Affirmations on the cross, final part

There are only two basic religions in the world: those that are of human accomplishment and those of Divine accomplishment. Divine accomplishment is what God has done in and through Jesus Christ. Put all other human endeavors together, put all religions together, put all people who have ideas to help humanity or ways and means of helping humans achieve some goal and none of these or even all of these multiplied 1000 times can match what God did through Jesus Christ at the cross.

The cross and human Glorying, Galatians 6:14–16. Only Grace-centered biblical Christianity is from God. Every other form of religion is from Satan, Inspired by his demon spirits and promoted by his lieing human agents, first Timothy 4:1–2. Those who trust in Christ and his finished work at the cross have redemption and salvation, where as those who trust in any other means of salvation remain lost. When God saw his son die on a cross, he never intended that there be any other plan, or idea, or person or thing that would ever be acceptable to him. No other plan would save people.

Calvary is a finished work of God through Jesus Christ. Paul saw this and in our present text he says he will glory in nothing but the cross. In first Corinthians 2:2, he says he is determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul saw the folly of seeing anything else in the Scriptures worth glorying in. This meant he would not glory in any effort by man to do religious things. He would not glory in the law, or water baptism, or those who preached circumcision, or those who had great charisma or power. He knew that all power and grace flowed out of Calvary. In these verses he gives three reasons for glorying in the cross.

1) Paul gloried in the cross because believers are free from bondage to the world system of evil. Paul says, "through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." The life of a person apart from the Christ-life is the life of a victim of the evil world system.

2) Paul gloried in the cross because of its power to do what the flesh, weekened and corrupted by sin, could not do. As a Jew, he had done everything he could do in his own power to please God, " For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything , nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." But instead of pleasing God he discovered he was actually persecuting God's own Son, Acts 9:5. Circumcision does nothing significant, but the power of the cross makes the believer a new creation.

3) Paul gloried in the cross because it had the power to take care of every human who walked by the same rule by simply believing in Jesus Christ as his Savior. The law was written on tablets of stone and became the foundation of gods dealing with humans and lasted over 4000 years, until the cross come in there it died. The cross now lives as the foundation of Gods ultimate plan and will live throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.
 
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