Christ Crucified

Stephen Charnock (b. 1628 - d. 1680)

Have been blessed in revelations and insights of the Crucifixion and Atonement by a Puritan writer named Stephen Charnock in the past few weeks, while reading his book Christ Crucified.

Charnock approaches the topic from so many angles, looking chiefly at Christ as a sacrifice and how this was sufficient for the erasure of all the sins of the receiving believer.

The book looks deeply at the fulfilment of various Scriptural types in Christ's sacrifice and the implications of the atonement being carried out by someone of the Most High Divine Nature, as it was by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The popular question of "could" Christ have sinned during His earthly walk, is addressed plainly and directly by Charnock; his conclusion being that God indeed cannot sin. I found this aspect of the book interesting, since many seem to go down the path of holding the possibility of Christ committing sin as something that demonstrates how wonderful His righteous life was ie; His righteousness is so much more amazing because He could have sinned but didn't.

But Charnock's perspective makes so much more sense. Jesus was truly and absolutely God - truly and absolutely Man yes - but completely divine in every way. Therefore, to say that we have a God capable of sinning: well I think you understand the implications...As a result we see that Christ's perfect righteousness and godliness was merely the expression of His nature: the hypostatic union of a perfect Divine Nature with an unblemished, undefiled and wholly consecrated Man's nature. While it may be somehow appealing to promote the idea that Jesus could have sinned but didn't, it is far more comforting to the Christian's soul to know that we belong to a God who can do anything that He sees fit, but never does anything wrong because such a thing would never be in accordance with His will.

It is wonderful to be able to read an author writing on such a central belief of the Christian faith, within a generation or two of the publication of the King James Bible. Both aged language and the centrality of Christ's vicarious death are not appealing to the flesh. But if the Christian's spirit is to be fed, the protestings of the flesh must be put to death and the timeless truths of the faith meditated upon.

Cornelius

Well after nearly six months since I last posted, here we are again.

I have decided to complete the series I began with Simeon and after looking at Cornelius and Ananias and possibly some other uses of the terms for 'godly' and 'devout', the blog will be put on ice indefinitely. When starting this site, I did not anticipate running a personal one, but a team one. Since this has not proved possible due to unforeseen developments and the various commitments of myself and others, I have made the decision to leave the blog as an archive of articles and to continue serving its other intended purpose as a hub for numerous Christian sites I have found interesting or beneficial.



But more on that later and on to Cornelius.

Act 10:1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,

Act 10:2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.

Act 10:3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.

Act 10:4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

Immediately we note that Cornelius was a centurion, a man of authority in the Roman Empire. But he was not an oppressor of the Jews, but one who honoured the God of Israel. What we see accompanying the quality of being devout in the description of Cornelius is the example he set that we ought to take note of in our considerations. 1) He feared God with all his house. This centurion of the Italian band feared God, which Proverbs calls "the beginning of knowledge" (1:7). He was neither a Jew nor an idolater, but a Gentile who honoured God and - as we see by following the passage - was honoured by God. Also worthy of note is that all the members of the centurion's house were also aligned with his right attitude towards God. We see this as an aspect of godly headship in the home through other Scriptures such as: Joshua 24:15, 1 Timothy 3:4 & 12 and also in the households of certain new converts being baptized along with the named member: Acts 16:15, 16:31-34.



2) He gave much alms to the people. Charity expressed in generousity and donation-style giving is a very basic religious exercise and indeed many professing irreligiousity also practice some form of giving to the poor. Regardless of this, Christians cannot afford to neglect this issue, since it is clearly a good thing to be practiced and our Lord taught on how to give alms (Matt 6:1-4) and made further mention of giving them in the Gospels (Lk 11:41 & 12:33). Cornelius was not slack concerning generousity, but he involved himself in it to the extent that it could be remarked about him by Spirit-inspired Scripture that he gave much in his alms.



3) He prayed to God always. Again, the inclusion of always emphasises that the man in question committed himself to regular, consistent prayer. He did not pray to Roman idols or pagan spirits of another land, but to the One True God. He also, it seems, prayed in the manner of the Jews, since an angel appeared to him during his prayer at the ninth hour, which was the Jewish hour of prayer (see Acts 3:1). It is also evident from Cornelius' own account, that he was practicing fasting in conjunction with prayer (Acts 10:30).



God remembered his prayers and alms and arranged for him to hear the gospel by the Apostle Peter. It is obvious that this incident can principally be understood as an example of God's plan to fill Gentiles with the Holy Spirit, but since we are looking at the example of godliness here, I will little else of that matter, since it is the main focus of discussions on the passage.



Cornelius was also described as a just or righteous man in verse 22 of this chapter, as well as it being noted that he was of good report among all the nation of the Jews. Many of the Jews no doubt were willing to accept this man as a righteous Gentile and may have had great personal regard for him on account of his conduct and almsgiving. Nevertheless, he still would not have been wholly accepted by the Jews in a religious and social sense, as Peter's response suggests in verse 28, "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation..."

Not so in the Kingdom that God was establishing through the gospel. When the Holy Spirit came upon those in Cornelius' house who heard and believed, it revealed what God's decree was on the issue. As Peter concluded, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" (10:47).

Being baptized meant being accepted into the Christian community and thus, the gospel and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was not exclusively for Jews, but for all who believed and were quickened by the gospel.



Cornelius' devotion did not make him a Christian, but as we can see, the centurion in Caesarea was already desiring to worship God in the right manner and with the right attitude. We can hardly expect him to have prayed less, become less righteous and forsaken almsgiving when he received the Holy Spirit, but rather to have gone on in the empowerment of God to do even greater things that were pleasing to the Lord.



Our lesson is simple. We are saved through no merit of our own, only receiving the precious gift through faith and repentance. However godliness is a quality to be sought after for our Christian life after coming under Christ's authority and the example of Cornelius is one we would do well to consider when pursuing it.