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A SEARCH FOR SMARTER SINNERS

We've been thinking with great sorrow this week of the wrenchingly tragic story from Jasper, Texas, where, as we recorded in 2 years ago in mid-March, John William King has been sentenced to death for the racist murder, the dragging-behind-a-pickup-truck execution of James Byrd, Jr. And for a moment here, let me share with you about another young man with the exact same mindset. By his own admission, he had a fierce, inbred, inborn hatred of black people. "I never killed anyone, but I surely hated," he writes in his memoirs. He and his friends celebrated when the KKK burned a cross on the lawn of a black family that had the temerity, the uppity-ness to try to live in their neighborhood. And when a civil rights worker got killed, he shrugged. "Serves him right, coming down here to make trouble."

We could easily say that but for the luck of the draw — or the grace of God — this young, hate-filled man might easily have shared in that pickup-truck ride down Huff Creek Road at 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday night two years ago last June.

But now here's the kicker to the story. That young man's name is . . . Philip Yancey, the great Christian writer whose inspired material we use regularly here on the Voice of Prophecy. That's right. In his book, What's So Amazing About Grace?, Yancey — one of the finest evangelical authors in the world today — confesses to a very sinful past. He literally was a racist. He didn't wear the white sheet, but he certainly could have. And today, he writes some of the most powerful, grace-oriented books I've ever been blessed to read.

Well, friend, this has something to do with our title for the week: COULD JESUS HAVE SKIPPED CALVARY? Because here is a man whose life was transformed. He went from bad to good, from a racist to a warm, caring, accepting Christian. From sinner to saint. Philip Yancey glimpsed the goodness of God, the rightness of God's kingdom, and had his life get turned around.

This brings to mind two questions. First of all, for a man like Yancey, what purpose does a Calvary serve? He's already changed! He's good now! Why must blood be shed for his sins if he's seen the light and turned away? Putting it bluntly, from a theological perspective: Does the cross really do any good? If mankind could just understand how destructive a sin like racism is, and could be persuaded by love and gospel teaching to turn away, then why does someone still have to die? What kind of a God demands a sacrifice and this river of blood?

It's not your place or mine to judge a man's heart. But a few weeks ago I got to hear Philip Yancey speak at a large Christian gathering out at La Sierra University in Riverside, California. And it would certainly appear that this man is perfectly safe to have in God's kingdom. He's rejected the world of sin and embraced the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, Mr. John William King has gone to death row an unrepentant, hate-filled criminal. His heart, we would say, is black with sin. So for both of these men, one in God's kingdom, the other out of it and in rebellion against it . . . what good does a death on a cross do? Who demands it? What's the point? Hence our series title: COULD JESUS HAVE SKIPPED CALVARY?

It's very easy and simplistic here on the radio, especially in these painfully brief moments, to use convenient labels. And the Voice of Prophecy isn't a ministry driven by deep, complicated theology; you regular listeners know that. We're simple people with a simple gospel. So please forgive me here for using a label or two as we discuss together this incredibly challenging concept of the necessity of Calvary.

There is in the world — and has been for centuries — an understanding or a theological model that is sometimes called the "moral influence theory." In a nutshell, it suggests that the main dilemma with sin is mankind's confusion and fear. We don't understand God; because of Lucifer's lies, we just don't comprehend how good He is, how right and how safe and how satisfying His kingdom is. We're racists and liars and cheats and murderers because we're confused, because we don't know better. But IF we could grasp, as our friend Philip Yancey has done, the attractiveness of God, then some say the cross and the blood and the atonement are really not necessary. However, the cross — even within the framework of this model — DOES help in the process of leading us to understand God's goodness, how loving His ways really are.

We could apply this concept backward throughout the history of the universe. Picture with me the original heaven, before this world was made. Lucifer, a holy angel serving God, has the first rebellious thoughts begin to sprout in his mind. He whispers his first lies, entertains his first evil thoughts. But suppose God gets through to him and in great tenderness and love points out — and persuades him — that heaven really IS the best way, the safest kingdom, the paradise of love God always has intended?

Or let's go down to Eden, to that first fateful moment when Eve reached for the forbidden piece of fruit? That's a sin, an act of defiance against heaven. But suppose God can come down and communicate with her and with Adam, show them what a mistake they've made? Convince them that heaven's principles and heaven's rules are actually designed for their happiness, for the preservation of their Eden home? Does that sin have to be paid for with a death, with blood? Did Adam and Eve really have to die — or Jesus as their substitute? Again we ask: COULD JESUS HAVE SKIPPED CALVARY?

Well, friend, let me share two reactions. The question is: if we were wiser, if we could see through the fog of sin and grasp the folly, the deadliness, of sin, would Calvary have been necessary? Obviously, if we could GET IT, sin would never have happened in this universe. The first rebellion would never have taken place. But Lucifer DID sin. He DIDN'T get it. Adam and Eve sinned; they didn't get it either. And so do we sin — beginning at birth and all through our lives. Sin is at its core a deceptive thing; it IS a deception. From that standpoint, the human wish to somehow not need Calvary is a moot question.

But here's the second point. And many Christians today are wondering about the validity of the cross. Did it have intentionality, a purpose? Or did Jesus just happen to get killed because His teachings provoked people? Was He simply the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time — much like this Mr. James Byrd?

In response to that, we should notice the many verses of Scripture where Jesus Himself, with His own mouth, declared that it was His PLAN to die for us, that this is why He CAME. He told this to the disciples over and over again: "I'm the Lamb of God." "The Son of Man will be killed, then raised again on the third day." Maybe you recall that Sunday evening twilight walk, where Jesus, unrecognized by two disciples, had a post-crucifixion discussion about Calvary. And this Stranger in their midst gently chided them. "Why are you men so slow to understand?" He asked. "Didn't all the prophets SAY that the Messiah would need to die for the sins of the people?" And He took them, verse by verse, through the teachings of men like Isaiah, who plainly state that the Lamb of God would HAVE to give His life to atone for the sins of the world.

But if we want evidence that Calvary was necessary, that it was a real sacrifice and not just a random political tragedy, all you have to do is to go to that Garden of Gethsemane on the Thursday before. Jesus is there in agony, dreading the Cross, anticipating the agony of the weight of sin upon Him. And in His humanity, He begs His heavenly Father — you can read this in Luke 22 — for release from the Cross. If there's any other way to redeem the human race, if there's some other "model" or theological way to proceed without His own blood being shed on our behalf, He's human enough — He's enough like us — to want a way out. Here's verse 42:

"Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done."

I said on Monday that you and I, in our frail sinful state, aren't capable of understanding the mystery of Calvary. But if we ever think that the Cross was an accident, or that it wasn't needed, this one moment of agony on Thursday night proves both of those arguments wrong. If you believe the Bible, friend, you have to know that Jesus could at any time have fled from danger. He could have escaped from those soldiers with their puny sticks and swords. He could have come down from the Cross without a mark on Him. He could have said one word and had a battalion of ten thousand angels come to take Him home. But He stayed here to endure the Cross, because for reasons that we may not ever fully grasp, the Cross was necessary to our salvation.

And when some wonder if we could be saved just by somehow being TAUGHT about the goodness of God and the deadliness of sin, the answer to that is this: It's the CROSS that teaches us both those things! The Cross shows us the depths of God's love, and also the deadliness of sin. Philip Yancey, that redneck racist kid who whooped with the other KKK kids as the night riders rode and as they burned their midnight crosses finally saw the REAL Cross, the magnitude of the REAL Calvary. He wasn't changed despite the Cross or without the Cross; he became a new man, a restored loyalist, BECAUSE of the Cross.

And so can each one of us.