The Necessity of the Cross, Part 1

You'll regularly hear people brag about their righteousness by how many of the Ten Commandments they keep. But Dr. Tony Evans says following Old Testament rules isn't enough without divine intervention. The law can't make you righteous, but what it can do is reveal how unrighteous you are. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

When it comes to righteousness, God doesn't grade on a curve. That would make us all hopeless failures. Today, Dr. Evans shares the good news that changes everything.

Let's join him. The legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, it is purported one day, very frustrated at the performance of his team. He was unhappy with how they were performing. The basics were not in place. They were not living up to the level of their expertise of their ability. And so the story goes that he came into the locker room one day, frustrated at how they were playing. And he said, gentlemen, it is obvious to me that we're missing something here.

So we need to go back to the basics. He then reached down, picked up an object, and said, gentlemen, this is a football. Now that seems elementary, seems minor, to tell pro players who are playing a pro game, this is a football. But his point was they were not performing at the level to which the game was all about. They were out there on the field, but the basic was missing. This is a football. As Christians, we're not performing at the level that we have been redeemed to perform.

It's not that we're not on the field to play, but our performance level is subpar. So we're going back to the basics, but I think perhaps you will discover some things about the cross that either you didn't fully understand, we have forgotten, or that we're not responding to appropriately, that the cross is the centerpiece of the faith. By the cross, we're not talking about two pieces of wood, we're talking about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary. The cross refers to the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, but the cross is more than something that hangs on a steeple identifying a church. It's more than something that hangs in the living room or the den of your house as a religious symbol. It's more than jewelry that you hang around your neck.

It is the creme de la creme. It is the sine qua non. It is the irreducible, substantive essence of our faith. Sinners don't fully understand it because if they did, they'd run to it.

Saints don't appreciate it because if they did, we would live differently. It is because the cross has been reduced, it has been lowered, that we do not understand its pragmatic, practical relevancy for life today. Why the cross that is the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, why? The first thing you need to understand about why the cross is necessary is that you have to understand the standard of God. He says in chapter 3 of the book of Romans, he says verse 21, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made manifest. You cannot appreciate the cross until you start with the righteousness of God. The cross makes absolutely no sense or very little sense if you do not understand the righteousness of God, that is, God's holy standard.

Now we've talked about it, but just by way of review, we sing about it, we speak about it, but I think we kind of miss it. God's fundamental attribute, that is, his controlling perfection, that is, his nucleus or inner core, surrounds the word holy. That is the only thing that describes God in the Bible to the third power. God is never called love, love, love, peace, peace, peace, joy, joy, joy, but he is called holy, holy, holy. It is his controlling attribute. Now the word holy means the separate or distinct, unique or one of a kind.

In a class by himself, nobody like him. Holy speaks of the transcendent nature of God. Because God is unique in his moral character, he is allergic to sin. God is allergic to sin. Now there are many of us who have allergies. We are allergic to certain levels of pollen in the air. We can't help it when the pollen goes up, the reaction goes up, the eyes get watery, the nose gets itchy, and perhaps begins to run, and we go, why? Because there's something in the air that does not agree with us.

It's not that we want to sneeze, it's not that we want our eyes to run, it's not that we want our nose to run, it's that something in us can't deal with stuff around us because we are allergic. One of the things you have to understand in order to appreciate the cross is God's allergic reaction to sin. He reacts to it, not because he's trying to be mean, it's just his nature can't help it. By his very nature, he responds negatively to the reality of sin. In fact, God built a no trespassing sign around his holiness. In the Old Testament, he built a no trespassing sign.

That's why he told Adam and Eve in the garden, from every tree you may freely eat, but around this tree in the middle, no trespassing. In other words, God always wanted man to know and not take for granted his holiness, so he built no trespassing signs. When God reveals his holiness or makes his holiness known, that's called righteousness, that is. He is holy by nature. Righteousness is the standard that men are called upon in order to recognize his holiness. The Bible calls righteousness, that is, the moral standard that men are called to by which they recognize the holiness of God. That's called righteousness, and the way you knew what was righteous was by the law. God gave the law so that men would know his righteous standards, so that knowing his righteous standards, they might respond appropriately to his holy nature. So he's holy by nature. I mean by that, he is intrinsically holy.

He can't help it. What blue is to sky, what is to water, and hot is to sun, holiness is to God. The sun doesn't try to be hot, that's just what it is. The sky doesn't try to be blue. That's just what it is.

Water doesn't strain to be wet. That's just what it is. It's nature. God is holy by nature, therefore, his requirements are righteous. Therefore, he set guidelines in place that reflected his righteousness so that there would be an awareness of his holiness. It says that God has a righteous standard in verse 21.

It is revealed in God's law. What men want to do, watch this, is dumb down the holiness of God. See, if I can reduce God and not make him so much God, then I don't have to respond to him as God. So what you have today is not the rejection of the name of God. You have today the rejection of the nature of God. So people want God's name without God's nature. They want to call on God, but they don't want to acknowledge his allergies. They do not want to acknowledge his allergic reaction to sin. And therefore, by reducing God and thereby elevating man, they don't have to deal with God as God. Not a good idea.

Romans chapter 1 verse 18 says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That word suppress the truth is like you've been to the beach. You go to the beach with a beach ball. You go to the beach with a beach ball and you hold the beach ball under. The beach ball resists that.

The beach ball wants to pop back up to the top of the water. So if you want it to be under the water, you must suppress it or force it down even though it wants to reveal itself by coming up. The Bible says that's what men do with the truth about God's righteousness. They want to suppress it because they don't want to have to deal with it. So what you have today is the dumbing down of the nature of God while still using the name of God. So the God people talk about is not the God that the Bible reveals, it's the God that we can deal with. It's the God that doesn't have that high standard. It's the God who we can talk about love but don't mention wrath. We can talk about mercy but don't bring up justice. You'll hear people regularly say, well, my God is a God of love.

But that's only one side of this deal. So what we do is we suppress the truth and therefore do not deal with the God who reveals himself, who sneezes at unrighteousness. That is who reacts at that which is contrary to his nature. Now the way men were exposed to the righteousness of God was through the law. Through the law, the law, the Ten Commandments, were the guidelines God set in place to reveal the standards that he wanted men to operate by.

But those standards are impossibly high. So what do we do? Dr. Evans will tell us when he continues our message right after this.

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Take your first step as an honorary amateur archaeologist. Dive into the Dead Sea Scrolls with special guest lecturer, Dr. Craig Evans. Discover this and other fascinating biblical studies at tonyevanstraining.org.

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Now, I need to correct something here. Just to be someone here that doesn't understand it, because you need to understand it, the law was never given to make you righteous. Please don't misunderstand that, because you'll regularly hear people brag about their righteousness by how many of the Ten Commandments they keep. The Ten Commandments can't make you righteous. Just look up at verse 20, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in its sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

The law can't make you righteous, but what it can do is reveal how unrighteous you are. The law is like a mirror. You go to the mirror to see how messed up stuff is. When you woke up this morning and went to the mirror, the mirror basically said you had a bad night. The mirror revealed what was wrong. You then did not take the mirror to fix what the mirror showed. The mirror showed hair out of place, but you didn't brush your hair with the mirror. The mirror showed boo-boo in the eye, but you didn't wash your face with the mirror.

The mirror revealed, but the mirror couldn't fix it. Many people misunderstand the law. The law was not designed to fix you.

The law was designed to reveal you need fixing. When you drive down the road, there is a sign that says 40 miles an hour. None of us, I don't think, has ever had a policeman pull us over and congratulate us for going 40 miles an hour or less. Nobody has pulled you over, turned the lights on, and said, I just want to let you know you're a spectacular citizen. I was just following you for the last 10 blocks, and you were going 35 and a 40, and I want to congratulate you because you obeyed the law. No, but most of us have gotten pulled over for breaking the law because the law is not there to congratulate you. The law is there to reveal when the standard has been broken.

The law cannot make you righteous, but what the law can do is reveal when you are unrighteous. What men want to do, though, is they want to lower the standard so that they do not have to answer to the God who gives the standard. And so you have today God's name being used about everything. I watch TV, and I see a hip-hop rapper come up, and he's used all kind of profanity. He has used the most immoral language, but he starts off thanking God for the award as though God has something to do with his lyrics because he has reduced the name of God down to a low standard, and everybody's applauding that he's thanking God as though God is happy because he got to thank you at the award ceremony because there has been the reduction of God.

We reduce it in everyday language. God calls something sin, and we give it another name that doesn't sound so bad because we do not want to look at it as God looks at it, therefore reducing the need. That's what got Jesus in so much trouble. God is so righteous that he does not just judge our actions.

He judges the motivation behind the action. That's why the Bible says even our righteous deeds are contaminated because even the stuff we do that's right is regularly contaminated with attitudes that aren't. That's why when Jesus got in trouble, he came and he said, he said, it's been said, thou shalt not kill. I say unto you, if you even wish somebody were dead, you've committed murder.

Now, that may be nobody in the house who has stabbed or shot anybody, but I bet you there is a rare person in the house who's not a biblically defined murderer because God defines murder not only as the action of taking a life, but the attitude of wishing a life were taken. If you even wish somebody dead, God holds that as an action against his character. God says you're not just immoral when you engage in a physical relationship.

He says when you look at a woman and lust after her, when you desire to be immoral with her, you have broken the law of God. So see, God's standard is so high, men don't want to deal with that. So what they do is dumb God down, reduce God, so that means I don't have to feel like I'm that bad. So in order to appreciate the cross, we're getting there in a second, you have to appreciate the standard of God. And that is a, here it is, an unadjustable standard.

In other words, he does not reduce it so you can feel better about you. So first is the standard of God. The second reason why we must go back to understanding the necessity of the cross is the sinfulness of man. Verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Somebody say all. That means you're not an exception. In order to understand the sinfulness of man, you must measure it against the standard of God. He says all have sinned and the reason all have sinned is they don't meet God's glorious standard. So you and I are sinners because the standard of God, God's glory, has not been met.

The word glory means to show off, manifest, or reveal. Anything in the creature that is contrary to the Creator does not reflect its glory and therefore is sin. Remember, you and I were created in the image of God. We were created to reflect His glory. Whenever we do not reflect His glory in attitudes or in actions, the Bible calls that sin and all have sinned. In fact, in chapter 3, verse 12, He says there is none that does good.

There is not even one. God is not measuring you and me by our neighbors. He is not measuring you and me by our friends.

He's not measuring you and me by our co-workers. He's measuring you and me against His standard and when that standard is measured against us, God says nobody meets it. Let's say I tell everybody in this room, let's all jump up and touch the ceiling. Well, some may jump higher than me and I may jump higher than some, but none will reach the standard because if the ceiling is the standard, nobody can jump that high. If I said, let's go to California, all step in the water, and let's swim to Hawaii, some will swim further than others, but if the standard is the shore of Hawaii, everybody drowning because nobody can swim that far.

In other words, the standard is too great. God wants to make sure mankind understands that men on their own are sinners and they don't meet the standard of God. All have sinned and are short of the glory of God. So there is original sin, that's Adam, there is inherited sin, that's us, and then there is personal sin. A lot of people say, well, I'm mad at God because I didn't ask Adam to represent me.

Okay, let's get rid of Adam and let's just talk about you. If you get rid of Adam, you haven't solved the sin problem because we still have our personal sins, both of attitudes and of actions. So there is original sin from Adam, there is inherited sin, the sin nature, and then there are personal expressions of sin. Now all the sinners all just don't express it the same way. There are secular sinners and church sinners all have sinned and you may be taller than your neighbor, but God is not measuring you against your neighbor.

He's measuring you against His holy standards. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about why we can't reach God through our own righteousness. Now if you'd like to review the full-length version of this lesson, copies are available on CD or digital download. In fact, you can get them as a part of that entire two-volume, 14-message series I told you about earlier called Returning to the Cross. Remember when you help support this ministry with a contribution, we'll say thanks by sending you this powerful audio series, along with Tony's insightful companion book, The Power of the Cross. But this is a special limited-time offer, so don't wait. Drop by our website, tonyevans.org, to let us know you'd like to take advantage of this exclusive deal, or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where the friendly people on our resource team are ready 24-7 to help you. Again that's 1-800-800-3222. Well tomorrow, more from Dr. Evans on the necessity of the cross, and why the greatest financial plan in the world can't help you pay off the biggest debt you owe. I hope you'll join us.