Foundation 3: The Cross

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18

What happened at the cross? Jesus had to die for me? What does the cross mean for you and me?? What did Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross give me?

You read through Romans 1-8 over these past few weeks, now read over these verses below, and praise God through kankangan! Read them aloud, and after reading, pray out the verses to God. Thank Him, express your amazement, express your desires.

“BUT NOW! A righteousness from God has been made known! This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” Romans 3:21-25a

“God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.” John 3:16-18a

Do you believe? 

What does it mean to believe?

Like Abraham, who “did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20-21).

“God will credit righteousness to all who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Romans 4:24-25

I believe! 

Because I believe, I am justified by Jesus’ blood, through faith. (Rom. 5:1, 9)

Because I am justified (rendered innocent),＊

  • I have peace with God through Jesus (5:1)
  • I have access into this grace in which I now stand, through Jesus (5:2)
  • God has poured out His love into my heart by the Holy Spirit (5:5)
  • God has given me His Holy Spirit (5:5)
  • I am saved from God’s wrath/righteous judgement on account of my sins, through Jesus (5:9)
  • I used to be God’s enemy, but now I am reconciled to God through the death of His Son, and I am saved through His life (5:10)

Have I been baptised? I was also baptised into his death. Baptism is being buried with Jesus as He died and was buried, and resurrected just as He was resurrected, so I may live a new life! (6:3-4)

Who will rescue me from this sinful nature, where I am a slave to sin, where I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out, and I keep on doing what I don’t want to do over and over and over because sin is living in me? (7:14-24)

“Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7:24b-25)

  • If have been baptised, I CAN live a new life! (6:4)
  • If I have been baptised, my old self was crucified with Jesus (6:6)
  • If I have been crucified with Jesus, then I have been set free from sin! (6:7)
  • If my old self was crucified, my body ruled by sin is done away with (6:6)
  • Therefore, I am no longer a slave to sin (6:17, 18)
  • I died to sin; so how can I live in it any longer? (6:2)
  • I count myself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. I died to what once bound me (6:11; 7:6)
  • I do not let sin reign in my mortal body so that I obey its evil desires (6:12)
  • I do not offer any part of myself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather I offer myself to God as one who has been brought from death to life; and I offer every part of myself to him as an instrument of righteousness (6:13)
  • Sin is no longer my master, because I am not under the law, but under grace (6:14)
  • I used to be a slave to sin, but now I wholeheartedly obey the teaching I was entrusted (6:17)
  • I have been set free from sin and have become a slave to righteousness (6:18)
  • I used to offer myself as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, but I now offer myself as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness (6:19)

Romans 6:21-23
“What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:13-14

*https://biblehub.com/greek/1344.htm