²For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

We have been studying the words of our Lord in the last hours of His earthly life. Too often, this is left out of our thought life and meditations until a few weeks before Easter, when the mood turns somber and reflective. However, we err to limit our reflection of something so central to Christian salvation, our spiritual life, and the glory of God. What Christ did on the cross is absolutely astounding! We cannot add enough exclamation marks; no thesaurus can provide enough words to adequately give verbal expression, description, and adoring praise to our Lord for who He is and what He has done for us. In the very death of our Lord, God manifests His glory in the clearest possible way. Jesus’ death is the fulcrum of God’s character interacting with this sin-fallen world in a way that causes demons to shudder and saints to rejoice.

The apostle Paul proclaimed Jesus’ death on the cross as the center of everything he taught and did. Listen carefully to what he wrote:

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1:18)

For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness. (1 Cor. 1:22–23)

For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. (1 Cor. 2:2)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:3–4)

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14)

The cross is the supreme magnifying glass to help us see God’s wonderful character and work in Christ. When we meditate on what Jesus thought His suffering and death, through His own words, we begin to understand God’s thoughts about what took place there. It is more than simply recognizing that we are saved because of what Jesus did. God wants us to go deeper in knowing Him, and we do not exaggerate by saying that we will never exhaust the infinite knowledge of Him, who is forever and ever.

The words of Christ as He approached His sacrifice on the cross for our sins give us His perspective for going deeper in our worship, higher in our praise, and more fulfilled in our joy. For we grow more and more like our Lord as we see Him more as He is, and in this, we gain a foretaste of what the beloved disciple John wrote about Him:

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2)

Lord, we worship You with all that we have and are, for You alone are worthy!