The Offense Of The Cost

Someone reported my most recent post as offensive. I wrote about beholding the payment for our sin and I used a picture of crucified feet, showing the brutality of the crucifixion of Christ. Whoever reported the picture said the picture of crucified feet was too graphic, they were offended by it, and reported it to be censored. 

Imagine that. The reality of the crucifixion too graphic for someone to behold. And that, beloved, is the reality of the cross of Christ— it is severe and it is obscene and that offends us. It is too graphic, too brutal, too bloody. So we look away to preserve ourselves. We turn away from the cost of sin because it disturbs us too much.
We want beauty, not ashes. We want comfort, not sorrow. But God says He gives us beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for our mourning— it’s an exchange (Isaiah 61:3). Thus, we must not turn away from the truth that the beautiful glory of the resurrection only came through the macabre severity of the crucifixion. 

But we don’t want to look. We don’t want to see. Everything in us wants to look away, to seek the good without first facing and understanding the bad. But the ordained story of humanity is God first teaching us about the bad, so that we can understand the value of the good. Showing us a fallen creation before a perfected one. Allowing the reality of sin to be played out in the fullness of its destruction, to make us wise to His righteousness as we wait for the fullness of restoration. We chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and this is the price. 

But still, we don’t want to look. We don’t want to face the ugly. But when we look at Scripture we see that is exactly why God sent the prophets, and that is exactly why the prophets were killed. God sent prophets to make people face the ugly so they could be healed. But we don’t like the ugly, so those whom God sent were killed so they would stop speaking of it. Human flesh desires pleasure and comfort, so it says, “Tell us only of the beauty! Tell us only of the joy!” But that is not why God sent prophets. God always sent prophets to say “Behold your spiritual truth. Behold the cost of sin. And don’t look away.” And when we look at Scripture we see that God often sent prophets when the people were at their lowest, when all they wanted was encouragement, but God sent them severity. And severity is offensive. 

The Gospel is the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. It may not make sense to us to tell hurting people to look at it. To behold the obscenity and severity of it. It didn’t make sense to Jews who had been waiting for their Messiah and King and it didn’t make sense to Greeks who idolized knowledge and power. Both Jew and Greek were offended— for two thousand years it has caused Jews to stumble and Gentiles to mock (1 Cor 1:23). But the truth of both the ugliness of our spiritual condition and the beauty of our salvation is that God was crucified on a cross. That is how He chose to save us and that is what we must face for our healing. 

I find it ironic that my Facebook warning says, “...some people may choose not to see it...” Indeed. Some people may choose not to look at what God did to save us from our sin. Which is why I also find it ironic when we choose to look away in offense from the cost of our salvation, when it was the price required because of our offense to God. 

(Romans 1:16) I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.

(1 Cor 1:22-24) Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.