Introduction

    In Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, he relates the struggle that took place in the early church over
circumcision. False brethren had crept into the fellowship with the aim of underhandedly establishing as
doctrine the requirement of circumcision for salvation. These ill-intentioned zealots of the law, having found
Jews preaching a righteousness coming not from religious codes or traditions, but from faith, felt so threatened
by the new message that they decided to scuttle the power of it by stealth. Like viral invaders, some infiltrated
the fellowship in Galatia, aiming to corrupt the church’s doctrine until it was re-conformed to familiar patterns
they were used to.

    We recognize this was no idle threat when we read that even Peter, in a separate incident, was once
cowed into submission when the pressures of Jewish legalism came to bear upon him. Paul tells us
unrepentantly that Peter, with others, “played the hypocrite” (Galatians 2:13) and contributed to the deceiving
of many including Barnabas.

    Thankfully, Paul and a few others recognized the import of this challenge, and stood resolutely against
it. We can only imagine how much was saved by this vigilance. If the church had accepted what was proposed,
we very possibly would not have much of a Christian history to speak of, though Judaism may have been
enriched by a strange blip in its development.

    Though relatively mild-looking at a glance, this was in reality a large-scale assault against the spiritual
core of the early church. This rather humble-looking doctrinal nuance, or at least it must have been proposed
as such, would have drained the Gospel of its power, reducing the early church to an historical irrelevancy.

    The issue was whether Jesus and His work at Calvary alone would be the basis of salvation, or would
the keeping of the law, and circumcision in particular, have a role also. In their choice of doctrine they were
choosing what to make the source of their spiritual life.  Some doctrinal battles are over which hub-caps to
place on the wheels. This battle was over what engine to put under the hood.

    One can understand how hard it might have been for a good Jew seemingly to forego the law of Moses,
which had been their hope and comfort since Mt. Sinai, and embrace faith in Jesus alone. However, Scripture
also makes very clear that this battle, when distilled to its essence, was a struggle between the flesh of man
and the Spirit of God.

    Paul saw no room for the compromise others seemed to have seen. You were either born of the flesh,
or born of the Spirit. In fighting words, Paul declared, “Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become
circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,” (Gal. 5:2) – one or the other, make your choice.

    Thank the Lord that Paul, after much battle, plucked this truth out from a slide into darkness, and raised
it again to its proper place as the central message of God to man.        


The Danger of Religious Abstractions

    We, born long after the Protestant Reformation, can take the understanding of salvation by faith in
Jesus alone for granted. So much so, in fact, that it is sometimes difficult for us to understand why struggles
like Paul’s even took place. That the early believers stumbled over this truth can strike us with the same sense
of consternation we might feel watching people debate the answer to 12 times 2.

    We can forget that the revelation of the object of believers’ faith – Jesus – was new to all of mankind in
the first century, and to believe in Him and His work on the cross, was a truth that had yet to be popularly
recognized. For the most part, completely different beliefs guided the thoughts and actions of men up to that
point in time. Paul and others had to fight for this new revelation, and when they obtained it for the church,
they recognized just how supremely precious it was.

    The dynamic of making a truth real in us has not changed from Paul’s day to ours. Truth must be
sought, and fought for, and possessed, or it remains a non-factor in our lives.

    The truth of Calvary can appear to be a simple “given” for believers in our generation, because no
born-again believer would openly dispute it. But I suggest some caution. If my experience is any guide, the
understanding of Calvary is just as ferociously fought over today as it was in the first century.

    The danger of having a truth too easily accessible to us is that we come to think we have possessed
it for ourselves only because we’ve heard it so often. Calvary is THE supreme revelation in the history of
mankind, and we can fool ourselves into thinking we have grasped the content of it only by virtue of repetition.

    For too many, Calvary is little more than a religious abstraction. It is a fuzzy event that somehow bears
on their lives, but exactly how they could not say. While the conventional images of the crucifixion hover near,
the reality of its spiritual substance frustratingly hangs far away.

    Too easily, a forced tragic sense of Christ’s sufferings is taken in lieu of true spiritual understanding,
and we make our sympathies to substitute for spiritual knowledge. Dark-hued medieval paintings depicting the
passion of Christ instruct us to measure our devotion by the pity we feel for what Jesus suffered. We are led to
find the main virtue of the crucifixion in the magnitude of pain the Lord experienced.

    But this view distracts us from the core meaning of Calvary. To see Jesus’s great work only in this way
is to degrade it to something earthly, and in that sense, unremarkable.

    The more we let pat images and representations take the place of real understanding, the more we
become fools of the Enemy. It is not only legalistic zealots whose views of God get lost under suffocating
religiosity; born-again believers, too, can veil their hearts in similar form, if not similar intensity.

    More than any would care to admit, people are hoodwinked by religious abstractions. They are a
constant danger, a tool of passivity, and a shroud underneath which the flesh can quietly carry on its activities.

    Paul fought ferociously to maintain the potent, unveiled reality of the cross in believers’ lives.  – “if we,
or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you . . . let him be accursed!” (Gal. 1:8,9)


The Meaning of Calvary

    The world and our flesh are content to keep Calvary at arm’s length, but the Lord never intends it to be
so. The power of Calvary is unlocked to us not when we sympathize with what happened there, but rather when
we identify with it.

    We are not meant to be mere admirers of what took place at Calvary; we are called to be participants of
it by faith. Calvary was not meant to be an awesome spectacle to look upon, but an experience by identification
through faith. Calvary should be deeply and intensely personal to us.

    “I have been crucified with Christ.” (Gal. 2:20)  Put aside for a moment any nice tunes and sweet
cadences that go with the verse. For a moment just think deeply into its raw meaning. I have been executed.
My old nature has been slain. How? In Christ.

    Jesus was crucified at Calvary – “I have been crucified.” Jesus lives – “I live by faith in the Son of God.”
Do our spirits embrace and own these truths?

    Calvary should be as real and as practical as the sidewalk we step upon. If the mention of the word only
brings to our minds sorrowful images of Mary kneeling next to Jesus’s wilting body – inspiration galore for
stained glass artisans through the centuries – we have not penetrated into the reality of Calvary; we have only
admired the face of it.

    The mind will always fall short of understanding Calvary, because what happened there is supremely
supernatural. Faith alone bridges the gap. Faith reaches across the divide and makes the supernatural real in
us.

    The mind says, how can this be? Faith says, I have been executed . . . this is true and I accept it. Some
become very uncomfortable submitting their intellects in this way. But human wisdom has no power to
understand the “how” of Calvary. Godly wisdom teaches us simply to say yes to its provision. As Paul said,
“Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.” (1 Corinthians 1:22,23)

    Put another way, Calvary is not understood primarily by intellectual effort. Rather the understanding of
it is accepted by faith.

    Certainly the truth of Calvary is deep and untraceable. But in another sense, if we have had any
exposure to Scripture, its truth lies on the surface of our perception. The only question is, will we believe it?  
When light finally broke into my heart, I was surprised at how easily it came when I simply decided to believe.
What kept me back was not any weakness of head, but faithless complexity in the heart.

    Believe the provision of Calvary, and our lives will change forever. Keep it far off, and our lives can only
be a series of failings and frustrations. Calvary is the beginning of all else we have in Christ. As much as all of
God’s promises are yes and amen in Jesus, they are no and never outside of Him.
The new life is planted in Him alone.


Calvary: The Door to Freedom

    Calvary is our door to freedom. Freedom is a direct result of the cross. The execution of my sin-ridden
man pulls the rug out from under whatever force purposes to throw incapacitating guilt upon me. What has
died can no longer feel the barbs of condemnation. Or as Paul said, “Do you not know . . . that the law has
dominion over a man as long as he lives?” (Romans 7:1)

    To understand Calvary is to have opened before us the path to true spiritual liberty. Faith in the
workings of Calvary is power to ward off every evil assault against our souls.

    To lose sight of Calvary is to fight blindfolded. If we are not keenly aware of the basis of our freedom,
then we are ill-equipped to fight for it. Truth is our weapon, and the weapon is grasped in our hands by
understanding. If we don’t know why we can defeat the Enemy, how can we defeat him? Consider what Jessie
Penn-Lewis says in War on the Saints, in a chapter entitled “The Path to Freedom”:

    “Wrong thought and belief, which gave ground to evil spirits for possession, must be detected
    and given up. The basis of acceptance or refusal must be knowledge, not a passing thought, or
    impression.  It is for this reason that understanding is such an important factor in deliverance.”  
    (Jessie Penn-Lewis, War on the Saints, Thomas E. Lowe, Ltd., New York, 1986, p. 192, emphases
    added)

    Know, then, very well why you can refuse the devil before you do it. Rebukes against the Enemy bereft
of understanding are words tossed into the wind. But a rebuke backed by knowledge of our position in Jesus
Christ lands a hammer-blow on the Enemy’s head.

    In the warfare, the basis for every effective action against the Enemy is the cross. While patently
fundamental, this is too easily forgotten. When we pray that we claim freedom for ourselves, we really mean
that we claim freedom on the basis of Calvary. A claim to freedom, per se, is powerless. An optimistic Sing Sing
prisoner can claim freedom, but in Sing Sing he will remain. However, a claim based on God’s completed work
of liberation is a truth that brings down the prison walls.

    To claim freedom without actively believing the provision of Calvary leaves our fate little better than that
of the man in Sing Sing. But when we truly believe our lives – our Adamic natures – to be dead with Jesus, and
now also resurrected brand-new with Him, no power has any right anymore to hold us down.

    When we pray for freedom, we pray with our understanding. Prayer that is grounded in and motivated
by a right view of truth, brings down upon the Earth the full weight of spiritual reality, as established by God. As
Paul said, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding.” (1 Corinthians 14:15)

    It is likely that those who have found spiritual freedom an elusive ideal, also find Calvary to be something
of an impenetrable mystery. For such people, the key to unlocking the iron door standing between them and
abundant life may be more in fighting for understanding of the cross than in directly fighting for freedom. When
Calvary is made our foundation, freedom will come inevitably. But freedom cannot come by itself without the
knowledge of Calvary.

    Revelation is the answer for any bewilderment. The truth of Calvary cannot be “inherited” from others,
no matter how godly and wise they are. They can orient us, certainly, but it remains that Calvary is made a
personal possession only by personal revelation.

    While revelation doesn’t come on a silver platter three times a day, and while the Enemy works overtime
to keep us from it, revelation does come to those who seek it. Therefore, seek revelation, and do not give up in
the pursuit of it. And when you know the truth, the truth will set you free.


Closing Thoughts

    To those frustrated pilgrims who have known little relief from assault and bondage, my prayers go out.  
Like myself, I am sure many saints have wished for the power to believe a truth into the life of another. But it
cannot be so. Each individual must walk, by personal choice, as a son or daughter of God.

    I will be the last to say the fight is easy. I would be mouthing empty words I didn’t believe if I did so.
Paul’s experience also instructs us that there are costs attached to gaining the things of the Lord.

    Nevertheless, the great hope of Calvary remains. Whatever reasons may hold us back from it, the power
of God to transform our lives stands unwavering. Reasons one through a hundred of why we can’t are no
match against why He can: whatever the reasons, Calvary covers them all.

Copyright ©2002 Stephen J. Ahn
   (Message given at the New Testament Missionary Fellowship, New York)

 Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version ©1999.
Calvary Covers it All:
The Meaning of the Cross in a Believer’s Life
“My guilt and despair,
Jesus took on him there,
And Calvary covers it ALL.”
Mrs. Walter G. Taylor
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