said here was a human who honored Him and avoided evil. The devil came back with the charge that Job served God selfishly, for the bribes God gave him to be good. A test was permitted after this exchange and what a test! One day Job will retell the story to us when we get to heaven. But at the bottom line what Job did was submit to God. His was a pattern of submission.

The devil suggested that no one would submit to living the principles of a righteous kingdom apart from some good bribes. God used His servant Job to make an important point, that yes indeed, some would. But Job's life was only the life of a man. Yes, it was a life filled with submission to God, obedience to God, but even had Job lived a whole life without ever sinning (and only Jesus ever did that), His life would only be one life; were he to die on a cross, scarcely could he save even one lost soul.

No, what had to go to the cross was a life that measured with the life of God. A character that measured with the character of God. And there are only three persons in the universe who have that: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And only one of them took humanity, so only one could die and pay that penalty. That, of course, was Jesus.

So Jesus came to our world, and lived a life of submission to righteousness all the way through His 33 years. He never sinned.

Our text said, "And being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient . . ." Now Jesus was always obedient. But He became obedient too. He brought that obedience all the way to the nth degree (as they say). He brought it to its zenith, to its highest point. He brought it through 33 torturous years in a world of sin.

He submitted to what was right all the time. And we are to submit to what is right. All the time. Therefore our Savior did not come to the cross empty-handed, but He brought along with Him to it the example for us of His sinless life.

Christ is our substitute, as has been said and repeated so much by Christians. Yes, it is true. He dies in our place. His life is counted in the place of our own life. His death on the cross occurs in our stead. He pays our penalty and gives us what He deserves. As Ellen White puts it in Desire of Ages, p. 25: "Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. 'With His stripes we are healed.'"

And when we "receive the life which was His," our lives become like His. Just as He fought through, so we fight through. And we have an Example who has gone before us, "Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). We are not on this pilgrimage alone. Jesus has cut us a pathway through the jungle of terror. He's blazed the trail with hands as calloused from wielding the machete as ours become.

Many Christians don't really have Jesus as example. His example is very diluted in meaning since our present obedience has, in those viewpoints, little or nothing to do with our final salvation. Few churches firmly teach that obedience is demanded in the servants of God. It is a happy thing, a good thing, the right thing, but if you don't achieve it, you'll still be saved. So they say.

The Bible disagrees. As Ellen White said in Desire of Ages, p. 26, "The work of redemption will be complete." God is buying us back, the whole world back, from sin, and there won't be any vestiges of it left in the world made new. All sin and sinners will be destroyed. So now we want to follow the path of Jesus. We want to accept His salvation. We want to be entirely bought back, entirely redeemed. And that means our Father will cleanse us in this life and get us all the way over on His side so that when the kingdom comes we'll be ready right then. We won't have to go to any intermediate state like the false teaching of purgatory, or enter any holding-pattern while we have another probationary period in order to become fit to enter heaven. With Jesus' stripes He would heal us now, and Jesus showed us the example of how to live, how to overcome. This is it. This life is the one where we need to overcome sin. Now is our opportunity to perfect holiness in the sight of God. That's the gospel -- a journey with Jesus that takes us all the way out to that place where we read in Revelation 14:4 of a group who have so come over onto Jesus side that they "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."

What Jesus brought to the cross was a living sacrifice. Romans 12:1-2. A life lived near the cross always will be a life that is a living sacrifice. He brought a life that for 33 years suffered the potential of defilement by sinning, but by choice refused to fulfill that potential because it instead fulfilled the potential of holiness by the indwelling of God's Spirit. We too may, just as Paul pled in Romans, present ourselves as living sacrifices to God. We've all sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23). None of us can offer our living sacrifice for our salvation. But Jesus brought to the cross a divine life that could be offered for our salvation, and that encompassed 33 years of sinless living in sinful flesh. He is the pattern. We want to copy that. But when all is said and done, the only salvation near the cross is the salvation of Jesus. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Conclusion

Through this gospel, through Jesus keeping us near the cross, we can have salvation, rich and full, compelling. There is something different, deeper, about the belief system we are sent by God to share with the world. We must not misapprehend what Jesus took to the cross, nor what He brought to the cross. And just as He was working through an incredible journey, so are we. He blazed the path. He wrought out salvation. Our task is infinitely simpler than His own. We must follow Him, receive His salvation, and let Him work the work of God in us. May our Father, keep us near the cross. There is no other place we can afford to be.

Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick is an ordained minister of the gospel. Since 1994 he has served in the American Southwest as pastor to several churches. He received his BA in Religion from Southern Adventist University in 1994 and a Master of Divinity from Andrews University in 1999 with a specialization in Adventist Studies. While in Michigan he was employed by the General Conference at the White Estate Berrien Springs branch office. More important than his scholastic preparation has been his immersion in the biblical and Spirit of Prophecy materials. He is author of the 2003 book Real Grace for Real People. Presently he serves as Pastor of the Mentone Church of Seventh-day Adventists, located near Loma Linda, California. Larry is married to Pamela. The couple presently live in Highland, California along with their two children, Etienne and Melinda.