Posted by Jared Mellinger

This coming Sunday we start our next preaching series, In My Place: Why the Death of Jesus Matters.  It’s a series on the doctrine of penal substitution – what the Bible has to say about Jesus Christ willfully enduring the wrath of God in our place, receiving the penalty for our sins on the cross. 

The pastoral team has been eagerly anticipating this series.  The message of the cross has been and will continue to be our treasure as a church.  It is our favorite subject at Covenant Fellowship, and I trust this will always be clear not only from our preaching, but also from our praying, our singing, our ministry, and our fellowship.    

But you might be wondering: haven’t we heard enough about the cross?  Do we really need more preaching on the death of Christ?  Aren’t there more urgent subjects that need to be addressed?  Why do we keep beating the same drum?  Enough on the cross already!

Just in case you’re wondering if I’ve really given thought to this, let me offer fifteen reasons why I think we need more preaching on the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross (and why I believe we will always need more preaching on this greatest of subjects!).  

We need to hear the message of penal substitution...

1.      Because our understanding and appreciation of the cross is directly tied to our maturity as a church, and is the ultimate measure of true spirituality.

2.      Because the cross in not merely the entry point into the Christian life, but the engine and ongoing source of all Christian growth.  

3.      Because the message of the cross is the source of all our joy, hope, peace, confidence, and comfort in this world.  No hope without it!

4.      Because we can become familiar with gospel language and still neglect digging deeper into gospel truth.

5.      Because nowhere do we see more clearly the transforming sight of the glory of Jesus Christ than in his substitutionary death.

6.      Because the message of the cross is the most important and only essential message in all of history.

7.      Because this most important message of the church is not now, nor has it been very often, the message for which the church is known in the world.

8.      Because the message of the cross is increasingly misunderstood and opposed in our day.

9.      Because we can’t understand true mercy and love, and true justice, until we understand the cross.

10. Because “Christ and him crucified” is the most recurrent theme of the apostles in the New Testament letters to Christian churches and is therefore the most urgent need of all believers and churches today.

11. Because the message of the cross is most powerful when it is preached in the context of the gathered people of God. 

12. Because penal substitution is the center of the gospel and the heart of the whole counsel of God. 

13. Because we cannot properly understand our Bibles, including the Old Testament, without a firm grasp on the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

14. Because the love Christ has shown us in his death surpasses all knowledge, and we will never exhaust its depths. 

15. Because eternity will be spent marveling at the cross, worshiping the Lamb of God who was slain in our place. 

As your senior pastor, I have a conviction that Covenant Fellowship Church should be well taught in the central message of Scripture: Christ died for our sins.  There is nothing more important.  I believe that the pastoral relevance and timeliness of the message of the cross is impossible to overstate, and I believe this is the right time for this series.  Let’s all eagerly anticipate how the church will be built as we experience together the power of the cross.