[Darris McNeely] One of my passions is to read and I've always been a reader, but a particular area in recent years I've really enjoyed delving deep into is the Roman world, the Roman Empire. I probably have 30 or more books on my shelf just on that area alone, the Roman world, the Roman Empire. I know the students at ABC get tired of hearing me talking about the Roman Empire. I talk about it a lot. I think it's important to understand because of the prophetic implications. And after all, Daniel 7, Daniel did wonder and marvel at that fourth beast and wanted to know, as he said, "The truth of that fourth beast." And there's also a lot of value in understanding the Roman world because of the background of the New Testament, the coming of Jesus Christ, the beginning of the Church was set in that context of the Roman Empire at its height.

And so to understand a lot, even of the Bible, a story, especially the New Testament that's also very, very helpful. But one of the things that I ran across a few months ago when some of my reading struck me as I was reading about the way that the Roman individual lived and especially died. The Roman citizen, Roman person, especially say maybe some of the higher-ups, to them it was more important how they died than how they lived. If you've seen the movie Gladiator, you know that one of the key phrases there that kind of stands out and is kind of a neat phrase, "Strength and honor." When Maximus goes into battle, he beats his chest and he says, "Strength and honor." And it's kind of a neat phrase, packed with a lot, but it's important to understand, to a Roman honor was very important and to die an honorable death was extremely important.

In fact, it's one of the things that led to the success of the Roman army as they expanded their empire in this way. A Roman soldier and Roman army would not accept defeat. And many occasions within the story of the Roman armies as they marched and marched and expanded and gobbled up all the nations in their world, in their time, was they would not accept defeat. And at times when their back would be against the wall and they were facing defeat, sure defeat, they would not give up. They would rather have all died as an army unit than to have been beaten and enslaved. They could never have gone home. And so that even led to a lot of occasions where they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and lived to actually beat the enemy. And they have continued to advance. It was one of their keys to success.

But for a Roman, it was more important how they died than how they lived. And in some cases, they would even take their own life rather than die at the hands of someone else, or especially at the hands of a mob. And we don't think like that today. We prolong our lives with the advances in medicine and technology, and that's a good thing. We have long lifespans and we are able to put off the day of death. And we don't like to even think about death, none of us, and we certainly don't like to talk about death. But every year at this time, there is one death that we must consider and it is the death of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as we heard in the special music today, which is the most important death of all time, the most important death of all time was that of Jesus Christ.

Please turn with me over the book of Philippians 3 and let's read the passage where Paul talks about that. Philippians, the third chapter… I'm sorry, Philippians, the second chapter. Philippians 2 and beginning of verse 5, it says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man," verse 8, "He humbled Himself and He became obedient to the point of death." He became obedient to the point of death through the humility of subjecting Himself to that episode.

But then it says here at the end of verse 8, "Even the death of the cross." Now why that double emphasis? Why didn't Paul just end the sentence that he humbled Himself to death? Why say "even," which means, oh, there's something else coming? There's some other meaning there. "Even to the death of the cross," he gets… there's more information there. In fact, there's a whole world of information there but we have to understand why that emphasis, "Even to the death of the cross?" Well, let's consider that for a few minutes.

Let's go back to Matthew's account of the suffering of the death of Christ in Matthew 27. Let's look at that and let's begin to look at the death of the cross from what we read in the accounts of the gospels. Matthew 27, and let's begin with verse 31, right at verse 31. We'll not go into all of the trial and all of the information that is here regarding that particular night when Christ was betrayed and arrested, tried and what happened there. But in Matthew 27 and in verse 31, we'll just go into the story at this point where it says that, after all this had taken place and finally the sentence was passed, "When they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified." This was the form of death, then ordained, sentenced and given to Jesus of Nazareth.

And he began to go. In verse 33, "Then He came to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, the Place of the Skull, that gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He tasted it, he would not drink at that point." And verse 35, "Then they crucified Him." Now, Roman crucifixion is something that we should understand a little bit about because of the nature of what happened and it is the form of death that He underwent. I have a handout that I always give the students when we discuss this fundamental belief of the Church, the sacrifice of Christ at our Ambassador Bible College class. And I'd like to read just a few excerpts from it. It's an article entitled, "On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ." "On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ."

It's written by a medical doctor who's head of a department of pathology at the Mayo Clinic. Also, a couple of other individuals joined in on this particular article from a ministry standpoint. But the article, interestingly, appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 1986. So it was written by an expert medical opinion as well as people familiar with the Bible, but it also, for even added truth and veracity, appears in this prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association which means that it went through a very rigorous peer review, very important.

And he goes through and he talks about the form of death and all that we know from the Gospels about the death of Christ. But I want to focus on just the part where he describes the actual Roman crucifixion under that particular heading and read you a few excerpts so that we at least understand some of the context here. He says, "Crucifixion probably first began among the Persians. Alexander the Great introduced the practice to Egypt and Carthage." So the Persians began it when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire. He adopted that and took it down throughout his empire, even down into Egypt and Carthage.

Carthage was this seagoing empire that had warred against Rome and it was from the Carthaginians… you remember them? They were the guy… their famous Carthaginian was Hannibal, the guy with the elephants that crossed over the Alps and fought the Romans. But this is where the Romans picked it up from Carthage after it had been introduced there. And the Romans appeared to have learned it from the Carthaginians. He goes on. "Although the Romans did not invent crucifixions, they perfected it as a form of torture and capital punishment that was designed to produce a slow death with maximum pain and suffering."

It was one of the most disgraceful and cruel methods of execution and usually was reserved… This is important to understand. It was usually reserved only for slaves, foreigners, revolutionaries, and the vilest of criminals. The vilest of criminals. Roman law usually protected Roman citizens from crucifixion, except perhaps in the case of desertion by soldiers, which is why the tradition that the apostle Paul was beheaded rather than crucified, as the tradition says Peter was, fits because Paul was a Roman citizen. And they spared him crucifixion, but they cut his head off, which was another form, an accepted form of death among the Romans.

Now, he goes on, skipping down, he says, although archeological and historical evidence strongly indicates that the type of cross preferred by the Romans and Palestine at the time of Christ was what is called a low cross with a cross beam that could likely have been a cross beam that was on top of the stake. There were two parts of what was the cross or the instrument of death upon which a person was nailed. The upright post was called a stipe, S-T-I-P-E, and that was already there.

What Christ carried was not a full cross. What Christ carried through the streets to Golgotha was what was called a patibulum and it was the beam. It was a large beam that was strapped over His shoulders, probably roped down there. And that, weighing quite a lot, was what He carried. And then when they got to the site of the crucifixion, that patibulum was put on the stipe and it could very likely have been it was placed at the top of the stipe and kind of looking like this as opposed to looking like this. All right?

Another form of the cross that was used during the period was more of an X type that could have been, but more likely what Christ was put on was a form that looked about like this, that He carried that top part to His death. And it was quite a procession, as the gospels tell us. Just a couple of sentences more from this article quoting, He says, "The processional to the site of crucifixion was led by a complete Roman military guard headed by a Centurion. One of the soldiers carried a sign called a titulus, which in this case said, “Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews.” And that's what then was placed upon Christ's instrument of death. “The Roman guard," he says, "would not leave the victim until they were sure of His death."

Very interesting historical facts. The article goes on to describe, from a medical point of view, what all that meant. And we're not going to go through all of that today, but this is the form of crucifixion, "Even to the death of the cross." What was the form of death reserved for the vilest of people is what Jesus of Nazareth was placed upon. That helps us to appreciate what Paul wrote a little bit more, but let's ask again, why this type of death? Why not some other type of death?

You know, I've already mentioned there were beheadings other forms of Roman death. Beheading was one, an acceptable form that would have a lot of those happen. The emperor Augustus under which the… who ruled at the time Christ was born, Augustus died in his bed according to accounts. Most accounts he died of old age in as bad. Some say that he may have been poisoned by his wife who wanted to kind of move on with things and get him out of the way. But most historians accept that he just died of old age.

Many of us have seen the movie Gladiator, or we may be more familiar with that spectacle of the Roman world. When two men fought in the arena, two gladiators, and then one was beaten, the vanquished loser was expected to die honorably. When thumbs were put down, he was expected then to bear his neck to his victor, point to where to put the sword in, and then grab the thigh of the one doing it, and to the crowd then he would die honorably and die nobly, and that's the best he could imagine. Remember, a Roman, to him it was more important how he died, in some cases more important how he died than how he lived. And that's how that went through.

Remember the story of Julius Caesar, the Ides of March, beware of the Ides of March? We're in that season here even right now. Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Senate by his friends and his enemies, "Et tu, Brute? Even you, Brutus?" he said as his friend put the knife through him. That was an ignominious death for one so great noble person as Julius Caesar. He would've rather died a bit more nobly but he didn't get a chance to do that. But Christ didn't die like that. Christ was not assassinated. Christ was not beheaded. Christ did not die of old age.

Remember, Paul writes that “He humbled Himself to death, even the death of the cross.” He could have even been beheaded and foregone all that He did deal with as He was crucified. Why? Christ couldn't die in any other form other than what is the described form of crucifixion that we just have read about because there were certain scriptures that had to be fulfilled. Back in Isaiah 53, let's just look at a well-known passage. Isaiah 53:5, "One of the messianic prophecies of Jesus Christ that we know were fulfilled by the Messiah." He is the Messiah, verse 5. It says, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities," speaking to the suffering that Christ endured prior to being put upon the crucifix, across the tree, however you want to describe it. But it is what it was. "And by His stripes” at the hand of a Roman lictor, “we are healed." That verse had to be fulfilled. There's only one way that it could be fulfilled. In verse 7, "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, and He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before it sheers is silent, so He opened not His mouth."

And as we read the account of His trial, you see what He said. But once that was done, He was led, He had certain words to say but they were mostly to look after the spiritual needs of others, His own mother, and the others that were being killed with Him, next to Him. He didn't revile and He didn't go against them. And verse 12 it says, "Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors." Verse 12 speaks again to the method by which He died that had to be fulfilled.

Turn back to Isaiah or to Psalm 22. Psalm 22, and let's just notice a few verses out of this, which is a Psalm recognized to be a Psalm that is describing many of the thoughts of the Messiah as He goes through the agony of that death. Let's look at verse 14. Psalm 22:14, "I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax. It has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd,” again, describing the hours of agony that would be there as a result of the method of death. "My tongue clings to My jaws; and you brought Me to the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierce My hands and My feet." Explicit description of how he was nailed to the cross. "I count all My bones. They look and they stare at Me.” With the beating and the scourging His flesh was ripped away and the bones were exposed.

One more scripture, Zechariah 12. Zechariah 12:10, another song or another scripture that refers to the death of Christ. It says, "I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; and then they will look on Me whom they pierced." Direct reference to the death of the Messiah and the way Christ died. He was finally pierced with a spear, run through His rib cage, piercing to His heart and water and blood flowed out, as the Scripture tells us. “Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”

The interesting pictures I saw researching, doing a little research for this sermon, was a painting, I think it's in the museum in Brooklyn, New York, done about more than 100 years ago by someone and it's a picture that shows what Christ would have seen from the cross. And it is looking down on the people who were out there and you can identify the artist's depiction of certain key individuals from the gospels, John, Mary, the other women, Roman soldiers. It's quite striking. I had never seen that before. I think the title of it was "Those Christ Saw Hanging From the Cross." And it was rather interesting.

But these verses speak to that in very graphic terms of all the ways, the manner by which Christ had to die. The Messiah had to die. Christ then had to do that to prove that He was the Messiah, to connect His life and His coming to everything that had gone before in these scriptures and many, many more. We would have to have several sermons and Bible studies to cover all the scriptures just from the Old Testament that speak to prophecies about Christ's first coming, just his first coming. It is throughout the scriptures. Christ had to connect to every one of those. The life of God in the flesh had to be lived by the Scriptures and His death had to be lived by the Scriptures and that was very important.

Now, let's turn back to John 19. John 19. "When Jesus," it says, "had received the sour wine, He said, 'It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. And because it was the Day, the Preparation Day, and the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers came, roped the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he's telling the truth so that you may believe.” John records.

This portion out of John's account speaks to the actual shedding of that blood. The shed blood of Jesus Christ as we know it is very important in every conceivable manner possible from all the Scriptures that speak to the importance of sacrificial blood beginning with the Old Testament scriptures, the temple sacrifices and all that is there down to this very event, this very event. And when you and I come together here in a few days and we come for the Passover service, we will remember this. We will go through this and other scriptures, and we will remember this when we take the wine, that small amount of wine at the Passover, which is a symbol of the blood of Jesus Christ shed in this way, literally through the act of crucifixion, as we have read the most important death in all of history.

Now, that shed blood is very important. There are many scriptures that show us exactly why. Let's look at a few of them. Let's go back to Acts 20 if you will. Acts 20, here the apostle Paul, as he is speaking to the Ephesians elders. Acts 20, he encourages them and their stewardship of the church after his passing and his time will no longer be with him. He's giving them some final instruction. And Acts 20:28, he tells them, "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood." The Church of God, which we are a part, the very Body of Christ, spiritual Body of Christ," as Paul will write in Ephesians, "is purchased by His blood.” That shed blood poured out just as we have read. That's a very important reason to understand the importance of that blood.

Let's go over to Ephesians 2 and let's look at another scripture. Ephesians 2, this brings it down to an even more personal level. Ephesians 2:13, Paul writes, "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Far off from what? Well, far off from God. Enemies of God, he will say in the book of Romans, needing to be reconciled, needing to be redeemed. "But we were far off, but we've been brought near into a relationship with God by the blood of Christ." So again, that's important for us to understand about that shed blood in that manner of death.

Let's look at Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9 and let's begin in verse 11. Hebrews 9:11, very important passage that brings down again to the centrality of Christ's death and sacrifice and its meaning. Hebrews 9:11, "Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation.” Meaning that there's a heavenly tabernacle upon which anything that was made physically in the past was only a model, a mere shadow of, but He's come with a greater and more perfect dwelling if you will.

Verse 12 then, it came “Not with the blood of goats and calves.” It's all a sacrificial structure of the Old Testament, Levitical system under a different covenant. Not with that, “but with His own blood, with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place,” not the one on Jerusalem, but the one in heaven into the very presence, the throne of God. He entered that place “once for all,” once after His resurrection for all, for all time, for all people, for all humanity, “once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,” under that old system, which sanctified and purified, ceremonially and ritually for that physical temple covenant of priesthood and all that was there, if that was possible, that was part of that.

He said, "How much more…" Verse 14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” how much more than will that blood “cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" This is what the blood of Christ does. It cleanses our conscience. It makes it clean. It makes it right. I don't know about all of you, but I'm sure you're exactly like me. We value a clean conscience. You ever had a bad conscience? You ever had a guilty conscience at any point in your life when you knew you had sinned, you knew you had done something wrong, you knew mom and dad were going to find out and you knew it was going to be bad. And when you heard dad come home at night, you heard that car pulled in the driveway and that door shut, you went scurrying for wherever you could in the basement or in the attic or in the closet to hide thinking that you, by that, could escape what dad was going to be doing after mom told about what you had done. I'm telling you far too much about my own childhood.

But I've learned, as we all have, that it is far better to live with a clean conscience, without sin, without having goofed up. But that's what happens when we come under the blood of Christ. When our conscience and our life and our heart is made clean through the blood of Jesus Christ and the forgiving, the removal of all sin, all guilt, all the penalties and every aspect of it. That's a beautiful thing. I've always walked out of the Passover service every year since I was baptized as a young man with just kind of a little extra lift in my step, feeling a little bit cleaner for that night for having taken the Passover, going through the foot-washing ceremony and having gone through all the preparation before that night. And then it's a very solemn occasion, very solid.

I've had even non-members through the years comment about what that night must be because they're not there and they know that it's something special. And it truly is when it's properly prepared with the… we used to always have… I don't know how you do it here. I haven't even kept a Passover since I've moved to Cincinnati with you. I'm usually on the road and will be again this year. But when I was pastoring, I always had the white tablecloth, the gleaming, polished chrome service that we used. I would always had a couple of stands on either side with red roses, a dozen red roses there. And we come in and it's quiet and it's peaceful. And we're ready to take that service and have the foot-washing. And then to be done finished with that and go out, I've always just felt a little bit cleaner in my life.

And another year, having gone and come before God and taking of those symbols, that's a very powerful service that we have. It's one of the most beautiful things that we do annually within the Church. And we come to a point where our conscience, our mind, our heart, our life is cleansed as it is when we're baptized, when we come under the blood of Christ. And even, brethren, as we live our life every single day. I want you to remember that. Baptism is a key step. The Passover every year is very important. But every day that we live as a Christian, as a child of God, as a member of the Body of Christ, that's special. That's important because we are redeemed, as we see in 1 Peter 1, with something very, very special.

Let's look at 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1:18, "Knowing that you are not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." We are redeemed with that blood of Christ and it is from that point forward that our life can begin. Another way to say it is that with Christ's death and that shed blood, our life can truly begin. His death makes our life and our life today and every day of our life possible and good and abundant and very, very special.

Remember in John 10:10 on another occasion, Christ made the statement in talking about His role as a shepherd. He said, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." That's a profound verse and we should think about that in light of this shed blood of Christ and the life that we receive as a result of His death. Christ came that we would have life. We can understand that, and should, as eternal life but it's even more than that. It is life today. It is an abundant life today because our conscience is clean and our life is clean because we understand that it can be Holy before God as a result of that life and how we then are to live in light of that. So that even in remembering His death, we must know that His death opens the door to life, the abundant life that we can have with God's Spirit now.

Remember that in the book of Leviticus, when God's laying out all of those sacrificial systems, He says that the life is in the blood. Leviticus 17:11, I won't turn there, but it shows the life is in that blood. That's why that animal blood was so important, but it's why the shed blood of Christ is infinitely more important. There's no comparison. There is life in that blood, eternal life and life today, real-life today, a spirit-led life of faith is in and through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Let's pause for a moment and let's consider that life. Let's consider your life, my life, the life we will live tonight as we go out from here and tomorrow and next week. It's a good life. It's good to be alive. As I said at the beginning, we don't like to consider death and we push that off. And that's fine and that's okay, but as the years creep in, creep by, for some of us, we have to start making plans and thinking about that and you come to certain phases. Trust me, young folks, it will happen. You begin, you reach a certain point and you realize, “Oh, I might not be around forever.” When you lay your last parent in the grave, you realize, “Oh, it stops with me now, I'm at the head of the line.” That's a moment. When you reach certain ticks on the calendar, and those are moments as well, and other events can do the same thing.

But in the meantime, we live, and it's how we live that's important. We live as Christians. We live today as the spirit-led children of God. We live as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. We are firstfruits to God and the Lamb. That's a very, very special relationship. A very special calling, a very special designation. It's a once in a lifetime designation in the plan of God, so we can say it's a once in a plan of God designation to be a part of the firstfruits. There's only one group of firstfruits, just like there's only one firstborn in any family. There's a second, there's a third, there's a fourth, but there is only one firstborn. There will only be one group of firstborn in the family of God and that's being put together now and we have a part in that. We are firstfruits in the eternal purpose of God, and that is something very special.

Christ's death, as we consider it at this time of year, we look at scriptures like 2 Corinthians 13:5 to examine ourselves. What are we examining? Well, really, you read verse 5, there's really only one thing that really counts out of that examination that you go through. Write it down. It's Christ in you. That's it. You examine yourself, you think about it, you pray about it. Maybe you'll fast about it. Paul says, "You examine yourself to see if Christ is in you, lest we be castaways." That's it. That's what I want to know. It's what we have to know because that's the life we live in. A life led by the Spirit of God, Christ in us, the hope of glory. And Christ's death, to bring it back to that, and His shed blood is the key to a new chance at life, new opportunity today in the here and now. And that's the beauty of it.

We are to live a godly life in today's world. And it is a world cut off from the knowledge of the tree of life. It is a world that's feeding on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that's the paradox, isn't it, of your life and mine in this modern world? We live in a world, we're supposed to be living a life based on the tree of life, but we live in a world that is feeding on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that creates the paradox for us in this calling and in this life because we look around and we see so much of the beauty of life. And there is a great deal of beauty in this world and the creation that God has placed within it, scenery and the splendor.

And there's even good among people in this world. Remember, people take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Not everybody's bad, not everybody's evil. You know that and I know that. We sometimes forget it in some of the terminologies we come up with, but we… you know, I've had some pretty good aunts and uncles that raised me to be an adult and family and known a lot of good people through the years. I've also known some pretty bad people who did some bad things and we read about evil and suffering in our world today and we know that and you know about it. We read about that in the headlines and on the news and in the internet.

But as a Christian, we have to live with the hope and the expectation of a world to come that will be transformed and restored, renewed. A time that Peter spoke of in Acts 3 is a time of the restitution of all things. Speaking of a reformed, restored world, we hope for that, we yearn for that while we live in the corruption of this world and have to live within the midst of that. Corruption is brought about by sin, by the rejection of the knowledge of God and that, as we know, leads to death. And while there is much good today, there's also much evil resulting in death. But you and I are called to live a full life, a positive life, a life realizing the potential that God places within us by His Spirit. We used to call it the incredible human potential. That's the life we're called to live and we're called to live a full life.

And that life begins… here's where we bring it home with what happened with the death of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Let's turn back to Romans 5. Romans 5. Romans is not hard to understand. Sometimes it gets a bit thick. Sometimes I find if you hit the highlights of a particularly thick portion, and chapter 5 can be rather thick, but if you hit the highlights, you can bring out something quite beautiful. In verse 1, Paul writes this, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith," justification is one of those 50 cent theological words that we don't all often use. “Hi, how are you doing today?" "Well, I feel justified today." We don't talk like that, right? We don't use that word, but it's an important word. It's a good word because it's a good meaning because it speaks of the relationship we have been brought into with God as a result of Christ's sacrifice.

We're justified through faith and he says, "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." That's a beautiful thing. Peace of mind. That clean conscience that we were talking about earlier in Hebrews 9:11. "Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." Wow. Well, that was first pointed out to me is a young man back in Ambassador College. It's one of those verses that I really quickly highlighted. I could show that to you in my old college Bible that I don't read anymore because, as I tell the students, you got to get a Bible that isn't marked up with stuff in the margins so that you can just focus on the Word of God. But I still have that Bible and Romans 5:2 is one I highlighted, "We stand in the grace of God." That's a beautiful thing.

You don't have to worry when you get up every morning, “Does God love me?” He does. We don't have to worry, when we might sin, “Am I rejected? Am I an enemy of God?” No, you're not. You repent because God has given His Spirit and we have accepted the shed blood of Christ. We stand in a very special relationship with God. It's called grace and we stand in that grace and God doesn't remove it from us at will or by His whim. We can take ourselves out from that by our actions, but God doesn't do that. We stand in His grace and that's the beautiful thing here.

He goes on. Let's jump down to verse 6, he said, "You see at last, you see at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” We had no power. As we've read earlier, we've been regained and brought close to God, but he says, here “We were without power.” Verse 7, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die." It's happened. People will make sacrifices. They will put their lives in front of a bullet or a dangerous situation. People will dare to die for others. They will even make sacrifices of parts of their body as in a kidney donation for someone, perhaps very close to their family.

But verse 8. "God demonstrates His own love for us, in this that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Again, that's something we remember and we understand as we come to the sacrifice of Christ. “And then we've been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him?” Then verse 10, "For if while we were God's enemies we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled shall we be saved through His life?" We are saved by the life of the Son of God, by the life of Christ. The fact that he was resurrected three days and three nights later, that resurrection, that life, then in us through the Spirit is what makes salvation possible, but it all begins with His death. The whole process begins with His death and we enter into a different relationship.

Paul goes on in the next few verses and he talks about the death brought about by the action of Adam and sin in the world. In verse 14 he says, "Death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses." Down in verse 15, he said that, "The gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died, by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.” The death of Jesus Christ caused an overflowing of the grace of God for the many. And then down in verse 17, breaking into the middle part of that verse, how much more? "Well, those who received God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." And the abundant provision of grace, God's kindness, God's love, God's benevolence manifested in so many aspects of His character, His nature, His gifts, and certainly through the giving of His only begotten Son.

And in the middle of verse 18, "So also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people." That's the power and that is the beauty of Jesus Christ's death and His shed blood and has His sacrifice. It provided for grace, for righteousness, for justification to be made just before God, be made upright in a justified, straight position. You know, we justify the margins on our documents to the left or to the right and we make them straight. We're made straight before God through that justification and certainly, we are redeemed. All of that, all these terms, grace, righteousness, justification, redemption, those are terms that describe the life that we are to live today and the way we are to live, life in and before God. An abundant life, as Christ said.

And we need to think more about those. We need to study more about those terms and how they do apply to us. And it all begins as we study and think about and prepare to remember the death of Jesus Christ as we began to take the Passover. Years ago, I came to a personal conclusion about this, about our work in the Church of God, and what we've all been a part of all these decades. I came to this conclusion and I still believe it deeply and fervently. It's this, that there is one piece of unfinished business for us in our time in the Church of God. There's one piece of unfinished business and it is the fully realized life of the Spirit, the very divine nature of God in us.

Let me repeat it, and this is my best wording today. Being an editor, I'll probably revise it next week or next time, but let me just repeat it. The unfinished piece of business is the fully realized life of the Spirit with the divine nature in us. Because it's by that we prepare for the future. It's by that we prepare for our future role reigning with Christ and the thousand-year Millennia when He descends and He sets up His rule from Jerusalem and we live and reign with Him for 1,000 years. We're preparing for that right now as the firstfruits and we're also preparing for an eternity in the everlasting Kingdom of God. And how to live that today in this life, every day, a successful life, a full, abundant life, to me, is the unfinished business for us in the Church to fully live up to helping every single member of the church of God achieve their incredible human potential.

And so with that, it comes back to this, the life of Christ in us, then it begins with the life Christ gave through the death of crucifixion. That life of Christ within us, that we should understand is what the days are all about, begins with the life that Christ gave through the death of a crucifixion. Christ's death begins life. And with that we can, I think, understand a little more why the apostle Paul back in Philippians 3 said that “He not only humbled himself to death but even the death of the cross” because that was the only form of death that He could live to make all of the difference in this life today for any and all who come and accept that sacrifice in faith and repentance and began to live the life of the Kingdom today.

Let's go back to Matthew 25. Let's read what… Carolyn actually recited at the beginning of her special music today and I didn't know she was going to sing this piece, but it fits quite well, couldn't fit any better because she recited what was said, "When one man looked upon the dead Messiah, the dead Jesus Christ." In Matthew 25, let's begin in verse 50. How about Matthew 27:50 all right, Matthew 27:50, "And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went to the holy city and they appeared to many."

Verse 54, "So when the centurion and those who were with him, who were guarding Jesus…" Remember I read at the beginning that the Roman military unit assigned to the person being crucified had to stay there until they were assured that he was dead. The centurion, unnamed in the gospels, looked up after all that had happened here and saw the things that had happened, he greatly feared saying, "Truly this was the Son of God!” Other gospel accounts put it, "This was a righteous Man." A centurion, a man battle-hardened who wanted to die in honor, in combat, or in any other form other than what he was looking at that very moment, the death of a Man on a cross looking for those minutes up to that time, for those hours up to that moment as this vile criminal, as this Jew, as this rebel, this scum, less than a Roman, he finally came to recognize that He was the Son of God. A man who would never have wanted to die that form of death himself came to that recognition as he looked upon the crucified Jesus Christ, a Roman Centurion. Christ died the death of the cross that you and I might have life, that we might have it more abundantly.