Dear Friends of “Dial Daily Bread,”
Ask any group of Christians, "Why did Jesus die on His cross?" and they will tell you, "He died as our Substitute." And that's 100 percent true. But what does it mean? How does that truth make any difference in the way we live?
We say, "He died instead of us," and that's true; He did. If you had been drafted in the American Civil War of 1861-65, you could hire a substitute to take your place and die instead of you; now you can enjoy life while he suffers and his loved ones mourn. "My substitute has taken my place!" It's a vicarious substitution. And you can think of the sacrifice of Christ in that same way. He died instead of you.
But is it a childish way of thinking of His cross? Is it basically egocentric?
The Bible goes far deeper: Christ's sacrifice is also a sharedsubstitution. "I have been crucified with Christ," says Galatians 2:20. We were “baptized into ChristJesus, ... baptized into His death, ... buried with Him through baptism into death, ... united together in the likeness of His death, ... our old man [the love of self] crucified with Him, ... died with Christ." If all this is true, then "we shall also live with Him" (Rom. 6:3-8). But only if.
One is the kindergarten, flower-girl-at-the-wedding idea of substitution--very, very true; but the other is the bride growing up “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), prepared to stand with Him side by side in the "marriage of the Lamb." It's a time for divine-human intimacy never before realized by the body of His church.
Apparently the Bridegroom believes the time has come for His people to "grow up." The long delay must weary Him. Does it weary you?
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 1, 2005.
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