The Goodness of Man

The Goodness of Mankind and the Cross of Christ

Mark 15:16-39

If you were to ask a variety of people around the world, do you consider mankind evil; do you consider mankind sinful; do you consider mankind wicked, the vast majority, if not everyone would probably say, No , mankind is not evil, wicked, or sinful. Mankind is basically good.

Unfortunately, the Word of God says otherwise.

The Word of God tells us that sin started through Adam, and continued from generation to generation to generation and will continue with all the mankind, including you and including me.

Rom. 5:19 tells us that sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and that through Adam it spread to all men, so that all mankind, including you and including me were made to be sinners.

No, No, No mankind is basically good

The Word of God says otherwise,

Gen. 6:5 – the wickedness of man was so great on the earth; that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Ah, mankind is basically good

Exodus 32:31 – my people have committed a great sin against me, and they have made a god of gold for themselves.

Mankind is basically good

Eccl. 7:20 – Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.

Mankind is basically good.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart of man is more deceitful than all else; it is desperately wicked.

Mankind is basically good

Mark 7:21-23 – Out of the heart of mankind, proceeds evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All of these evil things proceed from within the heart of man.

But, mankind is basically good

Rom. 1:21-32 –

Mankind’s foolish heart was darkened –

· That they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man.

· That they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

It says that they took pleasure in wickedness –

· As a result of their degrading passions, they exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, women with women and men with men burned in their desire toward one another, committed indecent acts.

· They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, in their depraved mind, they did those things which were not proper; they were filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, slanderer, hatred of God, insolence arrogance, boastfulness, inventions of evil, disobedience to parents.

· They were without understanding; they were untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.

· And not only have they committed such evil s acts , but they also give hearty approval to those who did the same

But mankind is basically good.

Gal. 5:19-21 –

The deeds of mankind, on display for the entire world to see,

· Deeds of immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and other things such as these

But mankind is basically good.

2 Tim. 3:1-5 – Mankind has become lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

But mankind is basically good

In short – Rom. 3:10,23 – tells us there is none righteous, No not even one; for all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of god.

MANKIND IS NOT BASICALLY GOOD

The truth of the matter is that the word of God spells out, sin is in abundance in the world today. Sin is in abundance in you and in me. And, if I am perfectly honest with myself and with the sin that is in me, I will know that I am capable of committing every and any sin I just read. Sin is in abundance in the world today, but fortunately for mankind, sin was nailed to the cross in the person of Jesus Christ.

Here the word of the Lord from Marks Gospel

Mark 15: . . .

16 The soldiers took Him away into the palace and they called together the whole

Roman cohort.

17 They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it

on Him;

18 and they began to acclaim Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

19 They kept beating His head with a reed, and spitting on Him, and kneeling and

bowing before Him.

20 After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own

garments on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him.

22 Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a

Skull.

24 And they crucified Him.

26 The inscription of the charge against Him read, “THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

34 At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama

sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You

forsaken Me?”

37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.

If you were to ask a variety of people throughout the world, what is the solution for all of the evil in the world today – most people’s response would be centered on mankind taking control of the situation and fixing it. They would say that man made the problem, thus man should and can correct the problem.

They would all agree with the words of a poem entitled “Invictus”, penned by humanist author William Henley:

Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud,

Under the bludgeoning of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears, looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years, finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll,

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

Me, I, mankind; I made the problem and I‘ll fix the problem. I am the master of my own fate and I am the captain of my own soul and how dare you tell me otherwise. Throughout all of history mankind has done almost everything imaginable to come up with a solution for sin and evil in the world.

Throughout all of history, of all the things that mankind has done, the most prevalent one is to come up with all sorts of different kinds of religions. They tell you do your best to reach out to whatever god you may believe in, and as long as you do your best to reach out to god and believe in him, everything is going to be alright. Of all the millions of problems that we could find with this approach, the most basic one is this – it is not in line with God’s plan. God’s plan is to reach down to mankind in offering a relationship with Him. Gods plan is centered on the Person of His Son Jesus Christ. God’s plan is to reach down to mankind in love through His one and only Son, the Savior, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

Dorothea Day captures it well in here work entitled My Captain –

Out of the light that dazzles me, bright as the sun from pole to pole,

I thank the God I know to be, for Christ the conqueror of my soul.

Since His the sway of circumstance, I would not wince nor cry aloud

Under that rule which men call chance, my head with joy is humbly bowed.

Beyond this place of sin and tears, lies life with Him! And His the aid,

Despite the menace of the years, He keeps and shall keep me unafraid.

I have no fear though strait the gate, He cleared from punishment the scroll.

Christ is the Master of my fate, Christ is the Captain of my soul!

God’s plan is the offering of forgiveness, by grace, through faith in the substitutionary death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. By placing one’s trust in Christ and Christ alone, one is adopted into the family of God and promised eternal life with Him.

Again, all solutions to sin boil down into two categories; man’s ideas and man’s ways, or God ideas and God’s plan. God’s plan is by far better than man’s. His plan is far above all that mankind could possibly conceive.

We have looked and seen straight from the word of God the sinfulness and the evilness of mankind, the wickedness of mankind. We have seen God’s plan of reaching down and offering a relationship in love through His Son in the Person of Jesus Christ. We want to take a moment and look at God’s Plan in action. How was it that it came about? How was it that He put His plan for mankind to seen, to be able to accepted, believed, and received?

We are told in the scripture to remember Christ sacrifice on the cross. If you are like me and been in many a communion service, you have heard the pastor say, “ Do this in remembrance of me” that is a quote from Jesus that He gave His disciples at the last supper.

For most people including me when you hear, “Do this in remembrance of me”, you hear – do this just to remember what Jesus did for you; do this to call to mind Christ’s crucifixion on your behalf. I would submit to you that though accurate and good, these are incomplete.

When the disciples heard Jesus say, “Do this in remembrance of me”, they heard the word remembrance and heard Jesus saying to them – Do this in an affectionate calling to mind, of the person of Christ or of Me; do this in an affectionate calling to mind of who I am and what I am going to do for you. When we hear this, we should hear, “Do this and affectionately, passionately and thankfully remember who Jesus is, and what He has done on your behalf.

Going back to this group of people to whom we have been asking questions, if you were to ask the same variety of people – what was the worst part of the crucifixion of Christ, what was the most difficult for Christ on the cross; again most, if not all would immediately go to the physical suffering that he endured. They would go to the physical pain and torture that He had to go through. And again while this is a good answer, and true, indeed its incomplete.

As was read earlier, the crucifixion was more than just physical suffering. It began with Jesus being taken to a trial that was illegal. He was then mocked before soldiers. The prison guards spit on Him, punched Him in the face over and over again, and ridiculed Him. They then put a crown of thorns on Him. History tells that they were four to five inches in length. The crown was placed on His head and with sticks they began to beat Him over and over, pushing those thorns deeper and deeper into His head; all the while mocking Him and all the while verbally abusing Him with one insult after another. After this they scourged Him, which involves the professional executioner beating Jesus with long leather strands and at the end of each strand were tips and bits of bone and metal so that with each whip it would dig into the flesh and pull away more and more every time. The purpose of this was to demoralize and weaken Jesus. The next step was the journey to the place of execution. Jesus was paraded through the streets being mocked, being insulted by the very same people who one week earlier said, Hail the King, Hail the King. The purpose of this was public humiliation. And after enduring the humiliation, Jesus now had to endure the next and the final step of the process the crucifixion itself. Its purpose was death.

Jesus was nailed to the cross, the most physically agonizing death possible. For any other victim of crucifixion this was the beginning of the end of the agony. But not for Jesus, He still had the worst was yet to come.

Far beyond the physical suffering was the mental and emotional suffering Christ endured. Far beyond all the physical torture was the mental and physical pain that hit Jesus like nothing else.

The worst came when Jesus cried – My God, My God why have You forsaken Me? This could literally be translated My God, My God why have You deserted me or My God my God Why have You abandoned me?

This was indeed the worst for Jesus. This was the darkest and worst moment of His earthly life. If we only focus on the physical sufferings of Christ, then we miss the true meaning of the cross. It was at that point Jesus entered into spiritual death - separation from the Father as the sinner’s Substitute.

When Jesus was on the cross He spoke to His Father three times. Only here does He address Him as “God”. Both other times He calls Him “Father”. The address has the tone of alienation, of distance. For indeed, the Son had been spiritually removed from the Father. Jesus had never known a time when He was not the delight of His Fathers eyes. Fellowship had never before been broken. And now, because he was bearing weight of the sins of mankind, God in His holiness, could no longer fix His gaze upon His son. Why had the Father forsaken, or deserted, His Son? It was because at that period when Jesus took our sins upon Himself, and paid the price of death on our behalf, God - who is Holy - could not sustain fellowship with His Son. The full, crushing weight of sin He bore alone. Though He was forsaken only temporarily, He knows firsthand the pain of separation from God experienced by every human being.

Yet in light of the mental, emotional, and physical suffering, there is one more thing that can not be overlooked.

All of it would mean nothing; all of it would be completely meaningless, were not the right person on the cross. As the one and only Son of God, Jesus was the only one qualified to go to the cross on behalf of man. Jesus is the only one qualified to be an ALL sufficient Savior. Christ and Christ alone had to die on the cross. Jesus was the only one qualified to die in your place and Jesus was the only one qualified to die in my place.

And what I find the most amazing about it all is that he did it for such an evil, wicked, sinful mankind. What I find the most amazing about it all is that He did it for such an evil, wicked, sinful person like me. And, He did it did it out of love for all of mankind.

The very one who deserved nothing more than to be loved and served, gave the ultimate example of love and service on the cross.

John tells us: Great love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

Mark tells us: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many!

May we remember, affectionately call to mind, this perfect example and in doing so may we focus on the person of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.