NOW WE LOOK into the very heart of redemption: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:18–19). That is one of the most important verses in Scripture, for it makes God and Christ One—in redemption. “I hate God,” said a little girl, “but I love Jesus. God wanted to destroy the world, but Jesus wouldn’t let Him.” She picked that up from Christian teaching, but it is false. A Hindu lady lost her husband by an accident. She said to a Christian friend, “If he had only come home alive, I would have fought with God to save his life.” Her idea was that you fight with God and overcome His reluctance. That is not the picture of God we see in the face of Jesus Christ. There God and Christ are One—One in their compassion and love and self-sacrifice.
When man sinned, God began to suffer, for it is the nature of love to insinuate itself into the sins and sorrows of the loved one and make them its own. God has had an unseen cross upon His heart from the foundation of the world. The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. The outer cross lifted up in history showed us the inner cross on the heart of God. The cross lights up the nature of God as love. “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” The sufferings of Jesus were the sufferings of God. An artist pictures the nails going through the hands of Jesus and piercing the hands of God—and rightly. We could never have known that God was wearing the unseen cross on His heart had it not been for the outer cross of Jesus. At the cross we see God—and ourselves—God as suffering love, and ourselves as causing it all. Only at the cross can you see your sins. In the light of law, custom, and history our sins are understandable. In the light of the cross they are intolerable.
O God, our Father, we see Thee and ourselves at the cross, and seeing Thee and ourselves we can never be the same. We see and we seek, and seeking we find, for Thou art the Love that wilt not let us go. We praise Thee, praise Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If God was in Christ reconciling, may I be in Christ reconciling—reconciling in everything I touch.
