0250. If the Jonah Sign Is Vain, the Cross Is Vain
If the Jonah Sign Is Vain, the Cross Is Vain
"And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins" (1Co_15:17).
1. The efficacy of the Cross rests on the Deity of Christ and His Deity rests upon His resurrection, the Jonah Sign.
If Christ is not raised our faith is vain. Why? (1) In the first place our faith is vain, because if Christ was not raised, He was not Deity, and if Christ had not been Deity, He could not have atoned for our sins.
There are those who seek to annihilate the fact of Christ’s Deity in His earth life, they annihilate the power of the Cross to save.
When destructive critics and modernists seek to take away from us the Virgin Birth, and the consequent Deity of Christ, they seek to rob us of a possible Saviour.
Jesus Christ as no more than perfect man, could have possessed no value by which He could have atoned for the sins of more than one imperfect man.
It is Christ, the Son of God, and Christ only as such, that makes it possible for the One to bear the sins of the many; that makes it possible for God to lay upon Him "the iniquity of us all."
(2) In the second place, if Christ had not been raised, every resultant of the Cross would have been lost, for we shall see in our next study, that if Christ is not risen, the saints who were saved and who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
2. If the efficacy of the Cross rests on the Deity of Christ, and His Deity rests upon the Jonah sign (and both do rest there) then all who reject the Jonah sign are yet in their sins.
This is God’s Word, and when God speaks let "every man be a liar."
Whether he be atheist, agnostic or infidel; whether he be a professed follower of Christ under any name, he who rejects the Deity of Christ, as attested by the Jonah sign, is yet in his sins; he is on the road to hell.
The Scripture is plain and the Scripture is positive: "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." And who is this "I am He"? Is it Joseph’s son? No. Is it a mere man of the flesh? No. It is the "I Am from above;" it is the "I Am not of this world;" it is the "I Am * * as My Father hath taught Me."
"I Am" is the Jehovah title. Every use of this wonderful "I Am" name of Christ proclaims Him Deity, "Before Abraham was, I am;" "I am the Light of the World;" "I am the Bread;" "I am the Door;" "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" "I am the Resurrection and the Life"–all of these expressions, demand His Deity.
Thus, if the Jonah sign is denied, the Deity is denied; if the Deity is denied, the Cross is denied; if the Cross is denied, all men are yet in their sins.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR