House of God
Today’s Topic: The Place of the Cross
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:14,16; Revelation 21:1,2
Greetings Kingdom Citizens:
Usually when we deal or talk about sin and the Garden we look to the cross and redeeming man from sin. Now that is important, do not get me wrong. However the Gospel has become about how the fall was solved at the cross. So, many churches there is a trend to look at the cross as the gospel and this is not accurate. The events of the cross, is really the middle part of the entire gospel. It is neither the beginning nor the end. When we make the cross the gospel then going to heaven is the goal. Hence this is why we have many Kingdom citizens looking at going to heaven as the goal. But here presents a problem scripturally. If Heaven is the goal then why do we have these scriptures?
1 Thessalonians 5:14,16: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. 16-For the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Revelation 21:1,2: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
These scriptures show us a coming back and a descending of the Lord and the new heaven and earth from Heaven. Now if going to heaven was the end then what is the purpose of coming back? What has happen is we have taken an important thing and made it everything and it is not. Now if the beginning is God putting His sons in the Earth to bring God’s rulership to the planet then what do we think the end is going to be? God’s sons ruling and administering His Kingdom in the Earth. Now the cross was necessary to bring us back to the purposes of God but it is not the end of the matter. If we make heaven the goal then we will simply waste time and space. They will never come into the true purposes of God for their lives because they bought into the goal being heaven and not ruling in the Earth. For much of our preaching we hear on Sundays we talk about the cross but never deal with the end-result of what the cross paid for. For many people, the work of the cross is to keep them from going to Hell, save them and allow them to go to Heaven. Now is that true? Yes, but the scope of that view limits the believer to the reality of what the cross paid for.
In the next message we will look at the concept of nakedness and effect of a lie.
At the Father’s Service,
Elder Calvin Calhoun Jr.
