The cosmic significance of the cross!

This is the first part of a series that I should probably have started at the beginning of Lent! However, better late than never so it is my intention (DV) to publish a number of posts, between now and Resurrection Day, that focus on the Lord Jesus, the Christ (Yeshua HaMashiach).

In John's great vision, recorded for us as "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to His servants ..." (Rev 1:1), the apostle refers to "... the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." (Rev 13:8; NKJV).  This is, of course, a reference to Jesus, the sinless, spotless, Lamb of God; the perfect, all-sufficient, atoning sacrifice.

But hold on a minute!  Was not Jesus crucified a mere 2,000 (app) years ago, on the first "Good Friday"?  So what is the Bible, the inerrant Word of the Living God, talking about when it says that He was "... slain from the foundation of the world"?

The cross is, in fact, an event of cosmic significance.  It is not merely an event that took place on a specific day in time.  The cross stands in time in order that we might see something that is eternal - i.e.timeless.  From His eternal perspective, outwith time, Father God saw the cross long before, in time, it was raised on Calvary.  It was in His heart (if I may use an anthropomorphism) in eternity, before, in time, it stood outside Jerusalem.  The cross transcends time.

Had the crucifixion of Jesus merely taken place in time, it would have been just another event in the history of mankind.  But because it was planned in eternity, it shows me that what was 'captured' in a moment of time, is held eternally in the heart of God.

The story is told of a young boy who was visiting a large cathedral.  As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he looked up at what is known as the "rood screen" and said, "There's a cross up there."  The adult who was accompanying him pointed to the floor of the cathedral, and said, "There's a cross down here as well!"  Indeed, the whole building was a cross.  It was a cruciform building - the chancel and the nave symbolising the upright; the two transepts symbolising the cross-beam.

Take time to look for the cross in your everyday life - the letter 't'; a telegraph pole; the sword on a War Memorial.  It is everywhere.

Of course, if you have never come to the foot of that cross in repentance and faith, then for you it was, and is, a cosmic waste!  It is through the sacrificial blood of the Christ, and by no other way, that we may receive forgiveness, and know God's wonderful peace in our lives.

"Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you washed in the blood;
In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless; are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"       (Elisha Albright Hoffman).