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An Obscene Mass of Concentrated Sin
- 02/20/10
- 9
Earlier this week I read, or re-read, actually, R.C. Sproul’s The Truth of the Cross (an ideal book to read before Easter should you wish to prepare your heart to celebrate). In a chapter looking at the Scriptural motifs of blessing and curse, he looks at the fulfillment of the rite of circumcision.
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The sign of the old covenant was circumcision. The cutting of the foreskin had two significances, one positive and one negative, corresponding to the two sanctions. On the positive side, the cutting of the foreskin symbolized that God was cutting out a group of people from the rest, separating them, setting them apart to be a holy nation. The negative aspect was that the Jew who underwent circumcision was saying, “Oh, God, if I fail to keep every one of the terms of this covenant, may I be cut off from You, cut off from Your presence, cut off from the light of Your countenance, cut off from Your blessedness, just as I have now ritually cut off the foreskin of my flesh.”
The cross was the supreme circumcision. When Jesus took the curse on Himself and so identified with our sin that He became a curse, God cut Him off, and justly so. At the moment when Christ took on Himself the sin of the world, His figure on the cross was the most grotesque, most obscene mass of concentrated sin in the history of the world. God is too holy to look on iniquity, so when Christ hung on the cross, the Father, as it were, turned His back. He averted His face and He cut off His Son. Jesus, Who, touching His human nature, had been in a perfect, blessed relationship with God throughout His ministry, now bore the sin of God’s people, and so He was forsaken by God.
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If Jesus was not forsaken on the cross, we are still in our sins. We have no redemption, no salvation. The whole point of the cross was for Jesus to bear our sins and bear the sanctions of the covenant. In order to do that, He had to be forsaken. Jesus submitted Himself to His Father’s will and endured the curse, that we, His people, might experience the ultimate blessedness.
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And even today we are given the responsibility and the unmeasurable privilege of living within that ultimate blessedness.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (9)
Now i feel like buying this book.
Thanks Tim.
“Jesus, Who, touching His human nature, had been in a perfect, blessed relationship with God throughout His ministry, now bore the sin of God’s people, and so He was forsaken by God.”
The Ftaher loved His Son, and the Son loved the Father. A perfect love. A absolute holy and flawless love and affection, that we only have the faintest taste of, was severed.
The pain must have been beyond what any of us can imagine. For a mother to have her new born abe taken from her, and even killed; and even the mother doing the killing, is a slight glimpse perhaps of the great love that turned to sinners and embraced us rebels, who hated God and sought only slef-fulfillment in this life.
Thanks for the post. Excellent. I know some disagree that Christ was forsaken, but I think it’s obvious from the Scriptures. Also, it became pitch dark for three hours as Jesus descnded into hell as it were, to pay for the hundreds of thousands of sins I committed, and to blot them out in full payment, as He drank the cup of His Father to the last dregs.
What Love!
Have a blessed Lord’s day.
I can’t come close to imagining what it was like for out Lord to endure this. I will love Him for ever for going to the cross for me.
Craig
You said that “Jesus took the curse on Himself and so identified with our sin” and “His figure on the cross was the most grotesque, most obscene mass of concentrated sin in the history of the world.” We have to be very careful of the observations that we make concerning what happened when Christ was on the cross and these comment are way out of line. “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” and “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Are you saying that Jesus Christ our Lord became a murderer, rapist and thief when he hung on the cross? If he did, then he could not have risen from the dead. Jesus did not become a sinner, He became sin (He became the representative sin-bearer for the world). Jesus was made to be sin for us in a substitutional way, but He was never made to be sinful in a personal way. It was grotesque in the type of death that he died but it was no “mass concentration of sin” and he did become a curse because “cursed is every man that hangs on a tree”.
In one sentence Sproule is saying Jesus took on the sin of the world. In another sentence in the same paragraph Sproule links Jesus’ sin bearing with His people alone. So which is it? Whole world or God’s people alone?
I’d have to agree withJPC also above
How does Sproule biblically come up with the phrase “The cross was the supreme circumcision”? Is he not pushing the biblical symbolism further than the actual language of scripture reveals?
I agree with HPC and AJY. Even further, how is circumcision, instituted before the Law at the covenant with Abraham, related to keeping a covenant (“if I fail to keep every one of the terms of this covenant”) that is unconditional? There were no terms to be kept in the covenant with Abraham according to Genesis 12,15, and 17, except for circumcision. Are we to transfer circumcision to the Mosaic covenant?
I think that some of the responders to this post are taking the idea a bit too far. Allegorically, it makes sense. Circumcision is not the only symbol that can be paralleled with the Cross action; it is merely one of many that represents sin and what Christ did - He took the sin upon him (representing the foreskin) and God had to cut Him off because of His own justice and holiness. It’s not too crazy to think of, but, of course, I don’t think that it is a literal metaphor. The Scriptures do not parallel the two, so, as it is something we may use in explaining the Cross, we cannot claim it as fact, and I wouldn’t use it to create a theological argument.
Oh and in regards to circumcision it was a symbol but not of Jesus Christ dying on the cross. “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” and “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
How does Sproul biblically come up with the phrase “The cross was the supreme circumcision”? Is he not pushing the biblical symbolism further than the actual language of scripture reveals?”
Jesus became sin for us sinners (2 Cor. 5:21), and was made a curse for those cursed by God. This is a deep, and very difficult truth, and authentic fact that RC is explaining, and I think he has brought together the ugliness and beauty of the Cross.
The Cross shines with Christ’s love, and our Father’s mercy, and is full of heavy darkness of our Lord’s sorrow, pain, and agony. It also displays God the Father’s wrath and condemnation.
RC could be right with his teaching. Yet, there’s room for disagreement.I tend to agree with Dr. Sproul.
have a blessed Lord’s day.