In Luke 23:33, the beloved physician proves himself to be the master of understatement: “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him…”{NKJV}. It was all that was necessary. His readers lived in the Roman Empire and knew about crucifixion up close and personal. We who live in twenty first-century in America need to be reminded what crucifixion was all about if we are to fully appreciate what Jesus suffered for us. The first time I saw Cecil B. DeMill’s original black and white movie, The King of Kings, I was overwhelmed by the realization that He endured the cross for me!
Dr. Toyozo Nakarai, a former Buddhist living in a Shinto society said, “When I realized that Jesus died for me, I could not resist Him!” Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the death of Jesus in “The Passion of Christ” was almost unbearable in its meticulous accuracy. The farther the Apostles got in time from the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the more they saw them as a single event. My intention here is to look at this event in an attempt to deepen our appreciation of what Jesus has done and is still doing for us. My hope and prayer is that, realizing these eternal truths will motivate us to be more like Him in our dealings with one another.
CRUCIFIXION
Crucifixion was borrowed from the Persians by the Romans. The Greeks under Alexander used it infrequently. It may possibly have originated in Phoenicia. It was never practiced by the Hebrews whose traditional method of execution was stoning. The Romans introduced the practice into Palestine. They used it throughout the empire to execute those who posed a threat to Pax Romana. The two men who were crucified with Jesus were probably not “thieves.” Rather they, as Jesus, were crucified because Pontius Pilate was convinced that they were insurrectionists. Had they been thieves, the Romans would simply have cut off their hands. Pilate consented to the crucifixion of Jesus only after the Jewish High Priests convinced him, following Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, that the Nazarene was planning to lead a revolt against the Roman occupation of Israel.
The history of Roman crucifixion gives the impression of gradual evolution as a form of legal execution. There are few records of crucifixion being used by the Romans as a common form of punishment. Other accounts say that it was used for slaves, as in the case of the slave uprising led by Spartacus in 73 BC, in which the leaders of the rebellion and 6600 rebels were hanged on crosses lining the Appian Way from Brindisium, on the south west coast of Italy, to Rome like telephone poles.
Those accused of sedition, such as the Galilean Zealots led by Judas just prior to the Christian era, were probably candidates for crucifixion. It may have been later extended to thieves and rioters in the conquered territories. Nero may have even used it to execute Roman citizens, although, prior to Nero, crucifixion was forbidden to citizens. By far the most common use of this form of execution was for those accused of violating Pax Romana by resisting or advocating the overthrow of Imperial rule.
Forms of crosses varied from the “tau cross,” erected in the form of a “T,”to the “X” shaped crux cominissa, later called “the cross of St. Andrew.” The crux imissa is perhaps the best known, with its upright, stipes extending upward above the cross bar, patibulum. The stipes remained in the ground at the crucifixion site. The patibulum, weighing about 110 pounds, was carried to the site by the one to be crucified. This was likely the type of cross upon which Jesus of Nazareth died, inasmuch as the Gospel writers record that His title as a charge against Him, “Jesus the Nazarene, The King of The Jews” was inscribed “above His head.” The simplest implement of crucifixion was not a cross at all but crux simplex, or simple stake.
Contrary to most modern portrayal, Romans crosses were comparatively short. The top of the upright was probably between seven and nine feet above ground level. This may have been a deliberate device to facilitate access to the dead body by feral dogs or other wild animals.
Whatever the form of the instrument used, death by crucifixion was one of the most exquisite forms of torturous execution ever devised by “man’s inhumanity to man.” It consisted not only of the infliction of excruciating physical pain but also the most intense form of psychological torture known prior to the twentieth century. In addition to being pinned to the cross in such a way as to elicit the greatest possible bodily agony, the victim was presented publicly in such a way as to cause the maximum of shame and disgrace. Because it was originally used to execute slaves, crucifixion never lost its symbolic implication that the crucified person was of the lowest of social classes. The captive was presented naked as the day he was born in a culture in which public nakedness was the epitome of shame.
The administration of torture by the Romans in connection with crucifixion was classic in proportion. Scourging, so severe that the lucky ones died under it and were thus spared the agony and shame of actual crucifixion, always preceded it. The scourge consisted of a flagellate composed of multiple rawhide thongs. (It was probably the precursor of the British cat-of-nine-tails). Pieces of metal or bone were tied into the end of each thong to increase its cutting capacity when laid across the victim’s back.
In preparation for scourging, the prisoner was stripped naked and his back was stretched taut, either by tying his hands high enough above his head to cause extension or by bending him over a log in such a way as to accomplish the same effect. By law, the scourge fell forty times “save one.” The legal limit was forty stripes but, being sticklers for the letter of the law, the Roman authorities allowed him to be struck only thirty nine times, just to be sure.
Following scourging, the prisoner was forced to carry the rough cross beam of his cross, patibulum on his lacerated back along the most indirect route to the crucifixion site. The site was located prominently in a public square or beside a heavily traveled street or roadway to assure maximum public exposure. A sign, titulus, announcing the crime for which the prisoner was being executed, was nailed to the stipes to identify him.
Commonly, there were two methods of attaching the man to the cross. He might be nailed to the crossbeam that was then forced into a prepared notch cut into the upright or he might be stretched out on his back to be nailed and the entire cross, bearing his weight, dropped into a prepared hole.
The nails used were crude spikes seven to nine inches in length. These were driven into a point in the wrist to prevent their tearing out through the soft tissue of the hands when the man’s weight was suspended on them. The nail penetrated the medium nerve. The arms were allowed a small amount of flexibility to facilitate the hanging process. The knees of the victim were then bent at a slight angle, both his legs twisted to the same side, the left foot pressed behind the right, and a single nail driven through the largest anklebone. The design of this hanging position was to make breathing as difficult as possible. The worst physical pain probably came from the nerves of the wrists and ankles damaged by the nails.
Between shoulder level and the feet, at a point where it would catch a man’s crotch when he lowered his weight was a small seat, sedile fixed into the upright beam of the cross. The pain caused when the prisoner attempted to sit on the sidle could be as excruciating as any experienced in the gruesome process. Each movement made to relieve a pain caused a counter pain.
Actual death in a crucifixion was elicited by several factors, primarily suffocation and shock. The scourging caused deep lacerations in the back. The skin was torn away. Muscles and blood vessels were exposed. Bleeding was torrential. By the time he was given the cross beam to carry; the victim was in severe shock. Some died on the way to the site of crucifixion. The irritation of torn flesh by the cross beam that he carried and the exquisite pain of the driven spikes intensified the shock.
In addition to shock that extended throughout the man’s entire system, the position in which he hung was designed to constrict the rib cage and cause suffocation. When he pulled himself up, placing his weight entirely on the nails in his wrists, the pain was unbearable. When he relaxed and sagged against the nails in both wrists and ankles, the chest cavity closed in on his lungs, making breathing nearly impossible. The additional pain caused by this activity, as well as the prodding by the sedle poking from behind, intensified the shock that was already threatening his life. The loss of blood and lack of adequate oxygen in his lungs sapped his strength until eventually he could struggle no more.
The blood rushed to his head, triggering a massive headache. Fever and chills intermittently shook his body. His muscles convulsed, insects swarmed into every orifice of his body and the flies crawled into his eyes and nose. Death occurred from a few hours to several days following the erection of the cross. To end the crucifixion the crurifracture, breaking of the prisoner’s legs, ended his ability to exhale. Death followed immediately.
THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST
In the climate in which Jesus died, the heat of the sun and the biting of hundreds of insects added to the torture. It could also exacerbate the onset of tetanus as well as infection in the wounds. The physical pain of Jesus was increased by the slaps to his face and the crown of thorns driven into his scalp in connection with the scourging.
The spiritual agony of Jesus must have made the physical torture seem almost enjoyable by comparison! His mother, His aunt and two other women who had followed and ministered to Him during His ministry looked through their hot tears at His nakedness. His best fiend, John stood beside them, helpless. One of those He had called to be His witnesses had betrayed Him. On the way to trial the night before He had heard Peter swear that he didn’t know Him.
God Himself, the Heavenly Father who had loved Him in eternity before the world was, turned His face from Him. “Him who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf” (II Corinthians 5:21) and He cried out, ”Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (My God My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me)?!
He was quoting the first verse of Psalm 22 which pictures both His mental and spiritual agony...it continues; “Why are you so far from saving me, and so far from the words of my groaning? O, my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and I am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in You they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me: they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue Him. Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him.’... I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; and has melted away within me. My strength has dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me; and a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing...”
Six hours after they nailed Him there, He cried out between clenched teeth, “It is finished... Father into your hands I commend my Spirit.” In the temple, the four inch thick veil that had for centuries shut people out from the presence of God was split down the middle from top to bottom and He took a repenting criminal to paradise! When the guards came to break His legs so that He would suffocate immediately, they found Him already dead. As He had promised, John 10:18, No one took His life. He gave it as “a ransom for many.” Just to be sure, they drove a spear into His heart.
A Mayo Clinic report confirms that the blood He sweat in Gethsemane the night before and the blood mingled with water that flowed from the wound in His side indicate that the actual cause of Jesus’ death was a massive heart attack brought on by suffocation .He literally died of a broken heart! Three days later, He got up and walked out of His own grave! The death-burial-resurrection of Jesus is the most thoroughly documented single event of ancient history!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Unchanging Christ
On May 20, 1927 at 7:52 AM Charles Lindberg took off from New York City in a small monoplane he had dubbed “The Spirit of Saint Louis.” 33.5 hours and 3,600 miles later, he landed in Paris, France – the first solo transatlantic flight in an airplane. Today, the International Space Station orbits the earth at a speed of 3800 KM at an altitude of 1,000 KM/s. The rest of the world has changed as rapidly in the same time span.
In the twentieth century, mankind went from the “horse and buggy age” to the “automobile age,” to the “age of aviation,” to the “jet age,” to the “atomic age,” to the “space age,” to the “age of cyberspace.” The “Laplace Theory” has been replaced by the “Big Bang Theory,” with several interim theories of the beginning in between. The technological revolution of or age is affecting our culture and economy as much as or more than the Renaissance or Industrial Revolution a century and a half earlier.
As is historically usual, it is assumed that human beings in 'our' age are spiritually and morally superior to our antecedents and that spiritual evolution paralleling biological evolution accounts for this progress. Ours is the only generation since Constantine’s conversion to Christianity that has allowed such changes to alter our faith and our moral values.
For the Christian first, and ultimately for the race, all this change raises some vital questions. “Is the death, in the first century, of Jesus of Nazareth for our sin and the sealing of eternal life by His resurrection still ‘Good News’ or is it to be abandoned for some ‘New Age’ gospel more relevant to life in the twenty-first century?” Are the virgin birth, sinless life, miracle-ministry, atoning death and the mind boggling resurrection of a Galilean carpenter who lived 2,000 years ago to be relegated to the ash heap of history along with the multitude of gods and goddesses of the Graeco-Roman first-century pantheon? Do we need a “more mature” god, who makes no moral demands on our enlightened value system? Shall we exchange the hope of eternal life for the shallow condolences of reincarnation? Shall we abandon prayers for chants and trust our evolved intellects instead of “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?” Or is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever?
The answer to these and other such questions begins with a close look at the perpetual instability of human nature. The entire history of man has been a history of change. The best known characters in history are famous for the alterations within themselves and the changes they brought to the lives of others. Ancient Egyptian culture was the slowest to change. “Man fears time, time fears the pyramids.” Yet Egypt did change. Modern Egypt bears little resemblance to the Egypt of Tutankhamen, Nefertiti, Ramses VI or Moses.
Abraham Lincoln is not considered, and accurately so, the greatest American who has yet lived because he was born in a log cabin. Most people born in the early 19th century on what was then the American frontier were born in cabins. Lincoln is famous because of the way he changed himself and redefined the nation in two minutes at a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa.
Julius Caesar said, “I am as constant as the North star!” Despite his claim, his career is the archetype of a fickle political opportunist. He was changeable and changing!
Even bold, self confident Simon Peter became a coward when Jesus needed him most and Judas changed from a disciple of Christ to history’s most infamous traitor.
It is this universal inconsistency in fallen human nature that prevents anyone from saving himself. The purpose of God’s Law, in part, was to demonstrate that man in his present state is incapable of consistent righteousness. The sacrificial rituals of pagan religions attest to the common awareness that we are seldom, if ever, what the gods demand.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is essentially God’s answer to human inconsistency. Jesus alone is “the same yesterday, today and forever” and we killed Him for what He was. It is only by placing our spirit, mind and body in the nail scarred hands of Him Who is changeless that our unreliable natures are changed into His constant, unchanging likeness. It is for this reason that Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor who was changed to Paul the apostle, insisted dogmatically on the unchanging nature of the Gospel. It was he who wrote, “…even if we or an angel from heaven, preach to any other gospel to you that what we have preached to you, let him be anathema (considered as one dedicated to a pagan idol).” (Galatians 1:8).
Paul had won the Galatians from the superstitious idolatry with which they had deluded themselves. They had experienced the grace of God in the changeless Christ. Now some Jews, who instead of trusting Christ alone were worshiping Christ plus; carrying the Gospel of Christ on one shoulder and the Law of Moses on the other. The first sentence of the letter he wrote to them constitutes his briefest definitive statement of the Gospel he preached: “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present fickle age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever.” (Galatians 1:3-5; author’s translation).
Paul’s contention is that, unless this truth is exclusively and absolutely true, Christ died in vain and we are yet in our sins (I Corinthians 15:17). In Galatians 1:6-7).He expresses his complete amazement that anyone would actually abandon the “blessed assurance” of Christ for the uncertainty of their own religious efforts, even in an attempt to obey God’s own Law. In verse 6, the word translated “another” in the KJV and “different” in the NIV is heteron, meaning different in kind. The Judaizers were not only proclaiming another Gospel than the one Paul had preached in Galatia; they were preaching an entirely different kind of message. His message was “by grace have you been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 1:8).” Their message was salvation by Christ plus keeping the Law.
Paul’s amazement is measured by the gulf between the Christian’s certain salvation in the changeless Christ and the absolute uncertainty of human competence to face and solve the real issues of life and death through religion. His insistence is that God has done something for us in Christ that no sinful human in any age, by any religion or philosophy, can possibly do for himself. He has planted his readers’ feet firmly on the unshifting rock of God’s love, grace and mercy; the only source of stability in a vacillating world.
The question you and I must answer is: “Is Paul’s Gospel changeless in our rapidly changing world?” Does insistence on a changeless Christ make the Christian faith rigid, intolerant and unbending in a culture that denies the existence of absolute truth and has enthroned tolerance as a sacred cow on the altar of oxymoronic “broad-mindedness?” Is the first century Christ capable of meeting twenty-first century needs?
The answers lie in another question: “Just how much has the world actually changed?” The Internet may replace the tom-tom, but what is happening is still communication. Nuclear powered ocean liners and super-sonic jests may replace dugout canoes and covered wagons, but what is happening is still transportation. The wife and oxen pulling the plow have been changed for a computerized tractor guided by a satellite signal, but what is happening is the raising of food. The birthing stool in the primitive, smoke filled hut, has (in developed countries) been replaced by a family oriented birthing center in a sterile, smoke free hospital, but human life is still being ushered into the world. The witch doctor’s mask has been replaced by the surgeon’s mask, but what is happening is an effort to prolong life and postpone death.
What is true of mankind’s basic physical needs is also true of our spiritual and psychological needs. Real progress is grounded on what never changes. The “scientific concept” is essentially a Christian hypothesis. Without these dependable constants, scientific discovery is impossible.
By the same token, the Christian Gospel presents Christ as the object of faith and so gives mankind the Morning Star to steer by in a world of uncertainty. The self-destructive person who finds himself without a purpose in life need only read the first three chapters of Paul’s Ephesian epistle to find a purpose so much bigger than himself as to challenge him throughout a productive lifetime. The person who is suffering from feelings of guilt need only admit that the guilt is not imagined but real and bring it to the foot of the cross to find “the peace of God that passes all (secular) understanding.” The person who at last comes face to face with his own death need only place a trusting hand in the nail scarred hand of The Galilean Carpenter to “walk through the valley of the shadow” with no fear of evil.
In any age, when sin has stained the conscience, twisted the mind, overshadowed life, weakened the will, clouded the sense of right and wrong, the unchanging Gospel says, “Christ died for the ungodly.”
As long as people betray people, deny human need and destroy relationships, there will be the desperate need for the reconciling, unchanging Good News of Calvary! As long as man’s life on earth is measured by the pages of a calendar, there will be the need of the life that was bought and paid for on Golgotha by the eternal, changeless Son of The Ancient of Days.
In the twentieth century, mankind went from the “horse and buggy age” to the “automobile age,” to the “age of aviation,” to the “jet age,” to the “atomic age,” to the “space age,” to the “age of cyberspace.” The “Laplace Theory” has been replaced by the “Big Bang Theory,” with several interim theories of the beginning in between. The technological revolution of or age is affecting our culture and economy as much as or more than the Renaissance or Industrial Revolution a century and a half earlier.
As is historically usual, it is assumed that human beings in 'our' age are spiritually and morally superior to our antecedents and that spiritual evolution paralleling biological evolution accounts for this progress. Ours is the only generation since Constantine’s conversion to Christianity that has allowed such changes to alter our faith and our moral values.
For the Christian first, and ultimately for the race, all this change raises some vital questions. “Is the death, in the first century, of Jesus of Nazareth for our sin and the sealing of eternal life by His resurrection still ‘Good News’ or is it to be abandoned for some ‘New Age’ gospel more relevant to life in the twenty-first century?” Are the virgin birth, sinless life, miracle-ministry, atoning death and the mind boggling resurrection of a Galilean carpenter who lived 2,000 years ago to be relegated to the ash heap of history along with the multitude of gods and goddesses of the Graeco-Roman first-century pantheon? Do we need a “more mature” god, who makes no moral demands on our enlightened value system? Shall we exchange the hope of eternal life for the shallow condolences of reincarnation? Shall we abandon prayers for chants and trust our evolved intellects instead of “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?” Or is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever?
The answer to these and other such questions begins with a close look at the perpetual instability of human nature. The entire history of man has been a history of change. The best known characters in history are famous for the alterations within themselves and the changes they brought to the lives of others. Ancient Egyptian culture was the slowest to change. “Man fears time, time fears the pyramids.” Yet Egypt did change. Modern Egypt bears little resemblance to the Egypt of Tutankhamen, Nefertiti, Ramses VI or Moses.
Abraham Lincoln is not considered, and accurately so, the greatest American who has yet lived because he was born in a log cabin. Most people born in the early 19th century on what was then the American frontier were born in cabins. Lincoln is famous because of the way he changed himself and redefined the nation in two minutes at a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa.
Julius Caesar said, “I am as constant as the North star!” Despite his claim, his career is the archetype of a fickle political opportunist. He was changeable and changing!
Even bold, self confident Simon Peter became a coward when Jesus needed him most and Judas changed from a disciple of Christ to history’s most infamous traitor.
It is this universal inconsistency in fallen human nature that prevents anyone from saving himself. The purpose of God’s Law, in part, was to demonstrate that man in his present state is incapable of consistent righteousness. The sacrificial rituals of pagan religions attest to the common awareness that we are seldom, if ever, what the gods demand.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is essentially God’s answer to human inconsistency. Jesus alone is “the same yesterday, today and forever” and we killed Him for what He was. It is only by placing our spirit, mind and body in the nail scarred hands of Him Who is changeless that our unreliable natures are changed into His constant, unchanging likeness. It is for this reason that Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor who was changed to Paul the apostle, insisted dogmatically on the unchanging nature of the Gospel. It was he who wrote, “…even if we or an angel from heaven, preach to any other gospel to you that what we have preached to you, let him be anathema (considered as one dedicated to a pagan idol).” (Galatians 1:8).
Paul had won the Galatians from the superstitious idolatry with which they had deluded themselves. They had experienced the grace of God in the changeless Christ. Now some Jews, who instead of trusting Christ alone were worshiping Christ plus; carrying the Gospel of Christ on one shoulder and the Law of Moses on the other. The first sentence of the letter he wrote to them constitutes his briefest definitive statement of the Gospel he preached: “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present fickle age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever.” (Galatians 1:3-5; author’s translation).
Paul’s contention is that, unless this truth is exclusively and absolutely true, Christ died in vain and we are yet in our sins (I Corinthians 15:17). In Galatians 1:6-7).He expresses his complete amazement that anyone would actually abandon the “blessed assurance” of Christ for the uncertainty of their own religious efforts, even in an attempt to obey God’s own Law. In verse 6, the word translated “another” in the KJV and “different” in the NIV is heteron, meaning different in kind. The Judaizers were not only proclaiming another Gospel than the one Paul had preached in Galatia; they were preaching an entirely different kind of message. His message was “by grace have you been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 1:8).” Their message was salvation by Christ plus keeping the Law.
Paul’s amazement is measured by the gulf between the Christian’s certain salvation in the changeless Christ and the absolute uncertainty of human competence to face and solve the real issues of life and death through religion. His insistence is that God has done something for us in Christ that no sinful human in any age, by any religion or philosophy, can possibly do for himself. He has planted his readers’ feet firmly on the unshifting rock of God’s love, grace and mercy; the only source of stability in a vacillating world.
The question you and I must answer is: “Is Paul’s Gospel changeless in our rapidly changing world?” Does insistence on a changeless Christ make the Christian faith rigid, intolerant and unbending in a culture that denies the existence of absolute truth and has enthroned tolerance as a sacred cow on the altar of oxymoronic “broad-mindedness?” Is the first century Christ capable of meeting twenty-first century needs?
The answers lie in another question: “Just how much has the world actually changed?” The Internet may replace the tom-tom, but what is happening is still communication. Nuclear powered ocean liners and super-sonic jests may replace dugout canoes and covered wagons, but what is happening is still transportation. The wife and oxen pulling the plow have been changed for a computerized tractor guided by a satellite signal, but what is happening is the raising of food. The birthing stool in the primitive, smoke filled hut, has (in developed countries) been replaced by a family oriented birthing center in a sterile, smoke free hospital, but human life is still being ushered into the world. The witch doctor’s mask has been replaced by the surgeon’s mask, but what is happening is an effort to prolong life and postpone death.
What is true of mankind’s basic physical needs is also true of our spiritual and psychological needs. Real progress is grounded on what never changes. The “scientific concept” is essentially a Christian hypothesis. Without these dependable constants, scientific discovery is impossible.
By the same token, the Christian Gospel presents Christ as the object of faith and so gives mankind the Morning Star to steer by in a world of uncertainty. The self-destructive person who finds himself without a purpose in life need only read the first three chapters of Paul’s Ephesian epistle to find a purpose so much bigger than himself as to challenge him throughout a productive lifetime. The person who is suffering from feelings of guilt need only admit that the guilt is not imagined but real and bring it to the foot of the cross to find “the peace of God that passes all (secular) understanding.” The person who at last comes face to face with his own death need only place a trusting hand in the nail scarred hand of The Galilean Carpenter to “walk through the valley of the shadow” with no fear of evil.
In any age, when sin has stained the conscience, twisted the mind, overshadowed life, weakened the will, clouded the sense of right and wrong, the unchanging Gospel says, “Christ died for the ungodly.”
As long as people betray people, deny human need and destroy relationships, there will be the desperate need for the reconciling, unchanging Good News of Calvary! As long as man’s life on earth is measured by the pages of a calendar, there will be the need of the life that was bought and paid for on Golgotha by the eternal, changeless Son of The Ancient of Days.
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