GOSPEL CALL: Crucifixion ‘still has impact’
God always thinks future, so when He does something, He does it with the future in mind.
It was on this premise that Pastor Michael Crichlow told the congregation at Trinity Outreach Ministries International recently that when God sent His Son to die for sinful man, He was not thinking about the now and then, as Jesus was mocked while on the Cross. He said God was essentially looking at mankind’s sinful state and making a way for the human race to be reconciled to God.
Access to man
According to the church leader, God has a different perspective of life than many people do. He sees life differently, and when Christ died, He had mankind on His mind, despite the sneers and jeers of small-minded people who mocked Him as He suffered a cruel death.
Crichlow said therefore that when the veil in the temple was ripped in two after Jesus’ death for a sinful world, that was God’s way of giving mankind access to Him and opening the door for relationship between God and man.
The pastor noted that unlike in the Old Testament when only the priests could enter through the veil in the tabernacle on the Day of Atonement each year, Jesus Christ’s death made it possible for everyone, despite their race, age or status in society, to have a close relationship with God.
“When Christ cried on the Cross ‘It is finished’, what was finished? It was the reconciliation of man. It was the justification of man and the redemption of man. A way was opened into the Holy of Holies and that is why in 2018, we can say ‘Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me’ and we could be in the throne room of Heaven where God is welcoming ‘everyone’ – the Greek, Jew and the Hebrew.”
He told those gathered at the service, held at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology, that man’s entrance into the Holy of Holies was not based on his holiness, but on the righteousness of Jesus Christ who “made a way where there was no way”.
Significant event
In his sermon which preceded a re-enactment of Christ’s death and burial, Crichlow constantly reminded his congregation that what happened years ago on Calvary’s cross was still impacting mankind today.
“I am here to tell you that one of the biggest events that happened way back then that is still impacting us today is the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
“Don’t let us brush it aside as though it happened a long time ago. Anybody who understands history will understand that when a significant event takes place in history, it impacts you down through the ages. I am here to say that the Crucifixion took place many, many years ago, but it is still impacting us today,” he stated.
He stressed that Jesus did not die back then for those people by putting on a performance for them. Rather, He was creating a life-saving passage – an entry into a relationship with God that would benefit people through the ages.