You And I at Calvary

I hope that in some small way, this lesson will help us draw closer to God, You and I at Calvary.  Through our mind’s eye of faith, I want us to travel back in time almost 2000 years to the Via de la Rosa as a Nazarene carries an old rugged cross through the streets of Jerusalem.  Maybe we ask ourselves, what has this Nazarene done to cause this?  Maybe we ridicule and mock Him as He journeys.  The cross became so heavy He falls beneath the load.  One, Simon of Cyrene, is compelled to take up the cross and carries it for Him.  We all follow through the gates of the walled city of Jerusalem to the place of the skull, Golgotha, or Calvary.

You may be thinking, ‘I wasn't there, neither was he'. You are correct, neither you nor I were present at the cross some 2,000 years ago. But I would suggest to you that our influence was there. As Jesus endured such awful hostility, we need to realize that it was not for His crimes. He had no crimes. It was not for any type of evil, which He had done, for He accomplished no evil. He was beaten, bruised, crowned with thorns, whipped, scourged, and finally nailed to a tree for things that YOU AND I had committed.

Paul, in Romans 5:12, wrote "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”  Paul did not say that we are recipients of death because of Adam's sin. Many of our religious friends hold to a doctrine of Adamic sin, or original sin. This Scripture is used in support of such a doctrine. Yet, it says nothing of the sort. Did Paul write, "...thus death spread to all men, because all ARE SUBJECT TO ADAM'S SIN"? No, he wrote, "...thus death passed upon all men, because all sinned..." If we are in a condemned state, it is because of our own sin, not Adam's.

Now, how does this relate us to the cross of Calvary? If all sinned, then we have sinned. Romans 3: 23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”  If we have sinned, then we have contributed to the reason for Jesus going to the cross. John the Baptist said of Jesus in John 1:29, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." All too often we generalize the sin that put Jesus on the cross. Might we realize, ‘It was OUR sin (yours and mine) that put Jesus on the cross.