The message of the Christian faith has gotten cloudy. There are the fish symbols on the trunks of cars, the signs that say "repent or burn in hell," the anti-abortion rallies, license plate slogans, clever T-shirt designs, bumper stickers, TV preachers condemning homosexuality, and the promise of a happy life if you would just follow ten points from a motivational message. Christians should speak out. But this kind of Christian activism could also be covering up the very heart of the Christian message itself - the wonderful and powerful story of the cross.

At last, the movie "The Passion of the Christ" exposed Christianity’s powerful secret to the world. Sure, Christians made films before. But the world largely ignored them for being low-budgeted and B-rated. Some big-budget films about Jesus were too soft and politically correct to bring out the edginess of the truth. Then, overnight, the world’s laughter suddenly turned into fear, hatred, and controversy. In the past 100 years, the reality of the suffering of Jesus Christ lay buried beneath happy Jesus cartoons in Sunday School handouts and flannel boards. Modern life is now well insulated from the ancient cruelties such as disembowelment, drawn and quartering, beastly mauling, and of course, crucifixion. Now, an experienced filmmaker brought the agonizing torture of the crucifixion to millions of modern movie-goers. Part of the world hates him for doing that.

But to the Christian, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is the source of genuine and lasting transformation. True change in my life did not come until I understood the meaning of the cross. From my reading of Scripture, I realized that God came to earth as a man, Jesus Christ, to endure beatings and torture for my sake. He was whipped with leather cords tipped with bits of bone and metal that tore into His back. He dragged His cross as far as He could until He fell from exhaustion. Then, without any pain killers, the guards hammered six to eight inch nails into His palms and his feet, and propped up the cross so that His body weight stretched the holes around the nails. After He died, He rose from the dead to prove that this death was no accident.

The Bible explains why He endured death: God demonstrates His love for us in this - while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10). He is the atoning [human] sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). In other words, I could imagine Christ whispering as He hung in agony, "Randy, I did this for you." Jesus died for me! He took upon Himself the punishment and condemnation that I deserved. I was supposed to be punished in hell, but Christ took that torture instead. Oh joy! He freed me from tyranny of sin!

When I finally understood the depth of God's love as demonstrated through Christ's death, I could not help but want to live a godly life. I had a greater motivation to study the Bible, pray, and serve God than ever before. The Bible describes this miraculous change in these words: In view of God's mercy [Christ's death to take away sins], offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God... (Rom. 12:1). The Bible then goes on to explain how God continues to change those who believe: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control... (Gal. 5:22)

Do you desire life-transformation? Then you must understand the cross. You will never grasp the depth of God's love until you understand the cross. You will never desire to live for God until you understand the cross. You will never see change in your neighborhood, until they understand the cross. Paul, the greatest preacher of the early church, underlined the power of the cross: for the message 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)

Yes, for the most part, although Mel Gibson has taken artistic liberties about some of the details. The Scriptures provide the basic idea of Christ’s suffering – that He was flogged, He received a crown of thorns, struck in the face, carried His own cross part of the way, and was crucified (John 19). Remember that the original readers of the Bible would have known the true manner and method of the tortures of their day. That is why the Bible writers did not elaborate on the details of the flogging and the crucifixion. Yet we have enough archeological discoveries and historical records to demonstrate that the tortures to Christ were truly horrible.

In 1968, the bones of an ancient crucified man were discovered just north of Jerusalem. The cross on which the man was hung was so hard and knotty, that one of the nails bent as it was hammered into the wood. The executioners found the nail impossible to pull out. As a result, they buried part of the cross with the bones of the man, who was still stuck to the wood. When discovered, the bones and the cross fragment gave us valuable clues to the nature of crucifixion. Writes historian Peter Connolly,

About the scourging of Jesus, Connolly writes,

First, it was out of fear. They feared losing the system of religion that kept them in power, prestige, and well-fed. Touch a dog’s food bowl and he will snap and growl at you. They had to maintain the fragile political balance to keep the powerful Romans from taking back the freedoms and privileges granted to the priests. This is why they said, "If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." (John 11:48)

Second, it was out of jealousy. According to the book of Acts, the Jewish religious rulers from both the Sadducee party and the Pharisee party violently opposed the new Christian movement. Jesus and later the apostles were gaining followers by the thousands.

Third, it was out of their own religious zeal. The historian, Flavius Josephus, around 100 A.D., records that the religious rulers posted an inscription at the entrance to the Jewish temple that forbid all Gentiles (i.e. non-Jews) to enter the temple "upon pain of death." Such a death penalty sounds harsh by modern Western standards. But this kind of violent zeal is still found in fundamentalist Muslim societies today.

I am. You too. If I were not a sinner, Christ would not need to die to take the punishment for my sins.

By believing in Him. First, you must believe that you are a sinner, who is far from God’s perfect standard of holiness and righteousness (Romans 3:23). Second, you must believe that as a sinner you only deserve eternal punishment, even though you have tried your best to be good. (Romans 6:23). Third, you must believe that God loves you so much that He had His own Son Jesus Christ to suffer and die on a cross to take the punishment that you deserved (Romans 5:8). Fourth, you must believe in all that the Bible claims about Jesus, including that He is Lord of all, and that He has risen from the dead and is alive today (Romans 10:9). If you believe these four basic points of the Christian faith, then, according to God’s own Word, you can be sure that you belong to Jesus Christ and are within His covering of love. Then, from the power of the Holy Spirit that God grants to believers, and out of your gratitude for the salvation that Christ has given to you, you will find yourself hating sin, and desiring to follow Jesus Christ more and more.

And now, to be absolutely clear about the power of the cross for those who believe, here are some answers to the five most popular myths about life transformation:

It is not enough for one to say "I believe in God." All Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and New-Agers say "I believe in God." According to the Scriptures, ...even the demons believe that - and shudder. (James 2:19) If going to heaven depended only on one's belief in God, then why did Jesus need to die on a cross?

Again, if one's salvation, let alone the rescue of an entire country, depended on one's sorrow for sins and fervent prayer, then why did Jesus come here to earth to die? Of course, God certainly wants Christians to repent and pray. But if God had to wait for us to repent and pray sufficiently, then it will never happen - we could never pray fervently enough or repent earnestly enough to merit God's favor. Have you ever prayed and your mind wandered? Have you ever repented of your sins, yet committed a sin the next day? See, our ability to repent and pray is not enough.

If our entrance into heaven depended on our ability to make a commitment to Jesus Christ, none of us would get in. If you have made such a commitment to follow Jesus Christ, then disobeyed one of God's commandments (e.g. lust, hatred), then you have momentarily broken your commitment. We cannot make and keep commitments perfectly enough to earn our salvation. Although God wants all Christians to strengthen their commitment to Him, our salvation does not depend on our ability to keep commitments.

John 1:13 says, ...to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision... In other words, even your decision-making power isn't enough. How many times have you given into temptation after having made a "decision" for Christ? At that moment of weakness, whether you fell into dishonesty, greed, or a white lie, you have decided at that moment not to follow Christ. If our salvation depended on our ability to decide for Jesus Christ, we would frequently lose our salvation and we could never have hope and security in life. The Bible in fact says that people are born incapable of deciding for Jesus Christ on their own. Romans 3:10 says, There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away... In John 6:44, Jesus said, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him... If we cannot decide for Jesus on our own, then how do people turn to Jesus Christ? The answer is that there must be an enormous power working way beyond what we feel our feeble minds doing.

Not true. Jesus through His death on the cross earned the believer such extensive forgiveness that all sins are covered. 1 John 2:1 says, But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. Temporary lapses into sinful habits do not necessarily negate our salvation. Romans 8:38-39 says, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians 1:13-14 says, Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance... In other words, Christ's death is so powerful that it earned us God's forgiveness for all sins - past, present, and future.