Love to the Uttermost: The Cross and the God Who Would Not Let Go

Before the cross is a doctrine, it is a display. Before it is a mechanism of salvation, it is a revelation of character. The cross shows us what God is like — and what God is like is love. Not love in the abstract. Not love as a theological category. Love as a man hanging on wood, bleeding out for people who put Him there. "He was pierced for our transgressions." Not for the transgressions of the elect few. Not for the sins of the spiritually advanced. For OUR transgressions. All of ours. Every human being who has ever lived is included in Isaiah's "our." The Wesleyan tradition holds fast to this: the atonement is unlimited in its scope. Christ died for all. Not because all will accept it — but because all are invited. Charles Wesley captured it in a hymn that has shaped Wesleyan theology for three centuries: "And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain — for me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?" The wonder of the cross is not that God saved some. It is that God would save any. And the Wesleyan conviction is that He died for every single one — because His love is as wide as the human race and as deep as the grave He entered.

Isaiah's final statement in verse 5 is often overlooked: "By his wounds we are healed." The Wesleyan tradition takes this seriously — the atonement is not only forensic (a legal transaction) but therapeutic (a healing event). Sin is not just a crime to be pardoned. It is a disease to be cured. The cross does not merely clear your record before God — it begins the process of restoring you to the wholeness God intended. Forgiveness and healing. Pardon and transformation. The cross justifies you and the cross begins to sanctify you. Wesley called this "the double cure" — saved from wrath (justification) and saved from sin's power (sanctification). The hymn says it perfectly: "Be of sin the double cure; save from wrath and make me pure." Good Friday is not only about what Christ saves us from. It is about what Christ saves us for — a life of increasing holiness, a heart increasingly filled with love, a soul increasingly conformed to the image of Christ. So tonight, bring not only your guilt to the cross. Bring your brokenness. Bring the patterns you cannot break. Bring the wounds you cannot heal. "By his wounds" — not by your effort, not by your willpower, not by your resolution — "we are healed."

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way." All have sinned. Every single one. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. All have sinned — and all are invited to the foot of the cross. Wesley preached in coal mines and open fields because he believed the invitation of the cross was for everyone — not just the churchgoers, not just the respectable, not just the predestined. When Jesus said "It is finished," He did not add an asterisk. He did not finish the work for some and leave it incomplete for others. The price is paid. The door is open. The invitation is universal. Tonight, if you are far from God — the cross is for you. If you have been running for years — the cross is for you. If you do not feel worthy — the cross is especially for you, because the cross is precisely for the unworthy. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Not while we were cleaned up. Not while we were trying harder. While we were still sinners. The prevenient grace of God has been drawing you — perhaps for years — to this moment. The cross stands before you tonight. And the Man on it is looking at you with the same eyes that looked at the thief on the cross next to Him and said: "Today you will be with me in paradise." It is finished. Will you receive it?