Why the Cross?

Last time we said our problem is not only that we ‘don’t know’ but that we ‘can’t do it’; sin has cut us off from God. Once the sickness is named, the next question is: how can we be made well?

Many teachings answer: try a little harder, do more good to cancel out the bad. That sounds fair. But the Bible gives a surprising answer: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8-9) and it is “not of works, that no one would boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Why isn’t effort enough? Because the sickness is not on the surface but at the root—as we said last time, we cannot control it. The Bible says it bluntly: “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) This is not meant to frighten; it means we are cut off from the source of life, and we cannot reconnect ourselves.

So God himself came to reconnect us. The most often quoted verse in the Bible is “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16-18) In Lesson 4 we read that Jesus was “becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8) The Bible says of that obedience, “through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18-19)—he walked the road we could not walk and gave us righteousness as a free gift.

God did not do this to condemn people, “but that the world should be saved through him.” (John 3:16-18) The Bible also promises, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) This is a gift; a gift is not earned—it can only be received, or not. The next lesson is the last on the Seeking Path: how to begin to believe.